warning to parents: you can probably tune this one out…
musically speaking, i’ve had 2 experiences that fundamentally changed my life (once again, musically speaking). the 2nd was sitting in melissa garriott’s car. she told me she had an album that i just HAD to hear. i can’t tell you the number of times that i’ve heard that only to be met with some crap that i knew i would soon forget. she threw in fevers and mirrors by bright eyes. after getting over the shock of just how good this music was, i remember thinking, ‘oh man, this changes everything.’ and it did. for a while, at least, until bright eyes (and conor oberst) went to crap.
the first experience occurred about 12 or so years ago. a fairly new found friend of mine, ethan smith, introduced me to pedro the lion. well, he told me about pedro the lion. i never actually heard them. but he swore that i would like it. ethan seemed to have some musical creditability so based on his suggestion i bought their debut album, it’s hard to find a friend. once again, after a couple of listenings i was hooked in a BIG way. i knew that this album was going to be in my personal rotation for years to come. the band continued to release albums (and i’ve loved each one) but recently disbanded. the singer, david bazan, continued to release solo material. this wasn’t a big deal as bazan wrote all of the music for the band (which was just a constant rotation of his friends) anyway.
i’ve been heavily into his newest release, curse your branches. thematically, it’s pretty heavy as it’s about bazan becoming disenfranchised with modern Christianity and questioning all that he was brought up to believe. that having been said, it’s a GREAT album. in support of the album he’s been touring, but in between tours he’s been playing these small house shows. they sell a max of 40 tickets and it’s usually in a large living room or some other very intimate setting. well, i saw that one of his upcoming house shows was in renton, wa, our town. i knew i couldn’t resist seeing him on home turf so i bought tickets for jana and i. apparently not a lot of people like to make the trip to renton as we were among about 14 other people that were there at the show. i set up a camera (Canon 5D Mark II) and shot another angle with a hand held camera (Canon T1i) and managed to catch the whole show. i’m really happy with how it turned out. i’m posting it here for your enjoyment (or curiosity).
so, to those unaware, i was in a band called sir jackson and the long ride for a while. we were incredible. below are several videos (10 in total) from a house party that we played.
this is the band that we played with at that party called the loose. these guys are AMAZING.
not sure if this is an official music video or not, but it should be. i’m sure it’s not, but i want to give props to whoever did this and the fact that they chose the perfect font for this video.
we decided to take the kids to mcdonald’s for a tasty treat on this particularly rainy night. no one would say that they’re the cleanest, but you can’t argue the fact that they sure do enjoy a good ice cream cone. this is one of my favorite videos that i’ve shot using our new canon t1i. i really am pleased with that camera. i have full control over pretty much everything. i shot this using my canon 50mm f1.8 lens. it’s got a great depth of field that seems to work well in these videos. i’m still really trying to get a grasp on shooting video with the t1i, but i’m getting there. anyway, enjoy!
The band hasn’t given me permission to put this up, but I wanted people to see a young(er) Jana in her only music video. This was from her first band Majestic 12.
So, our good friend Kim Dee is organizing a beach party with the Hellers Monday July 13th in Huntington Beach. Everybody is invited. Please go to the following facebook link for details and RSVP. BE THERE!
Here are details from the facebook post for those of you not yet on the facebook wagon.
“Jana & Steve are coming to town and want to see everyone’s face at once. Bring your family and dinner and we’ll have s’mores for dessert. There is free parking by Jack in the Box (I’m not sure how available it will be) or you can just pay and head back towards Warner. We’ll get the closest pit to the free parking we can. I hope you all can come!”
Whether you’re able to RSVP on facebook or not, we’d love to see you out there.
so, a couple weeks ago i dropped and broke my iPhone 3G. it was heartbreaking to say the least. i decided to wait a couple of weeks until the new iPhone 3G S was released and upgraded to it. in many ways it’s the same phone, but it’s actually quite a bit faster and now it does video recording. i posted a test video to vimeo. check it out below.
i decided some time ago that i wanted to start a tradition in our family. i wanted to create a series of questions and ask them to each of our children on their birthday. i want to record these interviews for posterity and put them on our site. it was tricky coming up with the list of questions because i wanted them to be able to last until they’re old without revising them so that we could see the progression of their thinking and priorities. i’m not sure if they work or not, but i guess i’ll find out. this video is from may 10th, when lily turned 4. today is jack’s birthday so i’ll be posting his soon. if anyone can think of any other good questions to ask, feel free to share in the comments.
p.s. – the sound in this thing is not the best and it was kind of dark when i shot it (on my webcam) so it could be better too.
