Valentines Day Phone Calls
100 Lucky fans will receive a personal phone call from me on Valentines Day 2010. Answer the following questions by 11:59pm February 13th, 2010 to be entered into the drawing. Make sure to check back here on Valentines day to get the free EP “In Search Of…” Click HERE to enter.
Tips for Aspiring Music Artists
Seek Success
If you have aspirations of becoming a success in the entertainment industry then you must acquire strong ambition. Talent must be present, but once identified do everything in your power to develop it! Edison stated that success is 2% inspiration and 98% perspiration. Study. Set your end goal and focus all of your thought and energy into that goal. If you wish to become the greatest vocalist, writer, win the most Grammy’s or even if you just want to be known; fix your Mind’s eye on that goal and do the necessary work to obtain it…never stops! Develop discipline, character and tunnel vision.
Perfect Your Craft
If you love singing, songwriting, production or the business aspects of entertainment then learn all that you can about your craft. Submerge yourself in your craft; read books, search the web, take in all the knowledge you can find concerning music and the arts. You are in control of your own fate. Your success is contingent upon your preparation and persistence. Ask questions, seek help but never worry or fear…your time will come. Be prepared!
Don’t Wait For Shhhiiiit!
Spend time thinking and meditating about who you are. What is your purpose? Why are you needed? Develop your brand, have a clear picture of how you will appeal to your audience. Develop a trust worthy team and study other successful artists and teams. A major label won’t make you,. Fuck the Labels-Take your fate into your own hands and go hard; test your music and be real with yourself. Everyone will be interested in the artist that is self-motivated. Build a team, devise a strategy, and plant seeds everywhere. Take note of what fans and supporters like best about you and hone in on it. Use the Internet to create a buzz. Create a demand for your material. Distribute music yourself.
Important Things To Remember
Believe in yourself! Develop strong faith!
- BELIEF lifts your talent
- PASSION energizes your talent
- INITIATIVE activates your talent
- FOCUS directs your talent
- PREPARATION positions your talent
- PRACTICE sharpens your talent
- CHARACTER protects your talent
My Vocal Warm-up Tips
-Take multi vitamin
-Calisthenics exercise (push ups/ sit ups) 30min
-YouTube “vocal warm up” (find a instructor)
- B Hines
Edouard’s Story
Hiyathere! my name is edouard,
I’m not going to present myself like i was thinking of doing at first. like telling you that i’m 17 years old of age, that i live in france now but was born in England, that i have dark brown hair and brown eyes, and also tell you how much i enjoy writing music and playing with the band blablablabla bla…
instead
- Somewhere whereva, there is an apartement in a small town near Paris ; that’s where you could find me as there is where i live.
I like peeping through my window, it doesn’t overlook the street, – and that’s a shame – but i do have a beautiful view on some house that looks like a haunted castle at night when the moon is low. It’s at the top of a small hill that you can climb if you’re fit or need some exercise, because it’s pretty steep. Last night, and beware.. it’s a true story.. believe me or not, i was in my bed admiring the chateau, as i sometimes do when i can’t fall asleep, when my eye was atracted by a small light glowing faintly by the door.
Actually, our band name “the wallpapers” comes from a very well-known man called Jean-Michel Papillon (his picture is above). His sister was married to a man that i actually met who was called Mr. Wolpaperz. I had a long conversation with him, he played saxophone very well. Each time he blew, the birds flew. away and he hated the “flying birds” as they were always bigger in number and he could never finish a song without taking a shower afterwards. Later, i recalled this funny man when we were searching a name for our band.
-edouard
Finding My Way
Greetings! I suppose the way to start out a blog like this is to give a detailed background of who I am, who I am working with, what I do, what I intend to do, and what I am doing to get to what I will someday do. Usually this is seen when a writer wants to convey that he/she is worth listening to and that what they offer is credible. Now I do agree that when I see the qualifications of a super capable individual, I tend to listen more closely. But I must also admit that I tend to feel that unless they are down to earth and honest, those achievements are only shiny blue ribbons upon the chest of some ego. I have come to realize that those who feel the need to push all of their “insights” on others tend to be the ones most in need of them, and by telling them to others they will appear (mostly to themselves) to be knowledgeable and in turn command everyone’s respect (if again the insights are worth while.) But that is an empty way of life to me and I don’t want to use a blog to do that….There are enough me-monsters in the world.
This blog I intend to use to update people on what is going on but also to simply discuss topics like humanity, politics, spirituality, philosophy, science, music, and many other things that I am either simply curious about or deeply pursuing. I have committed my life to the study and careful organization of sound primarily through a guitar but this does not mean that music is the only thing I think worth contemplating. There is something to be said for the idea that it is the artist (whether through thought, writing, directing composing, painting etc.) that keeps the world sane, but there are so many great ideas out there that are worth every bit of thought. I am so furious about certain things…so confused about others…so in love with some ideas…and so excited to continue to explore. One of my heroes, Michael Manring, said at a concert somewhat recently that, “it is important to think about things beyond the personal preference of coke or pepsi…” I couldn’t agree more…
I am a musician on a record label (with truly great people) and I compose music for the guitar, but I see all of this as a means to find out who I am and what it is I am supposed to be doing in this life, namely to “find my way.” I am not wildly successful but am merely starting my journey. I hope to succeed and I believe I will but it is exactly that…a journey…With all the ups and downs that are necessary. I want to do something worthwhile in this business and in my life. I am curious and occasionally opinionated but at the core I just want to write and listen to music and ideas that express how neat it is to be alive, awake, aware, present, open, and always curious. What I do in my own life is read, think, wrestle with ideas, get overwhelmed, stop reading, then start again, come to conclusions, have them knocked down, search for truth, talk to people, go back and think things through again etc, and then somehow music comes to me that captures the whole process. This is why, at least for now, I write instrumental music. What goes on behind those pieces is hard to summarize but they are meant to give life as they are given to me through it. I want to make it my life’s goal to compose music for myself and others that will be “life music.”
You know, those albums that you turn on when you are having a bad day or when you are driving in the summer with the windows down or when you are in a melancholy mood or when the whole family is together for the holidays…That is the music that I want to write. The artists that are exactly that for me are the ones who seem to have wrestled with things outside of music and have brought them to music in a meaningful way. This is why, I suppose, this blog will discuss what it does. I am not sure who will read this or who will want to read it but this is what I do to “find my way” through life and make sense of things. If it does not have anything helpful or worthwhile to you I hope it will still encourage you to “find your way.” This is what life really is all about and this is the process of me “finding my way.” Oh and please feel free to comment on anything as that would be nice to hear as many other perspectives as possible!
Grace and Peace,
Trevor
Goodbye Forever, Part 3
D-Block. High bail pod. Most of the guys back here are here for serious crimes. Fuck, so was I for Christ’s sake. It was around 6 at night when they brought me on the block, so the inmates were out in the day room. All eyes were on me. With my belongings wrapped in a sheet, I walked into the large, gothic room, making sure not to make direct eye contact with anyone, but also trying not to seem scared. The C.O. led me to cell 199, and I tossed my stuff up on the top bunk. Behind me, I felt someone move into the doorway. I spun around to find a white guy of about 25 staring me down. “Yo…uh…what size shoes are those?” Welcome to the Back Jail. They call it the “back jail” because it is literally at the back of the prison. It’s just general population. No one works jail jobs or does anything. It’s just a bunch of convicts living in a dimly lit concrete square. The blocks are 2-stories high, ten cells on each floor. All painted one color, usually blue or green. The dayrooms consist of to large metal tables with 4 seats attached on each side, and along the far wall are 3 phones and a water fountain. There is an old T.V. mounted on the wall. No cable, so you watch a lot or Maury and Jerry Springer. Most cells were 2-man huts, but there was also two 4-man huts on each block. My cellmate, or “celly”, turned out to be a Mexican guy who didn’t speak a single word of English. Score. There is nothing worse than having to live with someone who talks too much. We got along as best we could considering the circumstances. As I said before, meals come in trays stacked on big metal carts, and they get wheeled onto the blocks by kitchen workers or COs. Breakfast is at 7, lunch at 1130, dinner at 5, and that’s it. On certain days you can go to the weight room, other days the library, but for the most part you’re doing nothing. This is your life. Enjoy. Coming through intake, my knowledge of rap music as well as my sense of humor had earned me a few acquaintances. One such acquaintance was a very large black man named Boon. Lucky for me, he got moved to D-Block the same time I did. This proved helpful in situations such as the one I mentioned earlier. Boon was clearly the biggest guy on the block now, and he thought I was the coolest white boy he ever met. Clutch. Still, this piece of my saga kinda drags somewhat. Not much happens here. I made friends with a kid named Nile who is one of the funniest people I’ve ever met. I also met a guy that was a personal trainer on the outside who began training me in the weightroom. I never really got into any fights. There was a guy on the block who would rip up sheets and make dye out of different comissarry items and weave necklaces for guys in exchange for food. I had him make me a pentagram, an old Tim Burton-esque tree, and a vagina which i sent to my manager, Cole, for Christmas. As for money, my parents were keeping a little bit of money on my books so I could make phone calls and get some food. Cole sent me some money and a few books about music and the industry. I spent most of my time cracking jokes with Nile and some of the other younger white guys (jail is very segregated, even to this day). Most of us were heroin addicts whose problem had put us here one way or another. A few weeks in, 3 dried soups went missing from my hut. I walked up onto the the landing of the steps so I was right in the middle of everyone and screamed “Next time someone wants to steal from me, do it while I’m there. Stop being a coward. You want something of mine, take it from ME!” I knew this would make whoever had done it feel like a scared little bitch, and that was my point. I never had an issue again after that. Around Christmas time my celly got released, and one of the guys from a 4-man hut moved into my cell. His name was Chris, a 24 year old heroin addict and tattoo artist. He said he played electric guitar. We vibed about music and made jokes. All in all he was the perfect celly. For Christmas, both our families put enough money on our books to buy radios. They were cheap little hand-held things with ear buds, but it got the job done. Friday nights from 12-2 all the white boys would listen to a heavy metal show called “Rockers” and stood at there locked gates headbanging. This scared the shit out of everyone else. That little radio became a very important instrument to my current success. See, on the outside, I NEVER listened to the radio. I was strictly an iPod man. But the more I listened to the radio, the more I began to see the draw of mainstream music. One song in particular perked my interest. “Kids” by MGMT. It had this electro-rock feel, but it could easily have been rapped over. It was catchy but silly, however still dark and not-without-purpose. The more I listened to it, the more ideas it gave me about my own music. Dark, driving, danceable. Real, meaningful, fun. This is what I should be doing. If I can write pop songs, why not do it? That’s a gift that should be shared, not hidden. I explored the radio. That is, of coarse, the true measure of music. If it’s on the radio, average people think it’s good. Is that everything? Absolutely not. But it is something… I had asked one of the guards to look up my release date on the computer. With good time and time-served factored in, I would be released on May 5th. Just in time for spring. I’m doing ok. I’m working out. I like most of the people on my block. No one seems like too much trouble. All in all, I’d say I was “dug in”, so to speak. Then one day as I was playing a game of Dirty Hearts (card game) with a few of the boys, I got the call. “John Shinners! Pack your shit! You’re being moved to P-Pod!” Ugh. Next time around, which I promise won’t be as far off as this was from the last, I’ll discuss the second phase of my sentence. It involves the death of a friend and my divine revelation. Don’t go far… Yours in Life, Love, and Loneliness, JJ Demon.
