FuSE Fresno

This past weekend Mas and I attended the 4th annual Fresno Urban Sound Experience Festival or FuSE Fest for all you hip cats. It was a two day music festival that took place in Downtown Fresno California and we found ourselves hopping from venue to venue to catch various local acts. All genres and all ages. It was really nice and felt good to get out and about in my own city. I've lived here my whole life, (not true, spent 5 years in Mendota) but I've also lived a pretty sheltered life. Either I was too young, too broke, or just too shy to go out. Anyway, here are a couple of snapshots I got with my phone.

A Werebear watching Wearbear

Brother Luke & The Comrades

College Kids

Irie Sun

It'll Grow Back

AZAZEL! (the lead guitarist was knighting fans with his ax! Though I was not one of the fortunate souls.

Niilo Smeds

BruNo dA uNo

Restaurnaut

I mostly enjoyed watching Azazel, College Kids and the Sunburns. Also, Restaurnaut put on a very lovely show in the Fulton55 cafe. Werebear was fun to watch too, especially on day one (they played both days), because they had a dude dressed as a bear. Overall, we had a great time. Though, I wish there would have been a better turn out and it would have been nice to be one of the acts on the bills. Oh well, maybe next year? Anyhow, we took turns using our iPod to take some clips of the bands we were able to catch. Mas put together a really good video of our experience. Have a looksie won't ya?



And instead of linking every band in all the paragraphs, here is a list of links instead. K? ^.^

Werebear
Brother Luke & The Comrades
College Kids
Irie Sun
It'll Grow Back
Azazel
Niilo Smeds
Restaurnaut

Peace out. Be back later with other stuff.

Yeah, it's Monday.

It is indeed Monday and here I am again with another marvelous day off of work. However, it seems I have been crippled by the internet from getting anything done around here. For example: dusting (need to do this regularly so that my allergies don't get too bad), vacuuming, laundry (ugh) and other things that aren't really that important but I really wanted to do. No, instead I have laid in bed while the sheets were at wash and watched Suckerpunch (a very disappointing Zack Snyder flick), listened to new music ( Mikal Cronin, .ICEAGE and Slow Animal), and did a rough sketch of a banner for another blog. At least the sheets and blankets are washed and the carpet has been vacuumed.

Found myself drinking Arbor Mist and eating pizza two nights in a row. And I'm not sorry for it :| Slept like a baby.

Oh yeah! Toni from work, made some Menudo and brought the whole alterations staff a bowl! It was SO yummy. There are many perks to working for and with old alterations ladies, but the food is the best. Lupe brings Tamales, because her daughter owns a Tamale restaurant called Casa De Tamales. There are these Blueberry tamales that are to die for. Toni brings all sorts of dishes and I especially loves when she brings obscure Mexican candies. Like the chocolate covered Mazapan that we can't find ANYWHERE. She said they are only in Mexico. What is up with that?!

I suppose I can talk about what I did this past Friday! We drove to a small farming town called Orosi to see the annual Spanspek Music and Arts festival! It was a pretty good time. I'll just show a few pictures since I gave them all away for another article on a different blog. We got to see a lot of the Valleys biggest bands, but that wasn't my favorite part of the experience. I loved the arts and crafts mostly. There was a girl making some pretty cute charms that reminded me of Sophie and Toffee. I bought the Rainbow Cake with Sprinkles keychain for myself and the Taco charm necklace for my dude. She has a facebook page for her crafts called Dark Heartz. Check her out!

Oh man, there was this kick ass painting of Carl Sagan done by a Visalia artist named Jeremy Woodard. You can see a much better picture of it in his facebook photos here. My camera couldn't capture it's awesomeness. I asked if it was for sale, but forogot to ask how much (I'm a dummy).

We saw Tyrannosaurus Zebra and again they had pretty devoted fans show up. They are getting a pretty steady following around here and it's because these kids really love them. There were two that just took up the floor and danced their little hearts out. It was pretty entertaining to watch and the lead singer accidentally hit a girl with his show as he flung it off with a kick. The video I took of them came out so bad and the sound is just awful I won't even bother posting it. Here is another pic instead!

We sat down while Tokyo Death March played because my feet were killing me.

All in all it was a pretty fun festival and I look forward to next year. I hope I have something artsy to showcase by that time! Or maybe Sci-Fi Caper will play! One can only hope. Anyhow that's all for now, later gators!

Day Off

This is the first "real" day off I've had in a long time and when I wasn't at one of my two jobs, I was at practice. My calendar has been jam packed for weeks now. Needless to say, sleeping in was blissful.

So I suppose I should go over what happened at the show. I wish I had more pictures and videos to share. Alas, I don't have a camera and my ipod AND phone weren't really able to capture any good images. We arrived early only to find the show had been postponed about an hour or so. No biggie, we got to meet Eric of Fishboy and Googolplexia.

Friends and family started to show up and soon we were shuffling in to catch Restaurnaut's set. He's a transplant from Arkansas and now lives in Clovis. He played a lovely set of songs on his ukulele, and aside from the "technical" difficulties with the sound, it was an overall good performance. He seems like a really nice guy and I'm sure we'll be seeing more of him around town.

We went up next and I can't really remember what happened after that. I saw people and they all seemed happy so I suppose we did good. Tyrannosaurus Zebra were up next. We had seen them a few weeks back when Bass Drum of Death were in Visalia. So we knew what to expect and they did not disappoint. Everyone was really into it. They also had some fans who had t-shirts and everything! So jealous!

Unfortunately, the crowd started to thin and most of our friends and family started to leave. When Googolplexia performed, it was a pretty small crowd, but he was so entertaining and funny. I was really looking forward to his performance, he plays a ukulele and accordian. After that, Fishboy decided it'd be best if we moved to the back room and I was able to take some video. The lighting was a lot brighter and it was really fun.



We were so pleased with all the bands. They were all super sweet and kind people. We bought a t-shirt from Fishboy and he gave us a free download. Score! So far, we have been so lucky as a band to have played with such awesome people and we owe a lot to Samantha of the Bel-Tower. If it wasn't for her, we'd have no shows. At all. Because I have no idea how to be in a band and get exposure. Seriously. I've got the bug now, and I want to keep playing. So I guess I'm going to have to figure this whole being in a band thing out. That's all for now, later gators!

Tonight is the night.

Our first show with our new drummer is tonight! I'm pretty stoked and even though I have a huge nasty pimple, I am for the most part unphased. Anyway, I got up kind of early today and have now spent the past hour surfing the net. Figured, why not put a post on the old blog. I did upload a few pictures so I suppose I can share those here.

Work life has been pretty busy. I'm still working two jobs and it's starting to get worrisome. It irritates me to no end having to re-arrange my schedule every week. Especially when bosses are uncooperative. Fortunately I work with many lovely people who are always willing to pick up or swap shifts with me. I've always enjoyed my job at the bridal shop, but this new job at a certain department store, has turned out surprisingly enjoyable. Though, one of my favorite co-workers has relocated for college, I'm sure I'm still going to enjoy working there. So, yeah that's whats going on in my work life. Stressed, but happy I'm working.

Although, all this working has prevented us from practicing. I think we are going to be alright. I'm feeling super confident, but Mas is stressing the heck out. He just got a new guitar and is having a hard time finding the right sound with his pedals. He was up all night, and I felt so bad for him. It's a good thing I'm not the guitarist, because we'd probably sound like shit. I hope many pictures are taken, I'd love to see what everyone else is seeing.

Alright, let's get to some pictures. These are some pics that were on my phone. I found the majority of them consisted of my cat Loki. He loves the camera and really hams it up when I start taking his picture.

Also, this past month we took our nephew Armando to his first wrestling show. It was only a house show, but it was really sweet to watch him take it all in.

Here is some poor quality vid of his experience.



Well, that's all for now. I hope I'll have some good video or photos from the show tonight. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have laundry to do and maybe one last mini practice. Later gators!

I'm not sure, but I might be kinda scared.

So Sci-Fi Caper's first show is on Saturday and I've got to say, I'm starting get a little bit of nerves now. At first I was super duper excited! Now, I'm starting to realize I'm a pretty terrible keyboard player (haha!) and I haven't been practicing as much as I should have been. :|

Atleast I'm not sick and my voice is close to normal now. I'm not trying to sweat it too much and I'm getting closer to confidence as the days go by. I know it's gonna be an awesome show because that is what I am going to make of it. So, here is the flyer:

Isn't it just nifty!? I love it ^.^ So if you are in the Fresno area on the 2nd please come by and have a good time. I know I will!

Here is some linkage for the venue: the Bel-Tower

June

It's been an awful long time since my last entry here, and oh so much has happened. I hardly know where to begin!

I'm not sure if I mentioned it here before, but my cat Cloud had gone missing. We still have not been able to find him and no one has seen him. It's been months now. I don't think he's been hurt or anything. I honestly believe he has been catnapped, he was after all a very handsome cat. I am being totally serious, and maybe it's just denial, but I really do believe that someone has trapped him in their house and he can't escape. I just want to believe that he's ok. The house had been so sad and even Little Magic seemed forlorn. Well, about a week ago, my dude's brother adopted a little kitten and brought him to live with us. He's adorable as kittens always are, but I still can't stop thinking about my Cloudy. Every time I come home from work or come home from the grocery, I keep expecting him to pop out of the bushes. Sometimes we'd come home and he'd be sitting on the roof meowing and expecting us to pet him. I miss him and I hope he comes home, eventually.

So this is Loki getting to know Magic. Magic doesn't seem to mind him much. Loki is super fascinated by Magics tail. I guess it's nice to have a kitten around. When I see him, I can't help but smile and play with him. I took some video of him playing this morning. I used to have videos of Magic when he was a pup, but I didn't save them properly and now they are gone forever. So, I'm going to try and take as many photos and videos of Loki now while he's still small and playful.

Also during the last couple of months, we commissioned the lovely, Missy Kulik from Rancho Cocoa, to make us some Sci-Fi Caper buttons. They came out soooooo cute and we can't wait to be able to hand them out. Missy is so awesome and we love her cute works of art. She has an etsy store and you should totally go buy something. I personally like the mini note pads. I'm a list maker and I love paper, so I fully plan to buy the guitar girl notepad! (although, I'm too broke for stuff I want at the moment :|) Thanks again Missy and Raoul!

In other band news, we got booked for our first show in about three weeks. Needless to say, I am super excited and can't wait! Sadly though, I'm sick and my voice is all hoarse now. :( Yup, I can't even talk at this point, so I'm sipping as much tea and honey as I can. I won't let this prevent me from practicing though. I still have to get my keyboard playing down. Especially since our first gig is going to be on a bill with Calvin Johnson!! WHUTTT!? I know! Calvin Johnson is the founder of K Records and has played in bands like Beat Happening and The Halo Benders! When I told Sam about it, he thought I was lying haha. It's craziness. The bill so far is Calvin Johnson, Joey Casio (also from K records) and us. I think the girl who booked us, Samantha, is still looking for local acts too. As soon as she sends us the flyer I'll put it up. This also means we'll finally be able to give some of the buttons Missy made for us away. Yay! Well folks, I think this all I'm capable of writing at the moment. I'll be back with more updates. I'm sure of it.

Later gators!