Vote For Jered's photo!

Many of you remember this shot that I photoshopped myself into from the Switchfoot show. Well, our great friend Jered Scott has entered the original photo into a VH1 music photography contest of sorts.

He could use ALL of the votes he can get! So, please go here and VOTE NOW. He has until the 31st and he really does deserve to win with a shot like this:




Please note: you DO have to sign up for a VH1 account in order to vote, but it's no big deal. Feel free to make up bogus information about yourself as well.

Once again, go here to vote!!!

Merry Christmas!

So, for the second year in a row, my wife, her sister and I are recording a few songs of re-worked hymns for our parents as a personal [and cost-effective] Christmas gift. You can listen to last year's here.



This year, to spice it up, we decided to add some pictures onto the package. So, thanks to our good friend, Jered Scott, we have this to show for it:






And a few of me, "hans solo":






Okay, so maybe that last one is a bit over the top.

Stay tuned for more photos from the studio and clips of the three of us and this year's project!

Anatomy Of A Christmas Cover Song

Being in the spirit of Christmas, my good buddy Matt [Courage Call] and I decided to record a last minute Christmas Song. Now, when choosing a cover song, one must abide by a few key rules...
1. The song cant be too too famous.
2. The artist must no longer be performing said song.
3. [and most important] The song MUST date back to a time period between 1986 - 1994.
Using these guidelines, we were forced to choose none other than Mariah Carey's "All I Want For Christmas." An Obvious choice.


At first, the thought was just to do a shot gun recording for our Myspaces, but as we got more involved in the arrangement and ideas started to pour, we decided to do a full production and invite some of our friends down to join in.

I used my computer to snap some shots throughout the session for your viewing pleasure. Thanks to Apple's Photobooth, we are all now left handed.

Enjoy!


Our good friend Tyler [Amaradio] came down to play some drums for us. All the arrangements are square so its time to start tracking.



Matt thought it'd be funny to hold the headphone chord while i was playing. Unfortunately it was. Turns out, many things are funny at 2am.


Here, matt demonstrates how large his... triton is. Again...2am.

Matt had a great idea where the bridge of the song drops out to just stomps, claps and a large gang vocal. So we threw up a couple mics on a wooden stage and got to stompin'.

Next Comes the Vocals!!!


Hey! Amanda showed up!


Problem... Turns out Mariah was very talented and sang some challenging vocal lines. At this point we're having a hard time with a melody in the third verse.

hmmm....


NICE!!! Now for a little background vocals...


A couple of last minute edits and voi la!!! Its as simple as that! Take a LISTEN and let us know what you think... and then buy me something for Christmas.

New Song Up on Myspace!

Hey all,

Josh posted the song that was picked up by Reaper on his myspace earlier today. We'd love to get some comments about the song so go listen and come back to tell us what you think!!

The song is called Tell Me! Remember, it was supposed to be along the lines of the punk/rock band Jet. How do you think he did??

Recording Session Gone Bad...

This weekend, i had the opportunity to co-write and play bass/guitar on a song with producer Philip Steir. Philip and I go way back. We met in San Francisco in 2002, when we worked on "Engage," my first band's sophomore album. Since then, we've worked on a whole heap of great projects together. So when i got the call for this, i agreed without question.

The song [which will be used for an independent food documentary due out in 2009ish... i think] was supposed to be kind of a dark, eerie piano piece. Think Tori Amos meets "American Beauty" meets "Nightmare Before Christmas." I'm always down for something challenging. But for me and my pop-rock background, this definitely stretched my boundries. In the end it turned out pretty sweet, but while writing and recording i spent about 11 hours in a 55 degree tracking room. Low and behold, today I wake up with a lovely sinus infection.

I'm ready to start a new week filled with song writing, Emergen-C, and hittin' the Singer's Saving Grace pretty hard until I feel my flawless self again.