Dave, weren’t you supposed to…

Yes. Yes I was supposed to do a lot of things. Like keep my site more up to date than this for starters. Oh, and run a marathon a couple months ago. My goal of running a marathon had to get postponed until 2015 for medical reasons. My lack of site updates… well I have no good excuse. That’s just plain laziness.

However in an attempt to not appear to be a total looser, here are some things that  I have accomplished in the past 4 months (in no particular order)

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Something Old, Something New, Something Borrowed, Something Blue

It’s another one of those multi-subject, catch-up posts because I’ve been lax about updating the site. So in no particular order:


Something New

Here's the Avatar at the bottom of my stack

Here’s the Avatar at the bottom of my stack

I picked up an Avatar 4×12 speaker cabinet for my guitar rig last week. I’ve been keeping an eye out for one of these for a while now. They’re pretty highly regarded in the guitarist community. They’re well built, and loaded with the right speakers they have some killer tone! I frequently keep an eye on the used inventory of my local Guitar Center. I saw this one pop up and had to have a look at it. I grabbed an amp head and a couple other speaker cabinets and just had a field day swapping between cabinets to compare the sounds of each. This thing sounded better than any other cabinet by far. And to top it off, it looks like it’s brand new! Not even a dent in the tolex! So after a little price negotiating, I walked out of there with my new speaker cabinet for a fraction of what it would have cost to purchase it new.


Joe Orange Belt TestAnd just this past Friday, my son Joe tested for and advanced to Purple Belt in Tae Kwon Do! During the test, you have to break a board while demonstrating proper technique for a particular kick or punch. Last time Joe advanced, that part of the test gave him the most trouble. He was a little nervous about it. Despite his apprehension, he was able to break the board on his first attempt. Go Joe!
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Long Overdue Update

Ironic, isn’t it? The more things happen and the more things I should be posting on here, the less time I have to do it. So what’s happened since the ringing in of the new year? I’m sure I’ll forget something but here goes anyway:
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Lots of Rockin’

Screamin' at Miso'sLast weekend was pretty busy for me. Not because of the holiday stuff. If Jenn would let me, I’d probably just pretend Christmas didn’t exist. No, last weekend was busy because I played a gig on Friday the 21st with my band Six Five Nine. Then on Saturday, Six Five Nine had another gig opening for a local band named Gone Shootin’. Oh, and did I mention that I also play in Gone Shootin’? And on top of playing guitar, I also provide the PA system, so a simple 4 hour gig is actually 8 hours of loading equipment, transporting equipment, unloading equipment, setting up equipment, playing for 4 hours, tearing down equipment, loading equipment, transporting equipment, and finally unloading equipment at home. If I didn’t love playing so much, the extraneous work wouldn’t be worth what we get paid for it.

But I do love playing!

Here’s a video of us playing on the 21st. This is our first time playing out as a band as well as Jessica and Bill’s first time playing out period.

More videos are available on our band’s website.

What a Difference a Vocalist Makes!

So Tim and Bill and I have been jamming together for thousands of years. We play about half of every song because we get lost or one of us (usually me) doesn’t know the rest of the song, or we get bored because songs that are meant to have vocals sound pretty repetitive without vocals.

Now I’ve known for years that my wife’s friend Jessica has a magnificent voice. She sang at our wedding, as a matter of fact. I’ve been saying for years that I need to get her to come out and sing with us. It was one of those, “we should do this sometime” kinda things that just never seemed to happen. Well, this past Friday I changed that. I called Jess up and invited her to come out and jam with us.

Then, something magical happened! We actually played a song all the way through to the end! It was amazing! Not to mention that her voice just sounds awesome! I’ve always loved the sound of a powerful female vocalist with a hard rock / heavy metal band behind her. Despite her being nervous as hell, she did great and things just started to click.

So without further ado, here’s a taste of awesomeness.

Over the Hills and Far Away

Crazy Train

You Ought to Know

Playing out for the first time in years

Our first gig poster!

I’ve been playing guitar with my neighbor Ken and his friend Chuck since I moved in across the street 5 years ago. Within the past few months, we finally decided that we need to step up our efforts and go play some live shows. I convinced Tim Parish, an old friend of mine from high school, to come and play bass with us. Ken and Chuck got their friend Don to come and belt out some vocals. And voila! We had a 5 piece.

We’ve been playing every weekend for months now and our first bar gig is rapidly approaching. We’re opening up for another local band called Skurvy Dogs. Chuck was their former guitar player, and Don is their drummer presently. They’ve agreed to let us play a short set before they take the stage this Saturday night. Our name, for this gig anyway, is “Gone Shootin’.” It was chosen by Don at Random without really consulting us, so it’ll likely change by the next time we play out.

If you can make it out, we’ll be taking the stage (and I use that term loosely) at 10:00pm on Saturday night at a place called Crow Bar at 4001 East 106th Street in Chicago. (It’s on the far east side just over the border from Whiting, Indiana) I’m really looking forward to the show, as this is the first time that I’ve played out in a public place since I was in high school!

Hope to see you there!