Archive for the 'Music' Category

Thanks to Jeremy Camp for the “Bro Talk” in first class…

Published on 05/04/2012 in Going Somewhere, Music, OCD, Writing and iPad. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , .

Mental barriers are at times the hardest ones to break. They represent core issues and situations that are formed of the strongest emotions. Why? Because they come from our brain and from our own belief that they are valid in some strange way. So we let them take root and grow. We watch them slowly overtake the highway of life progress. We let them tell us what NOT to do.

I let my barriers grow too freely. I don’t take the time to grab the pruning shears out of the shed and do any trimming. I typically let life go on and don’t mend to my hedges until it is too late and they are waaaayyyy out of control. The end result being a session of depression or angst about why things are the way they are.

Well fast forward to last week and I had what might be considered a slight epiphany. I was forced to look at things from a different perspective. I say forced because the person that was talking to me was one whom I could not doubt. They are living the life that they want to live and they are successful in that direction. The light that they shed on my situation really made me do some hard deep thinking. And I looked at things in a way that like my barriers, I chose to not address in the right way.

20120504-065759.jpg

Thank you to Mr. Jeremy Camp for the bro talk. You shed a light on my situation that you may not have even known you flicked on, but you did non-the-less. I have started to assess my situation in a new fashion. I have started to re-address my efforts (though small shifts) in a hope to turn my ship in the direction that *I* want to be going in. To express efforts in the projects and things that will serve *ME* and *MY* situation the best.

Thanks again Jeremy. Hope to talk to you, or hang, when I am in Nashville soon.

Playing for PBR

Published on 10/20/2011 in History for Sale, Music, Photography and Writing. 0 Comments Tags: , , , .

There are moments when being in a band is amazing.  There are also moments when the grind of being a nobody, in a nobody band, in a sea brimming full of nobody’s really starts to dull you.  Those moments of nothingness, of questioning validity, and asking “why” seem to greatly outnumber the amazing moments.

See, to be in a band is like having or being in an extended family that you also work with and then create with.  There are times when everybody gets along.  There are times when you fucking hate everything about what you are currently working on.  There are times when the tone of the guitar just sounds like ass.  There are times when as a singer, you just can’t sing your way out of a wet fucking paper bag.  Then there are the amazing times.  The time when something unexplainable occurs and sonic union is created.  The notes flow effortlessly, lyric lines having somehow already been written to unheard guitar melodies…and a song is born.  Love at first listen.

In time, if all the above doesn’t destroy your creativity, you and your pals decide that the rest of the world might want to hear the shit that spews from amp, kit, and mouth.  You bug your friends, family, co-workers and anybody else you think might give a shit about your band…about how you might start playing shows.  So you spend hours in your practice space.  It might be a rented room, it might be the guest room in your house, or it might be the smelly basement that is more moist than the underwear of a fat southern man on a 98% humid summer day.  No matter.  You ignore family responsibilities, work needs, even the occasional shower just to fuel the creative process with your time and band mates.

Polished.  Like a piece of chrome on the bumper of a ’59 Cadillac you form a set list of original material that is going to slay.  You start to bug your “contacts” for a show explaining how “amazing” and “epic” it would be if you could play a night at their club.  This process goes on for something like 4-5 months because you live in a saturated market (remember the sea full of shit above?) and there are lots of other bands that are “better” that could use a booking.  BUT, through effort, tenacity, and being just a plain pain in the ass you secure a night.  No it isn’t a coveted Friday or Saturday night…it is a SUNDAY night!

So you and your band mates promote…you bug every single person on Facebook, Myspace, twitter, at work, the fuck at Guitar Center…basically the world.  You poster the club as you are supposed to hang posters in Belltown, downtown, at the malls, anywhere you can muster the tack, tape, or promise of a poster hung.

Come the day of the show you have by now already re-strung your guitar, your bass, tuned your kit, replaced all batteries in everything battery powered, packed your car and start to head to the club.  You get there hoping that the other bands did some awesome-sauce promotion.  You hope that the club is having at least some kind of drink special night to help lure the locals in, or maybe a special “ladies” free with a friend door promotion…something.

Tragedy…it strikes even the best intentions.  The other bands only used the ill-fated Facebook event invite (that so many people now ignore).  The club has done nothing with regards to promotion other than put you on their calendar.  The bar staff could care less that you are in “the band” and don’t have the time to barely talk to you (even though you are the reason for their job).  There could be a total of 17 people in the whole bar.  Between 3 bands there might be near 15 people in the establishment besides band members.  Only 15 people.  Ohhh and the best part is that if those 15 people weren’t there for the bands playing…there would be absolutely nothing in the no food serving, otherwise very stagnate and boring “club”.  The pretentious bitch behind the bar would only have her pretentious bitch co-worker to look at and be a bitch to.  That would be an amazing show!

Your time to take the stage has come and you fucking destroy…slay…it is, was, and will be remembered as a set that was “abso-fucking-lutely ah-fucking-mazing” by one of your 7 people that showed up.  Yes 7.  Ohhh the war of atrophy.  Facebook told me that 34 would be “attending” and at least 18 were a “maybe”.  Pedro the sound guy made the band sound like they were fucking huge.  Bass destroying, rock kit slamming, twin amp ala The EDGE guitar playing, top rock vocalist, you should have heard these guys fucking huge…7 people.  14 after the first bands 2 guests left.

HISTORY for SALE

Wiping the sweat off of your brow, getting your gear off of the stage as fast as possible, your euphoria starts to hit…the post show high.  You know that if there were more people there to listen, if only the crowd would have been bigger, shit would have gone down.  No worry though because you played a fucking E-P-I-C show.  Your band is part of the 1%.  The very slim group of people that make it off of Craigslist, The Stranger, Seattle Weekly and other classifieds.  You practiced.  You recorded an EP.  You are now playing a show.  You get paid.  Oh what…?

Booker is walking towards me…definitely payout time.  We have stayed for the last band and supported them (as all bands should do as proper band protocol).  We chat about how amazing our set was.  The booker says that we KILLED the stage and the room.  He can’t wait to get us into another show.  The awkward silence is cued in……..and so I ask the question “So…was there a payout…?”.  The reply is “Ohhh no man, nothing left after the sound guy and the 10% booking fee”.  Crusher.  Flat crushed.

Sooo guess what mother fucker…that “free” PBR that you stocked in the “green room” that is nothing more than a glorified hooker closet with hooch?  I am taking that shit home with me.  I don’t play for fucking free.  I am taking the rest of the shit for my boys too.  See we need something to drink while we are writing Grammy’s.  And when I split the top open on that Hipster Junkie Juice I will curse you with a smirk and grin.  So here is

 to you and your “how many can you bring” club.  Here is to you and your $150.00 for the sound guy out of the door payout.  Here is to your bitch, cunt, ain’t had a dick for too long because they are pretentious whore bartenders.

Support your local musician.  The show he plays may be his last…

Now I know what it is like to play for PBR.

RED BULL and and more…

Published on 05/15/2011 in Music, Record Label, Uncategorized and Writing. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , .

I am not sure what to make of this most recent announcement from RED BULL but I am sure that it directly reflects where “we” are heading.  Red Bull has decided to enter the print magazine game and offer a life and entertainment type of rag.

You may think that this is a pretty standard thing to occur due to the fact that many other brands have their own branded print, clothing, or other lines of merch.  The difference here is that this is in addition to Red Bull entering the music studio and record label world back in 2008.  Also this magazine entry plus the record label parrallel the the January announcement of Red Bull entering the cell phone/service market.

Why all the above is interesting to me is that it is an all inclusive move to be in your life.  It is a shepparding of time, brain space, and mostly money for and towards Red Bull.  The premise being that if they can provide a majority of their own content, generate their own “sister brands” off of their drink success…then they will see profits exponentially from the cross branding and providing of content.

If you are on their label, you will probably be in their magazine, and your ring tones will be on their cell service.  If you are in their magazine and your ringtones are on their cell service, you will probably see a higher percentage of impressions on your band website.  This is the future…

Creating a network of operations that web over and into the next so that any activity in A will change the results of B and C.

I promise you that you will see additional business models like this emerge in the music world…

38th revolution…

Published on 01/19/2011 in Going Somewhere, History for Sale, Music, OCD, Old Age, Uncategorized and Writing. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , .

Center aisle. Not the kind of aisle that you would expect to be performing in… or on…but the kind where you are contained within 2sqft whilst breathing recycled air, gagging on the salted 28grams of peanuts you were blessed with, and praying that you don’t catch DEATH from the coughing souls around you.

Thank you Delta Airlines. Thank you to my slight case of work induced adult ADD. For between the two of you battling for my time, I somehow forgot to check my seat reservation and realize that it did not get saved correctly. Full flights don’t forgive, and if we forget, well that is a calculation that equals a loss.

So while sitting in my dreaded middle seat I have plenty of time to ponder something. 38 spins around this thing we call life. See today, January 19th…I turn 38. Yes if you have read this far you might have come to the correct assumption that I am traveling on my birthday. Happy, happy, happy day to Mark!
I swear this has happened before…on spin number 35 or 36, who can remember anymore

2011 has started with a promise, like all years do, of potentially amazing things. Sara and I are trying to find a place to call our home. March 29th will finally see the release of my very first MUSIC release “Going Somewhere…?”. www.markyoungrocks.com will finally be my home to park my various music projects and releases on, which is something that I have lacked for many years now. HISTORY for SALE will be going into the famed STUDIO X on February 5th to start the recording of our second EP. All of these things will be happening before the completion of March…so as we start to rotate around spin 39…I am off to a good start.

The seat smells…the asses of so many leaving their mark, their stains before me.

Oh thank you for the present…

It’s my 38th birthday.

Working on my kingdom…

Published on 09/10/2010 in Going Somewhere, Hearing Impaired, Mastering, Mixing, Music, Record Label and Uncategorized. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , .

A quick update on what I have been up to!

I have pretty much finished the packaging layout and print work for “Going Somewhere…?”. It took way longer than I expected due to some tech issues with my old laptop (speed) and then figuring out how I wanted to package the whole deal.

So I sent out 10-15 packages last week and am slowly getting feedback that they are arriving in good shape! This is exciting news due to the amount of thought I put into the final presentation.

Dreams in a bag

I am still working on getting my cover song cleared. I can’t technically sell the music till that little issue is taken care of. It shouldn’t be long…as it is now just a money thing to pay for the license.

The next mechanical step is to save up the scratch $$ to get a run of 100 or 200 color discs replicated. Then from there start assembling the hand packaging for these little beauties!

Hope everybody is embracing the change of seasons and the way it changes our minds.

I know I am.

Best to those who read this…

Mastering session video and song previews…

Published on 02/16/2010 in Going Somewhere, Hearing Impaired, Mastering, Mixing, Music, Recording and Video. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , .

As promised in an earlier blog…here is a little video compilation from my mastering session on January 6th. It is just a little something to show you the room, the day, the effort that goes into making a song sound “polished”.

Ed Brooks of RFI/CD is an amazing Mastering Engineer. The word “amazing” gets tossed around so easily now days, but with conviction…I express that he is the definition of the word amazing.

I am going to be making a couple hundred CD-R’s of this 9 song disc. The title of the project is as you might know now “Going Somewhere”. Some will get mailed to labels (know any looking for a middle aged dreamer?), some will get mailed for reviews. After that, I don’t know what is going to happen with the songs…if anything. That is part of the reality of this art form.

All I hope is that in the next 8 months, regardless of what happens…you will have heard some of this music. That you will have felt my message. That you will want more.

Thanks for watching, reading, and listening.

Franchise of a 37 year old…

Published on 01/19/2010 in Music and Old Age. 0 Comments Tags: .

Today I turn 37.

I am definitely not a youngster any longer…but I still feel young at heart. There are scars that remind me of the battles that I have fought, wounds that were very deep in penetration, yet my blood runs warm and under high pressure.

They say that people blossom at different stages. That if they ever realize a decent percentage of their potential…it will come at a different time or stage of their life than their neighbor does. I feel that I am starting to come into my time, my now.

Sometimes the train is hard to get going. There are re-routes, track switches, and even banditos wanting to sway the forward progress of Engine 37. I think that I am at a time in my life now where I can see far enough down the tracks and steer the locomotive. I have the experience to know the rammifications of certain actions, yet contain enough youth to still enjoy the ride…however bumpy.

In the next month or two I will be working on seeing if there is any “traditional” interest in my 9 song release “GOING SOMEWHERE”. The work is done, the songs are mastered, all that is left is to see if anybody wants them. If nobody wants them…which realistically will be the case, then I will be going a “non-traditional” route.

I am trying to start a franchise. I am the franchise. I will be working on at least two other projects this year. One project will be for HISTORY for SALE and the other will be an EP titled “El Bano” that will be finished this year.

I will be shooting and directing my own music videos (Mark Young and HISTORY for SALE) this year. They will be better than you might expect.

If all of this can’t find an interested home…to help mainly with distribution and promotion, then I will create a home for them.

I am starting a franchise.

I am the franchise.

Today I turned 37.

My early votes for album of the year…

Published on 01/19/2010 in Music, Record Label and Recording. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , .

Step right up…

I am making an early prediction about what will be my favorite album of the year. It is not a clear decision as of yet, but the two front runners haven’t even been released yet and they still are loudly battling.

Up first is:

POST HARBOR – “They can’t hurt you if you don’t believe in them”
http://www.myspace.com/postharbor
They are in my opinion what music is about. They do it all so well…paint the picture, tell the story, convey the emotional message. They make music that moves you. For that alone I appreciate their art in all its forms.

Post Harbor is not a bandwagon group. You won’t find them mentioned with the “current cool kids” such as The Maldives, The Moondoggies, and these other “rock” bands that are supposed to be the next great sound out of the Seattle scene.

This band is who the local blogs should be writing about. This band is who you should invest the franchise player card on. There music imprints on your mind and requires you to take listen number three, four, and five to disect just what they are doing at 2:43 in song number 7. Rarely does a band make you do that anymore. They do.

If you ever get the chance to see them live, I highly recommend it. You too will be fan just from the energy that they exude.

Up next is:

The Forecast – “The Forecast”
http://www.myspace.com/theforecast
I have been a fan of this band for 3 discs now. They were originally signed to VICTORY RECORDS and were thought to be the cross-over salvation for that label. Unfortunately VICTORY did not do the band justice and put them on the road with bands that drove away their core fanbase.

My band (HISTORY for SALE) has played with The Forecast and I have seen them every time they have come through town. There is no other band that I think I enjoy seeing more than The Forecast. They are 4 friends who make music…they live for this…it is who they are.

Mark my words that either one of these discs will be on lists for year end results…mark my words.

Mastering is done…NOW WHAT???

Published on 01/12/2010 in Mastering, Music and Record Label. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , .

Well last week I mastered.

To be correct in the above statement *I* did not master, but the very, very talented Ed Brooks did. He took 9 different songs and squeezed life into them.

One could take that statement and ask…”hey, don’t you mean squeezed life *out* of them…?” The answer would still be the same. He squeezed, pulled, lifted, and compressed the 24bit/44.1 units into something whole and new. He gave them life.

Rob Sharp of The Playroom Studio came in with the tracks and we went to work. Rob is someone who I think will continue to grow in the local music world. He has a great sense of sound dynamics, and most of all he really cares. I would recommend him in a heartbeat. Hell, he put up with me and my schedule for the past 2-1/2 years.

Probably the most exciting thing about the mastering session to me was the education. There was no judging about my music. No looking down upon was done. There was only a free flowing giving of the experience that Ed has amassed over his long career. That is why I love this hobby…coming across people who share the passion of creation.

Now that the disc is mastered…I am trying to figure out what I want to do with it. For that reason I didn’t even get a CD or VINYL master. I will decide that later…

Since I am not really in a hurry…I am going to spend a month sending out mailers, emails, blog requests. If I can find a home for this disc that will help with getting it out to the people that should hear it, then I would love that.

Would you like to hear a track? Shoot me a message and I will let you hear one.

What artists rarely remember about the “NOW” in music…

Published on 12/22/2009 in Music. 0 Comments Tags: , , , .

Hello world…

I thought I would share a little article I found that I thought was very nicely thought out. It is a great summary of the little things that can quickly get forgotten.

That music is the thing that is supposed to matter, and if someone doesn’t get the message, or doesn’t understand your form/shape of the art…then it should be considered their loss and not yours.

The energy spent trying to convert would be much better spent creating…

Hope you enjoy:

http://www.musicthinktank.com/blog/10-mistakes-bands-and-musicians-make.html

PS…I hear from Rob Sharp at The Playroom that the final mixes with the outboard LA2A and 1156 compressor’s are turning out silky.

I am getting very excited to bring this full length debut out to the world.

Happy Holidays to you and yours!