So..... there was this huge snow storm up here in the Northeast earlier in the week. Well, huge for us anyway. After a nice lazy non work day on Monday shoveling both my parents and myself out it was back to the races. Of course the next day all this snow starts melting and forming sheets of ice. I slipped on one nice long sheet, flew a couple feet in the air and landed on my hip. Errr... correction.... I landed on my Blackberry which was subsequently destroyed and bruised the hell out of my hip.
So I was without a phone...... for one night.
I'm a packrat. I really don't throw away anything at all. It's kind of sad. So I was able to dig out two potential temporary replacements. My old ipaq 6315 PDA phone or my Cingular 2125. I figured for the sake of not looking like a tool carrying around the 6315 brick I'd setup the 2125 and see how that would work for me now.
One little problem, the battery was dead. Well.. not really. The battery wouldn't charge. Apparently the Cingular 2125 (aka HTC Tornado) has a bootleg controller that will not charge a battery that has been totally drained. So what is a geek to do? Buy a new battery? Go to the Cingular store and beg them to charge my 3 year old phone even though I'm on T-mobile now?
No.... we get all MacGuyver.
Quick Tutorial: How to charge up a dead lithium ion phone battery
First I take no responsibility if you blow your phone (or your hand) up. "Not my problem."
Step 1) Take the battery out of the phone.
Step 2) Splice the tip off of any old USB cable. (The end that goes into the printer or device. Not the end that goes to the computer. For obvious reasons)
Step 3) Separate the wires and bring the red and black wires to the forefront. These are the power cables. The rest are useless and can be shaved back.
Step 4) If needed, cut off a little bit of the tips of the red and black cables so you get a good contact.
Step 5) Plug in the usb cable and hope your computer doesn't blow up.
Step 6) Touch the red cable to the positive contact on the battery and the black cable to the negative contact.
Step 7) Hold them there for about one minute.
Step 8) Unplug now useless USB cable, put battery back into phone. Charge as normal!
Step 9) You know should have a revived phone and one useless USB cable. Voila!
Just got in from working on pre-production in PA with the new BxN lineup. Damn......
When this new stuff comes out people aren't going to know what hit them. BxN is going to go from... "Bx---who?" to.... "We have to pick that up."
The first song confirmed for "The Color Line" is still pending in title, but old school BxN heads would have heard the initial incarnation as "You Are." It's totally different and TOTALLY out of the box for us.
Obviously we are working with a producer, but for the sake of my sanity and to protect the project from snipers and haters that individual will remain nameless till the time is right. I'll say this much though anyone who stumbles across this blog will have a CD in their collection that he has produced. He's that big.....
It's crazy. Could this be the start of the break?
In other thoughts I've been recoding the BxN mainsite using jQuery and CakePHP. I must say that I'm digging both frameworks. They are cutting down on my production times and are also making it infinitely easier for me to utilize "web 2.0" (stupid phrase) technologies. That will be getting rolled out soon.
All in all? I feel absolutely great.... and that's rare......
2009 is definitely proving to be an interesting year for BxN. I still can't let the cat out of the bag who we are working with yet, but tonight we are headed to Philadelphia to begin work on the next album. I'm calling it "The Color Line" because I feel that the newest set of tunes is going to be what breaks the band out of local obscurity. BxN has always had a different vibe than any of the earlier bands I played in and I feel most confident about the current members and the upcoming tunes. None of it sounds like anything you've ever heard before.... and I don't say that lightly.
Played the Trocadero a couple weekends ago. That was always my dream since I saw HELMET play there quite a few years back. The next goal? Open for a national act.
Sometimes I wonder if someone will stumble on this in the future and realize how totally uninteresting I am.
So a lot has changed since I graced this pages last year. The band saw some personnel changes. Played some great shows and great rooms. We played a fantastic benefit for Kristen who unfortunately left us to go home to the Lord. "Got the Vox" that I always wanted and my gear purchases are almost complete. It's been good to be in BxN. The one thing that hasn't changed in all this time is the main BxN website. I am fixing that as we speak. I've been working hard integrating new features into the site and I thought it would be neat to chronicle that as I go along. My favorite new feature is the time sensetive skinning where the site knows what time it is for the user and gives them a time appropriate layout.
SO..... BxN learned a valuable lesson last night about back up equipment. At least we learned this on a weeknight and not 3 songs into our set at the Festival of Fire. Our band has a long and on going debate on solid state versus tube amplifiers. Both Norm and Jim have really high end tube amps (ie: Mesa, Bogner, Ampeg) whereas I teeter in both realms with my hybrid tube/solid Vox half stack. Depending on the size of the venue we're playing I'll sometimes bring out my old trusty Crate 2x12 combo amp. The classic line is that it is a "Crate night" and usually that will coincide with me having my stones crushed for a good 15 minutes or so about my "crappy solid state tone". Well... that old Crate and me have seen some days. It may not have the greatest tone in the world, but with the rest of my gear it is often more than sufficient. It's never let me down through literal rain, frost, dust or anything else thrown at it.
Last night Jim had a tube fail on his Mesa rig, fortunately, at the end of our first set. You had to see the glee in my face as the only option we had available was for Jim to play out of the Crate and have me just sing. I would have taken pictures if I had a camera. JD was not happy with that Crate. -laughs-
The more important lesson that we've come to understand is one that Norm has already got. We have to carry backups for our amps, regardless. We're probably going to get a cheapo solid state 1U guitar pre/power amp and have that always available in my rack case just in case something goes wrong. Better to be prepared than to have to settle for a lackluster solution or no solution at all.
With that.... to Jim... "It was a Crate night." :)
If you thought that our Pennant show in January was big, we've got a surprise coming up for you. Mark your calendars for April 19th for the 1st annual Festival of Fire. Most bands do CD release parties for themselves and their friends. We wanted to do an event to thank not just the people who have supported us, but the bands that we've been pleasured to share the stage with. BxN believes in a philosophy of doing onto other bands what we want done to us because when one of us rises... we all do.
Seven bands have been confirmed so far with more pending: Bound By Nothing Complaint Department Desieve Impulsive Decision The Minutes Showin' Tell Stage 3 And..... a special appearance from our friends at the South Jersey Derby Girls! This event is already pegged to be unbelievably huge. 10 bands in one day/night, food and drink specials ALL day/night, give aways, a DJ dance party upstairs.... and our CD. We've worked hard to make sure that "Nine Thirty in Kansas" represents our unified efforts as a band and we are very proud to finally be putting it into the hands of our fans. We've listened to what you've asked for and you'll understand from the moment "Alone" starts playing that this CD is for "the rest of us." We need your support to make this show a success so please start telling everyone you know about the event. There will be wristbands so you can come and go as you please throughout the day. Don't expect to take many breaks though because this event will be ALL killer and no filler. Peace and Fly High.
It has been one crazy week for BxN. As Ray mentioned in an earlier post, the band has just finished recording our first CD. It's a seven song EP entitled "Nine Thirty in Kansas". The most appropriate way to describe it is a mix of post-hardcore, meets alternative metal with silky vocals. I keep defining the sound of our band as "metal for the rest of us".
Three of the seven songs have seen play on Myspace since our inception. Take Me Down, Step Back and Your Life have been re-recorded in "Real Studio Goodness (tm)" and will be joined by Otaku, United, Alone and Live Free. If you even "liked" the tracks before, you will LOVE them now that we've recorded them in studio. Save your pennies because this CD will be a great addition to any music collection.
Massive thanks to Jason Rubal and Sean Hayden at Seventh Wave Studio. If the raw tracks that have been playing non stop in my CD player all week are any indication, this album is going to be big for us.
So we finally got our pictures taken. A big shout out to Andre Smith Photography for hooking us up. If you are in the Delaware/South Jersey area and you need a PROFESSIONAL photographer. He is definitely your man.
I know these terms probably seem contradictory in the minds of many, but follow me for a bit. Over this past weekend I had one of the more interesting experiences playing out with bands that were less than professional. The names of the guilty shall be protected because it isn't really my style to blow up people's spots. To sum up the scenario shortly, a set of bands that were allied to each other believed it in their best interest to play in sequence at a show and were determined to do anything they could to play together. One of the bands was "running sound" so they took it upon themselves to reorder the band list that was emailed by the venue's management to all the bands several days prior. As per usual, we showed up early to show support for our fellow bands and to make sure that we had enough time to be prepped and ready to roll. Getting close to our set time we went up to the "sound guy" to verify that everything was okay. This is when the drama ensued...
The "sound guy" was the guitarist for one of the bands and tried to tell us that we were playing last, which would have been close to midnight. Obviously we weren't having that since we were scheduled to play at 9:30. Childish complaining ensued and the "sound guy" went off telling his friends that he was going to pack up his stuff and play the rest of the show at his house. Real mature, right? It gets worse, the same guy's band conveniently played next, around 9:45 and on top of playing late, they had the nerve to be insulting our band at the microphone for insisting that we maintain the order as it was.
Long story short we have learned to avoid certain types of "all ages" shows because of the level of inexperience and unprofessional nature of some of the younger bands. For the uninitiated, here is a short list of how to be professional:
1. Show up on time or early to support the other musicians.
Even if you don't like the music it is common courtesy and respect to give other bands the respect you would like to receive. You're not a "rockstar" and you won't be treated like one.
2. Maintain professional communication with other bands and their respective management.
You have NO idea who you could be talking to and that one chick in sweats might be your ticket to bigger venues or to a blacklist depending on how you act.
3. Communicate in advance.
If you have concerns that you need addressed don't wait until the night of the show to voice them. How many bands do you know of that don't have a Myspace or an email address available for you to get in touch with them? Exactly.
4. Never duck out on a show the same day unless it is truly an emergency.
This should be obvious too, but the best way to end up on a venue's blacklist (as well as other bands/managment) is to not show up or cancel your appearance at the last minute. You just screwed a whole lot of people and they will likely never do business with you again.
5. When you come into contact with unprofessional bands maintain your cool.
Even if you see or hear something you don't like, don't lose your cool. Be the bigger band. When you get more experience, you can pick and choose who you want or don't want to deal with. Remember that "Johnny Rockstar" is probably a douche to everyone and his days of Bowling Alley glory will probably come to a close quickly as him and his band are blacklisted.
6. Always thank the other bands, whether you liked them or not.
They'll do the same for you and who knows... you might get more gigs as a result of JUST your professional manner. No one likes a show off or a douchebag. Remember that.
As an aside, I'm sure the bands from that night think that we're now rivals, but as of this post you're distanced from my mind and will never likely never come into contact with my band again. However, because of the connections we have it is likely that you will never play at that venue again and may have trouble at spots that you would dream of. All it takes is a little respect.
Peace and love.
It's always difficult to begin something like this so let me just say hello and welcome to this little corner of the web. I'm the singer/guitarist of South Jersey band Bound By Nothing and this is my little page. You'll find in due time that I'm a bit of a UNIX geek and my interests probably are more along the technical side. I'll also be keeping you updated with the goings ons of the band and perhaps give you some musical tid bits and misc. tutorials on a vast array of subjects. With that out of the way... again... welcome.
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