Results tagged “Life On Loan” from BrainDrain

The recording session went beautifully - picture perfect, one might say. We were able to get into the studio to setup our instruments the night before, and we started tweaking mics about noonish on Saturday. We were able to record the drum tracks for seven songs in roughly 7.5 - 8 hours, which was pretty good if the reactions of our producer was any indicator. It was tough, though - we played each song a minimum of three times before taking a break to listen to the recordings, and there were one or two that we had to do more than that (my fault). In fact, any extra takes we had to do were my fault because in this session, it was really only my performances that mattered - the rest can be fixed later and elsewhere. Well, that's not entirely true; I think that the bass tracks were also being monitored but there was a lot more leeway for Travis on the mistake front than there was for me. However, we did get all the drum tracks we came for, and probably the bass tracks as well, and even had some time to do some vocal tracks, background vocals, and auxiliary overdubs of various instruments. We ended up leaving the studio about 11:30pm on Saturday night, almost 12 hours after we got there. That, my friends, is a long freakin' day!

Here's some pics that Gavin and I took during the day to help you get the feel for the Life On Loan recording experience (and to prove that I'm not just making all this up - we were actually there! Honest!):

In some ways, this was what I expected and in other ways it was not. On the one hand, it was a very long day - playing drums for 8 hours in a day (with probably the equivalent of 25-30 songs in that time) was physically demanding. So much so, in fact, that I knew it was time to quit when I got cramps in both my forearm and leg attempting to redo our fastest song at the end of my time in the session. I was worn out! On the other hand, I brought a legion of extras - extra snares, extra cymbals, extra mallets and sticks, extra drum heads, etc. - and was under the impression that we'd do a lot of retakes with different sounds and such, but we did not. I'm guessing that's pretty much dependent on the producer and what kind of sounds he wants, and the Tama recorded beautifully. Listening to the tracks as they were finished, I was amazed that the sounds I was hearing actually came from the kit I had just played and honestly, I don't think that any additional sound textures or anything were needed for this record. Perhaps if we do a full-length album, we'll do more of that.

I also gained a newfound appreciation for Pro Tools. I had come into the session with the impression that Pro Tools was just a tool to make bad bands sound good, and that a heavy reliance on PT was kind of a crutch. From reading Modern Drummer, you'd think that only real bands complete records without using it and that anyone else who does is somehow "cheating". Well, that's not the case. What PT allows a band to do is fix some minor discrepancies without having to do an entire re-take of a whole song just for one small spot. Case in point: on the third take of a song, everything came out good except for one spot where I missed a beat due to getting my sticks crossed up. It was a three-measure repeating pattern and the third one didn't sound right (although the rest of the band decided that they kind of liked it). Patrick was able to copy one snare hit from the previous "good" measure and put it in right where the missed shot was to fall in the "bad" measure, making it sound as if I had played it just right in the first place. That meant we didn't have to go back and record a whole song just for that one hit. Technology is amazing when used properly and sparingly.

All in all, it was an amazing experience, ranking right up there in the handful of "best days of my life" at the top of my memory pile. I want to give a shout out to Michael Landon over at Premium Recording, who was an immense help to us during the day and is probably one of the nicest guys I have ever met, and also to our producer and lead engineer, Patrick Conway, who is helping us to craft the most awesome album EVER!!! My world has been rocked and I hope to rock yours soon, with the help of my band. Stay tuned, true believers!

So the big news around my water cooler is the fact that Life On Loan is finally heading into the studio this weekend to record our first EP. We'll be working on getting at least five songs recorded at Premium Recording on Saturday from 1pm - midnight, and maybe have to trickle over into Sunday if something relatively untoward and unforeseen happens. My personal goal is to have the EP ready to release by the end of the year, but that may not happen. We'll see.

I will admit that I am really enjoying being able to throw out the "yeah, well my band's going into the studio this weekend, so..." line in conversation - whether it's an excuse why I can't do something, or in response to the ever-popular "got any big weekend plans?" question, or just telling someone what's new, being able to say I'm going to be in the studio totally kicks ass! I totally feel like a rock star now, and I'm loving every minute of it. God's allowing me to participate in so many cool things musically this year, and the studio thing is just a great way to cap off the year. Truly amazing!

I'm trying not to totally let it go to my head, though. It's funny - people sort of respond with the same awe and wonder when I mention going into the studio as the non-technical folks do when I say that I work for IBM. Going into the studio is something that pretty much anyone can do if they have the money and the time, and the current state of the music biz pretty much makes it possible for any band to get well-produced music out there to a niche market. You could have five fans and make an EP or a full CD if you have the money to block out the time at the studio.

However, I think that the phrase "going into the studio" still carries a lot of weight behind it from the old days when the only people that ever did that were bands that were backed by a record label. I think that phrase shows that you're really serious about your music - either someone likes you enough to pay your way into the studio (rare) or you believe in your stuff enough to spend the hefty chunk of change to get a professional recording done. I think the studio for musicians is akin to the minor leagues for baseball players - it signals that while you're not quite there in the "big show" yet, you're definitely more serious than just playing pickup games on Saturday nights.

So, yeah...this is kind of big for us. Big for me. Another personal dream, and I'm looking forward to having something in my hands that I can play for people and say, "yeah, that's me on the drums and my band made a recording. Me and three other guys took songs from nothing, created them, crafted them, and recorded them and here they are." The songs have been reworked, sound very little like the ones that we recorded for the demo, and will hopefully come out the other side sounding professional and ear-catching. This is one of the most awesome things I have ever done, and I am thankful to God that He is allowing me to do this.

I'm also hoping to tweet and twitpic the studio recording process, so hopefully I'll have a good real-time diary going on of how things are going and what the experience is like. I also need to update the MySpace page as well.

This is going to be so much fun!

LIFE ON LOAN
RED EYED FLY (715 Red River, 1 block south of Stubb's)
FRIDAY, JUNE 26
9PM

Tonight's show will be the best lineup we've played with yet - a LOT of fan favorites on the bill. Just take a look at this lineup:

The Soles - 8pm
LIFE ON LOAN - 9pm
Matchsticks for Memories - 10pm
Sixes & Eights - 11pm (EP Release party - free EPs for everybody!!)
Mike Truth & the Replacement Killers - 12:45am

If you've never come out to hear us, now is definitely the time. If you have been out to hear us, we would love to see you back again. We're adding some of the old favorites back into the set due to popular demand and we're looking forward to having a good time. This will definitely be one to remember and we hope to see you there! Bring some friends!!!

Friday night's show was fantastic - A BIG THANK YOU TO ALL YOU FANS THAT SHOWED UP!!! Unless something amazing happened for The Organics after we left at 12:30AM or so, we had the biggest crowd on the bill - which is a pretty great thing for the opening band on a weekend card. It was also great to see a lot of new faces in the audience - so for all you new folks out there, we hope you enjoyed yourselves and we also hope that we'll be seeing you at some later shows now that you've gotten a chance to witness the awesomeness that is the Life On Loan live show. I know that some of our "regulars" were out of town due to Memorial Day, so hopefully you'll be able to make it out to our next show. For all of you that continue to come out to the shows time and time again, you guys TOTALLY rock our world!

Speaking of which, mark it down on your calendars that we're hitting the REF again on June 26th (another Friday) at 9pm. This is going to be a killer show as we're not only sharing the bill with Mike Truth and the Replacement Killers, but also Sixes & Eights - and from what I hear, Sixes & Eights are one spiffy show and have a HUGE crowd of their own and we're looking to put on a great show for any of their fans that happen to show up early.

Once again, thanks for the support, thanks for coming out to see us, and also thanks for spreading the word to your friends and bringing them along with you! It's so much more fun to play for a roomful of people, and we hope that you enjoy the shows to come. We can't do it without you guys, so continue to spread the word and we'll see you in a month!

It looks like I will not be playing with Five Dollar Friend on Friday. Due to circumstances beyond my control, we won't be able to rehearse before the show and so they're going to bring in a drummer that knows the set and can drop in and play without practice. I'm a little bummed for sure - I never like to miss opportunities to play - but I really do think that this is for the best. I have to get up early on Saturday morning for the big campout and trying to play a set without practice is just more risk than I'm willing to take. This is Adam and Michelle's last gig with FDF, and I want them to have the confidence necessary to have a great final show. Plus having to setup, play with Life On Loan, tear down, wait 2 hours, setup again, play with Five Dollar Friend, and tear down again will be quite an ordeal - if the sets were back-to-back, that would be one thing, but it just seems like a lot of extra work (even though it would be awesome). I will be playing with FDF in the future, though, so I'll keep you posted on any gigs coming up with them.

HOWEVER, Life On Loan is STILL going to be settin' things off for the Red Eyed Fly on Friday night at 8:30pm (doors at 8), so we REALLY want you to come out and join us - and then stick around to see the other great bands and support the local Austin music scene. Getting a Friday/Saturday gig at a club downtown is a BIG DEAL, so please come out to support us and help us keep getting them! Just tell 'em at the door that you're there to see Life On Loan and BRING YOUR FRIENDS!!!

Allrighty, kids....Life On Loan's next show is going to be on Friday, May 22, at 8:30pm at our main haunt, the Red Eyed Fly. Bring friends, family, co-workers, and anyone you happen to meet off the street out to support us - we've been working hard on streamlining several of our songs, making them more enjoyable, and finding the hooks that will make the music stick in your brain and get your heads bobbin' and feet movin'. This is going to be a great show, so you won't want to miss it! Find a sitter, get off work on time, and come on down to rock out with us! NO EXCUSES!

AND, once again, we're on the same bill as Five Dollar Friend and they're still in need of a drummer, so I'll be playing with them for that show as well. They go on at 11:30 at the same venue, so come for Life On Loan, stick around for Five Dollar Friend! This is the band that I played SXSW with, so since most of you missed those shows, now's your chance to see me rock with a different crew of folks.

So, double the Drew drumming action! Come on out and ROCK WIT ME, PEOPLES!!!

Heya, folks. Sorry that I've left y'all hanging for 4 days or so, but things have been kind of busy for me the last couple of days. Life On Loan is working on editing and modifying some of our songs and trying to get them ready for our next show on May 22nd, so that's consuming a lot of our time. I've also started teaching some of the Sunday morning lessons for our Young Singles department at GHBC, so I spent some time on the back half of the week studying up and finishing the outline. Throw in some social obligations - a birthday party here, a bachelor party there - and that makes for a busy weekend.

The other news is that I've reentered the job market as I've finally started the process of finding some gainful employment. So far, it's been fairly passive - I posted a resume on a couple of job sites and have applied specifically for a couple of positions and have been waiting to see what kind of interest gets drummed up. My search hasn't been active up to this point, and I must admit that I think I have a higher assessment of the desirability of my skills than perhaps was warranted. Since the corporate world is not exactly beating a path straight to my front door, I will be kicking my search up a notch and taking a more active role in securing a job (as well as finally applying for unemployment since I'm now looking and am willing to track my search activities). Whereas my current job search activity was about 10% of my time, I think I'm going to adjust that to like 30% or 40% to see what I can find.

So anyway, that's what I've been up to and why I haven't been posting much. Hopefully, I'll be a bit more active this coming week, as I'm still reeling from the whole Messy Spirituality thing, and there's a lot going on in my noggin in regards to grace and spirituality. I'm sure more pontificating is in order shortly, so keep yer eyeballs peeled.

Until then, my friends...

Life On Loan has made some connections with a few other bands in recent days, and we've had the pleasure of having one of those guys come in and spend some time with us to help us do some production on several of our songs. We spent some time on Saturday working through four of our songs, with fairly radical revisions coming on two of them. Hopefully, we'll get a chance to sift through the other songs we have in our catalog and work through some of the other songs that we've been having trouble with to end up with songs that people enjoy while still keeping the message solid and communicating what we want to say.

Tonight's rehearsal was spent entirely working on a single song, putting the recommendations into practice and trying to work out which ones we'd accept, which ones we'd reject, and just overall hammering out the new doo-dads. In the end, I think the jury's still out - but I, for one, absolutely love the new version of the song we worked on and had a great time at rehearsal tonight. I'm really looking forward to working through the other songs that we have on deck and putting together some really tight music for our next show (which happens to be May 22 at the Red Eyed Fly). Heck, these songs might even be the core of the first Life On Loan EP....who knows?

All I know is that if we can really implement the suggestions and put things together, I'll be really proud of those songs - more than I already am! I love playing our music, but anything that makes it better and increases the enjoyment of our fans is definitely something that I want to try. Keep an ear out!

Life On Loan now has a YouTube channel! We got some great video from the last show at the Red Eyed Fly and so we decided to post it up on YouTube so that those of you who missed the show can see it (and you know who you are). We're going to link one or two of them on the MySpace page as well, but you can basically see the whole set on the YouTube channel. We're also planning to add videos of some of the local bands we're friends with (if we can without violating their copyrights) so that others can be exposed to their music.

I think you'll find that we've gotten a lot better than the demo that we recorded way back in August, and the videos show four new songs that aren't on the demo at this point. So, feel free to subscribe to the YouTube channel, spread the word around, pimp the videos, and check the MySpace page for updates on upcoming shows and new Life On Loan news.

Enjoy the show!

The word Christian has become so loaded these days. Hearing that word evokes an instantaneous response based on whatever the person hearing it has come to associate with that term, ranging from a simple distinction between the major religious segments of the world to prejudice. It all depends on the context in which the term Christian is uttered. In the church world, it is often perceived as good and as a source of identification for like-minded individuals who follow Christ; in the secular world, it is often perceived as bad due to the dismal interaction between those who follow Christ and those who don't.

In the music world, most people don't think that "Christian" and "rock" go together very well. Rock music is about angst, anger, rebellion, and the "screw the establishment" mentality while Christianity is (ostensibly) not about that. Having raw and gritty music which speaks about and glorifies God - or even mentions God in any way other than using his name as an epithet - doesn't make sense to a lot of people because it is perceived as watering down and taking the edge off of historically edgy music. Taking this even further into the music production world, oftentimes the tag of "Christian" is synonymous with the term "low-quality" when it comes to the production value of the music itself, and labeling a band with that moniker can get them discarded out of hand simply due to those connotations.

Let's go one step further, to the local club scene. Having the Christian label applied to a band means that their job of booking venues becomes much harder because to a club promoter, Christian band = mostly church people to see the show = low (or no) drink sales. Club promoters want to get bands in there that bring in people who will buy alcohol, and a mostly church crowd is probably not going to do that. The club will get money in the form of a cover charge, but with drinkers they can get three to five times that amount from a single individual. And, club owners are worried that if a Christian band gets up there and goes off the rails trying to proselytize or preach to people that their customers will leave and they'll lose out on that money.

I've been thinking about these things quite a bit since Saturday's show, and I wonder how Life On Loan can engage the culture of the club scene and get booked while still maintaining our integrity as Christian men. I want us to be judged on our music alone rather than some label, but I'm not sure if it's kosher as a Christ-follower to downplay that label because of my perceptions on how other people perceive it. I had a chance to talk to Mike Boudreaux, the booking agent for the Red Eyed Fly, when I went down to pick up our cashola from Saturday's show, and he had some interesting things to say that gave me even more food for thought.

Saturday night's show was awesome - 43 people showed up specifically to see us, and that was a great start to Life On Loan's weekend gigs at the Red Eyed Fly. We got a lot of great compliments on the new songs, and the response was tremendous. Thank you to all of you who showed up to help us rock out, and a double thanks to those of you that stuck around to help our friends in Five Dollar Friend have a rockin' CD release party as well!

We did a lot of networking this weekend, although it was unexpected. After a 2-hour practice session and pack-up on Friday night, JP and I headed down to support our friends in Language Room for their CD release party at La Zona Rosa and we ran into one of the fellas from Five Dollar Friend. We got a chance to interact and meet some of the guys in Distant Lights, and several of the folks that were at the Language Room show came to our show the next night (including some of the Language Room members themselves). We ran into one of the guys from Five Dollar Friend who was at the Language Room show, and got to talking about potential team-ups beyond the show on the 7th. There's talk of maybe getting together with them for a week or so in April to do some touring of Texas (although at this point, that's all it is - talk).

It's been great building relationships with these two bands, and we've already learned a ton of stuff from both of them. Hopefully, when they have some slots that they can fill with bands of their own choosing, they'll think of us and we'll do the same for them. With so many different bands out there these days, I can't see how it pays to not build relationships with other bands. On the downside, supporting your friends can be time consuming and expensive over time; on the upside, there's some exposure to people that would never hear one band or the other without being on the same bill as the band that they really came to see.

But I love this stuff. This is a personal dream for me, and it's just awesome to see it finally coming to fruition. To be part of building a scene and a community in something which I love as much as music is a pretty amazing feeling. Hearing positive comments and accolades from other musicians is worth it's weight in gold, and that gives us confidence that yeah, we can totally do this thing...and do it well.

So thanks again for supporting us, thanks for supporting our friends, and keep looking out for announcements of new Life On Loan shows. We're way better live than on the demo that's up on MySpace. We rock hard.

By the way, you really should check out Language Room's debut album, "One by One" (available on amazon on Tuesday), Five Dollar Friend's second disc, "See You In Manhattan", and Distant Lights' album, "Simulacrum". Then you'll be able to hear the music that I've been listening to all weekend at all the shows.

Witness my poor excuse for graphic design skills. This is my lame homemade gig poster for our upcoming weekend gig in March.

If you're in Austin, the only excuses that we will accept for NOT seeing your face at our show are:

1. I am so far out of town that Life Flight is the only way I could get back in time, and I don't have that kind of money or am not willing to lose an arm to see you.

2. I am dead.

Other than that, we don't want to hear it. Come to the show. New songs, cheapo cover ($5), and a lineup of some great bands besides Life On Loan, including Five Dollar Friend's CD release show!

First of all, a big THANK YOU to those of you that came out to the show on Thursday night! As a result of the big crowd, we scored a weekend gig! We're not quite sure when it will be, but you can be sure that we'll let you know as soon as we have it scheduled. And then those of you that STILL haven't come out to any of our shows will finally have no excuses not to come because it will be the weekend. Our recent success at the Red Eyed Fly will also give us more of a springboard to branch out into other clubs in the area, so we're hoping to book some shows at some different venues in the coming weeks not only to garner new fans that haven't heard us before, but also to give our faithful following a different venue from which to enjoy our music as well as proselytize others about joining the LOL fanbase. Aside from coming out to the shows to help support us, you'll also get to hear songs that aren't on the demo - we've been playing two songs that don't appear on the demo, and we're working on three more, trying to figure out where they fit into the set and what we're going to do with them.

And speaking of the demo, we handed out somewhere between 25-30 copies of the demo on CD for free at the last show and I think we're going to do that again to help spread the word. I'm also working on making the mp3's available for download from the LOL MySpace page, but I'm having some trouble (insofar as I can't figure out how one would actually download them, because there's not some button saying 'download this' or whatnot). We want to get the music into the ears of new folks, and the quickest way to do that is hand out demos on cd at the shows and allow people to download them to their mp3 players once they get back to a computer so that they play them for other people in their cars, while working out, etc.

Finally, along with all that, we're also working up some business cards to hand out with contact info and such so that when we tell people about Life On Loan, we have something to give them so that they remember the conversation later and maybe they'll check out the site.

It's exciting times for us, and I'm personally really looking forward to hearing and seeing what happens for Life On Loan in the future. Thanks again for all the support, and we'll be seeing you at the next show!

Well, one of my personal dreams as a musician was finally realized last night - I have officially played my drums in a real rock show (a headliner, to boot!) at a club in Austin, TX! And I got paid to do it! Granted, my cut was only $12.50...but for an 11pm slot on a weekday night, that meant a free dinner! Munny is munny, hunny! Life On Loan brought it hard last night and I think we did some serious face melting. Check out Kyle's flickr set of LOL at the REF.

Aside from HUGE thanks to the Red Eyed Fly for giving us a chance to play, and Shaitan, Mutant Press, and Madam and the Teapot Athiests for getting things moving in the show before us, the biggest thanks has to be to our friends who came out to support us so late on a Wednesday night. We had 21 people show up to hear us and as a result, we got bumped up to the next level - we now have a show scheduled for a Thursday night, Nov. 20th, at 10pm! Our first gig ever and we brought in enough people to get bumped up to a better timeslot on a night with higher attendance! And, if everyone that was there last night brings just one person with them to the Thursday night show, then we have a shot at a Friday or Saturday night gig. How sweet is that? So, we're hoping that those of you that couldn't make the late-night gig last night (and believe me, we totally understand that - we were floored that so many people showed up last night!) will be able to make an earlier gig on a night when there's a better chance that you can play hooky from work the next day in order to come rock out with us.

I'm still overwhelmed with the response that we got from people on how good we sound. The guys from Madam couldn't believe that this was our first show. Co-workers that came with friends were asking our friends to keep them up to date on when we play next. But for me, the biggest compliment came from Todd Sabo, lead singer and guitarist in the band Language Room (which we all in Life On Loan really enjoy). Todd's kind of our unofficial mentor, as he works with Justin and JP has been pickin' his brain on what we need to do to get started and for some booking contacts and such. Todd was really impressed with our sound, loved our music, but for me his compliments on my time keeping, my fills, and just my overall playing meant the world to me. To hear another musician whom I respect a lot say that I have good drumming skills and can keep a steady beat, well...that's the sweet spot. It's always super-hard for me to play when I know that there are musicians in the room because I start thinking about all the technical aspects of my drumming, but to have one of those musicians come up and say that everything sounded slammin' (even when I know that I missed some beats and was thinking about things I could have done better) was worth it's weight in gold. So, thanks, Todd, Madam, and all the others that complimented not only the band as a whole, but me personally. That was a great feeling!

So, this is just the beginning! We'll see y'all hopefully on Thursday, Nov. 20, at 10pm and keep your eyes glued to the MySpace page for more up-to-the-minute information, show schedules, and music, music, music! And, as always, make sure to pimp us out to your friends as much as we pimp ourselves to y'all! Get the word out...Life On Loan is HERE to RAWK!!!

I'm totally pumped and it's hard to concentrate on work. Life On Loan's first public show is TONIGHT at the Red-Eyed Fly at 11pm. Apparently, we're headlining the show - how awesome is that?

For all my readers in the ATX, I hope to see you there! Dude! How awesome will this be?

Life On Loan has been booked for our first club show at the Red Eyed Fly on Wednesday, Oct. 1, at 11pm. Cover is $5 for 21 & up, $8 for minors. Yes, it's a terrible time slot but that's part and parcel with being a new band that has zero street cred as of yet. So, for all you LOL fans out there in the ATX, we'd really like you to come out and support the band that night (as well as come on out to see us live). Besides, who needs sleep anyway? We promise, it will be well worth it...and you can say that you were there at the first club show of Life On Loan so when we get famous, you can sell your ticket stub for like $15 on eBay - triple the price you paid!

This is a bit more of that silver lining of the canceled show, too, because if we hadn't been prepared to play the Remedy Drive show, we wouldn't have been ready to play this gig in a week and a half, nor would we have called them and gotten the ball rolling most likely because we would have been resting on our laurels a little bit (such as they are). So, we're hoping that this is a positive sign that we're moving in the right direction and hopefully this will be a good jumping off point for LOL's career in the Austin music scene.

Be sure to tell your friends, listen to the myspace page if you haven't yet, and come on out and support us in a week and a half!

There was no rain in the ATX on Saturday. There was no wind. There was also no show. We had planned to announce the limited time availability of our demo album for download from our myspace site for the folks that had attended the show, so we decided to continue to follow through with that and offer them to the general public since we couldn't perform them on Saturday. So now, even though you didn't get a chance to see us live, you can download our music and take us with you wherever you go and listen at your leisure.

But we're only going to be offering downloads for a limited time - about 10 days or so - so don't delay and get those tracks to put on your iPod, Zen, Zune, Sansa, or whatever else you listen to music on. They're in mp3 format, so they should work on any player or computer. Otherwise, once the downloads are closed, you'll be relegated to only being able to listen to our music while visiting the myspace page (although you'll want to visit regularly to keep up with happenings of the band and also to find out if/when we can get a rescheduled show with Remedy Drive).

Thus, go ye forth and download so that ye may spread the word of Life On Loan to peoples far and wide!

If you're not a MySpace member, download the demo from this link (zipped archive). If you ARE a MySpacer, friend us and THEN download the tracks!

Heya, folks...for those of you that are in the Austin area, and in case you haven't been paying attention, Life On Loan is opening a show for Remedy Drive on Saturday night at GHBC. Tickets are only $5 measly bones, and you could do a whole lot worse for more money by going downtown to hear some of those other bands. :) The show starts at 6 with LOL hitting the stage around 6:15 and then Remedy Drive goes on at 7ish. If you're coming to the show, it would make things a lot easier if you get will-call tickets beforehand. The link to get yoself some tickets to the hottest show in Austin this Saturday night is right HERE.

Are you ready to rock? Because we are...

UPDATE: It seems that tickets are $5 in advance, but $10 at the door - so it pays to get your tickets early! Save yourself some green and come ready to have your faces rocked completely off!

Heya, kidz....the Life On Loan demo EP is finally done and has been posted on the myspace page for the world to hear (check the "what's happening with LIFE ON LOAN?" link to your left there in the sidebar). Gavin met with Cliff to finalize some niggling issues that we had with the pre-masters, and we had the finished product in our hot little hands by the end of the day on Saturday. We're pretty proud of it now, and so we'd love for you to head on over to the official LOL page and take a listen and leave some comments if you're so inclined. I think things came out great for a demo package where days weren't spent on recording a single song. There are always things that I think that I personally could have done better or played differently, but overall it's a great recording and representative of where Life On Loan is now as a band. Our next step is to get some photos taken and a press kit put together so that we can start sending stuff out to venues around Austin.

Speaking of which, LOL has been asked to open up a show at GHBC for a band coming into Austin on September 13 called Remedy Drive. The show is going to be open to the public, so we're pretty excited about the opportunity to play with an up and coming band like Remedy Drive. Hopefully this will give us a good jumping-off point for the live LOL experience to help generate a fan base that will come see us out and about in Austin - it certainly can't hurt to be able to tell a prospective venue that we can bring in X number of fans to pay covers... Big things are a-happenin' in the music world for us, and hopefully this is the start of something good.

In the "what's new" department (aside from Mario Kart Wii - w00t!), thanks to the aiding and abetting by GMoney and 9AM, I have picked up a Savoy humidor and some CAO stogies (Italias and Brasilias) to go with the spiffy new lighter and cutter that I got for my birthday. I will occasionally indulge in a little of the gentlemanly pastime and I figure that it's time to stop mooching off of my buddies and pony up for some cigars of my own. There's just something so pretentious about the whole thing, though...kind of like going to wine & cheese parties. I'm not sure if it's the imagery of the powerful yet shady boy's club powermongers making plans for world domination in dark mahogany-paneled rooms while sitting in high-backed leather chairs, taking sips from their snifters of brandy, or whether it's the romanticized vision of the mob boss pronouncing judgement on those who had failed him from under a pall of smoke. Maybe it's just the fact that it seems to be something which someone could become an afficionado of, and that right there just seems to shout "PRETENSE!" But, for better or worse, I am now a member of that pretentious club, and I think I like it.

That should about sum it up for this weekend. If you're still with me, take some time to head over to myspace and check out our tunes and friend us if you have a myspace account to help us get the word out. We'd surely appreciate it.

A lot has happened with Life On Loan this week, so here's a quick update as to the latest in LOL land:

• New Tunes Posted! - we're still working on the full 5-song demo EP, but we've posted two of the pre-mastered tracks that we like so far on the myspace page. Once the final master is in we'll update the tracks with the "official" tracks and maybe start rotating them around a bit every few weeks or so. The lyrics are there and those of you that are already myspacers can add the songs to your profile (help get us heard!) and can also comment on and rank the songs. You can't download them at this point, but you can stream them to your heart's content. Come on, people...I want to see those playcounts skyrocketing!
• New URLs! - now there are two new ways to find us on the web: www.lifeonloanband.com and www.lifeonloanmusic.com. They direct you straight to the myspace page so you can stay up to date with what we're doing and where we're going.
• New Blogs! - we've been documenting the recording process and just random stuff as relates to LOL, so be sure to keep an eye on the blog feed and subscribe if you're so inclined. We'll try to keep it as fresh and interesting as time allows.

We're also working on getting a photographer lined up to take some band photos for our press kit, and we're working with a few friends in the industry to help us put together a package that will get us noticed. The beginnings of a band bio are already up on the myspace page but we'll probably flesh that out a bit more once we get a photo or two that really captures the magic that is the newest band to hit the Austin music scene.

Exciting things are afoot, my friends. Sometimes they don't always move as fast as we (or I, rather) would like, but they are definitely moving in the right direction and we're hoping to start getting some gigs and providing public opportunities to hear us by the end of the year. Thanks to you for the support you've already given to us and we look forward to giving you many more opportunities to do more of the same in the very, very near future. You guys rock almost as hard as we do!