Breaking Radio Silence

I've really let this blog slip, and I'll spare you my usual, "but I have been busy!" excuse. I don't have time to write about everything I've been up to, and you wouldn't want to read it anyway, so here's the last month and a half in pictures. Concerts, Touring, and just hanging out being my cool self.

Casiotone For The Painfully Awkward

First things first, I was very excited for this show. I'm fairly new as a fan of Casiotone For The Painfully Alone, but everything I've heard from him has gotten me excited. I went down to the Crazy Daisy right after I finished work and unfortunately missed Old Shoes, but was right on time to catch Cabinet of Natural Curiosities. I really dug their singing saw, and the music was good, pretty low key, but still good. I knew I wouldn't be able to make it through the show without a little help, so as soon as they finished their set I rushed to the gas station to grab some Sparks and Pabst. I returned to catch the last two songs from my friend Matt, who plays under the name 1985. I was bummed I missed most of his set, but since I'm seeing him play again on Friday I figured it was worth it to have a few drinks.
Purrbot was up next. I think Nathan may be one of, if not the, most consistent live acts in Missoula right now. I have yet to see him really butcher a song, or seem uncomfortable on stage. And the fact he writes some great songs helps too. He joked around throughout his set, which lightened the mood of his otherwise heavy material.

Finally, Casiotone For The Painfully Alone took the stage. It was a shame that the crowd (minus Mike, John and myself) decided to remain seated through his whole set. He kept making comments about how he wasn't sure how dancy songs would be received and had trouble with his audio mix. He thought he needed to play very quietly and seemed very reserved. The music was great, however. It was really amazing to watch him recreate his songs in a live setting. I especially enjoyed his cover of Graceland, which he ended his set with. Had the crowd not been so incredibly awkward, the show would have been even better.

St. Patrick's Day Means BBQ?

The weather has been incredible in Missoula. I'm already leaving the house in a T-shirt. So, what better than a parade and the first BBQ of the season?

First the parade:


And, one picture of a little boy patiently waiting for his candy:


Then it was off to Arriba! for some Nachos and Margaritas. Oh and one Irish Car Bomb...because it was St. Patrick's Day after all. 3/5 of the Victory Smokes managed to make it out, which is pretty damn impressive.

Then, since it was light and we were still hungry, we went to pick up some booze (Sparks Plus, PBR and Wine) and some meat (New York Steak, T-Bone, Chicken, and Boca Burgers) and got busy with a little BBQ action.


Then Mike and I wandered the streets of Missoula to submit a demo CD to get into Totalfest, the big music festival in town. We were late with our submission, so we figured we would go to the listening party and drop our CD off in person. We didn't make it. But, luckily the listening party was today, and we got our CD in. And we got tons of exercise walking around for the better part of 2 hours.

Enough for one day? I think so.

Introduction

So this blogger.com stuff is still all new to me. I work at the Missoula Public Library managing the content of the web page (http://www.missoulapubliclibrary.org), fixing computers and actual library work. We are looking into options for blogging, so I decided to test the waters with my own blog first. This is me:


I have a great girlfriend named Darcy. Check out how cute she is:

I play music. Lots of music. I started off just playing the guitar, then moved into banging on pots and pans and singing a little bit in a band called BMMS. There were two of us, and we played shows and recorded tons of songs while we were in High School in Kalispell, Montana. Then we moved to Missoula and played a ton of live shows and recorded a few songs. Our first shows in Missoula were at Jay's Upstairs, quite possibly the coolest venue to ever exist. After Jay's closed, we played at a strange little place called Area 5 about once a week. Around this time, I started scratching and bought two turntables and a mixer from my band mate, Martin. Then Martin moved away to Japan. Here he is:

I worked on solo recording stuff for a half a year or so, and then joined a rag-tag band of my friends, then called Good Guy/Bad Guy. The band consisted of two of my oldest childhood friends, Patrick and Michael Gill, and a newer Missoula friend Tony Matts. I started out filling in on bass, but soon officially joined the band full time. I had never played bass before, but now I like it quite a bit. We changed our name to Victory Smokes and played an average of three shows a week for about four months. We mainly played at this really great venue called the Raven. We recently went on a short tour of the Northwest, and are finishing up the writing of songs for our debut LP. We already self released a demo EP and a recording of a live set in Bozeman. This is us playing:

My Upcoming Projects: New Victory Smokes Line-up, BMMS Reunion (sooner than later!), Mixing down my old solo stuff and recording new solo stuff, Spinning at more parties/Collaborating with other DJs