NEW YORK

Hey there. I don’t even know how to start this post. I’ve got so much information to spill. So…
As I informed you in my last post, Small Jazz. To New York. Yep. That ended up being the best trip I’ve ever taken in my whole life. From the moment we stepped off the plane, there was chaos. We had to make sure we didn’t leave anyone behind in our rush to get going. We took a train out of the airport and got to a subway station where we purchased subway tickets. These tickets proved themselves to be the smartest buy of the whole trip, as we traveled by subway most of the time. We eventually got to the hostel where we would stay. It wasn’t a bad place, I actually enjoyed staying there. The building was actually a renovated old ladies’ home. That made some showers rather uncomfortable. But it still felt like home after a few days. The first night there, we ate at a nearby Indian restaurant called Curry and Kebab, which has become a legend of sorts in Small Jazz. The food there was AMAZING. It was my first time eating curry, and I ordered some chicken curry with a side of delicious naan bread. I get oralgasms just thinking about that food. The most memorable thing about our second day there (I think it was our second) was Times Square. I had never seen anything like it in my life. It was simply spectacular. There were screens everywhere, flashing advertisements into my mind, trying to get me to buy products. We visited the New York m&ms store. I never knew such a place existed. There were m&ms everywhere. M&m accessories everywhere. People everywhere. That’s something I had to get used to in New York. There were people everywhere all around at all times. I don’t know if I ever got used to having all those people around me. The rest of the trip is all a murky mess of events in my mind. We went to the top of the empire state building. We went to Ground Zero. We checked out a few huge cathedrals. We went biking in Central Park. We saw a model doing a shoot in central park. Kyle Athayde invited us to a jam session and everyone was better than us. Before I tell you about a music store we visited, I have to tell you the story of why we visited it. When Remy was but a middle school boy, he took a field trip to New York and bought himself a bass at a music store with all his food money. That music store was Manny’s Music. Manny’s has become a legend in jazz band because Reems bought his first bass there. So… we visited Manny’s, which got bought out by Sam Ash, so it’s actually Sam Ash now. The store is split into four mini stores, the string stores on one side of the street and the wind and percussion stores on the other side. I took a good long look through the stores and tried some instruments. Going through the string stores, I tried various ukuleles, including a sexy Riptide concert, a very nice Luna concert, a Lanikai banjo uke that was a piece of crap, and a great Lanikai 6 string tenor. Loved them all except the banjo uke. The C string kept slipping off the bridge. Bleh. I also tried an Ibanez mandolin I’ve been wanting. I don’t really play mandolin yet, besides G, C, and D chords. But it played nice. I almost bought it, but I ended up buying a couple other things that you might read about later in this post. (Congrats on making it this far, by the way.) Also in the string store, I tried out a Washburn travel guitar and a Yamaha Guitalele. The Washburn was the best travel guitar I’ve ever played, I want one now. And the Guitalele. It’s like a ukulele with two lower strings, perfect for guitarists who want to play ukulele. I had no idea how the instrument was tuned at the time, but I played it and it was an enjoyable experience. It went on the list of instruments I want. Then I ventured over to the store of winds. Oh my goodness. There was an adorable little soprano trombone in the window begging for me to try it. I bravely asked one of the store workers if I could give the thing a whirl. They said sure, and before I knew what was going on, I was in a practice room with a tiny soprano trombone in my hands. I put the horn to my lips and blew. And I was amazed. The horn only had a $170 price tag on it, but it made a great sound. Finding the positions was hard, but not that hard. I could sort of play it. I probably took 45 minutes deciding if I wanted it. Then I made my decision. I wanted it. I took it to the counter and bought it, and bought a melodica with it. In case you’ve never seen a melodica, it’s like a little piano that you blow into. Looking back, I probably would’ve bought the mandolin instead of the trombone. I’d have more use for it. And the slide is kinda sticky. But yeah. I bought them. Carl bought an Ibanez acoustic bass from Manny’s. It’s a great horn. I’d buy it if I had money. I bought four guitar books on the trip, three of them related to metal. The other one is about rhythm guitar, which I figured would help my metal. On the trip, we attended several big name concerts including the New York Philharmonic, Chris Potter, Ron Carter, The Village Vanguard Jazz Orchestra, and Chick Corea. We also got to see Kyle Athayde’s big band! The shows were all so amazing. The best concerts I’ve ever seen. If you read my last post, you read that my girlfriend Amanda was gonna come see me. And she did! She and her dad came and ate dinner with us at an Italian restaurant. I was so nervous I felt like I was gonna throw up. I hadn’t seen her in nine months. When I saw her, I couldn’t believe my eyes. I didn’t even know what to do. So I decided to just go with it and give her a hug. After a while, I realized she was actually there, at the table, eating dinner with me. Woah. We walked back to the hostel together. We met up the next day too. That day, we hit the Museum of Natural History. Oh boy, that was fun. Lots of natural historic stuff. Like dinosaur bones. Amanda and I had an awesome time making fart sounds in the elevator together. People turned around and looked at us funny. Yeah, we’re crazy. After that museum, we went to the museum of modern art. Amanda and I decided not to go in the museum because it was crazy expensive. So her dad located a flute store nearby and we went there instead. I got to listen to Amanda try all sorts of flutes. Even a bass flute! I wish I had flute skills like her. After that, we taxied back to the museum to meet up with the rest of the group. We walked a short distance… and then we had to say goodbye. It wasn’t a short, simple goodbye. It was a long, complicated, saddening goodbye. It was comforting to know it wouldn’t be another nine months until we saw each other again. But not that comforting. It was probably the hardest goodbye of my whole life. But I lived. Barely. We saw Chick Corea after that. I was missing Amanda so much the rest of the trip that it was hard to enjoy my limited time left in the New York. We finished our trip the way we started it; an excellent meal at Curry and Kebab.

New York was a life changing trip. The best trip of my whole life. I learned a crapload about life in the city, about the jazz scene in New York, and just stuff. I journeyed an unforgettable journey with six of my best friends. I ate $2 pizza. I look back on this trip and it seems like a dream. It couldn’t have possibly happened. But apparently it did, cause I have pictures from it.

Preparing for New York

Hello friends! (and random creepers reading my blog)
Today it is Monday. Monday is today. Yesterday were Sunday. Tomorrow is Tuesday. Oh wait. It’s technically 2:39am on a Tuesday morning. Time flew by faster than I could keep up. I was just writing a piece for brass choir. I really impressed myself with the beginning, but the part I’m working on… yuck. Maybe I’ll finish it and it will be good someday. And people will play it. Eeeee. I’ve never finished a song in my life. The other reason I’m up so late is because I was working on transcribing Exordium, the symphonic intro track to Hope For the Dying’s Dissimulation. Do you know what’s happening this week? If you read the title of this post, you could probably make a logical guess. If you didn’t read the title… Read the freaking title. Small Jazz is going to New York! We’ve been fundraising our own travel money just by performing around town. I gotta admit, I’m surprised it happened. But it’s happening! And do you know who I’m gonna meet there?! Of course you don’t. And if you’re still reading this, you’re probably curious. I’ll tell you if you keep it a secret. I’m gonna see my girlfriend Amanda!! I haven’t seen her in almost nine months. No, it’s probably not because I’m repulsive, it’s probably because she lives way down in Georgia. With that girl thrown into the mix, this trip will be life changing for everyone. Yes, I will post a special blog post about it all when I get back. Oop, clock just struck three. Bedtime. Laters.

Spring Break

Well hello there. Welcome to my blog. Tell your friends.
Today is the last day of spring break. I am so very sad. Tomorrow is Monday. It’s gonna be awful. The fact that I’m staying up doesn’t help. But spring break has been pretty great. A few days ago, we had a Scott Pilgrim, stew, and I hate Carl cake party. I loved Scott Pilgrim. And the stew. And the cake. There are two secrets to the amazing flavor of I hate Carl cake, which are about to become not secrets. One, you have to hate Carl while you’re eating it for it to taste right. Two, you use orange soda instead of eggs when you’re making the cake. Mmm. Delicious. We had another party yesterday. We started by eating dinner at a restaurant, and then we hung out at Ben’s house. He’s been gone all spring break. Then, we formed a gypsy band and went on tour. The only song we learned was God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen. So we were Halloween caroling in March playing a Christmas song. And occasionally wishing people a happy Hanukah. We hit up Walmart, Safeway, and Blockbuster on the tour. People gave us some weird looks. And some people loved it. Fun stuff. I can’t wait to do that again. Quote of the week:

Real hipsters are made in Vietnam.

So yeah. I should probably cut it off right here so I have some hope of awakening tomorrow. Knights. Don’t take no wooden nickels.
Josh

Bob Brodie Gigs

Howdy ho. I’m in bed listening to Impending Doom’s album The Serpent Servant. It’s packed full of great music. Their newer album There Will Be Violence is a major disappointment compared to this. Great metal from a great band. The most important thing that happened this week be the Bob Brodie gigs we’ve done the past few days. Jazz band played for a dinner theater event. The gigs went pretty great in my opinion. It wasn’t so good when my chops died though. I’m falling asleep, I gotta finish this up. I guess we aren’t allowed to eat in the band room anymore. Because the middle schoolers left messes. Hey, maybe they won’t enforce it.

I remembered to blog this week!

Hey, reader. I’m in bed listening to Eowyn. She’s a good singer. You should check her out. This week went much like any other week, but there was something different. The last pep band of the year was today. I’m gonna tell you a little lie right now; it sucked. I’m gonna tell you the truth now; it was awful. My ears were being tortured. It didn’t help that certain tromboners were off with their girlfriends. Ever since Watkins made Lhotka stop requiring pep band, less people have been coming, and it’s just gone to crap. It seriously sounds terrible. It’s like a dying animal, and you want to put it out of its misery. A bunch of our best players left, and we’ve just gotten a bunch of immature freshmen that can’t play. And even when people do come, they don’t always play. The fun has drained from pep band. I think it drained into jazz band. Somewhere in the past two weeks, I decided I’m going to build a banjo ukulele. These things are horribly expensive to buy, and many people find it more betterer to build their own. That may sound rather… too-much-workish to you, but if you compare it to spending $300-$500 for a professionally made banjo uke, it sounds pretty good. It doesn’t look that difficult either. I also want to make a small travel stick ukulele, for traveling. Sorry this post wasn’t that long, but I need sleep. Night.
Josh, I think.

All State, Sitka Jazz, and hopefully returning to the blog

Hello, loyal reader. I know I haven’t blogged in months, and I’m disappointed in myself. I miss blogging. So hopefully I’ll get back on it. I plan to blog weekly just like before. Slap me if I forget. Okay. Let’s start this.
In November, I got second chair tuba in the all state symphonic band. It was a great trip. Sadly, I don’t remember much about it anymore. We had a conductor named Dr. Boonshaft. Strange fellow. I have never seen a conductor flip out so bad in a rehearsal. He totally went banch on the percussionists. But they deserved it for not knowing their parts. We played a pretty challenging piece; Once More Unto the Breach! By Stephan Melillo. That suite was one of my favorite pieces I’ve ever performed. Look it up on YouTube. The first movement was the most evil sounding thing I have ever heard. And the second movement was an emotional break. It makes me tear up whenever I hear it. And the third movement has sort of a majestic march to it, and later combines the themes of the first and second movements into a dramatic, pounding, eargasmic, triumphant frenzy. It really makes me sad I’ll never get to play that piece again. I loved it.
So the year continued. My birthday came soon after, and I got a viola that I have been actively trying to learn. It’s fun. Then came Christmas. I finally got a beautiful piccolo trumpet. The year continued some more, and then it ended and 2012 began. In not too long, it was time for Sitka jazz fest. Kodiak jazz band actually pulled off Sweet Georgia Upside Down, Vadar’s Vaccination, Lil’ Darlin, and Squatty Roo! All professional level charts. Not a single high school level chart in our set. This is by far the most challenging music we’ve ever played. Kodiak is definitely reaching its all time peak this year. But next year won’t be as good, and I’ll be gone the year after. But back to Sitka jazz. I was picked to be lead trumpet in the all Alaska jazz band, directed by Dave Martell. I thought Dave Martell was going to be black, but he was white. Racism? Reverse racism? Anyway, it was a great trip. I bought a new iPod touch. You know what that means? A picture for every post. Heck yes.
So I guess I should go to bed. Good night
Josh

Haven’t Blogged in a While

Hello readers.
I am aware that I haven’t been keeping up on this thing. And that is because there is simply nothing to blog about. So this will be a random jumble of crap. Don’t read it.
School is evil. Very evil. Jazz band = good. Concert band = not good. American Lit = seriously considering dropping. Spanish = not terribly difficult. Consumer math = easiest math class I’ve had. US History = not fun. Easy class to text in though. After a couple weeks, Jackson took my iPod for texting in class. It ruined my day, and I despise the guy now. Jazz band is tackling some pretty tough music already, including Squatty Roo, Who’s Sorry Now, Beyond the Sea, and Sweet Georgia Upside Down. I think that last one got its name when the first lead trumpet player to look at the music saw it and exclaimed “Sweet Georgia upside down!” because the notes were so high. I friggin love jazz band.
I’m listening to ReinXeed right now. Their new album “1912″. It’s a concept album centered around the Titanic. Yeah, that old ship. Usually I don’t like concept albums. I feel like they limit the content and lyrical work of the songs. I’d rather just have a broader selection of topics. However, ReinXeed managed to pull it off with this album. While I don’t like the fact that it’s a concept album, it’s an epic work of art. Epic has become an overused and cliche word these days, so when I use it, I really mean it. And this album is epic. From the fast paced songs to the insane guitar solos, to the unnaturally high vocals of Tommy, this album is rock solid. I recommend it to anyone who loves power metal and wants to be blown away and have their ear pussies pounded.
I still have a girlfriend, and I must say, she is the best girl I’ve ever gone out with. She’s just so perfect for me. I never thought I’d be able to get a girl like her. We text each other all day, and we’ve been skyping often. She’s also shown she cares about me more than any other girl I’ve ever known. I wish she didn’t live so far away so we could see each other more often. If I could go any place in the world right now, I would go to see her. Ugh, I just love her so much. Hopefully we can see each other sometime before camp next year…

It’s 2:00, I should probably enter sleep mode…

-Josh

The First Week

The first week of school has passed. I survived. Barely. Mozart is probably the only reason I made it through. My classes are Concert Band, Jazz Band!, American Lit, Lunch, Spanish, Consumer Math, and US History. I hate every one of those except for Jazz Band. Concert band is lame. They can’t play anything. I should’ve taken orchestra instead. Jazz band is off to a rough start, but I think we’ll bounce back after a few weeks. American Lit has me overwhelmed already after the first week. That class may have a lot of work. Then I have lunch. Yay! Then comes Spanish. I dislike that class. The class is about as enthusiastic as a sack of rotten potatoes. Then comes Consumer math. Lame class. Last is US history. They replaced Neagley with a young teacher in her 20s. Sometimes she’s nice, and sometimes she’s a bitch. She makes us take an obscene amount of notes. But fortunately, I can just text away in that class. So that’s my schedule. Pretty boring, I know. Besides jazz band, of course. Yesterday, I saw that movie Super 8. It was the freakiest movie I have ever seen. I’m not going to spoil the movie for you, but it was FREAKY. I had no idea what kind of movie it was when I walked in. By the time I left, I knew what it was. Comedy. Maybe horror comedy. I’m getting really tired, sorry this post was so short.

Back to School

It’s a Monday night, and I’m listening to power metal. I think I’m gonna watch South Park in a bit. School started today. More on that later. So since my last post, I had a few days of summer. One of those days I had some fun recording. I took my penny whistle and played a traditional Irish song and then busted out my guitar, bass, and drums. Homemade Celtic punk! Maybe I’ll post it online sometime soon. But the thing I remember most about the end of summer is the three jazz gigs. The Small Jazz combo played gigs three days in a row. That’s a lot of gigging. The first day we played early in the morning for a big districtwide teacher meeting in the auditorium. First, we played a few jazz tunes before to open her up, then we covered Steady As She Goes by The Raconteurs, then we finished the meeting with more jazz. Kinda like a sandwich. I love playing bass with Small Cover Band. It’s the closest I’ve ever been to playing with a metal band. Even if it’s not metal, it’s still fun. I hope we play a ton this year. The next day, the gig was at the refuge visitor center. Ben was angry because no one told him the gig wasn’t paid. But the gig couldn’t be paid because we were playing on government property. He wanted to put out a case for money too, but you can’t to that on government property either. I forgot to mention that my dad works for the government, that’s how we got the gig. I think Ben was being ridiculous, and he should’ve just been glad we got to play together. Oh well. The next day, the gig was for Elyse(The ex second trumpet in jazz band)’s going away party. I never really got to know Elyse, but that was my favorite gig. You know why? A few minutes after we walked in the door, all six of us were handed $100 bills by Elyse’s mom. We had lots of fun playing, and Brendan sang a couple songs. Brendan is this trombone guy who just moved here like a week ago. He’s staying at Ben’s place. We met him at SFAC a year ago. He lived in Nome, but his dad was moving to some place with no jazz band. So Brendan moved here just to be in jazz band. That’s hardcore if you ask me. He’s a great boner, guitar player, and singer. So yeah, we had fun. I feel like my improvising was holding everyone back from going crazy. I need to work more at it. I play the same riffs too much. On top of our $100, we all ended up with $65 in tips after we split the money. Which was great for me, cause I was pretty much literally broke before the gig. I plan on getting a Blue Snowball microphone with some of the money, for home recording. Those things look so badass. And they have great reviews too. School started again today. Ugh. It was horrible. I started out my day with plans to eat breakfast with some jazz band people at King’s Diner, but my parents dragged their feet and I was so late everyone else had already ordered by the time I got there. Fortunately, Daniel and Roger were kind enough to spare me a couple pieces of toast. So that was my breakfast. Hitched a ride to school. Concert band got moved back to first. Great way to start off my morning. Not really. At least Brendan’s in there with me this year. Jazz band was much better. It’s good to be around Remy again, I was missing that guy’s presence. We sightread a stupid beginner jazz chart. That didn’t sound too good. We’ll get better though. We played pep band for the back to school assembly. Then I had American Lit. It took me a bit to find the classroom, and when I got there, the class was already silently working on a question. By the end of class, everyone else had written at least a paragraph, and I only had two sentences. I definitely missed out on something during my years of homeschooling. Got an evil reading assignment in that class. Then it was lunch time! I walked around with Leila the whole time, sometimes sitting, sometimes standing, but eating the whole time. Sadly, lunch’s life came to an end. A thousand feet trampled over its corpse. I had Spanish next. Now that class was just plain scary! The teacher would just switch off between English and Spanish even though no one knows any Spanish yet. Well I can say suck my dick. Chupar el pene. We had to choose Spanish nicknames from a sheet of paper too. I chose something that meant bald, as I’m pretty much bald. Next class was consumer math. That class is mainly for people who fail the math section of that big test that everyone hates. But I got recommended for it by my last math teacher, since I almost failed his class. The teacher mostly talked about his life the whole time. Mr. Kelly. He’s a character. Haha, as if I’m not. Then came US history. That class might be my favorite after jazz band. Only because it’s so easy to text in there. And I think it’s only fair that I text Mozart in there, because if I wait til after school, I only have five or six hours to text her. Which is NOT enough Mozart time for me. So then we had an office party in Remy’s office, just like old times. Went home and… well, you probably don’t care about the rest. That’s it I guess. Ugh, I wanted to watch South Park, but it got kinda late. Ah well, there’s always tomorrow. Hopefully I can skype Mozart tomorrow! =D

Olga Bay

Earlier today, I returned from a men’s trip down at Olga Bay. My experience over there was fun, but sucked at the same time. I flew out there on a plane called a Widgeon. That was pretty cool. It was so small it only had six seats, and was thrown around by the wind quite a bit. This was my first time actually getting to see the wilderness of Kodiak. The national wildlife refuge my dad manages. I was amazed by the landscape, the towering mountains, the blueish ocean, the… rocky rocks… Anyways, we got out to the place where we were staying. An old place owned by an old man and his wife. There are a few scattered houses out there on the shores of the bay, and the people that live out there travel to each other’s houses by skiff. So I got used to riding around in the bay, dropping a line for fish and motoring over to people’s houses. When I got into the boat for the first time, one of the first things I noticed was that there was so much more life out there than in the waters around town. I saw dozens of sea stars, anemones, and jellyfish, and hundreds of sea urchins. There were so many jellyfish, we were going about 15mph in the skiff one time, and you would pass one or two jellyfish every second. I found a jellyfish close to shore once, and I fed one of its tentacle thingies to an anemone. My mom neglected to get me a hunting license before the trip, which may have been a good thing. I haven’t shot a gun in two years. But all the teens on the trip had licenses, and here were a couple days where they went hunting and I was stuck fishing with the old men. There was once day my friends went fishing with me though. That day I caught a pink and four dollies. We found a fishing spot that was like dolly central, and they were loving my lure. I caught two in a row once down there. But unfortunately, we left our salmon unattended when we left for dolly central and a bear found and ate them. Douchebag. It was a pussy too. It ran away when we yelled at it. The next day, I caught a cod. That thing had to be the biggest fish I’ve ever caught. It was like from my head to my nuts. I guess that’s a little over two feet. I also observed crabbing that day. I guess that was kinda cool. I heard someone tell a story about a guy that got trapped in a crab pot and went down with it. He got out of the pot and pushed off of it towards the surface. He ran out of breath just as he broke the surface. He could’ve been 100 feet underwater. Holy crap. I ate the crab this morning, and I must say, it was one of the most vile, putrid, disgusting things ever to slither down my throat. I don’t understand how people enjoy the stuff! My dad even poured a massive amount of butter on it, probably to help it slide down my esophagus better. BLEH. The whole time, I was missing my girlfriend, my iPod, my computer, my instruments, and my girlfriend. It was miserable. The moment I had cell service, I fired my girl a text announcing my return. She seemed pretty excited to see me too. I got home and practiced, ate dinner, and practiced more. Now I’m in my closet with my metalcore on shuffle. Haste The Day. It’s good to be home.