06/19/12

Now that the Arch Drive Goodbye CD, Artists United, and Taste of Tippecanoe projects are complete, I should be out of excuses for getting the blog in a day late!

Before we get into it, Happy Fathers Day to all the good dads out there and to all the moms of kids with bad dads too.

Most of my week was dominated by prepping for the Taste. I had meetings with vendors and volunteers one day, made sure the event tents were in good shape another day, and helped lug safes and other materials to a bank on a different day.

Additionally, I had the pleasure of joining Ric Mason on Z96-5 WAZY during the 7am hour for most of the week. Hanging with Christina Shipley, Little Boxes, Green Room Rockers, and Johnny Bhive from Tuesday through Friday, respectively, made waking up early worth it! Each act played a couple of unplugged tunes, read the weather, and announced birthdays live on the air.

Thanks to Mr. Mason and WAZY for having us and to the bands for knocking it out of the park. You dudes represent this town well! Double thanks to Johnny for letting me sit-in and jam the birthday song. :-)

I took a couple of opportunities to get out and play to clear my head too.

Lafayette Live was on Thursday night last week due to another event happening on Wednesday night at the theater. I wasn’t on the list to play, but I took my stuff anyway. I figured some peeps wouldn’t be able to fulfill their commitment with the date change and... I was right.

Here’s the set:

“Pocket and Soul”

“Settling”

“Amputee” – Oceansize cover

“Out of Our Hands”

On Friday night Joey (my little bro) and I teamed up to do an acoustic show downtown at Java Roaster.

Here's the set:

“Pocket and Soul”

“Amputee” – Oceansize cover

“My Rx”

“Zzyzx Rd” – Stone Sour cover

“Out of Our Hands”

“Imagine” – John Lennon/A Perfect Circle cover

“Before it Gets to Me”

---------------------------------

“Faithfully” – Journey cover

“No Second Chance” – Adrenaline cover

“Long Day” – Matchbox 20 cover

“Something Else is Something More” – Adrenaline cover

“Guilt that Keeps on Giving”

“Settling”

“Dear Reason”

“Black Balloon” – Goo Goo Dolls cover

I finished up by jamming some funny covers for laughs and smiles. Thanks to all that stopped in to fuel-up, sing along, heckle, and load the tip jar!

Between the show and being back downtown at 4am to start setting up the Taste, I managed to get home, unload gear, and grab a 4 hour nap.

Joey tagged along to lend a hand too.

We shut down the streets, put out logistics fires, directed traffic, gave a golf cart hell, and were gophers for Scott Freeman (Taste Event Director) for about 8 hours before heading back to IND HQ to grab another short nap & repack the van with heavy, loud gear.

Then the day became really interesting...

All week we had a 0% chance of storms in the forecast for Saturday. Since it was pretty hot during the day and, you know, the biggest party of the year was happening downtown, a couple of storms popped up during the afternoon.

As far as the Market Stage goes, Little Boxes sound-checked and then evacuated the stage when the weather got crazy enough to suspend the event. Luckily, it wasn’t a total wash for them and they busted out a couple of gems before Snorb! took the stage. 

The dudes in Snorb! have been buds of mine for quite some time. Actually, their bassist Grandon has done pretty much all of my guitar mods over the last 8 years. If you ever wondered who tricked out my Fender American Standard Dishastercaster, it was him!

The Snorb! set went off without a hitch; providing some sweet swirl for the crowd and creating a great build-up for Chris Stone and her super sick band. 

I was tickled to get to talk shop with Chris's drummer, Preston Nash (Dope, Primer 55) for a bit. Adrenaline opened for his solo group back in 2002 or 2003. While he remembered the show, I'm almost positive he had no idea who I was. :-)

It's all good, I did have a lot more hair then...

Anyway, those cats got a couple of songs into their set before another untimely storm and event suspension made an encore. Bummer. She’s a hell of a singer and the band was on fire!

Hopefully I can catch another of her shows really soon!!

Photo by Jason Morgan

The weather cleared up shortly after our time-slot was supposed to start, so we cut a few songs and pounded out some tunes.

Here’s the set:

“Guilt that Keeps on Giving”

“My Rx”

“Feed Me a Lie”

“Pocket and Soul”

“Heartkiller” – H.I.M. cover

“Before it Gets to Me”

“Settling”

“Boys of Summer” - Don Henley/The Ataris cover

“Out of Our Hands”

Photo by Jessica June

Kudos to Joey for working the crowd afterward and selling some Whistle When We Break Down CDs. What a bro!

After we finished up, Green Room Rockers stormed the stage; getting the crowd dancing to their signature Reggae/Soul sound. Those dudes are definitely a Taste favorite.

After the fireworks show, The Mound Builders closed out the night. I'm really happy they were included this year as they provided a destination for the hard rockers at the end of the night.

TMB's cover of “Mississippi Queen” was a nice addition to their riff-heavy originals.

As usual, I've included links to each group. I encourage you to check them out their tunes online, shoot them a 'like,' and catch one of their shows. I wouldn't plug them if I didn't think they were awesome. :-)

Thanks to the committees, sponsors, volunteers, restaurants, other bands, and attendees for making the 2012 Taste of Tippecanoe a success despite the storms. Initial projections are that attendance was down a little because of the weather, but I saw a crap-ton of people and they were having a blast!

Finally, here's a pretty cool time lapse video of Main St. between 2nd and 3rd if you have a few minutes to burn:

That does it for this week’s update.

Remember, you can subscribe to the blog, follow @ChrisJuneIND on Twitter, and 'like' Chris June IND on Facebook. Sharing the links is appreciated! :-)

And... you'll get a free download of "Before it Gets to Me" when you purchase Whistle When We Break Down from the Bandcamp Page! That's 4 songs for $3!!!

Speaking of songs, "Dear Reason" will disappear from the iTunes and Amazon.com stores on July 2nd...

Check out the lovely Roxie Vette of Minsky Kinks modeling the shirt

Also, if you have a second, PLEASE SHARE!!!

Rurban and Chris June IND launched a contest to give away a Rurbanized IND logo shirt.

To enter, ‘like’ the Chris June IND, Minsky Kinks, and Rurban pages on Facebook… and leave a wall comment on each saying “Roxie sent me.”

In addition to the shirt, the winner will also receive some Minsky Kinks swag (button, magnet, & Roxie Vette patch).

We’ll draw the lucky lady’s name from a hat on Friday, July 20^th at 7:06pm and pass the goods off to her at our Aces Pub show on Saturday, July 21^st.

It’s worth mentioning that Aces Pub is a 21+ establishment and the winner must be present to claim the prize(s).

Also, the shirt size is SMALL.

Guys may enter to double the chance of their ladies winning the prize(s) and ladies may enter to double the chance of their ladies (Hubba hubba) winning the prize(s).

Disclaimer: Roxie Vette not included

Thanks for stopping by! Have a great week!!

Over and out

06/12/12

Hey, you made it!

Apologies for not getting this posted yesterday. It turned out to be a really active week/weekend, so I hope you're ready for a novel.

Let's get into it.

The week started off with new shows being booked; including dates with our friends Arch Drive Goodbye, Born Under Burden, and Desert Island 5. So, now the fun part of collecting info, posting to the calendar, and finishing art can begin!

All other time was spent working on Taste tasks and prepping for the craziness at Camp& Jam.

Chris P & I loaded up the van on Friday, busted Drew loose from his obligations, and bolted out of town. We rolled up to the Camp & Jam location a little after 6pm, started the party shortly after, and kicked off the festivities with some mean tunes at 8pm.

Here’s the set:

“Guilt that Keeps on Giving”
“My Rx”
“Feed Me a Lie”
“Pocket and Soul”
“Heartkiller” – H.I.M. cover
“Before it Gets to Me”
“A Veil Lifted”
“The Shadow I Will Leave”
“Settling”
“Boys of Summer” – Don Henley/The Ataris cover
“Something Else is Something More” – Adrenaline cover
“Dear Reason"
“Out of Our Hands”
-------------------------
“Stuck” – Adrenaline cover
“Amputee” – Oceansize cover
“No Second Chance” – Adrenaline cover
“Point #1” – Chevelle cover

L.J. Johnston, an acoustic duo, picked up after us; playing some dirty drinking tunes. Those guys were a riot!

Preferring to sleep in cooler temps, I chose to crash out a little early and missed out on jamming around the fire pit with the other campers. This proved to be a good call because I think some peeps had a little too much fun and baked in their tents/campers the next day! :-)

Having had some quality snooze-time in the van, I got up and moving a little before 6:30am, had some hot dogs for breakfast, heated up coffee by the fire, and took *what may have been* the coldest shower in my life!

We really underestimated the amount of damage we were able to do and, with liquid supplies depleted, made a trip to a nearby small town to restock before it got too hot outside.

We grabbed some cash too; allowing us to snag some delicious Pitt Crew BBQ throughout the day.

The party restarted.

Antica Arcana kicked off day 2 in the hot afternoon sun with some metalsk (Come on, you’ve seen Dethklok Metalocalypse, right?). The 6-piece (2 guitars, bass, synth, drums, and vocals) cooked the stage and were cooked by the sun! These dudes were heavy, awesome, and brought back some good old memories of having long hair and playing faster music. :-)

After hanging out in the pool & bounce-housing with Traveling, Broke, and Out of Gas, they jumped on stage and went to work. I met these guys and gal while working on the Artists United show. They’re great entertainers and players (often showcasing their proficiency on multiple instruments from tune to tune). Cody humored me by playing my kazoo for a song. Also, their suitcase with kick pedal attached sounded better than any bass drum I heard all day!

Side note: It was a few songs into their set when the breeze cooled a little, the grass felt awesome between my toes, and I crashed the hell out. I woke up to being called out over the PA for falling asleep, everyone in attendance staring at me, and with pics of me sleeping on Facebook.

Damn. I was ‘that’ guy. So, I made some more coffee in the fire and enjoyed the rest of the evening… awake and on high alert.

It was truly a pleasure to finally share the stage with the dudes in The Heavy Company. I go way back with Ian (guitar/vocals). He’s another local multi-tasking musician; playing in bands, writing for the Soda Shop, and doing production work. Scott (bass/vocals) has been a buddy of mine for a long time too. I’m really fond of their nasty, loose rock ‘n roll and they sounded great Saturday. Definitely check those dudes out.

If I heard right, this was Camp & Jam’s first year of doing a two night event; making us the first act to play both nights when we squeezed in to do a few unplugged tunes.

Here’s the set:

“Pocket and Soul”
“Before it Gets to Me”
“Out of Our Hands”

We did a little incentive during the set too: the first person to ‘like’ theFan Page got a free copy of Whistle When We Break Down. So, congrats Kristalyn! We hope you dig it!!

After we finished up, the gracious hosts of that fine shindig, Refrigerator Mother, mounted up and plowed through some rock ‘n roll goodness. There’s nothing bad to say about them. They’re great, honest, easy-to-hang-with dudes that put on a great show! We’re super grateful for them getting us involved!!

Synaptics (apologies, I couldn’t find a link online) closed out the night with *what I would describe as* psychedelic punk. Their edgy/experimental music explosion was very well received by the growing number of campers… and their guitarist was catching fire on stage. I got to meet that dude (Chris Lee) earlier in the week and it turns out he’s a regular reader of the blog. So, if you’re him and you’re reading this now, turn around…

Yeah, I’m totally not there.

That would be pretty wicked if I was, though. :-)

Also, some live recording was captured from our sets. As soon as I get my hands on the tracks and dig into them, I'll see if there's a gem for me to post.

We returned to IND HQ early on Sunday morning. After unloading and stopping by the last 2012 Taste of Tippecanoe committee meeting, I headed over to Aces Pub to play.

Here’s the set:

“Dear Reason”
“No Second Chance” – Adrenaline cover
“Guilt that Keeps on Giving”
“Hand of the Almighty” – John R. Butler cover
“Boys in the Hood” – NWA cover
“Pocket & Soul”
-------------------
“Patience” – Guns ‘N Roses cover
“Before it Gets to Me”

I was joined for the last few songs by Francois from The House Catz and we closed it out with him ripping away on a blues jam in G.

The night also included great performances by James Saqui (the host for the night), Jim Mitchell and Kyle Bledsoe, and Brady and Lindsey from Little Boxes.

As usual, I had an awesome time. There was an instance or two when I was moved to jump on stage and pound on a cajon!

Check out the lovely Roxie Vette of Minsky Kinks modeling the shirt

For those of you that didn't visit last week, Rurban and Chris June IND launched a contest to give away a Rurbanized IND logo shirt.

To enter, ‘like’ the Chris June IND, Minsky Kinks, and Rurban pages on Facebook… and leave a wall comment on each saying “Roxie sent me.”

In addition to the shirt, the winner will also receive some Minsky Kinks swag (button, magnet, & Roxie Vette patch).

We’ll draw the lucky lady’s name from a hat on Friday, July 20^th at 7:06pm and pass the goods off to her at our Aces Pub show on Saturday, July 21^st.

It’s worth mentioning that Aces Pub is a 21+ establishment and the winner must be present to claim the prize(s).

Also, the shirt size is SMALL.

Guys may enter to double the chance of their ladies winning the prize(s) and ladies may enter to double the chance of their ladies (Hubba hubba) winning the prize(s).

Disclaimer: Roxie Vette not included

That does it for this week’s update.

I’ll be joining Ric Mason on Z96-5 WAZY all week during the 7am hour to plug the Taste of Tippecanoe. We'll have Christina Shipley on Tuesday, Little Boxes on Wednesday, Green Room Rockers on Thursday and Johnny Bhive on Friday for interviews and performances.

Tune in!

Speaking of radio, our friends at Audiokult Radio will be showcasing IND tunes for a 30 minute segment on Thursday (6/14).

For the face-to-face experience, I’ll be with my little bro unplugged at Java Roaster Friday (6/15), and plugged in with the IND crew Saturday (6/16) at the Taste of Tippecanoe.

I’ll see you both times, right?

Remember, you can subscribe to the blog, follow @ChrisJuneIND on Twitter, and 'like' Chris June IND on Facebook. Sharing the links is appreciated! :-)

And... don't forget to get your free copy of "Before it Gets to Me" when you purchase Whistle When We Break Down from the Bandcamp Page! That's 4 songs for $3!!!

Also, "Dear Reason" will disappear from the iTunes and Amazon.com stores on July 2nd...

Thanks for stopping by! Have a great week!!

Over and out

05/21/12

It's looking like the blog will surpass 2500 views over the next two weeks! I see that you keep coming back, so let me know why: Free stuff for FEEDBACK!

Alright, let's get into it...

I spent most of Monday and Tuesday knocking out mix work to finish up the Arch Drive Goodbye CD. I had to squeeze in some more tweaks throughout the week to finish it up, but it's done in time for our show with them and Echovox at the Knickerbocker this Saturday (INFO & RSVP). Woot!

You can check out their tunes HERE.

Wednesday night I headed downtown for the second-to-last Taste of Tippecanoe meeting of the year. The Taste is less than a month out and the crew is getting jazzed! All of the event details are on the Taste site (follow link above). Discount tickets are available at the Tippecanoe Arts Federation site and local Pay Less grocery stores.

After the meeting and loading a ton of sushi in my belly, I headed over to Lafayette Live at the theater to hang with other musician folk. Since I wasn't on the schedule and had interest from some peeps about Whistle When We Break Down, I passed around my iPod.

2 things:

• It's funny to see dudes jamming out to an iPod at a live music show.
• Be careful of sharing your art *unsolicited* with random people at bars. You may find that they're crabby, you've annoyed them, they don't like it, and that your music isn't 'Rock n Roll.' :-)

Tough crowd...

On the way home from downtown I stopped by Brady(Little Boxes)'s crib for some jamming. We got on a roll and finished up after 4am. That dude is a great player, ambassador of the local scene, and friend. What a riot!!

Luckily, I got home in enough time to grab four hours of sleep, take care of the pups, and clean up before venturing back out to play at the Purdue Farmers Market.

Here's the set:

"Before it Gets to Me"
"Pocket and Soul"
"Amputee" - Oceansize cover
"Settling"
"Guilt that Keeps on Giving"
"Dear Reason"
"Imagine" John Lennon/A Perfect Circle cover
"Faithfully" - Journey cover
Out of Our Hands

It was a good call by the University Sustainability crew to move me to a different location. I was in the middle of *what I'm guessing was* a thousand+ people passing through. It allowed me to interact/chat more with the crowd too. I hear there was a lot of pictures snapped. I'm guessing most have the caption of 'Why is this guy playing?' :-)

Really, I was hired! Sorry for being in your way!!

Later Thursday night I wrapped up ADG's This Is a Story... and chummed around with home-skillet, Justin Reagin after giving a guitar lesson.

With some help from my awesome neighbor, I loaded up PA in the van on Friday and headed downtown to share a show with Mr. Evan Ryan at Java Roaster.

Here's the set:

"Zzyzx Rd" - Stone Sour cover
"Settling"
"Dear Reason"
"Imagine" John Lennon/A Perfect Circle cover
"Before it Gets to Me"
"Pocket and Soul"
"Amputee" - Oceansize cover
"My Rx"
"No Second Chance" - Adrenaline cover
"Faithfully" - Journey cover
"Out of Our Hand"

Special thanks to my old day-job and local music buddies for stopping out for the early show! If you missed Evan's set, he killed it!! I never would've guessed I'd hear him cover Judas Priest's "Breaking the Law." It worked. It really, really worked!

After tearing down, I headed out for a night on the town; catching sets from The Shake Ups & The Enders at the Lafayette Theater, PLOT at the Knickerbocker, and Atarilogic at Black Sparrow. No one disappointed! During my adventure I enjoyed some good company and conversation with friends from Minsky Kinks, The Future Lovers, Green Room Rockers, The Mound Builders, Snorb!, & Arch Drive Goodbye. It's cool to see so many groups out actively supporting the scene.

Pat yourselves on the backs!!

Saturday I had plans to attend the Lafayette Brawlin' Dolls match, but got a little side-tracked celebrating the birthday of Brian from The Mound Builders. Karl from The Disillusioned also took part in the madness. His gift to the birthday boy was a home-brew Atari Punk Console; which sounded like a train making love to an erupting volcano through a Brian's JCM 800 and pedal-board. IT WAS MADNESS!

Apologies to the LBD crew for bailing out. I'll get there eventually! :-)

On Sunday I helped Matt from The Cocaine Wolves with some transportation and grunt work. In retrospect, I should've built a trap before meeting up with him so I could steal and hold him hostage at IND HQ for the next round of recording. That dude gets a monster guitar sound on his recordings. I must have this!!

That does it for this week's update.

Remember, you can subscribe to the blog, follow @ChrisJuneIND on Twitter, and 'like' Chris June IND on Facebook. Sharing the links is appreciated! :-)

And... don't forget to get your free copy of "Before it Gets to Me" when you purchase Whistle When We Break Down from the Bandcamp Page! That's 4 songs for $3!!!

Also, "Dear Reason" will disappear from the iTunes and Amazon.com stores in two weeks...

Thanks for stopping by! Have a great week!! I'll see you at the Knickerbocker on Saturday night!!!

Over and out

04/30/12

Finally, we have a bit of a warmer day here in lovely Lafayette, IN! It's made getting this week's blog done a little more difficult: I'm enjoying hanging with my dogs outside.

Anyway, I got quite a few tasks completed over the last week, so let's get into it!

I did some studio work on Tuesday and headed downtown on Wednesday to assemble band kits for The Taste of Tippecanoe and made an appearance at the Theater.

On Thursday Lindsey Sickler tagged along with me to Frankfort to jam at Applebee's.

Here's the set:

"Before it Gets to Me"
"Pocket and Soul"
"Imagine" - John Lennon/A Perfect Circle cover
"No Second Chance" - Adrenaline cover
"Out of Our Hands"
--------------------
"Zzyzx Rd" - Stone Sour cover
"Settling"
"Amputee" - Oceansize cover
"Dear Reason"
"Guilt that Keeps on Giving"

Post-show notes:

• As always, Jason Wells is a great host on Thursdays at Applebee's and his performances really inspire me. The jams he did with J.T. Kidwell (also a madman guitarist) got my foot stomping a bit. :-) 
• Lindsey has a great cover selection, but I feel the need to muscle her into doing more original stuff. Homegirl's homemade songs are killer!!
• Finally, Mike (or maybe it was Mark, I did tell him I was bad with names) did some work to a mandolin. I really need to get one... and banjo too!

Friday I tagged with the wife to the fireman's ball and stopped at TAP (a craft brew fest) at TAF on Saturday. 'TAP' had 9 (I'm pretty sure local to Indiana) brewers, including IND sponsor Peoples Brewing Company. So, I had to stop over to mingle and drink some strong Indiana beers! What a blast!!

Sunday I had Trevor and Zack from ARCHDRIVE GOODBYE in the studio to start bass tracking. Good news: we finished it all in a few hours! Since we wrapped drum tracks on Tuesday too, it's looking like I'll get to start mixing next week. I'm hoping they can get everything released by our show with them on May 26th at the Knickerbocker.

Sidenote: The mighty Echovox will be joining us on the bill too. It should be a riot of a night!! I'm gonna try to get posters up this week if you'd like to help (wink, wink). INFO & RSVP HERE

Back on track...

After we finished recording, I laid down for a bit to chill out and ended up catching my second wind.

I got up and recorded Station ID's for my hard-working friends at Audikult Radio and HardRockRadioLive.com.

Upon finishing, I received a call from my music bud, James Saqui. Apparently a lot of the Aces Pub crew were in jam-mode, so I headed over.

Here's the set:

"Pocket and Soul"
"Settling"
"Broken" - Seether/Amy Lee cover featuring Kimmie C
"Before it Gets to Me"

I had a blast catching sets from the Desert Island 5 dudes, Martin Clendenen, and Kyle Bledsoe. The highlight of the night was getting Kimmie C on stage to jam a song. We've been chatting about making it happen for a couple of months now...

Don't forget: This Friday (May 4th) my local music/performing artist friends are helping host a benefit show supporting the Tippecanoe Arts Federation and a local shooting victim. In addition to Chris June IND (weapons hot), Minsky Kinks, PLOT, Red & The Roosters, and Traveling, Broke, and Out of Gas are also on the bill. INFO & RSVP HERE

If you can't make it on Friday and still want to support great local causes, swing by Lafayette Live on Wednesday night around 9:20pm and I can take your $5 donation. I'll be there plugging the show and jamming around a bit. That shindig runs from 7-11pm and there's no cover if you decide to make a night of it

Also, you can still get a free download of "Before it Gets to Me" when you pick up Whistle When We Break Down from my Bandcamp page. Surely you have $3 in your couch, right?

That does it for the update.

Remember, you can subscribe to the blog, follow @ChrisJuneIND on Twitter, and 'like' Chris June IND on Facebook. Sharing the links is appreciated! :-)

Thanks for stopping by! I'll see you at the theater on Friday!!!

Over and out

04/16/12

Man, am I dragging ass after a busy week of music... My fingers are crossed that I won't have a 'case of the Mondays' today.

Ready for the recap? Here we go!

Last Monday night we finished vocal tracks on the new ARCHDRIVE GOODBYE CD. I may have previously mentioned that those dudes just recently grew out of their 2-piece acoustic act into a 4-piece rock group (or pop/punk, whatever). :-)

Anyway, my recording schedule is a little backwards from most. Specifically, I tend to leave drums and bass for last. So far it's worked out pretty well in their situation, since they didn't have a lot of those parts worked up or ready by the time we needed to start tracking. With vocals and guitars wrapped, the hard stuff is done and we're halfway done with the process! As you can see in the pic, Earnie and I felt it necessary to celebrate this with some cocktails.

Tuesday I spent some time on foot downtown doing Taste of Tippecanoe work and hit up the board meeting on Wednesday afternoon. Actually, we only have a couple of monthly meetings left before the event goes down. That's right, Taste of Tippecanoe: June 16th, 2012! If you haven't checked the site to get the scoop yet, take a look HERE.

After the Taste meeting, I picked up Zack from ADG and we made the trip to Logansport to do some promoting for our show on Saturday. My buddy James Saqui runs a jam at the Neighborhood Tavern in Logansport on Wednesday nights too, so I steered the van in that direction and played some tunes.

Here's the set:

"Settling"
"Pocket and Soul"
"Before it Gets to Me"
"Out of Our Hands"
"Imagine" - John Lennon/A Perfect Circle cover

Thursday I made the trip to Frankfort to meet up with Jason Wells to grab a copy of Monday's run of the Frankfort Times. Check it out: FRONT PAGE!! :-)

Thanks to Jason for snagging the paper for me and to Shelley Smith for working up the article!

And... since I was in Frankfort on a Thursday night, I jammed a little at Applebee's. Coincidence? Alright, you got me.


Here's the set:

"Pocket and Soul"
"No Second Chance" - Adrenaline cover
"Before it Gets to Me"
"Out of Our Hands"
"Faithfully" - Journey cover
---------------------------
"Settling"
"Dear Reason"
"Amputee" - Oceansize cover
"Guilt that Keeps on Giving"
"Imagine" - John Lennon/A Perfect Circle cover

As always, I had a blast hanging with the Applebee's crew. It was a pleasure to meet and talk shop with JT Kidwell too!

I spent quite a bit of time on Friday on booking new shows and finalizing some designs for the Artists United Benefit that I'm organizing. The process has been hectic, but I'm glad to have great buds in Minsky Kinks, PLOT, Red & The Roosters, Traveling, Broke, and Out of Gas, and the folks at the Lafayette Theater helping to see the show through. Yes, the original show in March was canceled, but this shindig is going down on May 4th at 9pm. The $5 cover *that everyone will pay to get in* goes to the Tippecanoe Arts Federation and a local shooting victim. MORE INFO & RSVP HERE




Finally, Saturday was our main event/plugged-in and nasty show at the Corner Pub in Logansport.

Here's the set:

"My Rx"
"Out of Our Hands"
"Heartkiller" - H.I.M. cover
"Settling"
"Boys of Summer" - Don Henley/Atari's cover
"Pocket and Soul"
"Something Else is Something More" - Adrenaline cover
"No Second Chance" - Adrenaline cover
"A Veil Lifted"
"The Shadow I Will Leave"
"Stuck" - Adrenaline cover
"Before it Gets to Me"
"Face to the Floor" - Chevelle cover
"Guilt that Keeps on Giving"
"Feed Me a Lie"

No lie, the set felt really really good. Chris, Drew, and I are getting into a great flow. Women flashing in front of the stage may also backs this up. Perhaps it could be an indicator of alcohol consumption too... :-)

Anyway, we had a blast sharing the bill with the ADG & the Bridge Between dudes, the soundman Chris had everything sounding nice, and the Corner Pub staff took great care of us! Also, it was a nice surprise to have Josh Hassett (O for 2, Epstein's Mother), one of my local guitar heroes, in the audience for the show!! Thanks to all that came out and those of you who picked up the Whistle When We Break Down EP.

Speaking of that...

I'm still hooking up free downloads of "Before it Gets to Me." The conditions are below. Additionally, if you have already picked up Whistle When We Break Down, I owe you the track... Hit me up.

That does it for the update.

Don't forget to subscribe to the blog, follow @ChrisJuneIND on Twitter, and 'like' Chris June IND on Facebook. Sharing the links is appreciated! :-)

Thanks for stopping by! Have a great week!!!

Over and out

01/30/12

It's looking like the blog's gonna break 1500 views this week. I'm glad you keep coming back!

The Taste crew started getting heavier on the business end last week. Personally, I tagged along to some meetings, chatted with most of our band roster, & added more content to the Taste site. Everything's coming along nicely!

For a little extra incite, the Taste committees only take about a month (if that) off each year from all things Taste. Bringing together the bands, restaurants, sponsors, etc. takes a lot of time and effort, but seeing 40,000 people downtown and having a ball for the benefit of The Tippecanoe Arts Federation is super rewarding!

Save the date: Saturday, June 16, 2012. Downtown Lafayette is going to be electric.

Production-wise, we wrapped up guitar tracking on the new Arch Drive Goodbye CD last week and I got all of those tracks edited & bounced down. Getting the guys to put down their acoustic guitars and beef-up with my signature Dishaster 4790 amp from Rhodes Amplification is newer territory for them. The songs are pretty rockin'! Now, we're sorting through some vocal parts.

My good buddy Johnny Bhive stopped by IND HQ last week too. I always enjoy being able to sit down and talk shop with other musicians, especially those of Bhive's caliber. Hopefully our schedules will line up for a future collaboration!

Shows, shows, shows...

I made it back down for a Lafayette Live visit last week. I wish I could give a little review, but the show I saw Saturday night at the Knickerbocker with The Melting Pot and The Heavy Company was so sick that I have a little memory loss. The Melting Pot, featuring members of Root Hog and Uncle Buck's Mojo Box, jammed Booker T & The MGs tunes and my boys in The Heavy Company's Midwest Psychedelia was thick and conducive to head bobbing. I may have been toe-tapping a shaking my backside a bit; truly a public outburst for myself. I apologize to anyone that may have witnessed this. :-)

Side note: The Heavy Company guitarist/vocalist Ian Daniel has a pretty sweet Lafayette Shows site up HERE.

On the IND side, we've been jamming more new tunes for the February shows. We'll be at the Animal House on 2/11/12 with The Mound Builders and at Aces Pub on 2/25/12 with Born Under Burden. For more details on these dates and to RSVP, check out the Fan Page. While you're there, consider hitting the 'like' button. :-)

Speaking of the Animal House show, it'll mark the first time in a long time that I'll be cranking my amp up in Frankfort. Jeremy Chambers, bassist for 50/6 Feet, has gotten involved with booking over there and is putting together some awesome shows. Jim Voelz, The Mound Builders' vocalist, and myself plan to sneak into town this Thursday night (2/5/12) to plug the show and jam some tunes at Applebees Open Mic Night. If you start digging for change now, TMB & IND CDs & shirts will be on hand.

Ok, 3 things before I go...

First, Emily Larimer (Chemcoma drummer/vocalist) released an awesome new track over on the Tempest Fare Facebook Page. Check it out!

Second, I'm still trying to move some of my unused gear HERE on Craigslist. If there's room on your credit card or your tax refund is burning a hole in your pocket, shoot my a reply on the listing.

Third, I finally figured out that #FF stands for 'Follow Friday' on Twitter. Yeah, I'm embarrassed. Anyway, if you're hip to Twitter and follow @ChrisJuneIND, I'll hook you up with a Friday mention.

That does it for this week, thanks for stopping in!

I'll see you Frankfort peeps on Thursday!!!

Over and out

05/12/11

Hey all! Once again I've let my blog schedule slide, but I've been scheming a lot...

I've still been slaving away trying to get a good mix of "Dear Reason." At this point, I'm more likely to upload the track to my site for you guys to listen to and bypass iTunes until I can afford  to get into a better studio to record with my signature Rhodes amp & have someone mix my songs for me. I think the treatment idea for the "Dear Reason" video is going to turn out really well.

I had a blast playing at Rancho Real's Cinco de Mayo show last weekend. Several of my guitar students made it out. From what I hear, the show has really motivated them to practice harder. I'm super proud of my munchkin guitar army! If you haven't made it out to a show recently, I'm playing in Logansport at the Corner Pub on the 5/14 and in Lafayette at Aces Pub on the 21st.

The Taste of Tippecanoe is just around the corner and all us 'behind-the-scenes' guys are working hard to ensure that it's even more awesome than it usually is. I'm not playing this year, but I'm psyched to be able to chill out & hang with all of my buddies' awesome bands that will be throwing it down. Don't forget: June 18th, downtown Lafayette, awesome music, great food, great cause! More info is available at www.tasteoftippecanoe.org

This is a bit uncharacteristic of my blog, but I'd really like to give a thumbs up to Clint Lowery and Sevendust. I have admired Clint's playing, singing, and writing for a long time and his band, Sevendust, is one of my favorites. Clint has been releasing some really cool music under the moniker 'Hello Demons Meet Skeletons' and I really admire how Sevendust has been helping promote it. That's family.

That's all for now. Thanks for stopping by! I'm off to studio...

Over and out.

06/20/11

Hey all, I've received a few messages about the blog lapse...

I've been short on time. Apologies.

As you may have heard/seen Chemcoma is coming to an end. If you'd like to have one more good time with us, you can catch 'what will likely be' our last show at the Mosey Down Main Street on July 9th at 11pm. The Mosey's are very cool. Basically, Main Street in Downtown Lafayette is blocked off from 6th to 14th Streets & a party happens. There are some vendors, multiple bands on several stages, and as far as I know, you can BYOB & have fun in the middle of town. We'll be playing the stage at 6th & Main Street (in front of the Lafayette Theater). The event is FREE & lasts from 6pm to midnight. Hopefully we'll see you out!

Did you make it to the Taste last weekend? Holy cow, I had a blast. I was down there close to 5am to make sure setup went according schedule, hung out during the event, & stayed until about 3am to make sure everything was cleaned up. It was an endurance test & my sleep schedule is really messed up. :-)

We had a stacked roster this year & I don't think any bands disappointed. I personally saw Johnny Bhive, The Green Room Rockers, & Michael Kelsey tear a hole in the sky. I missed sets by Root Hog, Uncle Buck's Mojo Box, & No Apparent Reason for various reasons, but I'm sure they all threw down hard too! Lafayette locals always represent the town well. Please check these guys out when you get a chance.

Before I forget, thanks to the bands & volunteers for making the Taste virtually painless. I can't wait til next year!

Since the band is going kaput, I've been spending all of my time putting legs on the IND. I've been splitting my time between recording new songs & getting the material in a position to be out on a stage. Actually, my buddy Travis was over earlier to jam around & help me work out some bugs on the new tune-age. Thanks dude!

Speaking of that, I may be playing at the open mic at the Lafayette Theater (6th & Main) on Wednesday night (6/22). I think the lineup is full, but I'm a reserve in case someone cancels or catches on fire. So, I have no idea what the time will be if I do get to play. Anyway, come down on Wednesday. The show lasts from 7-11pm &, if nothing else, I'd love to hang out & talk shop.

If you haven't had the chance yet, check out my indie video for "Dear Reason": 

The dogs & I had a great time putting this together. Also, the song is on iTunes, Amazon, & other digital music stores if you'd like to own it and/or support the cause.

Thanks for stopping by!

Until next time...

05/17/11

Greetings!

I had a blast this weekend playing at the Corner Pub in Logansport. Born Under Burden opened the show. Those guys are as killer as ever. It was great to get to hang out with them again & get to crank up the Rhodes amp too! Cheers to all of the new Logansport friends.

Speaking of cranking up the Rhodes amp, it'll be sweating and screaming at Aces Pub in Lafayette on Saturday night (5/21) too. If you haven't made it to a show recently, you should make out for this one. The Aces shows are always extra dirty! Good dirty...

My work with the Taste of Tippecanoe has been getting more frantic as the date approaches (June 18th), but I've still managed to get some IND work done. I think I've cleared my head enough to resume work on the "Dear Reason" mix. Be looking for it on www.ChrisJuneIND.com sometime next week. I'll give the heads up on Facebook & Twitter when it goes live, so friend & follow if you haven't yet. :-)

I'm getting close on having my live tracks done to start playing some new tunes live with the grandpa's guitar. The goal is to start hitting up open mics & booking shows in the next couple of weeks.

Thanks for stopping by again this week! I'll see you at Aces on Saturday.

Over and out

04/11/11

Hey all!

After a week of more hard work, I'm a bit closer to having the mix of "Dear Reason" done. As of now I'm having an issue with some clipping during the guitar solo. It's not the tracks or overall volume. Maybe it's an EQ thing. As soon as I can get that resolved, I should be ready to let it fly on the internet & focus on the video for it.

This weekend Chemcoma will be firing up for, what I hope to be, another relentless string of shows. We've been prepping to add a significant amount of new songs to the set. A good portion of my week will be spent transcribing more guitar & bass lines, building live tracks, making sure Cody & I are on the same page with what we're playing, and practicing singing and playing my parts. In other Chemcoma news, Adam Shewmaker appears to have about half of the "Something to Die for" video edited together. He sent us a rough cut over the weekend. I'm digging it.

I usually don't say much, if anything, about my side biz of teaching guitar lessons, but I'd like to mention my gratitude to Logan and his parents for giving me the opportunity to be his guitar/music teacher. Last week Logan joined Ashleigh, Tyler, Kaitlin, Valeska, and Dakota in our combined investment in the future of the Lafayette music community and, hopefully, guitar awesomeness.

In addition to what I mentioned above, I'll be spending the rest of the week working on promo with Guillermo (owner of Rancho Real) for Chemcoma's Cinco de Mayo show and scheduling more video shoots with sponsors of the Taste of Tippecanoe (btw, this year's Taste is going to be insane! www.tasteoftippecanoe.org). Also, I'll be padding my music account by helping run sound at the Knickerbocker on Friday night.

There's my weekly update, on time. I'm glad that you're still stopping by. Look out Crawfordsville, me & the Dishastercaster will be more than ready to blow off some steam on Saturday night at the Lew.

PS: Thanks to the Cocaine Wolves, American Speedway, and The Mound Builders for putting on an epic rock show over the weekend. Please check these cats out if you're not familiar.

Over and out.

03/14/11

Whew, I almost forgot about this.

I spent most of last week promoting "Settling" (researching and bugging people of influence about getting it onto playlists of several radio and video outlets and printing and distributing flyers). Thanks again to everyone that's passed out flyers & helped spread the word online!

Chemcoma finally shot the video for "Something to Die for." It was a super fun experience, minus the skin I rubbed off & bruising on my arm. Hopefully this video portrays how hard I brought it for the shoot. Thanks to Adam Shewmaker for making the trip up to do the work. Early estimates are that we'll have it back in a few weeks. Cody has a pretty cool teaser video from the process. If you muscle him a little, maybe he'll make it live on YouTube.

I'm going to spend the rest of the week getting prepped to start recording the next Chris June IND song and putting a track together so I can play the songs live without them sounding too bare.

Now I'm off to the monthly Taste of Tippecanoe meeting.

Thanks for stopping by, catch you next week!

1/18/2011

I've been off of my normal schedule a little bit.

I intend to finalize a 'home master' of "Settling," my new song, today. I'm in the Mixing and mastering process and, though those are things I'm interested in, it's a lot more difficult than most people think. I'm making the song sound the best that I can despite my limited budget, expertise, and environment. I keep reminding myself that this is a jumping off point and if I can find enough listeners to love the song(s), I can start doing bigger budget stuff. So, I've been making trips back & forth between the studio and the living room stereo for the past couple of days making notes and small changes to try to get this track sounding its best.

In other news, we had our first Taste of Tippecanoe board meeting last night. Luckily the crew was nice enough to let me phone in since I had a guitar lesson to give later in the evening. I got involved with the Taste this time last year to satisfy my internship responsibilities to graduate college. Apparently, I did a good enough job for them to keep me around. It's a lot of fun, the people are great, and any profit goes straight to the Tippecanoe Arts Federation; a local non-profit org that helps a ton of artists and kids. Win, win, win situation!

Moving on...

"Something to Die for," the new Chemcoma single, has been doing pretty well for us. It hit iTunes last week and got some special love in the Lafayette Journal & Courier. You still might be able to see the article at http://www.jconline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2011101130302. If that doesn't work, go to www.jconline.com & search for 'Chemcoma.'

It's looking like the band's winter break will be over as we head to Elkhart to play a show at Halftimes on Saturday (1/22/10). North-Central Indiana has become a second home to us and we love playing up there. Our buddy Mike Lutin will be playing bass with us too. Stop by if you're in the area! Additional show details are available at www.chemcoma.com.

Thanks for stopping by, catch you next time!