Showing posts with label bear hugger. Show all posts
Showing posts with label bear hugger. Show all posts

Wednesday, September 7, 2011

twist and turns and unknown roads

so maybe i have a tendency to speak too soon, cause whenever i get my hopes up about something, it gets slammed down pretty quick. bearhugger, at least as it was at my last post, is no more. received an email on monday that ryan, the other guitarist, was moving to seattle with his fiance....right then. as in, he was somewhere over the mississippi i think. such a weird turn of events.

the fact that him and his fiance made a life decision that they thought was best for them, doesn't bother me. waiting until you were out of the state to tell your bandmates, that bothers me a lot. he tried to make it sound (in the email) like everything happened within the span of 12 hours or something, but he had to have at least some inkling that he may be moving. we had practice last wednesday, he could have mentioned something then. he left all of our stuff at the practice space (his house) and said there was a key under the mat....nice touch. if he says something along the lines "hey guys, there's a chance we may be moving to seattle", then everything is good. it still would've sucked, don't get me wrong, but i would've said "well that blows, i'm gonna miss ya man" and then helped him pack up his shit. so moral of the story, there's a right way to do things and there's a wrong way and then there's the worst way...he chose the worst way.

the remaining four of us have already decided we're going to move on without him, which leaves me as the only guitarist. which is a pretty daunting/intimidating/terrifying idea to me. i've never really considered myself a guitarist and up until this new line up, have only played bass in bands. but it's a new challenge and i'm going to try and keep looking at it that way. i already feel the pressure that i need to write all of these songs but kyle, brian, and jared all play guitar and can write so i'll need to keep reminding myself that it's not all on my shoulders.

in other news, went to a show saturday to listen to a band called meet the sky...reminds me of copeland....and to hang out and get to know jared better. had a great time, good laughs and the band was pretty good. jared had a bday cookout on sunday so i went all the way out to john's island, which is gorgeous but a bit of a hike, and had a blast. good to know, at 27, i can still make friends. so that's two parties in three weeks where i didn't know anyone, still went, and had a good time. i guess if i keep doing it, as the invites come, it'll be good for me and get more comfortable. plus i'd have a hard time thinking that jared, his fiance, or any of his other friends could make someone feel out of place, really good people. also, jared's fiance is in the local roller derby league, which is awesome, so i'm going to go to their next match sometime in october. maybe ellen page will show up.

check out thrice's new album major/minor here, only the vinyl is out now but you can listen to it over at Groveshark, love that band. also, been listening to cross my heart and pop unknown a lot lately, oldies but goodies.

ok, that's my life update. hope every one out there is doing great. love you.

p.s. if you remember my last post which talked about the awesomeness of Tim, here's a tattoo benefit going on g'boro for anyone that wants to set up an appointment. i haven't decided if i'm going to be able to get up there that weekend, since it's on a sunday, but hopefully i can work it out. here's the facebook event link for more details, Often Awesome Tattoo Memorial Benefit

Wednesday, August 31, 2011

Often Awesome and an Overall Life Update

It's been a little while since my last post, a lot has happened and a lot has stayed the same...guess that's about par for the course.

First, i fell compelled to call attention to the passing of an insanely inspiring dude, Tim LaFollete. Tim had ALS, better known as Lou Gehrig's Disease. I only had the pleasure of meeting Tim on a few occasions but he's been a great friend to a lot of my close friends (Mark, Joel, Josh, Seth, etc...) so even the first time i met him, I felt like I knew him. if you're familiar with the NC music scene, you may know him as the bass player from Kudzu Wish...and if you're not familiar with Kudzu Wish, you're missing out. Anyways, after his diagnosis, instead of being depressed and feeling sorry for himself, he along with friends and loved ones, started Often Awesome, a web series helping bring some light to ALS and the struggles of those that suffer from it. Go to the site, watch some of the videos, get inspired.

For those that may read this and don't know me, yes, I can be sad at the passing of someone I don't know that well. No, it's not the same type of sadness that I felt when jeanna, adam, or the other friends that I've had to bury (sadly too high for being only 27) but a sadness that this world lost one of the people that were actually trying to make it a better place. Tim's story is one of those stories that remind you to live life looking forward instead of looking back.

Ok, in other news, the acoustic album is close to being complete. It managed to morph itself from an EP to a LP, which is alright. Kyle is awesome enough and patient enough to let me work through the songs and keep recording as many songs as I feel. But, we have one song left to do, then some mixing...probably a few re-recordings (mainly vox cause lord knows i'm not a singer) and then it'll be out for the world to judge as they see fit. I'm fighting the urge to post demos on a daily basis. I'm proud of the songs but I'd also like people to hear a couple of the songs fresh, without hearing any version of it before so I'm going to hold off. If you really want to hear something, and you have my email, let me know and I'll send you something.

Also, BearHugger is back in action! I'm stoked on it. It's been hard to find a drummer in this town but I think we've found a dude that's excited about the material and excited to play it so for the past couple of weeks we've been working with him, re-learning the old songs, and writing new ones. It's been fun. While I enjoy the acoustic stuff, I really love playing metal...especially live. Hopefully, by the fall we'll be back playing shows on a regular basis. We're also re-recording the old songs so when i'm not recording the acoustic album, i'm at the studio there. Lots of studio time.

Started going back to jujitsu and I'm pretty rusty (10 months is a long time to be away) but I'm enjoying it, even when I'm losing all the time. I got to hang with Nicole and see Bella a couple of weeks ago, which was nice. Bella is growing up entirely too fast. But she still rocks the Zeppelin shirt I got her like two years ago and her favorite movie is Poltergeist...so a pretty awesome four year old. I went to a party this past weekend where I knew beforehand I wouldn't know anyone there and had a great time (happy bday Brandy). Normally, I wouldn't do this but it's nice to get out of your comfort zone from time to time plus Brandy always invites me to social events and I never go, but I plan on changing that.

So that's my life update. Lots and lots of music and writing, friends, jujitsu and just overall trying to stay busy. Busy helps me deal with my own personal crap in chunks instead of all at once and that makes it easier for me to think things through logically. May possibly add more stuff into the schedule if possible, I still have a free night or two a week...maybe some volunteer work or something if i can find something I think i'll enjoy. Who knows. Still, kind of working on moving to Charlotte, haven't been applying to any new jobs but if something came my way, I wouldn't be against it.

Music recommendations (promise I'll do a full on new tunes blog soon): Stray From the Path ~ Rising Sun; Beirut ~ The Rip Tide; Pentimento ~ Wrecked EP


Saturday, May 21, 2011

missing music and the constant loss of self confidence

this blog's title could've been called "serious blog #1" i guess but the current one is pretty accurate as well.

so i haven't been in a band since january and i hate it. it was the right decision to leave dig ur grave, it wasn't the type of band i wanted to be in and the only reason i agreed to play was because i could still play in a band with hef. he quit and then i quit. conrad meant well but i didn't feel like i had any creative input, all my parts were already written for me. plus with me being all the way in charleston, they couldn't play the amount of shows they wanted so it was all for the best.

here in chucktown, we've got bear hugger. absolutely love the music but we can not find a drummer. i thought we might've had one a couple of weeks ago but the rest of the guys weren't sold on him. drumming ability was great but he didn't care to really pay attention to the song parts and his personality would probably conflict with the rest of us, we're all three loners. don't get me wrong, he was a super nice guy...but if we're going to be a band, i want to also be friends. plus being in a band with kyle is a ton of fun.

so this brings me to the second part of my title. i realized today that the amount of self confidence i have is directly correlated to the amount of music i'm writing. when i was in swamp witch and far from true (later to be named bear hugger), i felt good about myself. i got no sleep, was always traveling, and even had to have a knee surgery because of a witch show but again, i felt good. i was able to write new songs at my place, just little acoustic diddys but i was proud of them. now, i can't even finish a song. i'll start one and be somewhat stoked about it but then writers block kicks in and it dies a slow, painful death. when i left DUG, i figured i could focus on my acoustic stuff but it just hasn't happened. ::sigh::

my lack of self-confidence then translates into a lack of trust in everyone, even when it's not deserved. i've got to figure out a way to work on this. i'll add that to the growing list of personality flaws that i need to somehow correct.

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