Listening to Nick Drake. We got alot done this week. Dave has "famous guy" stuff to do for the next two days, he's hosting the GPhoria Awards show for video games on Saturday with Carmen, and the next two days are in preparation for that. It's cool, cause I could use a little private working time.

Monday we worked on "Skin of Your Soul" and got it pretty solid. This one is now my favorite one to play. Might just call it "Skin"... jury's still out. We also did some work on "Half Hearted" and ran all the other ones.

I collected a list of the band names that had made it through our 4-man bullshit filter, so we could see them all in one place, and maybe vote and pick a few per guy and see if there was some overlap, and that might show us something. Dave and I had been brainstorming on some new names the night before ( I had to let my frontrunner name go, just wasn't going to happen) and we were ready to set one. When we all sat around and brainstormed, Dave's very first band name came up again, and it sounded pretty good. We were hashing through one name after another, then all of a sudden he shouts - "Guys, how about "___ ____ ______"? And for the first time with the name hunting, all four of us smiled and said "Oh, yeah - that's ...a good one". Not that there is alot of disagreeing, but with band names, like I've said, there is always someone with a veto or some band already has it. ALWAYS. This time, unanimous... It ended up being one word from Dave's very first name, before we even had officially joined up together, and another word from the previous night's brainstorming. Like we had a piece from the band's beginning, and a piece  from the fruits of all the trial and error of discovery. I am being vague because we will spill it in the next few days. I bought the domain, and posted a page... somewhere out there on the internet is our new home. Being a Gemini (ok, I halfway think astrological profiling is a massive load, and half have to own up to the fact that the Gemini "description" fits me alarmingly well.) That night I was waffling back and forth on the name, loving it, not loving it, mocking it up to see how it looked in a logo, and wondering if it was the name. Yesterday the name sank in, and now I love it. More discussion on it when we announce.

Yesterday in rehearsal we worked on "The Loophole" and fleshed out the chorus, and found some great new parts that are making the song much stronger. "She Won't Last" and "The Loophole" were two of the first tunes we wrote together back at Perkins' garage, and now with all the new songs sounding so good, so much more like a band, the "older" jams are benefitting from some fresh examination.

Still playing Dave's old/new jam as an instrumental til I have my parts dreamed up. Today we gave "She Won't Last" one more bit of focus, and It sounds better than ever. Same thing as "The Loophole" - we are getting used to playing more and more, so the earlier stuff can be turbocharged now. It sounded passionate and hyper dramatic today. Afterward, everybody laughed and was stoked. When something synergizes, sounds greater than the sum of it's parts, it's intoxicating.

I read a post on 6767.com where someone implied that I have pull at MTV since I used to be VJ back in the day. And that is some reason why the guys might have wanted to play with me. I guess I would probably think the same thing ... if I wasn't me. In case any of my avid readers are under this impression, let me clear it up for you. I have absolutely no "pull" at the old "M". I worked there for a year and a half over a decade ago, and have no ties with anybody there. I wish all of the people I worked with well, but I'm just kind of crappy at keeping in touch. I have written an email or two to Kian, the super-cool makeup girl, and to Alex Coletti, the producer of MTV Unplugged when my Skycycle record was finished. I sent him a CD, cause of all the people who worked at MTV, he seemed by far the coolest, and the most into music as a fan. One of these days, I will unload the whole MTV saga for those interested, up until now I have had such a chip on my shoulder about it, but as time goes by, it settles in my memory as an amazing trip, and one I am glad to have had. My two years in New York were a frigging circus, and while I think I probably would do it differently if I had to again, I know that every experience is a good one if you can grow from it.

In a nutshell, I was hired because I was a musician, and got all hyper when I talked about music I liked, and my downfall (and why they fired me) was that I wasn't so good at talking about music I didn't like. Right after I got hired, Nirvana broke, and MTV was, for a brief and shining time, all about GREAT BANDS: Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Alice in Chains, Smashing Pumpkins, etc. (I know it's hard to imagine watching it now... but there used to be music on MTV)

Hey, it was fun for a while; I got to go to Spain, saw tons and tons of shows, got to live in New York, and most importantly (and most painfully) lost some of my naivete about the music business. I have some crazy stories I will have to lay on you sometime about that.

Anyway, the point is, I don't have any magic connections to MTV that make me any kind of asset to the guys. I mean, please; Dave just finished his own reality show on MTV, I think they will take his calls just fine without any help from little old me.

Some people go to college, some people get jobs out of high school, I was fortunate enough to get to pay rent by talking about music I loved on MTV... for a while, it was great.

Well that's it for today. I am debating being as forthcoming as I have been in this Blog in the future. All the stuff I write about the songwriting process, and exactly what happens in rehearsal, etc. On one hand, I think that I as a reader would be really into a band being frank and honest about what they do to make music, and on the other hand, it can be a mystery killer. On the third hand, I want to read this back someday as a diary and relive these exciting times, and since I have always been awful at keeping a journal, this will have to do.

Not sure...