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Buddies
More Questions and Some Thoughts.
Got another question in that I kinda liked.
"I know there is alot to give up being in a band.Steady home life,having to constantly be recording and touring. Do you enjoy what you do?" - Misty
There is a TON to give up doing what I do. The steady home life was something that was probably the hardest to see go. I mean, think about how easy it is to get caught up in routine job stuff and the safety of a deskjob? However I started to learn quickly that being a normal person guy wasn't the life for me when I discovered that I am rather eccentric and far from normal in many ways. Many of the sacrifices that were made took an emotional toll on me. For instance, I was in a relationship that failed because of the instability of my lifestyle. Then there was a second one that had potential that ended up falling apart for the same reason. I also traded in my awesome F-150 for our touring van, so... yeah. Lots. Various life lessons and several self-intropective moments took place as each big event, positive or negative, occoured.
And yes, I do enjoy it. It can be very stressful at times but we're all working together and want the same thing, so having my best friends in the same band makes things flow very smoothly.
Urggh, I'm beat. Still on the road and not a ton of energy to put into blogging. I get home in roughly a week and a half so... I'll be around more then. Exciting.
Questions that need answers!
Alright, this question was in the queue for a while now. Touring will do that to you.
"If you never started Psychostick what do you think you'd be doing right now?" - Jen
Well Jen, sometimes it's fun to speculate, so I shall. I'd probably be doing web development still, bouncing from company to company and possibly entering contractual work. Sound like fun? Naawh. I love webdev, but I don't really enjoy it when I'm building for someone else other than... me. I'd also be playing lots of video games and probably be way overweight. Har har! Well, not too overweight. Just a little.
There's also a small possibility that I'd be married, but that one is quite a stretch in the speculatory department of the alternate Rawrb reality. I'll spare you the details behind that because 1) it's highly personal and 2) it's a long story.
The past few weeks have been so chocked full of stuff that I've entered an information overload. The music industry, as unholy as it can be, can also reap a ton of rewards. It's a survival of the fittest industry. Without going into detail, many people seem to thing that all you do is play shows and wait for opportunities to fall in your lap. Not the case.
Meh, I'm not sure where to begin with what I have to say here. I'll probably do a major recap after this tour is over in July. Don't wait up!
Multisubjectland!
I've been working on the new Pluh.com here and there when I find time on this here tour. I used to try and work on it in a shaky van with stupid band jerks, but gave up on that when I contantly hit wrong keys during coding or precise graphics editing ended up being like performing sugery while skydiving. So what is the new Pluh.com about? Not so much I can divuldge yet due to a somewhat original concept that I can't wait to roll out. There have been many times I've had to go back and clean up old code that this new framework I'm developing will be super easy to update, add features, etc.
Pluh.com has always been a fun-yet-frustrating battle. Just when I think I've got it figured out, I hit a wall or something else comes up. The editor-driven setup doesn't work because it's all volunteer based. How on earth can one keep a staff of voluteers motivated to update a website every day? It's possible, but change is constantly moving that they often get pulled away into something else, like... LIFE for example. Kids, marriage, jobs, whatever. Nothing wrong with any of those of course.
So a whole new approach has been adopted on my end.
Crap, I gotta run. Show in New Port Richey, Florida tonight. Oh yeah!
More touring, and big plans.
Got a question that came in. I get 'em sometimes and I respond directly, but this makes me look oh-so-good.
Name: fats mcfats
Subject: in-genious?
Question: how in the fuck do you switch from PS to EC. i mean fuck id think it gets confusing to me but you pull them shits off lkike its nothing...is it a natural talent or an in-genious way of having pure luck and fury my man....either way they both jam the fuck off my asshole and whatnot....by the way, your vvoie is amazing, bro...thats what got me into the stick in the first place...noit just BEER which owns everything...anyway i make no sense man peace
Well, thanks for the compliments. Switching isn't exactly something I try to think about I guess. It's more or less just "Hey Rawrb, we need to record this shit!" And there I am. There was about 6 or 7 years of experience behind those recordings, so it didn't happen overnight. Rawr.
Tour is getting better this time 'round - it started off a bit slow but picked up after Oklahoma. Shocking! Sorry Okieland, but you guys need some love in your music scene. Or, maybe it's something else? Who knows. Next time we're coming through there you will all know about it somehow.
I also have big plans outside of the band. It's a personal endeavor that I decided to pursue after I attended my grandfather's funeral. When death becomes a part of one's life, I think it's natural to want to make sure you live life to the fullest. So here I go, and them thar chips will fall where they may.
Evacuate Chicago - Veracity!
Just today we got the new Evacuate Chicago CD mastered. This CD turned out way better than I even imagined, and I imagine stuff a lot.
For those who are not aware, Evacuate Chicago is a side project of mine, Joshy from Psychostick, and Alex from Psychostick. Evacuate Chicago is basically a non-comedic version of Psychostick that was formed originally by Alex who wrote many songs that didn't fit Psychostick's style. I'd say about 2/3rds of it is VERY aggresive hardcore/metal, while the other 1/3rd is a bit more melodic.
Here are my thoughts and feelings on the individual songs:
- Occasional Letter 1 ("Pat yourself on the back because you're good at taking orders"): Josh revised the original lyrics and did a phenomenal job. This song hits me pretty hard since many of the systems in society are training us to be worker bees rather than independent thinkers. Great stuff.
- Nothing Like You ("You invalidate every fucking thing that I say"): An Alex composition. Don't you hate it when people just give you advice when you don't want it? They think they know you? Good intentions don't fix people. Sometimes you have to let them be and just be supportive.
- Deny ("She'll never think of you again"): The first song Alex ever wrote if I remember correctly. Breaking up is hard to do. Letting go completely is even harder. This song was my anthem in 2004 when Alex wrote it, and I don't think he even knew. :)
- Perfect Ratio ("You'll always get the best advice while you're sleeping"): A great song Alex wrote. I really dig this tune because I got experiment more with vocals.
- The Hole ("Gone already to my private hell"): Joshy was going through some serious crap when he wrote this. Tried to capture it the best I could.
- The Damage Has Been Done ("Do you ever regret?"): Fucking Alex. When I had to learn the rhythm of the chorus in rehearsal, I thought it was some mean prank he was playing on me. After I finally nailed it, it turned out brutal.
- Proof of Dark Matter ("Record number of times I've started over"): My favorite song on this CD. Why? The melody. I don't get that many opportunities to sing like this (most of the time I'm screaming), so... yay! The overall feel of this song I think most anyone can relate to. Well written by Alex. My buddy Rachel is playing the piano part at the end.
- Progress Beyond Repair ("I have embraced what you choose to ignore"): The truth hurts, ya know? Brutality written by Alex.
- Velociraptors ("Take a pill to wear you out"): A song about a nightmare Alex had. I'm very proud of how this song actually SOUNDS like a nightmare. Crazy!
- Time Lapse Photography ("Someday he might awake to find he's glad to get up"): Josh wrote this one. Life isn't about working the same job until the end. There's always a way out.
- Peace, Love, and Santa Claus ("Write your letters in cursive like wanting a love so desperately"): Another cool melodic song by Alex. Had some high parts that challenged me, but I think I did really well. Maybe it's the effects? Naw. It's me. HAR AHR
- Fine Line of Forgiveness ("You do not have the right to say, 'None of this is my fault you will learn to forgive one day'"): It's easy to tell someone to forgive, but actually forgiving is another story altogether. Written by Alex.
These songs should be available for purchase on the Snocap portion of the Evacuate Chicago myspace page any time now. Hope ya like 'em!
Stupid rock and hard place.
I've been involved in web development for roughly 10 years now. I recall my very first venture into that crazy newfangled technology known as the internet and "web pages." Angelfire! That was where I had my first website. Then I moved to Geocities, then... uhm, I think I got my own domain? Can't remember much.
Anyway, up until 3 or 4 years ago I had considered web development a hobby. It comes very easily to me, and I find it to be very enjoyable. I had no idea how valuable the skill was up until I went to work for a smaller company a couple of years ago. I was stunned at how much my boss was charging clients for what I considered simple. Then it occured to me - it's not SIMPLE to them. They're paying for a service they don't want to bother with.
That made a ton of sense. For instance, why would *I* try and fix a messed up cluster of pipes underneath my sink and in my wall when I cold pay someone to do it? Not only that, they're good at it, experienced, and will do a far better job than I could with my severe lack of knowledge. The exact same thing applies to web development. Why would someone with very little interest in web dev want to bother with it when they could pay someone to build their site, to their specifications, and do it right the first time?
Then I started to appreciate my skill and experience so much more.
So the message I wanted to clarify here is: Web development, especially in the professional realm, is NOT something that's just slapped together. There's a science behind it. If someone offers to build you a website, and they do a good job, pay them handsomely. You get an awesome website, they get paid, everybody wins.
That's how it should be.
*sigh*
No more favors. From now on I charge full price to everyone. Don't like it? Go buy some templates and slap something together. You get what you pay for.
Decimating the list.
Did a few tiny things to Rawrb.com here. Biggest one you'll notice is that I can now set some blogs to private, which is something I'm very glad I did after going through a few of my past posts. Heh. Perhaps someday I'll allow registration that will give access to hand-picked people to read those private blogs. Perhaps.
I did a TON of stuff to TheDumb.org, most of which won't be noticed by your average interweb going guy. El Duderino will be able to administer TheDumb much easier now. Hell yeah!
Psychostick.com got a little facelift as well as a lot of front-end feature additions, such as an Advice Column and an Articles section. After I blog like an awesomeface here, I'm gonna head there and add a few more SEO tricks and optimizations. Time for more Mod rewrite magic! Don't you find this FASCINATING?!
I gotta get all this nerd out of my system before I hit the road in 2.5 weeks. Rawr.
After all this I'll be attacking the Psychostick DVD and finally, Pluh.com. I'll finally get to see what AJAX is capable of. From what I've seen on Facebook and Myspace, it's very versatile if you know how to use it properly.
Oh, tons of Psychostick merch is being manufactured as we speak. Yay!
The Pen Tool... argh.
Okay, this is going to be short one, but...
WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN ALL MY LIFE YOU FUCKING PEN TOOL?
This pen tool.
I always saw it there. I even tried it not knowing how it worked. I never imagined how awesome it could be. Thanks Murph for telling me it was awesome like 2 years ago, but not forcing me to learn how to use it. I blame Murph. Damn you Murph!
"I'm Murph and I eat rotten acorns because I'm so STUPID WATCH ME PLAEY GUITAWR HEROS VIIIIIIII"
If you use Photoshop or any other program that uses the pen tool, read this tutorial and bask in it's awesomeness.
Taking out the trash.
I've been home for a few weeks now from touring. I'm usually the busiest when we're not touring due to all the stuff that piles up. Preparing for the next tour takes precedence, then comes new merch designs. We got our store back up, which is really good, but more options are needed. We're also looking into accepting credit and debit cards at shows. Once I get a few more time sensitive stuff wrapped up, I'm gonna tackle that one.
Posters, done. Flyers, done. Website revisions, mostly done. The rest are just sprinkles on the e-cupcake that is Psychostick.com.
*long pause*
I miss writing. E-cupcake. That's just awesome.
*even longer pause*
Now I gotta get all philosphical.
Sometimes the answers come just as quickly as the questions. Seems that all the weird little concerns that I had since I've been home have been pretty much solved or simply dismissed. Now there's another phase I've moved into, which is more of an attempt to take a much closer look at my thoughts and where I'm going. I'm not about to go into specifics, but I simply must mention how grateful I am to having the friends that I have. It's nice knowing that no matter what happens with me, or how dumb I get, they've got my back.
"Don't worry about the future. It'll get here soon enough." - Albert Einstein
One interesting outlook is how far away "normal" life seems to be. How easy would it be to go back to that? It's easy to get a job with a fixed income. EASY. Compared to co-running this band, it's about as easy as breathing. The reassuring thing is that I'm never alone in this massive endeavor, especially since the really hard part has long since past. If I fell, I would be picked right back up. Even if this band things falls apart for whatever reason, I will be able to take any idea and turn it into something huge. It's freaking awesome knowing that.
Is being comfortable and "safe" worth risking your happiness over? You can have your cake and eat it too. Whomever said you can't needs a face-punching.
As I "take out the trash," I'll probably be blogging about it. Of course, blogging has a funny way of not being rhetorical, or just simply one-sided. I get a bit misunderstood... but I can understand how.
"Hey, I read your blog. You okay?"
Yes yes yes, I'm just fine.
A few closing thoughts:
- Buffy is such a stupid show, but I really enjoy it.
- Where the HELL is Dragon Quest IV DS? It's already TRANSLATED.
- Warcraft 3 = Sex
- Most DVD menu templates are lame.
- Stevie Wonder is a badass.
- Tech N9ne is amazing.
- I'm pretty sure age is just a number.
- Jagermeister loves us.
That's all.
Dane Cook is funny.
So, after a week of "tour-recovery" (which is more or less getting some sort of sleep schedule again), I'm back in the groove of doing stuff. By "stuff" I mean "holy crap I have stuff to do let's make a list and uhm, do that stuff that is on the list so I can get done with stuff."
Yup.
Making tour posters and flyers for The Dumb once all those tour dates are in (should be any day now). Then the actual site REALLY needs something interesting on it. I'm thinking all the dumb members might be enticed to come back and like, do stuff if there was stuff to do. Ideas? A few.
Psychostick's site is gonna have a bunch of new stuff soon too - some of them I'm taking directly from Pluh.com. Which ones? Can't tell ya. Pluh.com will be taking a completely new turn once I ah, get to it. Hah, yes - it's all at the mercy of "when I have TIME!" Actually time isn't the issue. It's a matter of getting the bigger fish fried, which is currently Psychostick. Sooooooo... yeah. All gonna be badassery either way.
And that's all I have at the moment. Oh wait, there's this thing that Jawrsh sent to me. Kinda funny - it's something that I used to make a lot of fun of.
I Guess Youll Do - Watch more free videos
Accountability and you!
Wow, what a tour. I didn't blog once at all on this crazy "Holy Crap We're Touring" tour. Our wireless card just broke down, so... I dunno. Lots of things need fixing when I get back home.
You can view various incidents with our trailer if you want to see how much crap we dealt with. The trailer went through 3 tires, 1 wheel, one axle, and one trailer jack. JUST during this tour. Of course, most of those incidents our manager was driving, so he received a lot of shit.
"Captain Jack-knife 180 Negativeface Roadripper" became his name. Thanks to Jimmy for taking initiative on that one.
We also lost a staff member. By "lost" I mean "let go." I ain't mentioning names or particular incidents, but I will talk about the whole professionalism aspect, which was up and down.
For starters, it's always better to talk to people on the phone about things like this rather than send an e-mail. Sounds like common sense, but we justified it rather stupidly. That was dumb on our part, regardless of how some of my friends argue the point. My defense for it was, this staff member was the type of person that was horrible at taking critisizm of any kind. They'd get real defensive and blame outside incidents even though the job wasn't getting done.
That trait is a BAD one. Accountability (which is the abililty to take responsibility for one's actions without excuse) is so important when you're running a business. Hell, even when you're working under someone. Just life in general.
Let's say, for example, you're working a job that assembles reports for your department. Your sole purpose is to gather statistics and reports and present them to your manager. One day you're in a rush, and you leave the reports sitting on your boss's desk.
When the reports are due, your boss asks you, "Where are your reports? They're late."
You respond, "Oh, I left them on your desk."
He responds, "I never did receive them."
You could easily try to make more excuses. Your boss could have misplaced them, thrown them away, blah blah blah. At this point it doesn't matter - your job isn't getting done. What matters is that you need to get those reports in his hand.
Best response: "I'll re-print them and put them in your hand. Give me a few minutes."
No excuses, no whining, no putting the blame on someone or something else. You took responsibility and fixed the problem.
Excuses and finger-pointing are lame. The people you work for don't care about any of that crap - they care about the job not getting done. They're not paying you to try and weasel your way out of a situation.
Just imagine - someone is working for you and you NEED them to do their part, otherwise your whole business is staggering. So this person starts to fail in many areas, and the excuses start flowing in.
"They haven't called me back yet."
"The copier is out of ink."
"My computer is really slow."
"I wasn't feeling good that day."
"I didn't get a lot of sleep last night."
What do you do? Your business is suffering! Eventually you have to step in and either fire and replace this person or take everything on yourself.
Of course, along with the excuses can come those who get really defensive when you critique them constructively. These types will have a much harder time succeeding in their field. Why? Think about this - how hard is it to approach someone and help them if their defense is always up.
Let's observe the obvious here: People who are like what I just mentioned are not easy to work with. If you're aspiring for success, it's far greater to keep them far and away from your business or even your personal life. What's another obvious aspect? You will never be able to change them. It's just as futile as trying to change a significant other to meet your standards. People you can't change, but you can change your situation for the better.