Ready to Rock

Two weeks and one day.

Antsy? Hell yeah. Excited? Hell yeah. Nervous? A little, would be lying if I said I wasn't.

Bemused? After a few recent events, yes, most assuredly. I learned a lot about a fellow musician's true nature today. It'll be interesting to see if he comes to the show or not. I'm indifferent either way, really. I neither need nor desire his approval of what we do. Honestly, if he's going to make that much of an issue of it, it's not worth it in the end.

All in all, though, I'm really looking forward to the whole night overall. It'll be interesting to see - out of all those people who've said they'd come - who actually does show up, how many people in general show up, and what kind of crowd it will be. We're all hoping for a big one, of course.

What's really going to set that weekend off, though, is Friday night. My friend TT is a part of fellow local rockers Rapid Fire, and we have a mutual acquaintance of sorts. They've invited me to their show Friday night to sing a song (what one, I don't know). Whether this mutual "friend" shows up or not, it doesn't really matter. It's about the rock, and these boys know how! It'll be awesome to share a stage with them!

So what does this mean for the rest of the world? Not much. I just needed to get some of that out so I can stop thinking about it and relax. I'm going to see Candlelight Red tonight, and you know what?

I might actually have a date. Who knew, right?!?

In the meantime, though, I have a truck to clean out and some laundry to do...

The Revelation

Cross-posted at my MySpace Blog

Have I ever mentioned how awesome Andy Howard is? Yeah, well, guess what.

He. Is. AWESOME.

So we polish up a few tunes at band practice today, and the time comes, before Dave has to roll out for work, for us to kick around new tune ideas. We're constantly trying to expand our arsenal, recently adding some new Metallica (Cyanide) and Offspring (You're Gonna Go Far Kid). There's some obscure stuff in there, too, like Arcade's "Tow Truck," and, after today, something that makes me very, very happy indeed.

At Andy's suggestion, Buck-It will be covering the one and only...

KMFDM

Yes, I'm in a band that's gonna do KMFDM tunes! HOW FUCKING AWESOME? REAL FUCKING AWESOME!

KMFDM ranks as one of my three all time favorite bands (the others being Pink Floyd and Tool), and to be with a group of awesome musicians who are all quite eager to cover something from them... Wow. I'm really blown away by the opportunity.

In case you're wondering, the song in question will be Juke-Joint Jezebel. For those of you who aren't familiar with KMFDM, the track can be found on the soundtracks to both the first Mortal Kombat and Bad Boys movies. It's probably the KMFDM track the mainstream recognizes the most, given the exposure it got on those two discs. I don't know what kid didn't have a copy of the soundtrack to MK when it came out, but they weren't in my circle of friends, that's for sure.

And that was a pretty big circle at that time.

But to have Andy suggest it. Not me, who you'd think would try to push a track by such an obscure band through. I said, though, that I also wasn't surprised. "Tow Truck" was Andy's idea, and he's tossed forth songs by The Members and Type O Negative as well. Not really what you'd call mainstream, right? Right. So it's not really that far-fetch'd to think that Andy would pick up on a KMFDM track.

Bob remarked about how it had a Rob Zombie feel. ROFLMAO! KMFDM predates Zombie by a year, having formed in 1984 as part of a Multimedia Art presentation. Afterwards, they moved almost straightaway into experimenting with the then infant Industrial sound, becoming one of the driving forces of the genre, which Zombie would later contribute classic tracks to as well.

Dave likes the Zombie feel to it as well, which pretty much seals the deal: Buck-It is doing Juke-Joint Jezebel. ROCK! \m/ Andy and I will be splitting vocal duties, which is always fun, and it's a pretty driving tune all-around. Look it up on YouTube if you must, but be warned. KMFDM, once heard, can be addicting. VERY addicting. Trust me...

First Look

Ladies and gentlemen, say hello to the new Buck-It:

Clockwise from Front: Dave Read (Drums), Bob Haight(Guitars/Vocals), Eric Jacobson (Vocals) and Andy Howard (Bass/Vocals).

Buck-It will be part of Aaron's Rock Concert for The March Of Dimes, along with Dressed To Kill, Ozone Rangers and Rukkus, Sunday September 21st, 2008 @ Electric Avenue in Houtzdale, PA, beginning at 6pm. We go on first, but I'm not entirely sure of the exact order beyond our set.

Edit Bonus: Here's a cameraphone shot of me. Mostly, this is to replace my Blogger Profile Image with something a little less three years ago...


I really should mirror that...

Boldly Go

Weekend Story, Short Version:

3rd place in the Karaoke contest. Bummer, but oh well. I got what I wanted out of it: I got the gig with Buck-It, and am now their new lead singer. AWESOME! I speak more in my first Vlog (video blog), posted just this morning in glorious widescreen!

Rock on! I PROMISE that video from this past weekend will be on the 'Tube today.

Astral Plane I've Traveled Through

Well, the results are in, and I managed to qualify for the finals last night. So far, Frank Sinatra and Queen have done me right (and I hope I've done right by them as well), and now I have to pick two songs for the Finals. Later on today, I'll have some video of the last night's contestants for all of you to watch, including my performance of "Bohemian Rhapsody."

Yeah, I went there, big whoop! Wanna fight about it?

But that wasn't the highlight of the evening, no. "How," you ask, "could qualifying for the regional finals of an (supposedly) international Karaoke contest not be the highlight of your evening?" The highlight, as it turns out, began earlier in the day when I discovered that local rock heroes Buck-It were looking for a new lead singer. Bonus! So of course, I sent them a message, along with links to some of my work online (mostly my YouTube Channel, where anyone can find me singing and goofing off) and an invite to come check me out at last night's contest.

TJ, the bass player, replied, and came to hang out with us at the contest last night. The end result? I have an audition tomorrow at 12:30, and it's gonna be teh hawesome. We're gonna rock some songs from Coal Chamber, Seven Mary Three, Drowning Pool, Pantera, Rage Against the Machine, Alice in Chains, and more. I'm pretty sure I impressed the hell out of TJ last night, and I can't wait to carry that over to Dave and Bob as well. My guess is, TJ had quite a few good things to say, because their MySpace message to me this morning sounded incredibly positive! ROCK!

So, last night was a good one. Tonight, I'll be running a special Saturday Karaoke session at Electric Avenue, so if you're local, come on down and hang out! Of course it'll be a good time, because let's face it: good times are just how I roll...