My dear friend and musical partner in crime, Matt, has been locking himself in his room for days. I couldn’t find any way to get him to come out! Finally, I had a friend of ours plant a webcam in his room to find out what in the world he’s been doing with himself. Our findings were shocking… take a look.
Red Alert! Mayday!
As some of you readers might not know, I do enjoy a nice session of Warcraft. But what I didn’t know, is that the creators of Warcraft, over at Bilzzard Entertainment, love a good prank. So when I woke up this morning, forgetting that today is April Fools day, I saw a page for a new console-ready Warcraft game. By the middle of reading all about it, I finally realized that it was all a big prank. Silly Blizzard, you ‘half’ got me! What was even funnier about the prank, is that they went through the trouble of creating a trailer for this ‘new game’. So, without any further interruptions, I bring you: “World of Warcraft: The Molten Core” (for the Atari 2600 platform)
Has Sound! Woohoo!
Back in October of 1991, my uncle was involved (and almost killed) in a terrible shooting out in Lake Success (Long Island). I never knew a whole lot about what happened, except for the broken pieces of the story I’ve heard from my uncle. I remember seeing a television segment that shows police sending a robot into Andy’s house, so yesterday, I decided to do some internet snooping to see if I could find any newspaper articles or videos on what happened. To my surprise, I found an old New York Times article, and a video on YouTube. The video is the same footage I saw on television, just a few years after the shooting had happened.
Crazy… Just Crazy…
Well, this isn’t originally a Clapton song, but he does perform it a lot! “Before You Accuse Me” is a classic Bo Diddley tune, and I recently performed it with Soundscape Soul (my band with good friend Matt Aronson) at The Knitting Factory in New York City. I hope you all enjoy it!
Okay, I’m not REALLY on TV, but a friend of mine created a commercial spot for my band. Eli Poulin, who performed with my band in Austin, TX back in July, created a super cool commercial to help promote our music in the iTunes Music Store! Excuse me, for I’m still a little giddy after watching it for the 50th time! Check it out!
Super Cool!
In other news, my band is back in the Top 10 on FameCast.com for the 3rd straight season, and we’re hoping to get enough support to make it back to Austin for the 2nd straight season. If you haven’t yet, cast your vote for us on the Pop Stage, so we can perform for you during a Live Webcast that you can watch right there on your computer. To find our voting page, click here. All you need to do is create a fanatic/vote account, or log in to your current account (if you’ve already created one). Once you’re all logged on, head back to our voting page and click on the “Vote” button while our video is playing. If you cast your vote once a day, we’ll be sure to make it back to Austin for another show!
Send this blogger back to Texas!
FameCast.com has thrown my band, Soundscape Soul, for a loop (and for the 3rd straight Season). Thanks to everybody’s support, we’ve kept up a #1 Ranking on the Pop Stage and have made it into the Top 10. On the Singer/Songwriter Stage, we had maintained a #3 Ranking. For some reason, we were knocked down to 20th while the voting was closed and therefore missed the cut into the Top 10 on that stage. FameCast has issued a response to the drop in rank by sending me this email:
“Hi Josh,
I apologize for the confusion regarding the drop; the Audit Committee had their work cut out for them. As always, votes deemed illegitimate were removed and the ranks changed accordingly. I assure you that your shift was the direct result of such action.
Thank you”
Please, if you have the time, visit this Forum on FameCast.com, login to or create your account, and post your feelings on what has happened and what you feel should be done to fix the “Vote Auditing” system. Your opinion matters, and can make a difference. You can also leave a comment here. If we can rack up enough comments here, I’ll go ahead and forward all of your suggestions and comments directly to FameCast.
What’s done is done, and our focus returns to the competition. Despite being knocked out of the Singer/Songwriter Stage, we’re still alive on the Pop Stage, and that’s where we’ll need your support the most! Our submission into the Pop Stage (since this new round must feature a new video) is a clip of us performing the first song we had ever written: “Her Song”. We performed this song at the Triad Theater in New York City back in March of 2006. I hope you all enjoy it, and can head over to FameCast.com to vote for the video. Voting will begin on Tuesday, November 6th at 9:00pm Eastern and last until Tuesday, November 20th at 12:00pm Eastern. Thanks again everyone, and enjoy this clip!
Soundscape Soul – “Her Song”
Choked, just like his team.
Last night, I celebrated my 3 year anniversary with my girlfriend. We went out for dinner at this awesome Thai restaurant called “Galanga”, in the west village. Then, we went to the east village to see “The Heartbreak Kid” which was hilarious! As you could imagine, there wasn’t a lot of time for me to check the scores of the playoff games that were going on. This morning, however, I raced out of bed to see if today would be a wonderful day, and it is! I awoke to the news of the Phillies being swept out of Colorado, after making a Cinderella-type run at the postseason and dashing the hopes of Mets fans just like myself.
While this doesn’t make up for the terrible collapse of the Mets, the 0-3 playoff run of the Phillies does make the healing process a bit easier. Then again, who’s going to beat the Rockies anyway? After all, they’ve won 17 of their last 18 games, including a sick 11 game winning streak that kept them alive throughout September. To further explain my point about the Rockies, lets bring in ESPN writer, Jim Caple.
“How good are the Rockies going? The Phillies intentionally walked Kaz Matsui in Game 3, a move that likely sent Mets fans screaming onto their fire escapes.”
Fire escapes? Maybe not. But screaming? If I had watched the game last night, I definitely would’ve screamed after a move like that. Kaz has been on an insane run of his own through the first 3 playoff games.
But that’s enough about that. The Phillies were swept out of the playoffs. The Yankees are one game away from going home. Life is good for us Mets fans at the moment… but only for the moment…
*cough*… Go Rockies… *cough*…
It’s a shame that I get frustrated a little too easily. It’s also a shame that my own frustrations tend to take over my life at the wrong moments. But, then again, such is the life of a songwriter, right?
As the title of this post suggest, inspiration to write that next big song has been a topsy-turvy ride in the last… um… the last few months or so. After my band’s recent show in Texas for FameCast, finding any kind of lyrical inspiration has been as difficult as trying to get the cookie jar off the top of the refrigerator at 4 years old. I’ve been trying to figure out why this musical rut has been set into motion, and I’m not finding a lot of answers.
[ Wow… I’m looking back at that paragraph… and boy, do I know how to ramble, or what? ]
My guess would be the lack of “useful” songwriting time. Sure, it sounds easy when someone says, “Why don’t you just sit down for an hour or so and write a song? You’re a musician. You have a great ear, and you write great lyrics. It’s easy!”. Really? It’s easy, huh? Tell me this, then… does playing Wii Sports get easier after you’ve been playing for 2 straight hours without stopping? Wouldn’t your body start to hurt just a little bit? (If you play like you should, of course). Sure, the two have nothing in common, but they’re both NOT easy! When I say “useful” time, I mean it in a way to say that it’s time spent writing music and lyrics when I have nothing else going on that could possible stress me out or distract me. Funny enough, when I was living in Queens and being stressed out to the max, pretty much 24/7, I could write music without any problems. But why? Well, in an environment that promotes nothing but stress, I learned to block it out and just write.
Fast Forward to August of 2007, Present Day. I’ve moved to Brooklyn with my girlfriend (who is amazing), I have a sweet job, and my band is starting to make a bit of noise in the online world. One would think that all of those good things would bring on a stress-free environment that would make it easy for someone to sit down and just write. Whoever thinks that’s the case, apparently, is wrong. Maybe I’m not explaining my frustrations correctly. I guess this post is just one big rant, and not really supposed to make any sense.Maybe I should just get on with the Zen like do at the end of every post. Yeah, that’s it… maybe a nice healthy dose of Zen will make it all better. Zen, do your thing…
Ah, so that’s the intro they didn’t air…
What a weekend! What a week! I’ve been away since Friday, so I’m definitely due for a meaningful post. In the spirit of “meaningful posts”, here is a recap of my past weekend, and a preview of my current day and the week to come, including an always hilarious ‘Moment of Zen’ to finish it off!
July 21st – Hershey, PA
Maya and I went to Hershey, PA for the concert I’ve been waiting for all summer! John Mayer was playing Hershey Park Stadium with Ben Folds and James Morrison! I had never heard Morrison’s music before the show, but I’m slowly becoming a fan. He reminds me of a young Mayer… catchy hooks and some cool lyrics. But when he left the stage, the real fun was about to begin.
Ben Folds took the stage, and I was left speechless. Aside from singing along with him, I didn’t say another word while I watched his incredible piano skills. At one point, he was playing with his knees! And at the end of his set, he threw his stool at the piano, which incredibly hit the keys at enough of a perfect angle to play a perfect final chord!
John Mayer finally took the stage, and… well… wow! Although I thought his production was a little ‘much’, to say the least, he blew me away once again! Of course, he started out with his more ‘lady-friendly’ tunes like ‘Why Georgia’ and ‘Neon’, but once he got through the Pop phase of the show, the real show began! He broke out into an incredible performance of ‘Slow Dancing in a Burning Room’ that went all the way to the end of his set with ‘Gravity’. I had never seen him solo the way I saw at this show. when he came out for his encore, he played an acoustic version of ‘Your Body is a Wonderland’, and finished off the entire show with ‘I Don’t Need No Doctor”. All in all, the entire show was incredible!
July 23rd – Brooklyn, NY
Today’s the day we sign our lease for our new apartment! w00t!
July 31st – Austin, TX
Does that say Austin, TX? That’s right, it does! Why? Because I won a trip to Austin, TX with my bandmate and amazing friend Matt Aronson to perform live on FameCast.com! It’s going to be such a hectic and awesome day! I’ll be flying down from New York at 8:00am and arriving in Austin around 1:20pm, performing that night with the show starting at 9:00pm eastern, and flying back the very next day! If you’re interested in helping us win the competition, check out my dedicated FameCast page to check out our progress.
Well, doesn’t that sound like an awesome past weekend and an awesome week to come? No? Wait… I know what’s missing! Care for some Zen?
Isn’t Texas great?
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