Jen: "We SUCKED", for sale & more

Formal apology time. Our show at the White Rabbit last Friday sucked ass.. we played everything WAY too slow and dragged bad. We still got compliments, but we think because many were hearing the stuff for the first time. Trust me, it was AK-Crowbar style.. We talked about it last night and have officially closed the door on it and decided to move on. Each one of us denounced this show as the worst yet. It was poor decisions made on our behalf to not take care of ourselves before hitting the stage. We have reinstated the "no drinking" rule before we perform.. not even one beer. None of us were buzzed at all, but our music is physically challenging for us enough.. without feeding our bodies beer. We should be hydrating ourselves as much as possible, eating right the day of, etc. We've had two shows like this so far.. we finally caught the hint. If we want to attack and tear down walls, we need to walk up there 100% prepared to do that. It won't happen again.. well, now that we know what we have to do, shame on whoever doesn't! It's supposed to be fun, but it's all for nothing if we don't perform to our potential.

Our first song, "Abrasions" has been recorded and is in the process of being mixed (thank you, J-Flex, Chris and Weldon). It's an acoustic song dedicated to our friend, Jesse.. but it still rocks like AK. We are two weeks away from immortalizing this new stuff with Keith at Monster Studio (beg. June 3rd). We're recording 13 pieces (11 new jams with 2 covers - "Davidian" from Machine Head and "Once in a Lifetime" metal style from the Talking Heads). Dave and I have some shit to sell prior to help with finances (message us if you're interested). We have a baptism, dance recital and three birthday parties to fund this summer right along side studio. One of the challenging aspects of being married in a band:

Rocktron Hush Pedal (two channel)	65.00
Hartke HA 400 Bass Amp	300.00 (sells 499 at Sam Ash)
Tama Swingstar Kit with Yamaha double pedal, cymbals and stands (don't know exactly what yet - we have to spec. it out)	300.00
Bass box & sub for truck	60.00
Italian made crib, drawer on bottom, natural blonde wood stain with thick varnish - new. Used 2 mos total	200.00 (sells for 400)
Cerwin Vega home speakers DX-9 (so cheap because of a small tear in one speaker)	200.00
New in box - 10 pk 750 MB Iomega zip disks	100.00

Our next show is coming up - May 27th at the White Rabbit with Curse the Form, Anomik & Before the Bloodshed. I've got a flyer on the main page of our myspace. Any help passing this thing out and promoting is very much appreciated!!

Until I have more rantings & non-hearings for you all,

Jen

PS by the way, Rantings will be our first video. We also sat around and pretty much scripted it last night. In due time (when our pocket book heals..) - It's gonna cost $600-700 dollars to do.

Jen: White Rabbit 10th Anniversary show & studio progress

We have a show this Friday at the Rabbit. It's another one of those insane attempts at putting a million bands on the bill. Check out the lineup below. It looks like it's gonna be a packed house. The backroom lineup is really good.

Main Stage
6:30 PM Mark Searcy Delta Blues
7:15 PM Daniel Walker & the Lake Eerie Oarsmen
8:00 PM Strikes Back
8:45 PM Adelin
9:30 PM Structure
10:15 PM Desdemona
11:00 PM Meek
11:45 PM Lokey
12:30 AM When Words Attack
1:15 AM The Blend?

Jam Stage
7:30 PM Jobber
8:15 PM Threat
9:00 PM Enormity
9:45 PM Brotherhood
10:30 PM Thirteen Muses
11:15 PM Angerkill
12:00 AM Deadpool
12:45 AM Before the Bloodshed

In other news, I'm fuckin' way tired. We finished up our studio pre-production stuff on Monday and got it to Keith last night. It turned in to a last minute rush to get it done. I did a quick, really quick mix and dumped them night before last, finally finishing up at 5am. This was a great thing and even though it was such a major pain in the ass, I would recommend doing it to any band. It really shows you where your areas of improvement are. We have a few things to hone in on before we get in there and thats where we're at now. We need to just play the hell out of these songs (to a click - I'm currently working on the tempo maps) and Jared has to get his solos concrete.

We'll be recording two covers but we're not sure if they'll be on the CD or not. We haven't decided what we want to do with them just yet. The covers are "Davidian" from Machine Head and "Once in a Lifetime" from the Talking Heads. We started working on our rendition of "Once in a Lifetime" this past Saturday and it's really promising. It sounds GREAT as a metal song.

Kids are awake.. i'll have to finish this up later! Hope to see you all Friday.

We are not playing Bonds tomorrow!!

It says so in the Edge Magazine, but it's not so! We were asked to play but declined (we were already booked twice in SA this month.. one more time than we usually allow).

So... sorry for any misunderstandings. Next show is May 12th at the White Rabbit for the 10th anniversary party.. 11:00 backroom.

Jen

Jen: Studio tonight, Rock City & other stuff

We had a show at Rock City last weekend. Despite all the problems, it was a blast! My bass went out during the second song. It was a problem with my instrument cable. Jared lends me one of his and it doesn't work either! This made me second guess my theory and start ripping shit outta my rack to just go direct. Anyways, I never recovered.

We get set up in the garage, i hook it up, and find the problem was originally as thought. Jared unknowingly lent me a broken cable! What're the chances of THAT. Cool thing is.. in practice, he thought his pedal was going out.. but it was just the cable. We cut our set short, but it ended up working out because the show was running 45 minutes behind because the sound guy didn't show up on time. Even with my bass going in and out, we won Rockstar Ending Competition - ANGERKILL vs DEADPOOL round 1! Doctura even got up in that shit... ya just can't beat "Eye of the Tiger"..(yes,we did). We ended up getting really drunk that night. By the end of the night, Jared and I were chugging Limon 7 (sal con limon packets we got from La Michoacana across the street). Lame! It was a lot of fun for me because I finally got to go to a show with the guys instead of showing up late, leaving early. Our baby is now 8 months old, totally weaned and sleeping through the night. Anyways, Rockstar Ending Competition round 2: AK vs DP commences on May 12th! I have a feeling we're gonna have some stiff competition that night. I saw the flash of determination in Guitarlos' eyes.... anyways, thank you, as always, to everyone that went to the show.

There's not much to report besides getting ready for studio still - it's almost time! We're moving along.. trying to get Jared to write all of his parts. Man.. lemme tell ya. He is a very indecisive writer just like me.. and his parts are taking him a long time (like mine do) but I work at them more than he does so he has a lot more to go. Dave and I nagged him all last week to be here writing solos and it took him like 3 hours for one solo.. but that shit sounds GREAT! Absolutely reaching full potential. We were sitting in the jamroom last night until 2:30 or so just listening to the solos on "Signs of a Storm". It went like this: "rewind it, Jen. I RULE! rewind it, Jen. I RULE! rewind it, Jen".. well, you get the idea. I always told him he could write badass solos!!

We got a call Monday night from a local producer about going into Melody Ranch for some free studio time as a learning session for some recording students. Hell yeah, we took it! I had 48 hours to finish up basslines for this song, but they're done. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't nervous though - we played it for the first time together yesterday - and it wasn't even full band. We didn't have a sitter so I went in and did my parts with Frank and Jared and Dave watched the kids, then Dave went in there, Frank played my bass and I watched the kids.. but we still have yet to play it all together. We're doing an acoustic song, named "Abrasions", that Jared wrote for our friend Jesse after the accident. I've always loved it.. even when I first heard it. The irony of it all... we had a birthday party for Jesse after he passed here at our pad.. and Jared played the song. I recorded it on video to send to Jesse's brother in Iraq (not that I ever transferred it to file.. computer problems) and a friend of ours, Krystal, says on the tape "you guys better not take it!" Well, it's an AK song now! We had no idea back in 2001 that Jared would be in the band, much less that we'd all be recording that song.

Jared and I had a great night last night. After practice, he went with Frank to have some drinks, then Frank dropped him back off here where Dave, our friend big Lou and I were sitting in the garage (where I was writing my basslines). Kids were way asleep by then so we had the monitor out there just bullshitting. Jared came back and I stayed talking to him until about 2:30 about all sorts of stuff.. all of it therapeutic. We got to talking about just how amazing it is that we're all together.. and what a perfect fit he is for the band and how close we've all become. I told him he is "perfect for the band.. (the pessimist in me) unless he stops caring". He looked straight at me and said he never would. I believe him. In the past, we've become good friends with the 4th member of the band.. but not like this. This is always what we strived to attain - total equality, complete faith - and it's here! 6:30 and we'll be recording our first stuff as ANGERKILL.

Back to listening to those basslines. I don't want to look like a fool tonight.

Jen