Robots, Crepes and 3-day B-days; We Did It Ourselves In April, 2015

Hello again,

April has been quite a month. A lot has happened. I had yet another birthday. I am now 24. I have this thing where every year around my birthday I feel older. It's bizarre. I can't say I love the feeling. I've felt like an old man since I was about 14 years old though, so I'm used to it. I've learned to take that feeling with a grain of salt — Although, not too much salt – got to start watching that sodium intake am I right? 

I'm kidding-ish. The trouble is each birthday I actually am getting older, so you see where my concern lies...

That said, I did my birthday right this year with the birth of a new tradition; the 3-day B-day. It is exactly what it sounds like. Not 1, not 2, but 3 days of fun. This is something I plan on repeating every year and I encourage you to try it for yourselves. You'll be amazed at the results. 

Speaking of Me...

I kicked off the month with my first solo acoustic show at First Friday Photography showing of Conner Quinto's work. It was fun.

It was also quite a joy to simply marvel at the truly stunning photographs taken by Mr. Quinto, who incidentally is the man responsible for the cinematography and lots of editing on the "Robot Song" and "She's a Freak" music videos for my band, My Stupid Brother.. The cat can shoot... and edit. 

Speaking of My Stupid Brother and Robots...

I guess the big news for me this month is that the video for MSB's "Robot Song" is finally done. The response has been great so far, so thank you for watching/liking/commenting/sharing.

 I'm really proud of the video and feel lucky to have been a part of it. So much work went into this over the last year and I couldn't be more grateful to the whole crew, especially our director Nathan Kit Kennedy as well as technical director Garret Landon and the aforementioned Conner Quinto.

Thanks also to everyone who "kicked in" on the Kickstarter. It couldn't have happened without you. Your rewards are on their way.

Here is the link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HPT6d855hSk

We celebrated the release with an extraordinarily fun show at the Crepe Place in Santa Cruz which featured some special appearances, not the least of which was our old drummer, the ol' badass himself, Jesse Wilkinson, who sat in for 4 songs. It was the first time we've played together on stage in 5 years and it felt just like old times.

Thanks to all of you who came out and sang and clapped along. Also, thanks to SUBPAR, who opened up the evening.

Speaking of Jesse Wilkinson and SUBPAR...

I love recording music. In addition to my EP — which has been moving along nicely BTW, or "by the way" if your not hip to my abbreviation — I've been finding myself recording other people's projects. Most recently, I recorded aforementioned SUBPAR's self-titled, full length debut which was a blast. They set up and tracked all but vocals and some solos live. We tracked everything in a day. They played well and the album pleases me. 

I've also been working on aforementioned Jesse Wilkinson's new project, Talk Slow. It's is sounding really cool. Ajay Morrison, current MSB drummer has also been doing his new project, Barren Counters' EP with me. Those cats can both play drums, bass and guitar. Not too shabby.

My Stupid Brother has had nearly  as many drummers as Spinal Tap, and I feel happy to say that I've gotten to record 3 out of 4 of the MSB drummers' other projects over the last year or so. All them cats gots claws. Lookout. 

Speaking of Drumming...

Been another fun month of shows for the Coffis Brother's (the band I drum in.) So many highlights lowlights, black lights, and spotlights, I couldn't begin to go into all the details. 

One particular highlight comes to mind though. We were part of a really cool local festival by the name of D.I.O. Fest, or Do It Ourselves Festival if your not into abbreviations. It was a weekend long camping type festival with a big sense of community. A lot of our band friends were there too, so we had people to hang out with which was greatly pleasing.

Thanks to Ryan Avellone of Brothers Comatose and McCoy Tyler of The Mccoy Tyler Band for sitting in with us. Let me tell you something.. those guys aint no house cats.. we're talking about a couple of guitar lions.

What can I say, we did it ourselves and boy did it feel good. 

In Conclusion...

If you're reading this while on the toilet I support you and hope you enjoyed your time there as well a this blog.

Talk soon,

-Henry