A Big Week/Musical Community (?) (!)

What a week.

First of all we would like to thank Greensboro and the Triad and Yes Weekly for voting us runner-up for best new band. Wow.

Right behind our friends, Amelia's Mechanics.

So, thanks so much.

Next, I started a blog/web page where I post ALL live music events happening in Greensboro. It has been useful, apparently. It keeps getting traffic and I keep updating it- check it out HERE and tell me what you think. LMIG.

Crystal Bright started a group on FB with the sole purpose of connecting all bands and performers. Maybe we CAN have a musical community? This stuff excites me.

Then we got put on the bill with David Mayfield Parade at the Blind Tiger- thanks to our sedulous and assiduous manager, Melodi Fentress. We'll be playing there this Thursday, May 5th. Cinco de Mayo. Molly McGinn, from Amelia's Mechanics just may be there. She just may sing a song with us, too. You never know.

Hope to see you at the show!

-matty sheets

http://www.scoop.it/t/live-music-in-greensboro-nc

25 boring status updates (share your excitement with your friends)

For all of your social media needs, this list of boring status updates should help you keep posting even when there's nothing to say. I have compiled this list from my own experiences, because I care. Please feel free to leave your own ideas in the form of a comment below. The best, or most boring, will make it to the next boring status update post entitled: more boring status updates.

1. I am drinking grape kool-aid.

2. My laundry is almost ready to be moved to the dryer.

3. The dog is almost dry enough to come inside. He went in the pond earlier.

4. I can feel a couple of hairs in my mustache that need to be trimmed. (male)

5. I can feel a couple of hairs on my knee that need to be trimmed. (female?)

6. I'm pretty sure that the cat just said something in French and the dog was offended.

7. I like Dijon better than yellow, brown, or honey mustard.

8. I was going to get a chocolate bar from the store, but they were closed.

9. I have red laces in my shoes.

10. My socks are brown.

11. I think I'm sitting a bit crooked due to the notebook in my back pocket.

12. One time I saw a UFO, I think.

13. I thought I saw a friend of mine in the car next to me, but then they turned their head and it wasn't them.

14. Sometimes my glasses just get dirty, like magic.

15. I think I have a lazy eye, but I forgot which one.

16. The temperature in here is quite nice.

17. I just opened the dishwasher while it was running.

18. I am drinking hot coffee.

19. I left the house and forgot to put my laundry in the dryer.

20. I like black felt tip pens.

21. My middle name is ______.

22. I saw a motorcycle today.

23. Sometimes I forget what I'm

24. Not getting much done since moving to writer's block.

25. I have to go to the bathroom, but I wanna see how long I can hold it.

Share this with your friends. It may help them.

-matty sheets

on the subject of recording.

We (the Blockheads) have been a band for a little over a year now. We've had slight changes in the line-up, but most of us have been playing together since March 2010. We recorded some live stuff in a basement, some of which is pretty good. We played on Radio Greensboro, and the lovely folks at WUAG 103.1 FM (UNCG's radio station) recorded it all for us, and some of it sounds pretty good. Our entire set from that performance can be found on our website HERE.

Now it's a new year. We have some new players. We are developing a sound that's, as rooted as it may be to the style of music that we started playing, different. It's like we got a better boat.

So now that we've evolved a bit, we are going to make a recording. Right now we are shooting for a seven song EP or a nine song short album.

We will be working with David Driveway Moore on this project. He's a great producer, engineer, singer, and musician. We have worked together in the past, both in bands and on soundtrack music for short films from the illustrious Monkeywhale Productions, based here in Greensboro.
Driveway and I talk about working with Monkeywhale, Harvey Robinson, Carolyn de Berry, and music in general HERE in this video from MWP (Monkeywhale Productions).

It seems like a good fit, and a natural choice. Driveway uses essentially all analog recording gear, so our sound will be warm and big.

Being comfortable and relaxed at a recording session is priceless to me. I believe that this set-up, this producer, this band, and these songs, will all come together to make something good.
And I can't wait.

Hopefully we will have this done and available by late summer or early fall, depending on our pace and finances.
Have I mentioned that I can't wait to start? 'Cause I can't.

-matty sheets

how important is music to you?

Are you listening to music right now? If you're like me you are rarely not listening to something. I listen to music at work, on the road, on the computer, when I go to sleep, whenever I can.

What do you do when you listen to music? What does the song mean to you? Does it remind you of that one person you hung out with while listening to that song? Does it remind you of some time in your life? Does it bring up feelings?

My dear friend, Suzanne Stafford, made me a mixed CD when we first started playing music together. We were both broken hearted at the time, and channeled our emotions into our music to create the sound for Come Hell or High Water. That sound has now changed a bit due to our outstanding band mates, but now I'm getting off track.

The CD that Suzanne made for me still brings up a lot of feelings for me. Some tracks get me a little choked up. Some make me smile at our amazing friendship, while others put me right back in that living room where I first listened to the collection- over and over and over. I can smell the dog-eaten couch. I can taste the bitterness in my bourbon. I can see the old carpet on the floor. I remember feeling so lonely, but knowing I wasn't entirely alone. How could I be truly alone if all of these songs were written and recorded by artists who obviously felt the way I was feeling? How could I be alone if my friend also felt these things?

Some of the music I listen to is old, some new, some cool, and some not.

Suzanne's daughter, Ollie, has heard us play music her whole life. Come Hell or High Water played a show a week or two before she was born. Suzanne's guitar was pressed against her very pregnant belly. I can only imagine what that sounded like to the unborn Ollie. Suzanne's beautiful voice has been heard by Ollie since she was a blip on an ultrasound.

This year Ollie turned 3. Melodi and Harry and I got her a kid's size drum kit which she played like an animal. It was one of my favorite moments.

I just met Melodi's nephew, Sam, 4 1/2 years old. I brought my acoustic guitar on our trip to Brooklyn and played some songs for him. He really enjoyed strumming the strings while I held the guitar and made chords with my left hand. He sang and made up songs like Rockaway Christmas, Little Sister Go Away, and Elephant on the Roof (the last one was a joint effort between he and I about an elephant and a rocket ship on his roof- as neither of those things would fit in their brownstone). Sam hit his head earlier today and I was able to cheer him up by playing a punk rock version of We Wish You A Merry Christmas, and drawing up a sketch of an invention we were talking over in which an electric guitar could be fashioned to shoot flames out of the bottom. We later upgraded this idea to double as a jet pack.

I played the wrong chords to We Wish You A Merry Christmas- and every song that he wanted to sing that I didn't know- but it didn't matter. His freestyle about his sister (8 months old) touched on the fact that he has to deal with her getting more and more attention.

When you listen to music you use a very large percentage of your brain. Playing music uses even more as you engage in it physically. How can music not be important?

I wonder, occasionally, what I'm doing with my life; devoting my time to playing and writing songs. I want to play better, write better, and touch someone with one of my songs- like all of these songs and experiences with music have touched me. I wonder if it's all worth it, if music even matters. Then I hear that one song, or see a friend perform his or her new tune, or see that one band play with that great sound, and it moves the Earth. If I can one day do that for someone else- I'm a success in my mind. So to me, it matters. Music matters. Music is important to me- kind of like food, or my glasses.

Please comment below on this. Tell me I'm crazy- or you know what I'm getting at.

How important is music to you? What are you listening to?

- matty sheets

Three Big Squids

The captain shouts his orders.

But over the waves,

there's no deciphering.

The storm is upon us,

clench the ropes and don't get tossed away.

Over the side.

Barely alive.

This is the rest of your life.

It's the final dive.

It all happens so fast.

One blink it's safe,

the next it's dangerous.

The waves crashing are so cold.

Underwater, I'm getting pulled away.

Over the side.

Barely alive.

For the rest of my life.

It's the final dive.

I think about my mother

as I sink down,

there's no escaping it.

Life preserver's in sight.

I try to swim, but I can't get away.

Just as I surrender

to my fate,

there's something touching me.

One, then two, then three things.

To the top, they're carrying me away.

Over the side.

Barely alive.

The rest of your life.

It's the final dive.

I clutch onto the lifeboat

with all my might,

I turn to see that there's

three big squids that saved me.

They almost wink as they spin and swim away.

-matty sheets

november show dates

We've got a few more shows in 2010. Then we're gonna take a break and work on our album. Ok, here we go:

11/5 at the Blind Tiger with The Numbers, and Lake Isle. 10pm.
11/13 at the Flatiron with The Old One-Two. 10pm.
11/19 at the Blind Tiger with Doby. 10pm.
11/26 at the Green Bean with Megan Jean and the KFB, The Shathouse Rats, James Marshall Owen. 8pm.

A Farewell (sort of) to James Marshall Owen. (origins of Eating the Invaders)

Years ago (three, four, five? Time goes by so fast), I met James Marshall Owen at the Open Mic I have been hosting at the Flatiron in Greensboro, NC. I have been hosting this weekly event for eight years now. This month is actually our anniversary month, which is why I can safely say how many years that was, but not how long it has been since I met Marshall.

I feel like I've always known him now. He is easily in the top five most talented performers we have ever had roll through the doors to the Open Mic. Once he started singing and playing his guitar (exceptional guitar player- and he was twenty years old at the time. Wait. He's twenty-four now, we met when he was twenty... Ok, ok, I met him four years ago. I should start over), I knew he was one of a kind.

Four years ago we met and I wanted to play with music with him. We were just starting to get to know each other when we were in Eating the Invaders, but we quickly became friends - despite our differences (me writing silly songs with a few chords, and him thinking a diminished chord would be nice under his wicked guitar solo). Seriously though, we hit it off and ended up playing music together ever since. Hopefully that will never go away, no matter which city we live in.

After getting the name Eating the Invaders from a friend describing a spider who was eating ants that were stealing the spider's eggs, I went to Nate's Place to see one of Marshall's bands perform. I parked the scooter I was driving at the time and before I could get inside, here comes Marshall.

"Someone canceled, can you open for us?" he asked me.
"I don't have my stuff, I'm on my scooter."
"Use my stuff. We need an opener."

At the microphone for the first time at Nate's Place (and so far the only time, I think), I said- "Hello, my name is Eating the Invaders."

So now I needed a band to use the name. Along with Marshall on guitar, I recruited Barry Staples (a friend of mine who used to play drums at our house back in the Deviled Eggs days. He actually bought us our kick pedal) on drums, Gael McKeon (a new friend, he started playing with Come Hell or High Water around the same time) on upright bass, and Don Ravon (now a staple performer at Open Mic. Then, a new-comer.) on vocals with me. They were all my first picks, and I was honored and excited that they were interested.

We rehearsed for the first time on a Sunday (five songs), and played our first show the next day. Our second show was the day after that.

That band went through changes over the years, losing Gael and Don, gaining Little Mikey Roohan (Gino), Jason Voss, and the uncanny Mr. David Driveway Moore. Then after losing Little Mikey and Voss, we were a four piece at the end.

Yes, the end. We disbanded last year, this month.

I met James Marshall Owen five or six years ago, and I learned a lot from him. I can sing with others now, I can hold a vocal line where it needs to be without just going all crazy and stuff, and I've done things musically that I never knew I could do. Thanks so much for that.

By the way, Marshall is moving to Austin in two weeks.

Eating the Invaders is going to play one more time.

to be continued...

-matty sheets


Eating the Invaders in Harvey's Kitchen.
JMO's farewell show 1
JMO's farewell show 2