While it may not be everybody's bag I've spent the last few years in and out of bands and recording various music projects.


From 2008-2010 I was in a pop-punk band called "FireSky Future" (it sounded good at the time) and we self-recorded a nifty little album called Local Tragedy, click to listen to it in it's entirety. I sing lead on tracks 2, 3, 8, and the chorus on tracks 1 & 10, as well bass for the whole record.

more in the next post

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After the band broke up I went through a ton of ridiculous life bullshit and recorded a electro-pop-rap kinda dealy record under the guise of ELEVATOR. I called the record Second Effort/Third Shift (click to listen) and I was fairly proud of how it turned out. There's also a handful of covers and a compilation of demos on that bandcamp page, most of which are forgettable but check them out too if you wish.

I've pretty much bailed on recording as I don't have the time or inspiration to do it anymore, but considering I got about 4 years worth of awesome live shows and a handful of albums and great experiences while only having maybe 3 grains of talent, I wouldn't change a thing.

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There are some nice songs there. The Elevator stuff isn't exactly my cup of tea, but FireSky Future is definitely something I'd listen to. It's a little slicker than I'd like, but it's as good as a lot of popular bands that play a similar style.

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Freedom is our Strength.

Thats pretty cool. I didn't have time to listen to the 2nd album but the 1st one sounds like alot of stuff I would listen to. Did you ever get to play the local stage at Warped tour?

You say your location is Champaigne. There was a punk band from there I saw live and liked to rock out to...the copyrights. Ever do a show with them?

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That's my purse! I don't know you!

Thanks man. I was hoping to venture into something a bit more alternative, ala RHCP but they wanted to get even poppier. Naturally my first instinct after the breakup was to record basically a pop record.

The Elevator sound was basically singing over various loops and samples that I'd frankenstein together. Some of it turned out kinda lame, but there's a few songs I felt could make the airwaves if I cared enough to promote them.



We were actually out of Charleston at the time, but we played the Canopy Club a few times. Never played with The Copyrights, but to be honest I listened to so many local bands at that time I may have come across them.

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Yeah, our co-lead vocalist was really into both of those bands and penned that one to let everybody know we were well aware of how we already sounded like a bunch of sell outs. Unfortunately as much as I liked his songwriting at the time he was dead set on making something that was "Boys Like Girls"-esque, which didn't sit well with me at all, but obviously that was years ago.

The one major thing that being in a band taught me was that in the Internet Age of Music, it is virtually impossible to make anyone give a fuck about anything.

Ever.

People adept at social networking have 0 tolerance for anything even closely resembling what could be determined as spam, so promotion is futile. We busted our asses for two years trying to generate awareness and line up shows around the country but unless you have a massive trust fund from your family to buy a really high quality music video and virtually perfect quality pro recording, nobody will give a shit. There's so much exposure that it all becomes white noise now, and the masses are immune to looking to local music.

Local places to play get shut down all the time, and the industry has a very fearful grip on what control it has left. Nobody will do you any favors, nobody will lend you a hand. The worst part is central Illinois was a musical wasteland for our genre of music, so we'd burn hundreds of dollars hauling our shit to Milwaukee, Chicago, St. Louis, etc to play a show or even just to hand out flyers or business cards. When you put in countless hours of work and so much money into something to get nothing out of it, it's one of the more crushing moments in life. Live and learn, I guess.

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The story of Mest is pretty interesting

Local Band makes good
lead singer gets accused of stabbing
the end

Dewksie,
That's pretty cool. I will listen to it when I have some time. Not now though because I'm busy posting.

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favrefan said:"Chris Coghlan isn't gonna pay your rent, Jimmy."

Dewskie, when are you going to come out to jam with MFD (That's Darkside, Frank Coztansa, and Doug-EP's group)?

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I....I don't know?

If there really is such a group I could probably record vocals/guitar here and mix or ... whatever.

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He didn't just get accused....he killed the fucking guy, but it was ruled self defense so he was cleared.

I used to really like them but I've tired of their older work. They had a new album recently that sounds alot more mature and better.

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That's my purse! I don't know you!