When it comes to drumming, I’ve had a busy couple of months.  At one time I was juggling four steady drumming gigs, and was looking at the possibility of adding another one.  Now with the baby coming, I’m taking a bit of a sabbatical from drumming – at least as far as gigging projects are concerned – to get ready for the new parent adventure.  Given that I’m going to have a little bit of musical downtime, I wanted to share some reflections from the road.

First and foremost, I’ve uncovered my new drumming pet peeve: backline sharing. Like most things on the road to Hell, this is based on the good intention (usually made by people who are not drummers).  For those that don’t know, backline sharing is when drummers, bass players (and any other instruments with bulky gear) are asked (or in my case, volun-told) to share their gear for a multi-band bill.  Whether you’re on the one doing the sharing, or taking part in someone’s shared gear – this is a lose-lose situation.  Like I said, this decision is usually made by someone who doesn’t play any of these instruments, thinking only of how they can cut corners and minimize the transition time between bands.

The bottom line is that as a drummer, I have spent a considerable amount of time and money to get the sounds that I feel best compliment my playing style, as well as the type of music that I’m playing that evening.  This was culminated from many hours spent in the drum shop finding that perfect cymbal or snare drum head, then going home and determining the exact placement of each part of your kit.  When you’re asking your drummer to backline share on someone else’s kit, you’re unknowingly saying a big “Efff you” to their musicianship and the time they spent to getting their instrument to sound the best for your music. 

I understand there are certain exceptions (like school drum sets) where you’re not playing on your own kit, but I often equate that to driving a car: I can drive someone else’s car and get around for the most part, but when it comes to understanding how the car corners, brakes and maneuver in tight spaces – you want your own vehicle. The same goes for drumming. If you’re asking me to give my best (often to help us earn money), let me cook with my own ingredients.

It’s bad enough to be asked to share someone else’s instrument, but when you’re asked to do the sharing: you’ve taken it to a completely worse level.  All that I said about putting in the time and effort to get the perfect sound out of your kit, is not a cheap process – and now you’re asking me to entrust my kit to someone who I’ve never met before and likely won’t see ever again?  Seriously? In one of my first bands, one of my band-mates was goofing around on my kit and busted up my brand new Pearl Eliminator pedal, with no offer to help rectifying the situation (luckily the pedal was under warranty and Pearl was great about fixing it), but from that point on I decided to go against the lessons my parents taught me – (when it comes to my drums,) NO SHARING!  Now while I’m watching the opening act, rather than mentally preparing for the music I’m going to play, I’m now fixated on the stranger playing my drums and cringing at the possible damage that’s being inflicted on a prized possession.

So memo to band-leaders: you’re thinking that you’re doing us a favor with us lugging less gear, but lugging gear is part of drumming – I’m more than happy to deal with it.

it’s been a while since I’ve had a reason to play with some graphic design work, but I got an opportunity to do a little for a band I’m playing with tonight, The Pamlico Sound.  They’re doing their CD release show, and had the idea of giving away a song from their new CD. I designed this 4×5 postcard that we’ll be putting on the tables at the bar. I set up a quick script to collect email addresses for the mailing list in return for the file.  I’m sad to say that this is my first foray into responsive web design, but found it surprisingly easy.

I’m pretty satisfied with the art work, but definitely could use some improvement on my script. For something quick & dirty: it’ll do the job.  I’d definitely welcome any feedback (especially on the artwork).

Also if you happen to find yourself in Boulder on Saturday (Feb 23), come out to the Lazy Dog and check us out! We’ll be playing around 11pm.

For someone who loves technology, especially the convenience that the DVR brings, I definitely watch a lot of live television.  An addict of Twitter, I love watching events and watching my stream light up with comments, jokes and discussion around what we just saw.  Broncos games in particular have me hitting “refresh” on my laptop frantically during the whole game.

On last week’s Vergecast, they had a fascinating discussion on this very topic: the relationship between social networks (particularly Twitter) and TV.  They both need each other: Twitter needs to be validated by other businesses, while TV Networks need to give viewers an incentive for people to watch live and immediately participate in the conversation.  It seems that every TV program (or commercial for that matter) is flashing a hashtag or a Twitter name of a personality.

So why the hell does CBS still insist to tape delay live broadcasts?  Two nights ago they aired the Grammys, and while I was watching 60 MInutes my Twitter stream started blowing up with reactions from those watching it in the Eastern and Central time zones.  When the Grammys finally started at 7pm in Mountain Time, my stream became a complete mess, with people reacting to stuff taking place live, now with us in Mountain time reacting to our events.  By the time our friends in the west join in, Twitter is just a cluster at this point.

This wouldn’t bother me so much, except for the fact that CBS and the Grammys disingenuously feature Tweets as a part of their show. Every time LL Cool J came back from a commercial he would read some random (and often crappy) Tweets, with the half the country being denied the opportunity to participate.

I don’t understand why the Grammys and CBS don’t get it.  The Oscars are broadcast live and everyone manages to watch it.  Aside from the Olympics (which still don’t get it), sports are always carried live and people manage to watch them.  Don’t sit there and pretend you’re inviting us to be part of the social media conversation, then turn around and slam the door on half of your viewers.  CBS: why don’t you join us in the 21st century and get with the program?

Now that the little one is on the horizon, we’re going through our shopping list of “things for/before the baby”.  This is a combination of some necessities (like a crib and a changing table), to a few luxury items in the “let’s get them before we can’t afford them for the next 18 years” (like a new bed) – to items things we’ve wanted for a long time, that we’re writing off “for the good of the baby”. Enter: our new camera.

A DSLR has been on my wish list for a while, and after getting the chance to play with one during Christmas, I began to daydream about the great pictures that we could take.  I don’t want to become a photographer, but I definitely would like to make sure we beautifully capture the special moments of our family, but didn’t want to break the bank.  After seeking some advice from my sister’s boyfriend, who is a fantastic photographer, I narrowed the camera down to two choices: the Sony NEX-5 and the Nikon D7000.  The Sony was definitely a tempting camera, but ultimately the ability to have more options with lenses down the road put the Nikon over the top.

After unboxing the camera, it became pretty apparent that I have a lot to learn about photography.  The Nikon is helpful because the camera will take some pretty good pictures on its own, but I definitely want to get out of auto and do some playing around. There are tons of great videos and tutorials out there, and I’ve started building a playlist with ones that I’ve found particularly useful.  Jared Polin’s videos have been particularly helpful, as he did a great walk-through of all of my camera’s controls, and has some awesome walkthroughs for beginning photographers.

In order to become decent by the time the baby comes, both my wife and my cat have been patient subjects.  Below you’ll find some of the better beginner shots that I’ve taken, and would definitely appreciate any feedback and tips.

Well I finally made some time to get a damn post up on here.  Every few days I’ll navigate out to this site only to have it stare me down and discourage me from making another post.  My thought process went something like this:

Hey I should post something! I have a great idea!

-That’s great, but you need to explain what you’ve been up to so people can at least get a semblance of where you’ve been these last few months.

That’s too hard and I’m tired from a long day, I’ll just go to bed.

I’ve just accepted the fact that there’s no way for me to begin to cover what I’ve been up to and find the time to pack it into a single post, so I’m just going to go with the big stuff and hopefully my thoughts won’t come out too random.  Also I apologize for sounding so disjointed, it’s been months since I’ve written this long that’s not a work-related email (sad, I know).

So let’s start with the biggest life changing event, which is best explained in our Christmas card:

Yes, we’re expecting our first child to arrive in June, and can’t be more excited!  As we’re finishing up our 21st week (well Bethany is, I’m not really doing heavy lifting), we’re starting to get a grasp of what we need to do to (try to) prepare for our young bundle of joy.  We’ve taken to calling the baby “In Beta”, coined after the software development term. At some point I’ll share some experiences we’ve had in this transition into forthcoming parenthood, but in the meantime I wanted to get this exciting gem out there and apologize to those of you who haven’t heard this news before.