Huff And Puff. Issue #67

I posted a bunch of new shows away from Seattle for later this Fall (see my show widget), and will be playing this Saturday at Kyra Wines in Moses Lake. The winery will be having their Fall tasting event on September 20th and tickets are $35 each for dinner and wine tasting. For more info or to reserve a place at the event by emailing info@kyrawines.com.


I'll be playing for 3 hours that night, which is one of the many reasons I've taken up running again. Now I know I'm a little guy, but the late 20's metabolism shift seems to spare no one, including me. When I perform solo, it's pretty chill stage energy wise but earlier in the summer at the COLLIDER shows I noticed that I was getting winded by some things that never had affected me before and was hinted the fact that I might not be in as good a cardio-shape as I have been in the past.

Too much information? Possibly, but this blog is about the good AND the ugly side of music...

Seriously though, I realized that that was NO GOOD and decided this summer to get back into some good exercise habits. I was a hardcore swimmer up until the end of High School and though I LOVE swimming, the thought of starting with running was a little more convenient. I'm not the music guy that has a pool in the backyard...yet. ;)


I've been trying really hard to consistently get up @ 6:00 AM and head out for what I tracked out to be 2.8 miles, and religiously doing some yoga DVD's that were recommended to me for about 4 days a week. My hope is that I can develop some long term habits (besides having to have the toilet paper roll face a certain way) and that it all will benefit my performing and inspire the writing with all the good chemicals flying around in there. Honestly, I'm pretty envious of fellow performing musicians that can eat like crap, drink like fish and can perform without being worse for it. Me, I'm not built like that for whatever reason and there's NO way in hell I'm letting people pay for tickets to see somebody sing half ass cause their butt needs to start running. Maybe it's just me, but that's what I expect out of performers I see at shows.

You?


KS

The Other Side, The RNC, and The VMA's. Issue #66

Last Sunday I stopped by the Fremont Farmers Market on a brisk morning with the family. It had been a while since I had been to "The Center Of The Universe" for a reason other than to play at one of the area's clubs, and for once it was nice to be greeted by smell of pastries and coffee instead urine and beer.


I always try to stop and look at the vendor art not only cause I like it, but because I'm sensitive to the cause since my Mom has done the same thing for years. It's a tough living; the days you make a good sale are almost as many in number as the days you sell nothing at all. Still, what I've gathered from her and from my own experience is that the connections you make with people from all over are a big part of what makes the hard times worth while. I stumbled across a woman selling "Pillow Monsters" (cute trendy couch art), and upon scoping out her tent further discovered she was was a psychic/intuitive. Now, up until this point I had never sat down for a reading in my life but not for a lack of wanting to. Most times I see readings available they're for a staggering price of $85 on average for a 1 hour session, and every time I decide it's ultimately not worth it. This time I was told the price was $15 for 15 min. and took her up on her offer. What intrigued me first about this woman was that she didn't have the "look" of what pop-culture would tell us a psychic looks like. She looked like your average REI Mom and when she described what she did there was no theater and was very matter-of-fact about the whole thing. This was what she does, what her family has always done, and how she made part of her living.

Fair enough.

She and I walked over to her table at the back of the tent, sat me down, and had me hold out my hands for my "initial" palm reading. Before we started my session the cynic in me thought I should survey my "situation". I was dressed pretty non-descript, and was confident that I wasn't giving away any "tells" that she could read off of. Hitting the timer she stared at my hands for a few seconds, looked up at me, and told me things one right after another that she couldn't have known any other way than the fact that she had a gift.

She told me that my parent's were divorced when I was little, and that a huge line between my right index finger/thumb was a "damaged line" as a result of that and subsequently having pneumonia and other illnesses very young from being an upset little guy. She told me that I had a little brown dog (no hair on me) that was one of my best friends and with whom I had a very strong connection. She told me I was a songwriter and that I had always "done that" in every one of my past lives; that when I got my first guitar at 13 I knew that was the thing for me. I found myself shocked and obviously unprepared for the experience; for someone who didn't know me at all to tell me so many things completely true about myself. Still, it wasn't creepy in the slightest. She had the aura of being completely confident with what she was telling me, and her relaxed demeanor put me at ease in my initial discomfort. For the next 13 minutes she continued to tell me some other things that I'm not going to list here, but know that it was a very inspiring and emotionally rewarding experience.

I've told a few people about it since then and what I'm met with 70% of the time is laughter and immense skepticism. That's understandable. I get it. I honestly don't even really have my final thoughts on the experience dialed in yet, but I'd by lying if I said I haven't thought about it every day, a couple times a day since then. My partial conclusion is that though true there is a world of scam artists out there, it is equally true that there is a world that we know nothing about. A very cool experience that I would recommend to anyone who has any interest at all...


On the other end of the human spectrum of coolness was last week's RNC Convention. Before you throw up, I assume if you're like me you're sick to death of the coverage, and also if you're like me there's a 1000 other bloggers who can write about it better. That said, I'll make it brief. People don't like being lied too. People are smarter than they are given credit for. People aren't scared anymore. The big win of the RNC Con? "THE DAILY SHOW" is becoming one of the new 7 WONDERS OF THE WORLD. Can you imagine being a writer for a show that never has to worry about a lack of material? I can and I dream about it everyday...


This weekend was the showing of MTV's 2008 VMA's. I, a lot my musician friends, and friends in general have given up on MTV but for some reason the VMA Awards hold a place in my heart. For a skinny kid with big rock dreams growing up before the internet age, it was the place where I would be able to sit and watch live performances/interviews with parents; where I could could show them a piece of who I was. My little sister, baby brother, and my parents would order pizza, sit down for a night of amazing live performances, and wait for the inevitable comment from my Mom, "O.K, I feel old...I don't know who half of these people are!" Eventually, that would become "ANY of these people!" I specially remember the summer ('93?) where I was heavily into two bands on the polar opposites of mainstream music, COUNTING CROWS and GREEN DAY. I listened to "August and Everything After" and "Dookie" RELIGIOUSLY and freaked out when I realized my heroes would actually be performing and my parents were going to see who they were despite my months of ineffective description. Their performances KICKED ASS as I would sit cross-legged in my Green day t-shirt with braced mouth agape in rock-god worship. I remember looking back for their approval; wondering if their minds were blown as much as mine was. I remember telling my sister to SHUT-UP during the solo lest I miss a magical moment that I would have to blame her for forever. Don't get me wrong, a large part of the awards have always been crap but the difference now is that I no longer see MY heroes at the event. These are other peoples heroes and thus is natural order of things. I'll never see R.E.M. deliver an alternate version of "Drive" again, or have the opportunity to be exposed to NEIL YOUNG via a jam with PEARL JAM on "Rocking In The Free World". This is the stuff that raised me and it's sad to know it's time has passed in the eyes of today's network programmers and show producers. I'm not ready to quote my Mom's "I feel old" declaration yet, but after watching the awards I feel the current pulling me that way. But then again there's always next year...

Before I go please notice the "Followers" link on the top right panel. This is a new feature that Blogger recently posted, and I would appreciate it if YOU would add yourself to the list. It's nice to know who's reading and let's me get a view across the other side of the fence. Thanks. :)

KS

Catching Up (Ketchuping). Issue #65

I'm looking out the window of THE ORANGE ROOM and I'm asking myself, "Where did Summer go?"

Was it here and no one told me or was I slipped a Ruffie with a three-month duration and everyone's got amazing story's of warm weather and vacations to share? Really weird. Fall is my favorite season but even I have to hold off on changing seasons mentally. Either way, it looks like the next couple of weeks will be "Spring-esque" in feeling so enjoy it while you can!

Though this blog is about music, it would be totally artificial to bring you constant stories of studio magic and 100% performance glory. That's not real life (no matter how much I would like it to be). Instead, for me it's all about the stuff inbetween that fuels the fire to make the successes that much more so. If this blog entry seems completely random, well then you're right. In between working simultaneously on 2 (holy crap) albums there's been a lot of stuff I haven't sat back to reflect on that I would have liked to so if this entry is a selfish one so be it; this is the stuff that matters most...




Our really good neighbor friends "The Maleks" (Joe, Tiff, and Kai) moved away to San Diego a few weeks ago and after a whirlwind moving frenzy in the last few days I realized how much I'm really going to miss them. After a first impression of thinking we had some nice Mexican neighbors (really 1/2 Japanese/Filipino), the Wifey and I quickly bonded over laughs with this really nice family and their cute as hell kid Kai. You may recognize him as the "Little Devil" from my "Sparkle And Fall" video.




Over the past year, they have really become family to us and I really cherish the connection we have. They had also let me turn 4 year-old Kai into an action figure/superhero addict and let me poke, trip, douse with water and whatever trauma I wanted to inflict on him happen without blinking. They have also been constant supporters of what I do and I've highly valued their unique perspectives during times of struggle. Truly great people and San Diego is lucky to have them...




I love weddings. It's just a good time with a lot of great vibes going around. Everyone looks nice, and it's one of the few places you can dance with your family. Did I mention I really love weddings? A few weekends ago, I went to my cousin Jayme's wedding on Camano Island for a beachfront ceremony under a beautiful August sunset. I don't really see this side of my family very much, but I like 'em more and more when I do. We took the Grandparents for what as I stated on Twitter was a "double date that found it's median somewhere roughly in the early 1970's." Think about that one...
A beautiful night!








Last week's APPLE BASEBALL 2008 video trumped the KIRBY KRACKLE performance review (subjective), but I couldn't let it go without saying a few words about it. Invited by the guys from THE COMIC STOP to perform at their summer BBQ, the goal was to debut a few of the KIRBY KRACKLE songs (about comics/geek culture) to the belly of the beast (comic/geek culture fans). Easy enough right? Hmmmm...needless to say I was a little nervous to witness the first impression as the audience for this kinda stuff will MAKE or BREAK you without a second thought. I should know...I'm one of them.
Donning my "X-Men" shirt (when in Rome) I played a 1/2 set of my solo material and then ended with three of the KK songs to a thankfully enthusiastic crowd. KK co-writer JIM DEMONAKOS and I took some constructive feedback and left with a sense of what worked and what could be improved on. Considering these are songs about subjects that people feel a life-long investment in, it's really in our best interest to get feedback like that should we inadvertently "wreck" someone's childhood with an inaccurate JUSTICE LEAGUE reference...:)





We recently finished playing host to in-laws from ARKANSAS and decided to mark their visit with a overnight trip to Victoria, B.C. It's always been a special place for me because it reminds me of High School Marching Band trips (3 years in a row), and the only time a girlfriend has ran away from me down the street yelling. That's a story for another time though...

Victoria is great because it still tries to tread the line between a full fledged tourist mecca and a attitude of, "Oh, I'm sorry I didn't know you were here." It's a place where you can still get excited about "Maple Candy", cute old ladies sweeping the sidewalk as they open for business, and drooling in front of bakery windows. Speaking of those bakeries, the day I go postal it won't be with me shooting anyone, it'll be me TEARING THOSE PLACES UP. Mmmmm...fruit tarts. If you've never been, make sure you get up there and see a little piece of the U.K. close to home. Oh, and try not to have your car battery die in the middle of the ferry line. FAIL. Butchart Gardens? WIN!











I think that brings stuff up to speed! I'll leave you with a little story that will dissolve your possible false views that plants don't have souls. This has been the summer of yardwork (wake up, it gets better...) and specifically removing a HUGE tree in the front yard. This beast has been constantly dripping sap on us, and not in the sexy way.


(?)


Some workers came out to cut it down, I subsequently learned Vietnamese in 3 days, and the world kept rotating as it should. After all the clean-up was finished and everyone had left, I walked past the HUGE pile of trimmed branches all cut into 18" sections that the workers had stacked nicely and approached the fallen tree stump.
Upon looking closer, I could count the rings to see that the tree was 49 years-old and I felt bad for it. My desire to not clean sap off of my car anymore was more important that this huge life I had just ended. I thought to myself, "Sorry, tree", and walked away. Not more than 2 seconds later...the ENTIRE FREAKING PILE of stacked branches came down as I walked past. To quote my neighbor Lita, "The Ent has fallen, and he's pissed!"



I'M SO CURSED.


KS

Apple Baseball Season 2. Issue #64

There's nothing I can say that the following video can't. Though happening irregularly since 1993, APPLE BASEBALL (Official) Season 2 came and went in an action packed 45 minutes. Till next year...






Applesauce (No High Fructose),

KS

KIRBY KRACKLE. Issue #63

I’m sitting here in Edmonds waiting to pick up my dog from getting his full body Brazilian and listening to Bob Marley. In the past few years, Marley has turned into one of my top 10 favorite artists off all time and I can’t believe I hadn’t discovered my love for him earlier in life.

Parents: Make your kids listen to Legend as part of their daily chore routine, but if they’re Caucasian don’t let them grow dreads. THAT doesn’t look good on any white boy. Moving on …

Last week I said that I’d shed some light on a new project that I’m recording in "The Orange Room" at the same time as COLLIDER is working on our new album. . The new project I want to share with you goes by the name of
KIRBY KRACKLE, and here's a little back story on how KK came to be….


If you’ve been reading this blog for a while it’s pretty obvious that I’m a hardcore comic fan and a fan of that corner of Pop-Culture in general. In 2004 right after the dissolution of my band Laymans Terms I began playing around with the idea of writing music based around comic books, their story lines, and all that encompasses the world of our four-colored friends. I shared my idea with some who I thought would dig it and tried to feel out if anyone other than me thought the idea had any merit. I was greeted with as many
“Hell Yeah’s!” as I was blank stares, and shelved the idea for starting a new “traditional” rock band in the short-lived ULTRAVIOLET.



Fast forward a few years, and the idea came up again while talking to good friend and COMIC STOP co-owner Brian Meredith. We both got excited about the idea again being that it hadn’t been tried before except in the vein of 3-chord spazz outs by a few bands yelling “Spiderman! Spiderman!” over and over again. We thought it could be done better, and both agreed that the material deserved much more respect than that. A few months later Brian came up with the name referring to original MARVEL Comic’s artist Jack Kirby and the common description of his “energy” based drawings.

Fast forward to Winter of 2008 when COMIC STOP co-owner Jim Demonakos and I sat down to flesh the idea out and to see how it would really work, if at all. Maybe there was a reason it hadn’t been tried before? At first I found it really hard to wrap my brain around a completely different way of writing, but it seems that in the last few months we’ve hit our stride. Jim and I are so excited to be writing and recording songs about a subject we’ve loved our whole lives, and if you’re a fan of comics, movies, and games we know you’ll love these songs as well. It’s bizarre that it’s an almost completely untapped corner of music and if it’s true when they say they say write what you know, then between Jim and I we know A LOT of geeky shit. Does this replace my current music styling? Not at all, but I’m excited to have another outlet and to make this experiment finally happen.

Today, KIRBY KRACKLE launches our myspace site www.myspace.com/kirbykracklemusic from where you can hear our first Demo offering for the song, “One Of The Guys”. We are currently recording our debut E.P., and plan to have it released by the end of the year. We’ll also be launching a new blog in the next few weeks that follows our progress with the project, and that is where I’ll be doing most of my talking about KK from now on, so stay tuned for where you can find that. A HUGE special thanks to JG Roshell from COMICRAFT for designing the KK logo you see above. JG and COMICRAFT have done many big mainstream comic title logo designs, and you’ve seen their work on TV having created the “Heroes” logo for NBC. Thanks guys!

Other than KK you can imagine things have been pretty intense focusing on recording two albums, and we’re getting close to finishing the first studio offering from COLLIDER. Whew…off to work. :)


Excelsior!


KS

Thank You Mr. Wooten. Issue #62

I'm sitting here in THE ORANGE ROOM (my studio) with Zicam in one hand and a Kleenex in the other while listening to the sound of chainsaws dropping trees that are narrowly missing my roof in the backyard. Surprisingly, this is the first time I've been sick this year and I'm guessing it's my body making me take a break. Nose is running, progress is happening. Is this called life balance? I digress...


Last Wednesday COLLIDER rocked the Highdive with new friends IRIS I and marked the occasion as the last show with our bass player Mark Wooten. Mark served for the past year as the bassist for both COLLIDER and KYLE STEVENS BAND, and was a pleasure to work with during that time. Having exclusively played with punk bands in the past, Mark entered into a different type of world signing up as the low-end maker for both band's various brands of Rock-Pop. As the senior member of our tribe he continuously shared road dog stories of years past from a time when bands didn't care how many MySpace friends they had, and the guys from Pearl Jam worked at your local coffee shop. His energy and enthusiasm was something that I felt fortunate to have as someone who was throwing his hat back into music after having taken time off from having a full band. It's always somewhat of a sad thing when members of bands part ways even if it's on good terms because you become a sort of family from having spent many hours creating in close quarters. I'm glad for the time he gave to us and wish him nothing but the best in all he does. I also will miss the daily inappropriate jokes handed out from what he gathered working at his construction site that day. What's the difference between Jam and Jelly you ask? I wish I could tell you, but since there are possible young minds reading (and I like ruining those as much as the next person), you'll have to ask him at the next show. Trust me, it's a good one...




And what was that about my body making me take a break? It could be that I have a problem with taking on too much but that's how we roll, you know? That said, next week I'll give an update on the the current state of the COLLIDER record, and introduce the name of a brand new project that is slated to be completed in the next few months.

"Another band Kyle? WTF??!?"

Not exactly, but something really fun...


Noich Noich Noich,

KS

Tales From The Eastside. Issue #61

I fired up the engines this past Saturday for a short weekend trip to Spokane to perform @ CATERINA WINERY. It was the first time I had made the trip back there since the mini-tour last fall and being long overdue I was anxious to get back. Matt Edington accompanied me on electric guitar as I wanted to try something new by having him create soundscape textures behind the stripped down acoustic versions of my songs. A trusted Garmin GPS in hand we set forth across the pass that morning stopping only once for lunch and a piece of lemon-meringue pie. You can probably guess from the lyrics to "Thicker Than Leather" that I kinda have a pie fetish and the decision between what to get from the cornucopia-esque assortment proved to be the most stressful part of the trip...


After arriving in Spokane around 4:00-ish and having a few hours to kill we got to walk around downtown (where Caterina is located), and check out some local spots. I found a new venue that I would love to perform at and had a chance to check out the infamous "Merilyn's Comics". The sign on the outside said that it was "gamer day" and after stepping inside to be greeted by the stench of unwashed fanboys I completely believed it. Much bigger than my local shop but nowhere as good. COMIC STOP 4 LIFE.

After stopping back at the hotel clean up and pick the bugs out we departed for the show. Upon walking into Caterina I remembered something I loved so much about it. THE SMELL. Oh excuse me, I mean the "AROMA" if any connoisseurs are reading. The same vibe I get when I walk into a brewery; the feeling that GOOD THINGS are made here. I'm not going into a wine based description (would sound totally ignorant) but just trust me to stop in if you're ever around that way.


Some folks sharing the bill with me that night were SHANNON CURTIS, and DAVE HANNON BAND. Shannon was on the last leg of her 5 week tour and let me pick her brain for a good while on what that has been like since I'm moving in that direction. She treated the crowd to her beautiful voice and very well written songs. Dave Hannon was also a nice surprise in the fact that he was one of the nicest musicians I have ever met. We hope to do a mini-tour together in the beginning of the next year here and that's going to be really fun. Head of booking at Caterina is Patrick Kendrick, a busy, busy man who has worked very hard to make Caterina one the the fastest growing venues in Spokane. All booking agents should follow his example and it's always a pleasure to work with professionals like that as it just makes the whole night better. Matt and I had the middle slot of the evening and I felt a little extra pressure to put on a good show since I was following Shannon's crazy good vocals. I felt the show went well, enjoyed the different animal that was just Matt and I, and decided that that was something I wanted to explore more of in future shows.


After leaving the show we grabbed some late night eats close to the hotel and found myself ending the evening with a dish of "Wasabi-Apple" ice cream. Yes, "Wasabi-Apple". What did it taste like? Well, I'd tell you but my simple brain cannot come up with a description of what your mouth feels like when it's on fire and freezing at the same time. Truly unnatural and another omen of the end times only this time not found on FOX News.


Before I go this week please note that COLLIDER will be performing this Wednesday, August 6th @ The HIGHDIVE in Fremont. The show is +21 (oh man!), $6 at the door, and will be the only show of the summer as we continue work on the new album. This show is also our bass player Mark's last show with both COLLIDER/KYLE STEVENS BAND so come out and give him a proper send off!


Be Well,

-Kyle