Weszt

I’ve had a few too many things circling around my head this weekend to organize proper blog entries, but I feel too frustrated this morning without at least saying something. Perhaps I will expound on these later, but here a few thoughts on subjects not necessarily related.

BANDS

1. Just because they say “great set”, doesn’t mean you played well, people just feel obligated to say this.
2. You can’t be friends with every band you share the stage with, nor should you be. However treat all bands with respect as it doesn’t take much to get a bad reputation.
3. Booking people are notoriously forgetful and disorganized. You should definitely call back.
4. Write up a checklist. We recently lost a $400 mixer because we thought we were packed.
5. Despite what you’re told about demos, you will be judged by the quality of your recording. Once we had decent recording, the general perception of the band improved and acceptance increased. In other words, don’t go cheap on your demos if you can afford it (but don’t wait forever to make one, either).

1. Always travel light. Start with the vitals and don’t fret too much about the rest – you can probably buy what you need when you get there.
2. You don’t travel because you won’t travel, not because you can’t. People who haven’t terrible jobs travel without debt all the time, you just have to cut back on a few things and start saving.
3. Getting away is always great for revealing the good and the bad things about home.
4. Travel, damn it, travel as much as you freaking can.

1. Thousands of dollars worth of time have been put into the Fan Club site and I’m beginning to freak out a little bit. I believe I’m too close to it now and I can see it for what it’s worth anymore. I’ve got to relax and scale back the workload a bit or I’ll never let it be complete.
2. Not everything we’ll be posting will be pretty. Some of the band performances are downright horrid but my thinking is we need to completely honest or the fan club will have a weak foundation. Speaking for myself and the pre-Bobby/Ben/Mike eras, there were a lot of great ideas, many of which have carried over into today, but I needed a more proper crew to pull them off.
3. I love you guys, every one of you, and I really, hope you like the website and get a chance to use it often and to great effect.
4. Some of the songs I’ll be posted have never been performed or even heard by the guys currently in the band. I’ll be curious to hear what they have to say about the tunes – maybe we’ll add a few. Note a song called “So Good By Yourself” which was recorded live: I totally choke on the second verse but the band keeps going.

1. I’ve become fairly obsessed these last few months with programming and programming increasingly larger and complex projects. The Weszt Fan Club is an example.
2. My company has just launched something called 3c|Platform and I’m really freaking excited about it. Nothing most of my friends would rave about, but if you’ve got a business that wants to compete with much larger companies, this online business platform will give you several legs up.
3. I’m most proud of all the products 3cStudios has created recently because they all work together. You can plug anyone of them into and they’ll work just fine.