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So we’ve got 2 of the 5 demo songs for Upstate Trio mixed and mastered. Band practice on Tuesday was really good. Our first night playing the new amps with Bob there. I’ve still got some tweaking to do with my guitar tone, but it all sounds pretty damn awesome. We’re starting recording on our own songs this week too. It’s time to get this show on the road and get a demo laid down. It appears our plans for having a private party have fallen through so we’re working on getting a new venue for this gathering of ours. It’s definitely still happening one way or another. We’re all ready to start playing shows and mixing things up and it’s time to take action. Lots to look forward to.

I’ve been pretty tired this week. With guitar lessons, band practice, and trying to get these songs mixed by the weekend it hasn’t left a lot room for a good night’s sleep. Naps only help to an extent. You can’t really replace a good solid night’s sleep. More mixing and possibly recording to do tonight. Should be cool. Here’s hoping I can make the time to get a full night’s sleep some time soon *yawn*

We just finished recording the demo for Upstate Trio this afternoon. Everything went really well during recording and the sound is already good. I’m excited to see how it comes out once it’s mixed and mastered. They mentioned possibly sending a Bluegrass band our way which would be pretty awesome. Now I’ve got about a week to mix and master everything. I’m excited about this project and I’m really looking forward to recording more bands and helping them on their way.

We got a new car yesterday. A 1998 Saab 900S. This thing moves. It’s the fastest car I’ve ever owned easily. It’s got heated leather seats, power everything, a moon roof, get 28mpg, huge hatchback trunk with fold down back seats, cruise control, 4 wheel ABS, etc. etc. It’s amazing and we only paid $2500 for it. The guy we bought it from was the coolest dude ever. He’s even a Saab mechanic and offered to help us fix it if anything ever breaks. Pretty much the most awesome deal ever, we want to send that guy a fruit basket or something and we’re soooo stoked. After 2 years of bum luck and no car, taking the bus, and walking a lot this is a very welcome lucky break.

Since we’ve got this awesome car we decided to take an impromptu trip to Portland to check out the zoo tomorrow. We’re chillin in a hotel tonight and we’ll hit the zoo and maybe the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry tomorrow. Should be fun Things are good. Have a good night!

Today is the one weekday that I get to come home and just relax. No band, no recording, no lessons, just chillaxin. Every other day this week including Saturday we’re recording Upstate Trio. It’s so awesome that we’re finally getting this recording service up off the ground and Upstate Trio is awesome. But let me tell you, it doesn’t leave a lot of room for sleeping. Crazy what your body will do if you want something bad enough. I’m grateful for the day of rest.

I found out today that I will need to get myself a liquor license in order to throw this party in a legal fashion. A legal fashion is definitely the only way I’m doing this so it’s a must have. It looks like some paper work and a trip to the Permit and Planning office. May have to have an inspector come out. Possibly might have to get myself a food handler’s license, who knows what else. I have to call them again tomorrow to clarify some things. If it’s at all possible for me to get this license and do this legally, it will happen. This town needs more places for bands to play that aren’t a seedy bar that pays peanuts or a huge venue that costs hundreds of dollars to rent. All we need is somewhere to play, good local bands, some people who wanna hear good live music, and some people to run things and make sure everyone has a good time. We’ve got all that so it’s time to put it to good use and start spreading the music. I’m tired of sitting on my couch or behind my desk hiding everyday. It’s time to start doing some good with this life of mine. It’s time to stand up and play some music. I’ll keep you updated on my quest.

Anyhow although I should be taking the night off, I need to get to mixing this song. It’s gonna sound awesome! Goodnight

It’s been non-stop since Monday morning. We’ve been recording a band called Upstate Trio for their 5 song demo all this week. I’m pretty damn impressed with their skills and how tight they are together. These guys can play, I’m honored to be recording them and I’m excited to see how it all comes out. I’ve had to leave my computer at the studio to record on so no blogs this week. No recording tomorrow though so I can take a nice break for one night. Then Friday and Saturday it’s back to it. Then I’ll start the mixing and mastering process. I sent out the invitations for the party on March 19th. Definitely excited about that and I’ve got plenty of work to do on a lot of fronts. Things are going real good. Now if I could just more bloody sleep! Goodnight

Two new amps makes a pretty big difference man. Both real nice sounding tube amps, Jennifer’s Fender Deluxe and my Carvin Legacy II. We got to play through our songs tonight for the first time on both of the new amps and man I can’t even begin to explain how much more alive and warm it sounds. Those amps really sing together it just tickles your insides man. Needless to say I’m very very pleased with the change.

We’ve decided on March 19th for the date of the party at the space. Should be getting another band on the bill soon and then we can start promoting. Next week we start recording this new band, things are happening I like it. Me and Jessica did sprints today and my legs are killing me. Feels good though, it was good to get back out there and sprint in the sun. I’m excited about my new amp and I’m gonna try to record some videos this weekend. We’ll see how things go. Have a great weekend

So my new amp came today. I bought a brand spankin new Carvin Legacy II half stack tube amp. It’s a high end American made amp with 4 EL34 tubes and a 4×12 all Celestion speaker cabinet. Carvin makes some super badass gear, but you can’t look at it in a store you have to buy it direct from Carvin. The amp cost a little over $1800, but there are $3000 amps out there that don’t sound this good. It sounds absolutely amazing! I sat there playing it forever it’s just…like nothing else. Playing the electric guitar through a really high quality tube amp is like nothing else. It makes your innards quiver I’m telling you. The sound is so warm and full, such a huge improvement over the solid state Line 6 Spider 3 I’ve been using. I can’t be more happy I bought this amp it’s absolutely top notch, 5 stars, epic win, A++, whatever you wanna call it. This thing ROCKS BALLS!

Great news, we met with a new band tonight that we’ll be recording with starting next week. A three piece group of guys in their twenties. They all seemed really cool and they play rock. We haven’t heard any of their music, but here’s hoping they’re good because they’d be perfect to play with us at the party. We’ll be working on a 5 song demo all next week. This ought to be a hell of a lot of fun. I invited a band I had heard at the Wow Hall a while back to play at the party today, but it turns out the guy who fronted the band lives in Texas now. One band we invited declined so I’m trying to fill the last spot. We’ve got a few other prospects for bands and hopefully we can just play with this new band. In any case I think this party thing is all an excellent idea and I can’t wait to put it fully in motion.

Things are going great, I can finally see all the pieces of what we’ve been working on for the past 2 and a half years coming together. I see a hell of a lot of good things and awesome music in the future. Life is good man

So this will be my first time trying a post earlier in the day. I sat there looking at the blank page for a while last night and decided not to post anything. It was already midnight by the time I even got to think about blogging so I decided to make the wise decision and just get some sleep. Still today I’m pretty tuckered out.

Band practice last night was real good. Had a few guests come and hang out it was good times. It’s tough to sing after being sick for two weeks, I feel out of practice, but it was fun to get back into it. Jenn got a new amp yesterday and got to play it for the first time. It’s a Fender Hot Rod Deluxe tube amp (pic below). Sounds awesome as hell. Made me jealous, I want my new amp sooooo bad! Hopefully it’ll be here by the end of the week, but probably not til next week.

Before I went to the gym to lift weights today I took a bodybuilding supplement called GNC Pro Performance Amp Amplified N.O. Loaded. I can’t even say what a huge mistake that was. That crap has 400mg of caffeine per serving! In case you didn’t know that’s the equivalent of 5 Red Bulls straight to the gut in one serving. I felt like I was flying on the fucking moon the whole workout, I could still taste that horrible fruit punch taste too. After a while I realized I felt super shaky and jazzed up way too hard. I finished my workout like normal, but afterward I felt awful. I don’t drink coffee and rarely drink soda so 400mg of caffeine is a huge blow to my body. It was awful I felt completely super depressed when I got home. I had to lay down to just try to sleep. Anything to escape feeling so horrible, but I couldn’t sleep. It felt good just to lay there though, I couldn’t make myself do much else. So lesson learned no more caffeine laced supplements EVER! I’m feeling ok now. Time to play some Wii and relax Have a good night!

Had the girls over this weekend plus Kaiah. It was fun having all 4 of them over. We hung out and played Wii, went on some walks here and there, and played games. It’s been a relaxing weekend.

I just bought a Carvin Legacy II half stack guitar amp. I have a solid state combo amp right now, but I’ve really been wanting a tube amp. I hear this one is amazing and from my research it seems to stand up to the hype. Man I can’t wait til it gets here

I also bought some new goldfish today. Cleaned out the tank and filled it up last night. I found something really cool too. There are these growing gel balls that you can buy that you put in water and they grow to about marble size. They’re really cool, people use this absorbent polymer stuff to irrigate plants too. I just threw a whole bunch of them into the fish tank since I hear they’re non-toxic. The fish seem to like them a lot! They like to dig down into them like a kid in the ball pit at Chuck-E-Cheese. It’s crazy! I’m gonna post a video of it soon I looked online and I don’t see anyone trying this before. I really think the fish like it and it’s neat to watch them burrow. They say the balls are non-toxic, but we’ll see over time if the balls are safe for the fish. If they are I think it’s something people should try, it’s pretty cool.


Have a good night

So we’ve all decided we’re finally going to throw a big party at the space. We’re going to have 3 bands play, have FREE BEER, and food. So free beer, 3 bands, and food I’m thinking this ought to be a pretty awesome time. Our hope is to have these private parties every month or every 2 months to help build a fan base. I also realized I could promote our recording service Studio 2 Eugene by offering to record the bands live at the show for free. As an advertisement to get our name out there and let the bands know we can make them some high quality recordings. We can try to get email addresses at the door and offer to send the people on the list live recordings of the night, pictures, and videos. The people get some things to remember it all by and we get their email addresses so we can tell them when we’re doing it again. Lots of things to get done to put it in place, but the idea’s out there now. I’ve sent an invitation to 2 other bands I hope to have play with us. Here’s hoping it all goes well. We’ve been talking about doing this for a long time. Finally we’re ready, now it’s time to dive in. I’ve also heard about another possible Wow Hall show that we may play. I’ll keep you posted. If this party pans out I’ll likely be contacting you to get you to come. You and everyone you know

On the health side of things I’m slowly starting to feel better, but the cough and stuffy head is still there. It’s been way too long of feeling like this, 2 weeks now. I don’t know why it won’t go away. I’m just going to wake up tomorrow and pretend I’m completely better no matter how I feel. I’m done being sick and if I can’t feel better now then I’ll just fake it until I really am better.

Good night

Seems like I’ve had a cold for way too long. It’s been about 2 weeks and I’ve still got a cough and cold. Haven’t really felt myself. It’s been tough to write anything the last 3 days, I’ve felt like I’m in a fog. I went to band practice despite feeling pretty awful last night. It went pretty good though. As usual I’m glad I made myself go. I’ve been bringing my electric guitar home recently instead of leaving it at the space. Having it there to play whenever I want definitely keeps my guitar playing more polished. Usually I only get to practice on my acoustic. Just put new strings on the electric too so it sounds awesome. Anyhow I’m getting real tired of this cold, I just don’t have any energy for anything. Hopefully when I feel better I’ll feel more inspired to write something. For now though I’m ok to just ramble a little. Have a good night

The world is full of abundance and opportunity, but far too many people come to the fountain of life with a sieve instead of a tank car… a teaspoon instead of a steam shovel. They expect little and as a result they get little.
-Ben Sweetland