New Songs!

After another go-around in the studio, my band Second Player Score has finished up three more songs, as promised. Go ahead and check them out here.

"Anything At All" is an uptempo track that makes for good listening while jogging or working out. At least, I think so, anyway. This song was meant to be an inspiring tune about doing whatever it takes to do whatever it is you want to do. Like, you know, laundry. Or the dishes. Or world domination.

"Hide" used to feature an outro guitar solo that was much, much longer than it is now. Don't worry, the song itself is still only three-and-a-half minutes. Originally titled "The Great Escape" (the name of a Boys Like Girls song and a Pink song and a 1963 movie starring Steve McQueen) and then "Lose Yourself" (an Eminem song), it's a song about escaping from, well, stuff. I dunno, check it out and decide for yourself.

"Desensitized" has some aggro-sounding vocals, a partial result of us receiving some pretty slow service at dinner before we came back to do the vocal tracks. The lyrics are sort of PG, and performed live, they're sort of PG-13. Good times.

Speaking of live, we'll be playing our first show in almost a year on Saturday, July 12 at Shanahan's in downtown Vancouver with our friends Rocket 3 and Stab In The Dark. So, come on down and check it out! We'll be playing everything off of our upcoming album as well as a few more, and every song in our live set now has our patented three-part vocal harmony treatment. It'll be a lot of fun, so hope to see you there.

A Post About Television

I don't watch a lot of TV nowadays. Generally, I'll have it on as a sort of wallpaper or background distraction while I'm doing other things: working out, eating lunch, doing household chores, practicing guitar. I don't have Netflix or TiVo or anything like that.

That said, there are a number of shows that I'll pay more attention to than others. Here are a few of them, in no particular order:

Doctor Who - a brilliantly written show that I often derive inspiration from. Can't wait for the next season to start.

Legend of Korra - one of the few shows that I will clear space on my schedule for. Like Doctor Who, I also am looking forward to the next season, which will start...when, exactly?

Ancient Aliens - I often use this show to fact-check my backstories for The Spectraland Saga.

Mariners Baseball/Seahawks Football/Trail Blazers Basketball - the phrase "and now that you've said that" (see page 242 of Book One) came from watching these teams play. I've adopted a more positive attitude in reason seasons, though, which seems to be having an effect.

Teen Titans Go! - I know this show has its fair share of haters, but c'mon - "The cereal won't go in the bowl"? Hilarious.

Futurama - whenever I'm channel surfing and I see this one coming up, I always have to remind myself of one of my personal rules: "Never not watch Futurama."

Honorable mention: Louie, South Park, Clone Wars (the latter two of which I used to watch religiously), How I Met Your Mother (the finale was ok), Star Trek TNG, Bizarre Foods, Gumball, Adventure Time...hmm, maybe I do watch more TV than I thought.

My Musical History, Episode 10: The Summer Of The Angry Young Man

After the relative success of the Fixed EP, we jumped right back into writing and rehearsing material for our next recording. Going with a more collaborative process this time around, we ended up with fifteen new songs that were quite a bit more eclectic than the previous batch; there were elements of pop, jazz, metal, and even "Hawaiian Music" (see Episode 9 for a brief explanation of what that is) - sometimes within the same song.

At the same time, I had this bright idea to take what we had learned from the release of Fixed and apply that to starting our own record label. This venture, dubbed "Crash The Luau Records," was going to focus on rock bands from Hawaii, with the idea that such things were so much of a cool anomaly that they deserved your listening attention and, therefore, a fairly significant slice of your disposable income.

So, we signed a couple of our friends' bands - a pop/punk outfit called Tweaked and a funk/rock group known as Seven Degrees North - and proceeded to plan a more-or-less simultaneous summer release of their albums along with the new Tone Deaf Teens offering. Since a vaguely common theme for all three albums seemed to be adolescent male discontent, our brilliant marketing department* came up with the slogan "The Summer of the Angry Young Man," which sounded like a good idea at the time.**

All three releases were fairly well received, with Tweaked's "Breaking The Curse" and TDT's "1%" getting good reviews in the local paper and earning nominations for Rock Album of the Year in the annual Hoku Awards, which is sort of like Hawaii's local version of the Grammys. Want to know who ended up winning? You can find out here.

So, on the surface, it seemed like things were going pretty well. We were playing a ton of shows, mostly at the Wave (how I miss that place), and we made another video, this time for a track off of 1% called "Prime Time Kumquat." Yes, that really is the song title. The other bands were playing out a lot as well and getting a good response.

But as the old joke goes, "How do you make a small fortune in the music business? Start with a large fortune (insert rim shot here)." The reality of the situation was that running a record label was, and is, a tough thing to do. After a while, we found ourselves heavily in debt and more-or-less forced to play a bunch of cover gigs to help make up for it. The strain of that situation eventually took its toll, and although I didn't know it at the time, a really big change was on the horizon.

Next: A Really Big Change

* Me and a couple of friends
** Turns out, not so much

Liveblogging With Felicity: Teen Titans Go!

Today, Felicity and I will be liveblogging an episode of Teen Titans Go! Fasten your seat belts, ladies and gentlemen...

B: I love this show
F: Ur like a little kid
B: What's wrong with that
F: Just sayin
B: Ok it's starting
F: hooray
B: This episode is "Dude, Relax"
F: Right
B: I'm just letting the readers know
F: The who?
B: Raven's expressions kill me
F: Robin is so neurotic
B: "All good, bro." Awesome and hilarious
F: You need to do the relax
B: What are you trying to say
F: nuthin
B: Clipping the bonsai with her powers, so funny
F:
B: "No." love it
F: She is pretty cool
B: See, I knew you liked her
F: Whatever
B: "Is there a specific way I should hum - in a minor key?" ha
F: Ur like Robin
B: No I'm not
F: Whatever
B: I need a couch like that
F: Yes you do
B: I don't think any monkeys stole my diaper
F: Ok that's just disturbing
B: Aw man it's over already
F: You know there's another one coming up
B: Yesss
F: Settle down there
B: This State Farm commercial - isn't it more freaky that the baby is talking than the mime
F: I think that's the point
B: Alright the show's back
F: hooray
B: Oh cool "Laundry Day." This one is so good
F: I need more soda
B: This show has so many quick and subtle moments of awesomeness, that's what makes it great
F:
B: Batman cowl made of leaves, Raven's pink bunny slippers
F:
B: You're missing all the moments!
F:
B: Glorg blorger
F: Back. What did I miss
B: A bunch of awesome moments
F: This soda tastes flat
B: "I'll take over the world another time." ha
F: Wasn't the original Gizmo an old dude
B: Yeah. So you do know about this stuff!
F: I was just guessing

Join us next time as we liveblog something else!