Friday, August 20, 2010
Travis Valentine - My Angels (Feat. Eric Quimby)
This is a song that I wrote with my friend Eric Quimby (Syndicate) for my wife and I's third anniversary. This is a montage of pictures of my wife and daughter I put together to go with the song as a part of the massive gift I assembled.
Thursday, August 19, 2010
Travis Valentine & Bryce Berry - Falling
This is a video of my friend Bryce and I performing a song that I wrote in High School. I tweaked it a little and added a new verse for Loren and I's third wedding anniversary and put this on a DVD compilation that I put together for her as part of her gift (full details of massive gift in an earlier entry) This is the first song that I ever wrote about her after we started dating.
I am by leaps and bounds NOT the greatest vocalist in the world but I try very hard and I like to think that what little I can do, comes from a very sincere place.
Thursday, August 12, 2010
Syndicate - The Line Starts Here
Similar to: Matchbox Twenty, John Mayer, The Kooks, Jason Mraz, Third Eye Blind
Record Label: Independent
Overall Opinion: Positive
Genre: Hook Driven Radio Alt Rock
"'The Line Starts Here' is meant to signify how everything we do from here on out starts with this record." This is what Eric Quimby, vocals and guitar of Davison, Michigan's Syndicate told me recently. Right off the bat you get a sense of passion and seriousness from Quimby that most bands at their level in development lack. There is a professionalism to everything they do and nothing is halfway. It's something that a lot of bands either don't have or intentionally avoid.
The band features Quimby on lead vocals and guitar, Patrick Jenkinson on guitar, Chris Keller on bass, Jake Rathbun on drums, and Brandon Mansell on keyboard. The first thing anyone would notice about Syndicate is Quimby's phenomenal voice. It's a bit of a whiskey tenor with grandiose rock tenancies. The tone is clean but still very soulful as he effortlessly does vocal back flips through the melodies like they're his personal playground. '
When you listen past the voice and lyrics you'll hear the gorgeous guitar taking the melodies in directions you didn't expect them to go. Syndicate are a band who wear their influences on their sleeve like a badge of honor, mixing and matching the sounds that inspire them. The tightrope artwork on the cover of "The Line Starts Here" is fitting... they walk the line between paying homage and being unique, beautifully. In the guitar you hear the clean blues of John Mayer and The Kooks as it mixes effortlessly with the naturally distorted chords of radio alternative groups like Matchbox Twenty. In songs like "Hypnotized" you can hear the beautiful crunch and "wah" of Machbox Twenty songs like "Disease". Also I'll just say it... if "Criminal" isn't the Jason Mraz hit that he never recorded I don't know what is.
In the bass and drum you'll hear a perfect two man team in Keller and Rathbun. To the non-musical ear the bass player is essentially the rope that ties the drummer's rhythm to the guitar's melody and Keller plays that role perfect doing exactly what is needed to connect the two. On songs like "Criminal" you hear the perfect laid back groove between drum and bass carrying the song through it's relaxed vibe. In "The Breakdown" you hear the bass rocketing along with the frantic guitar. The bass is arguably at it's best in "Hypnotized" though, where it thumps it's own distinctive leads behind the guitar in the verses before gliding effortlessly into the highly melodic choruses.
Do I think that "The Line Starts Here" is a perfect record? Of course not. Achieving perfection is boring. What you hear on this album is a band launching out of the gate like an animal ready to take on anything. I think that Syndicate said it best in "Crazy Tonight", the record's opening track... "doesn't matter what's wrong... all that matters is what feels right."
AreYouInTheSyndicate.com
Contact the band on Facebook about purchasing the record
OR
Buy the record on Amazon or iTunes
Record Label: Independent
Overall Opinion: Positive
Genre: Hook Driven Radio Alt Rock
"'The Line Starts Here' is meant to signify how everything we do from here on out starts with this record." This is what Eric Quimby, vocals and guitar of Davison, Michigan's Syndicate told me recently. Right off the bat you get a sense of passion and seriousness from Quimby that most bands at their level in development lack. There is a professionalism to everything they do and nothing is halfway. It's something that a lot of bands either don't have or intentionally avoid.
The band features Quimby on lead vocals and guitar, Patrick Jenkinson on guitar, Chris Keller on bass, Jake Rathbun on drums, and Brandon Mansell on keyboard. The first thing anyone would notice about Syndicate is Quimby's phenomenal voice. It's a bit of a whiskey tenor with grandiose rock tenancies. The tone is clean but still very soulful as he effortlessly does vocal back flips through the melodies like they're his personal playground. '
When you listen past the voice and lyrics you'll hear the gorgeous guitar taking the melodies in directions you didn't expect them to go. Syndicate are a band who wear their influences on their sleeve like a badge of honor, mixing and matching the sounds that inspire them. The tightrope artwork on the cover of "The Line Starts Here" is fitting... they walk the line between paying homage and being unique, beautifully. In the guitar you hear the clean blues of John Mayer and The Kooks as it mixes effortlessly with the naturally distorted chords of radio alternative groups like Matchbox Twenty. In songs like "Hypnotized" you can hear the beautiful crunch and "wah" of Machbox Twenty songs like "Disease". Also I'll just say it... if "Criminal" isn't the Jason Mraz hit that he never recorded I don't know what is.
In the bass and drum you'll hear a perfect two man team in Keller and Rathbun. To the non-musical ear the bass player is essentially the rope that ties the drummer's rhythm to the guitar's melody and Keller plays that role perfect doing exactly what is needed to connect the two. On songs like "Criminal" you hear the perfect laid back groove between drum and bass carrying the song through it's relaxed vibe. In "The Breakdown" you hear the bass rocketing along with the frantic guitar. The bass is arguably at it's best in "Hypnotized" though, where it thumps it's own distinctive leads behind the guitar in the verses before gliding effortlessly into the highly melodic choruses.
Do I think that "The Line Starts Here" is a perfect record? Of course not. Achieving perfection is boring. What you hear on this album is a band launching out of the gate like an animal ready to take on anything. I think that Syndicate said it best in "Crazy Tonight", the record's opening track... "doesn't matter what's wrong... all that matters is what feels right."
AreYouInTheSyndicate.com
Contact the band on Facebook about purchasing the record
OR
Buy the record on Amazon or iTunes
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
ART: An Experiment in Love and Friendship
Tuesday, August 10th, 2010 was my third anniversary with my wife Loren. In past years we've gone on a vacation of some kind on the day but this year, with the baby and being a generally lowsy time of year for money, I knew we wouldn't have the money to get each other anything fancy. I started to think of how I could inject my usual pomp and flare into something that wouldn't be a big expense...
The first thing I thought of was asking my friend Brian Buckley (BamObituaries!) if he would be willing to draw a portrait of Loren and I that I could get framed and give her. He agreed and I was on my way. I didn't want to just give her something that I asked someone else to do so I thought I would write a song as well and give her that, although I knew that I wanted this song to be different than other one's I've written her in the past. I've written and recorded her dozens of my acoustic folk affairs and I think after a while they've begun to blend together. So I contacted my good friend Eric Quimby of the band Syndicate (AreYouInTheSyndicate.com) about collaborating on something. He agreed and that was that. I'd give her a song and Brian's portrait and it would be a nice, inexpensive gift that still had a lot of heart... or so I thought.
I went to Wal-Mart to buy a plastic box to put both the CD and portrait in and some paint to decorate the box. As I was getting some bottles of acrylic paint my eyes wandered to the brushes and canvases. I hadn't painted anything since high school when I stopped pretending I was an "artist" for more "sensible" things. I was never good at it in a technical sense because I can't draw but I always felt like there was some merit to the abstract "feeling paintings" I did back then. I bought a canvas, a cheap set of acrylic paints and some brushes and decided to paint Loren something to go with it all. It was about this point that the wheels started to turn and the project began to take on a new life.
Gradually the idea came to me... what did all of this have in common? A portrait from Brian, a song with Eric, a painting from me... all of these pieces of art coming together. That's when I had the idea of getting every artist that I could to contribute something, anything, to this gift. A massive amalgam of music, graphic art, poetry, anything... it would trump anything I've ever done.
I contacted Loren's step-mom who is extremely talented at damn near everything. She can cook, crochet, paint, draw, sew, embroider, I'm sure she can probably sculpt. I asked her if she could make Loren, what I pictured as a sort of cloth poster, with the word HANSON at the top and below it a list of all of the concerts she's been to (there are a lot, she followed them around Europe once) ending with the one that we are going to next week in Royal Oak, leaving room to add more. What I got was an amazing 3 foot by 4 foot tapestry with the words "Hanson Concerts" in six inch letters surrounding the Hanson logo in the center. The name and dates of the concerts are embroidered on badges which surround the entire affair with room to add 7 more at the bottom. Each of the badges is a pocket that can hold a ticket stub or other memorabilia from the concert as well. She gave me this along with brackets to mount it onto the wall and a rod to hold it up. It is, without a doubt, a billion times more than I expected and it is incredible.
I asked Loren's friend Rachel Cary to provide a piece of graphic art because I knew her to be extremely gifted in that field and she produced and incredible piece that I framed for her. My friend Michael Walters wrote a poem. I had my friend Nick Diener from the band The Swellers (The Swellers) record a spoken word introduction that I put on the CD before the song that Eric and I wrote, introducing it and wishing her a happy anniversary. This was my way of getting a "celebrity" involved but Nick is the closest thing to a celebrity I know so he would have to do.
I ended up doing four paintings for her and writing a poem that I had printed in 11x17 and framed. One of the paintings is meant to represent the meaning of the song Eric and I did and another is meant to represent the meaning of the poem. The other two are very colorful, cutesy paintings that are meant to hang in Lyric's room.
One of the biggest things I did was put together a DVD anthology of me and every musician that I could get to collaborate with me, playing a couple of covers. This list includes: Mike DeLorme, Patrick Munley, Eric Quimby (Syndicate), Jason Kotarski, Chris Dunklee, Bryce Berry, and Nick Freakin' Hale. I met up with them, sang and played some covers, recorded them, and burnt them all to a DVD that I made fancy cover art for called "Anthology: Beauty is Imperfect". I figured since I knew so many musicians and it would be difficult and cumbersome to sit and write a song with all of them and probably more difficult to drum up interest in doing it, I could easily hook up with each of them, play a few covers, tape them, and put it all together.
The last thing that I did was put together a "Staycation" to go in place of our usual vacation. Now a "staycation" is a buzz word that the media has invented to essentially mock poor people who can't afford to spend their vacation time actually doing anything or going anywhere because of the economy but they still have to take it so they end up staying at home. They started airing all of these tongue in cheek pieces about a year ago suggesting things you can do for your "staycation". Anyway, I took the word and ran with it though and decided to actually do it. I bought some Lansing post cards and souvenirs and put them in a little wooden suitcase I bought at Michael's Craft's and painted. My mom agreed to babysit Lyric next weekend while I take Loren on a tour of the coolest sights in Lansing, cook her fancy meals, I'm going to re-arrange the furniture in the apartment so it looks like a hotel, we're going to watch movies. This is the plan.
All of this I put in a plastic tub I had painted and labeled "ART: An Experiment in Love and Friendship" and I gave it to her yesterday. I think that she liked it... I really hope I didn't forget anything.
The first thing I thought of was asking my friend Brian Buckley (BamObituaries!) if he would be willing to draw a portrait of Loren and I that I could get framed and give her. He agreed and I was on my way. I didn't want to just give her something that I asked someone else to do so I thought I would write a song as well and give her that, although I knew that I wanted this song to be different than other one's I've written her in the past. I've written and recorded her dozens of my acoustic folk affairs and I think after a while they've begun to blend together. So I contacted my good friend Eric Quimby of the band Syndicate (AreYouInTheSyndicate.com) about collaborating on something. He agreed and that was that. I'd give her a song and Brian's portrait and it would be a nice, inexpensive gift that still had a lot of heart... or so I thought.
I went to Wal-Mart to buy a plastic box to put both the CD and portrait in and some paint to decorate the box. As I was getting some bottles of acrylic paint my eyes wandered to the brushes and canvases. I hadn't painted anything since high school when I stopped pretending I was an "artist" for more "sensible" things. I was never good at it in a technical sense because I can't draw but I always felt like there was some merit to the abstract "feeling paintings" I did back then. I bought a canvas, a cheap set of acrylic paints and some brushes and decided to paint Loren something to go with it all. It was about this point that the wheels started to turn and the project began to take on a new life.
Gradually the idea came to me... what did all of this have in common? A portrait from Brian, a song with Eric, a painting from me... all of these pieces of art coming together. That's when I had the idea of getting every artist that I could to contribute something, anything, to this gift. A massive amalgam of music, graphic art, poetry, anything... it would trump anything I've ever done.
I contacted Loren's step-mom who is extremely talented at damn near everything. She can cook, crochet, paint, draw, sew, embroider, I'm sure she can probably sculpt. I asked her if she could make Loren, what I pictured as a sort of cloth poster, with the word HANSON at the top and below it a list of all of the concerts she's been to (there are a lot, she followed them around Europe once) ending with the one that we are going to next week in Royal Oak, leaving room to add more. What I got was an amazing 3 foot by 4 foot tapestry with the words "Hanson Concerts" in six inch letters surrounding the Hanson logo in the center. The name and dates of the concerts are embroidered on badges which surround the entire affair with room to add 7 more at the bottom. Each of the badges is a pocket that can hold a ticket stub or other memorabilia from the concert as well. She gave me this along with brackets to mount it onto the wall and a rod to hold it up. It is, without a doubt, a billion times more than I expected and it is incredible.
I asked Loren's friend Rachel Cary to provide a piece of graphic art because I knew her to be extremely gifted in that field and she produced and incredible piece that I framed for her. My friend Michael Walters wrote a poem. I had my friend Nick Diener from the band The Swellers (The Swellers) record a spoken word introduction that I put on the CD before the song that Eric and I wrote, introducing it and wishing her a happy anniversary. This was my way of getting a "celebrity" involved but Nick is the closest thing to a celebrity I know so he would have to do.
I ended up doing four paintings for her and writing a poem that I had printed in 11x17 and framed. One of the paintings is meant to represent the meaning of the song Eric and I did and another is meant to represent the meaning of the poem. The other two are very colorful, cutesy paintings that are meant to hang in Lyric's room.
One of the biggest things I did was put together a DVD anthology of me and every musician that I could get to collaborate with me, playing a couple of covers. This list includes: Mike DeLorme, Patrick Munley, Eric Quimby (Syndicate), Jason Kotarski, Chris Dunklee, Bryce Berry, and Nick Freakin' Hale. I met up with them, sang and played some covers, recorded them, and burnt them all to a DVD that I made fancy cover art for called "Anthology: Beauty is Imperfect". I figured since I knew so many musicians and it would be difficult and cumbersome to sit and write a song with all of them and probably more difficult to drum up interest in doing it, I could easily hook up with each of them, play a few covers, tape them, and put it all together.
The last thing that I did was put together a "Staycation" to go in place of our usual vacation. Now a "staycation" is a buzz word that the media has invented to essentially mock poor people who can't afford to spend their vacation time actually doing anything or going anywhere because of the economy but they still have to take it so they end up staying at home. They started airing all of these tongue in cheek pieces about a year ago suggesting things you can do for your "staycation". Anyway, I took the word and ran with it though and decided to actually do it. I bought some Lansing post cards and souvenirs and put them in a little wooden suitcase I bought at Michael's Craft's and painted. My mom agreed to babysit Lyric next weekend while I take Loren on a tour of the coolest sights in Lansing, cook her fancy meals, I'm going to re-arrange the furniture in the apartment so it looks like a hotel, we're going to watch movies. This is the plan.
All of this I put in a plastic tub I had painted and labeled "ART: An Experiment in Love and Friendship" and I gave it to her yesterday. I think that she liked it... I really hope I didn't forget anything.
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
Monday, April 19, 2010
Thursday, April 8, 2010
The Tale of the Last Few Days
I am about to take you on a journey. It is filled with adventure, foul language, and piles upon piles of bullshit. Abandon hope, all ye who choose to read further... submitted for the approval of the Midnight Society, this is "The Tale of the Last Few Days" (you'll get that reference if you're over the age of 19 or under the age of 40)
It began on Monday evening when I was on my way to class. I turned a corner and suddenly my car wouldn't accelerate... at all. it was still running perfectly but it wouldn't move. I proceeded to push it into the parking lot of a nearby Quality Dairy (incidentally pushing a car up hill is difficult).
After having it towed to the Firestone in west Lansing we had to leave it over night because they were about to close. Now it is important to note that Loren, the people at Firestone, the guy driving the tow truck, and myself ALL knew that the likelihood of it being the transmission was almost absolute. We also all knew that transmissions cost thousands of dollars to repair.
I called off work for the following day because I had no way of getting there and went home. Upon arriving home I got more drunk than I ever have in my entire life. I drank two beers and when I could still remember that my car was broken, I drank almost an entire bottle of Jack Daniels. This happened in the course of about 10 minutes and caused me to pass out relatively shortly afterward.
I woke up the next day, hungover, and my car was still broken. Mission not accomplished. Let it be known that I am AWARE that drinking your problems away is bad, so please don't lecture me, I KNOW. Moving on... we found out from Firestone that it WAS indeed probably the transmission but since Firestone does not do transmissions we had to tow it to a dealership. That dealership was Hyundai of Lansing. They informed us that it was definitely the transmission and it would be SIX THOUSAND DOLLARS to replace... my first thought was one of regret that I was now out of Jack Daniels.
Needless to say we opted NOT to spend six grand fixing a car that is worth three grand tops. We did have to pay Hyundai of Lansing a 50 dollar "go fuck yourself" fee in order for them to look at it and tell us it was broken, though. It was going to be a $100 "go fuck yourself" fee but honest blokes that they are, it only took a half an hour rather than a full hour to ascertain that it was indeed broken.
After calling around and getting our ducks in a row, though, we have found out that, apparently, the VTi transmission in the Saturn ION is a piece of shit. They know it's a piece of shit, we know that it's a piece of shit, and they got sued for selling pieces of shit. As per the "shit suit" settlement, they (Saturn) will either A) pay for half of the repair of B) give us five grand toward the purchase of a brand new car.
We have decided to go with option B and get a brand new car. We're going to buy a Cobalt, and using current discounts and incentives we should be able to get it for around 8 grand. The 5 grand from Saturn will serve to wipe out the debt we currently still owe on the dead car. With a co-signer, we will end up paying about what we are paying now in car payments.
In the mean time I have rented a car from Enterprise. Now, you see, what enterprise has done to us is bend us over a table and anally violate us over and over and over and over and over. First of all we booked a rental on their website for about 42 dollars a day plus 14 dollars extra for being irresponsible children under the age of 25. This seemed reasonable, roughly 55 bucks a day for a rental didn't seem bad. When I got to Enterprise, though, I was informed that we would need to pay 14 dollars PER driver, so 14 for both me AND Loren, making it about 70 bucks a day. ON TOP OF THIS they needed a 400 dollar deposit that their site failed to mention in our receipt. To top it all off they had to call the dealership that my dead car is at to make sure that it was definitely broken and I have no fucking clue why... it seemed really invasive and really stupid.
On top of this we had to pay $80 to have the dead car towed from Hyundai of Lansing to a "Saturn authorized" dealership because, as it turns out, out super special "RV Plus" AAA membership with 100 miles of FREE towing only covers "one tow per breakdown".
Additionally my best friend Michael isn't speaking to be because I drunk dialed him when I was hammered and when he called the next day to make sure I was all right I was either a prick or dodged his calls and texts entirely. To be honest I'm sort of with him on this one, it was a dick move on my part.
In summation; fuck you Saturn, fuck you Enterprise, fuck you AAA, fuck you Hyundai of Lansing, and most importantly FUCK YOU GOD!
It began on Monday evening when I was on my way to class. I turned a corner and suddenly my car wouldn't accelerate... at all. it was still running perfectly but it wouldn't move. I proceeded to push it into the parking lot of a nearby Quality Dairy (incidentally pushing a car up hill is difficult).
After having it towed to the Firestone in west Lansing we had to leave it over night because they were about to close. Now it is important to note that Loren, the people at Firestone, the guy driving the tow truck, and myself ALL knew that the likelihood of it being the transmission was almost absolute. We also all knew that transmissions cost thousands of dollars to repair.
I called off work for the following day because I had no way of getting there and went home. Upon arriving home I got more drunk than I ever have in my entire life. I drank two beers and when I could still remember that my car was broken, I drank almost an entire bottle of Jack Daniels. This happened in the course of about 10 minutes and caused me to pass out relatively shortly afterward.
I woke up the next day, hungover, and my car was still broken. Mission not accomplished. Let it be known that I am AWARE that drinking your problems away is bad, so please don't lecture me, I KNOW. Moving on... we found out from Firestone that it WAS indeed probably the transmission but since Firestone does not do transmissions we had to tow it to a dealership. That dealership was Hyundai of Lansing. They informed us that it was definitely the transmission and it would be SIX THOUSAND DOLLARS to replace... my first thought was one of regret that I was now out of Jack Daniels.
Needless to say we opted NOT to spend six grand fixing a car that is worth three grand tops. We did have to pay Hyundai of Lansing a 50 dollar "go fuck yourself" fee in order for them to look at it and tell us it was broken, though. It was going to be a $100 "go fuck yourself" fee but honest blokes that they are, it only took a half an hour rather than a full hour to ascertain that it was indeed broken.
After calling around and getting our ducks in a row, though, we have found out that, apparently, the VTi transmission in the Saturn ION is a piece of shit. They know it's a piece of shit, we know that it's a piece of shit, and they got sued for selling pieces of shit. As per the "shit suit" settlement, they (Saturn) will either A) pay for half of the repair of B) give us five grand toward the purchase of a brand new car.
We have decided to go with option B and get a brand new car. We're going to buy a Cobalt, and using current discounts and incentives we should be able to get it for around 8 grand. The 5 grand from Saturn will serve to wipe out the debt we currently still owe on the dead car. With a co-signer, we will end up paying about what we are paying now in car payments.
In the mean time I have rented a car from Enterprise. Now, you see, what enterprise has done to us is bend us over a table and anally violate us over and over and over and over and over. First of all we booked a rental on their website for about 42 dollars a day plus 14 dollars extra for being irresponsible children under the age of 25. This seemed reasonable, roughly 55 bucks a day for a rental didn't seem bad. When I got to Enterprise, though, I was informed that we would need to pay 14 dollars PER driver, so 14 for both me AND Loren, making it about 70 bucks a day. ON TOP OF THIS they needed a 400 dollar deposit that their site failed to mention in our receipt. To top it all off they had to call the dealership that my dead car is at to make sure that it was definitely broken and I have no fucking clue why... it seemed really invasive and really stupid.
On top of this we had to pay $80 to have the dead car towed from Hyundai of Lansing to a "Saturn authorized" dealership because, as it turns out, out super special "RV Plus" AAA membership with 100 miles of FREE towing only covers "one tow per breakdown".
Additionally my best friend Michael isn't speaking to be because I drunk dialed him when I was hammered and when he called the next day to make sure I was all right I was either a prick or dodged his calls and texts entirely. To be honest I'm sort of with him on this one, it was a dick move on my part.
In summation; fuck you Saturn, fuck you Enterprise, fuck you AAA, fuck you Hyundai of Lansing, and most importantly FUCK YOU GOD!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)