Band Story V

Alright, so I started my junior year of college after spending the summer working a ridiculous summer job all the while completing my first full length solo album and playing my first show solo.

I moved into a beat up, rat infested college house right next to a soup kitchen with some friends and started preparing to start playing live shows at my college oh and study I suppose.

Right away I started making copies of the album and passed it out to my friends and soon enough I had recruited a buddy to play second guitar and began the preparations to put on a ridiculous, beer fueled bar performance that would allow me to play my songs, all the while entertaining the beer swigging frat boy types in the back. We played a first show at a college owned bar to a pretty packed place and it went pretty well, I mean I feel we rocked out pretty hard and such and overall I was happy with the show.

I began thinking of trying to set up more shows in the coming months, but then I decided out of the blue that I was going to move to England for 6 months as I was growing generally disallusioned with the whole college house party/bar thing and just wanted to take a break for a while.

During the month before I left for England I started writing a handful of new songs. They were more serious, sappy, soul searching type songs that didn't really fit in with the stuff I was doing before.

I met up with my friend who had done all my recording in the past, and my cousin on lead guitar and recorded what would eventually become another 4 song ep. We started using more complex arrangements as well as working in a lot more piano than we had in the past. I personally think it was some of my better writing.

At the same time, I didn't end up doing much with it other than giving it to a few friends and shortly after I left the country.

Unfortunately I wasn't able to bring any of my guitars over the ocean, so once I got to England I wasn't initially able to play. Over time I went over to an old guitar shop in town and picked up a shitty, nylon stringed guitar and started practicing my new songs soon enough. After a couple of months, I decided to play the new tunes at a few English pubs which I thought went over pretty well, considering I was typically the only American playing.

Other than that I really didn't have much time for music. During that six months I traveled all over Europe, was exposed to all different kinds of cultures and people, and in the process drank a lot of beer. I won't go into great detail about that though, due to the fact that I covered my travels through Europe rather thoroughly in my book.