Stuff you can't afford

Seriously, am I the only one who likes looking at stuff I can't afford? Right now I'm looking for a new bass. I figure if Gary just bought himself a new drumset, I want a new bass. Something that has a real defining sound, definately has to have actice electronics. So thats what I'm doing. That and nursing my limbs from laying carpeting for 12 hours on friday at my family's lake house. It went well and looks great, but it was just my dad and I and a shitload of work.

Good news is we're booking for the studio on August 28th. We've got our songs picked, and we're fully expecting to start playing out by september. Ahh, its a good feeling. We've added two more songs to our growing library and are just in need of refinement now. Its only a matter of time.

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

Went to see Charlie and the Chocolate Factory again. What can I say, it's a good movie.

Last night Gary calls me up late and wakes up everyone in the house to ask if I can do studio time on August 21st and 28th. Half asleep I tell him yea, sure, whatever- just so I can go back to bed. Then I realized I'm moving my sister away to school on August 21st when she goes off to college, something I emailed him about a month ago. So I called him back, no studio time unless they want to do it without me on the 21st. Either way, our engineer said he can't wait for us to come in and to hear the new music. I can't wait, it's going to be great.

Practice this week is up in the air. I don't know if the others are because I'm going to be out of town installing carpet at my family's cabin. I told Gary they should still get together, just because I'm not there isn't a reason to cancel practice. Tim agreed.

What I do know is that we've nearly got an entire set now: The Light of Day,Jesus Christ Works at the Texaco Down the Block, Sugar and Spice, Chased Away By Yesterday, Dreaming to Remember, Rich Man's Gain, I Hate You So Much , No Name
...and like one more I can't think of and one more that we've started work on.

Good Times

Steaming nights in Gary's Basement

Another good practice in the books again tonight, although lately they're been getting a bit sparce in occourance. Hopefully with Gary getting his shit together we'll be back into our normal schedule of practices. Lots of progress with every practice session and we're getting closer to putting the finishing touches on our three studio songs. According to Gary sometime next month we're going to the studio, but right now I have no date. Figurativly and literally.

I'm listening to Heather's Bureau of Sabotage tape and some dude is explaining how to spell Sabotage....

Well in non music news the tree that rapes my car is down, in pieces all over my yard and I got a little Texas Chainsaw Massacre on it's stumpy ass. Unfortunately there are still leafy limbs all over the place that need to be bagged, and a stump that needs to be ground. That and apparently the rough draft of my thesis paper didnt get attached in the email I sent my professor. So I've sent another one. Don't worry, it's alright- they're still killing people in Texas. But seriously, I've been spending way too much time in this heat every day since monday trying to get that tree down. My body feels run down into the ground.

I'm going to relax.

If a Tree Falls...

I guess the imminent question at hand is, "If a tree falls on my fucking car, and theres no one around does it make a sound?" The answer is yes. It sounds like me about to fly off the handle cause in the storm monday a Bradfod Pear tree blew over in my front yard and decided to make its new home on top of my fucking car! Yea, these are some good times alright.

So for the past two days Ive been trying to chip away at the monster of a downed tree in my front yard. I bagged up 15 lawn waste bags and I havent even made a dent. I sectioned off a few pieces of the tree with the chainsaw, until it stopped working. Now I have to wait for my dad to get back from New York this afternoon to check out the chainsaw. Needless to say, Im going to be cutting and bagging tree for the next week solid.

Im also working on my Thesis Paper for school. This term apparently the subject at hand is the death penalty. So I have to write a 20 page paper on my views of the death penalty supplemented by 15 sources to back up my thoughts. Wonderful. Well at least Im nearly half through with the paper at 8 pages done.

Practice as usual this thursday, hopefully everyone will be there and then the Thursday Night Ritual at Buffalo Wild Wings. Its a party...

The Song Remains Somber?

Yesterday practice went well, with the exception of Tim and Gary seeming unusually down. I understand, but usually its the other way around with me being the one down and those two being in a good mood. This is a fucked up year indeed. Unfortunately we had no Heather to practice with last night as Gary said she had "a retard emergency." Thats all we know. Really.

Ahh but every Thursday night gets immensely better with the thursday night ritual, where we get like 10 people and go to Buffalo Wild Wings and eat food and get tanked. Although Tim sat this one out because we suspect he was trying to get some tail. He's very elusive about these things... I always look foreward to thursday nights now. Its the best day of the week, with all of my friends all together and getting lit. Life is good.

Dreaming to Remember

Practice was pretty good yesterday, as we were trying to work on two new songs- Dreaming to Remember and No Name. I'm liking both of them at this point, but am excited moreso to be playing No Name again because we started working on this song back in January or so and because of timing issues it got put on hold and we didnt play it for months. But now it looks like we've solved the timing problems and it's going to be one bad ass song. Within two weeks I'd say we'll have those two songs done and be working to polish the rest to get them show worthy.

Tenetive studio time looks to be coming up in August, and I for one can't wait. After the last round of studio sessions with our former band, we worked our asses off and put in probably at least 150 hours total if not more and then we decided to call it quits. Good thing we didnt spend the $1000 to have that cd mass produced. Oh well, whats dont is done. I fell much better about the music we're playing now and it should be an even better experience.

I have no name
They took that away from me

So this is a first

So, I've decided to start an official Blog for our new band- Not Just Noise. And on the record, I'm saying right now that I'm not the biggest fan of the name, but I'll roll with it. That and I know that since Gary knows there's another Not Just Noise out there, eventually he'll give in and want to change it. I suppose the name really doesnt matter, and whats more important is content. Well we're chocked full of that.

Our core is fomerly of the St. Louis based band, Silent Q which can be found at www.silent-q.com. We've just ended a 7-8 year project that was just that, a project. And in the end some might consider it a failed project, but we did have some good times all along. ...And plenty of bad times, but either way it was a learning experience. What have we learned? We are only as strong as our weakest link. Hence we've done some re-tooling.

We've spent the past six months or so working on new music, the same three of us that it has always been. Tim Brown/Guitar-Backups , Gary Lobstein/Drums-Alcohol and myself Sean Ditch/Bass-Smokes. We're a pretty cohesive bunch having been playing together since we we're in highschool, or old enough to annoy our parents. For these last six or so months we've been trying to fine tune a new set of songs, but you can't finish a puzzle without all the pieces. After much discussion we teamed up with Heather G., now Heather (something else because she got married). Heather has actually managed to 1-up us on band experience having played with three different bands. The Bureau of Sabotage ( which I think is a Bad-Ass name), and another that Tim calls the Rusted Milk Canister or something like that. We just don't know.

So what can I tell you? This girl has got insane talent, and combined with our power-rock sound I feel like we are doing something great. We're planning on hitting the recording studio soon to start making a 3-4 song demo cd, and soon after will be planned shows. Who knows where to then? So come back and check up for news.

-Sean www.notjustnoise.com