New Job, New Year.

Happy New Year. It is 2010.

I can’t believe I’ve been blogging for a year. I started this blogging thing last January on the advice of a friend in Ireland after a terribly frustrating night of gigging in Los Angeles. For most of the year I have been unemployed. That is not the case any longer. I am gainfully employed as a designer for a rock ‘n roll tee shirt company in West LA getting paid a decent salary for drawing and mastering adobe photoshop and illustrator. The days are long and it can be challenging at times, but I really love the work.

A few of my designs are currently in production and will be sold in Victorias Secret stores in March 2010. I designed a bunch of tees for Bloomingdales this week. I never really saw myself in the fashion world, but it looks like I am neck deep in this fashion designer thing. The best part about it all is that the designs are rock ‘n roll related and are all limited and inspired by song lyrics. It is the most challenging thing that I have ever done and the most rewarding job I’ve ever had.

Now that some steady money is coming in, I am going to try and funnel some of it into the Brian Travis Band. I’ve been at music much longer than I’ve been a fashion designer, but getting my music off the ground has taken more money from me than I’ve ever made from it. The thing is, my visual art has always made me money and my music career has always been the source of financial hemorrhage, but I love music, and as the title of this blog reveals, I am addicted to rock music specifically. With any addiction, money is blown to support the fix. Sometimes it feels like my band, my desire to write songs and my drive to produce my own music has become the source of my financial instability. I plan on spending more money on another print run of my new CD, production of music videos for my album and I need to get all of my instruments and amplifiers repaired.

There is another financial obstacle that is rearing it’s ugly head right now. I am spending a good amount of my paycheck on traveling to Huntington Beach to spend time with a girl who I seem to be in love with. See previous post. She is beautiful and talented and much younger than me. In a time of economic downturn, she is living at home and hating ever second of it. This mostly means that I cannot stay at her place when I visit her, so I have recently taken to splurging on hotel rooms. I love staying in hotels. Very luxurious, however the elegance wreaks havoc on my pocketbook.

These are good problems to have. Look at me complaining about being in love and having a job! Life is as good as can be expected. I even have a Brian Travis Band gig on Jan 9th and it is a paid gig too…so I am on a roll. It will feel great to rock again with the band…I’m looking forward to that almost as much as I am looking forward to seeing my girl this Sat night.

Also, I wrote another song last weekend…it is called “When I Grow Up” and I quite like it. It is another twisted kids song for my children’s album. 3 more songs to write then it will be done!

True Love.

I’ve been around the block a time or two. I know what the real thing feels like. I know how rare and beautiful it is. I know there are lots of different kinds of love. I have been lucky enough to have experienced true love in my life once before. The last time I felt the way I feel now was a lifetime ago. It was pure, magical, unrealistic and doomed…but what an amazing ride. I was too young to understand what was really happening (do we ever really understand completely?) and my inexperience was the undoing of that relationship.

And now, later in my life, I have been offered the real thing a second time. It is so different than all the other affairs of the heart that I have been involved in over the last 10 or so years. There is a purity and an honesty and an undiluted nature to what I am currently experiencing. Honestly at this point I am just pleased that I feel anything at all. I was starting to think that this kind of thing only happens once in a lifetime. I was convinced that I would never feel the way I feel now ever again.

It is thrilling to be proved wrong. I am so in love with someone that when I am near them I feel at peace. Calm. Relaxed. Serene and excited all at the same time. I am giddy like a child, floating on clouds yet also completely grounded in my love for this person. She makes me feel like a better person when I am near her. She makes me feel special. She makes me feel complete.

I do not know how long this will last or how deep this can go. It feels infinite and forever expanding like the universe. I’ve never known the kind of peace I feel laying next to her…I remember feeling this way once before, but that experience is becoming eclipsed by this one every time I am in her presence. I feel like I am being transformed from the inside. My heart is alive and radiating something pure and genuine. I love her as completely as a person can.

I’m scared shitless.

House Concerts

The Brian Travis Band played a house concert at a private Boutique in Venice last week. It was really fun to play acoustic and at a volume where ever single note and harmony could be heard clearly. The songs really seemed to connect with the 30 or so people that were sitting in rows in front of us and the lights were dim and our host Deb was lighting sticks of incense and it was just a very Venice beach experience.

We played 2 sets and took a nice long break between. It is pretty standard to lose 1/2 your audience when you stop playing and take a break. To my surprise everyone stayed and we even got a few more people in the door for the second set, including a wayward Dustin Hoffman who happened to be listening outside the door on the street and came in, sat down and listened to 3 or 4 tunes before stealthily exiting before our set was over!

I like the intimate feel of Private House Concert gigs. I would like to do more. If anyone is interested in hosting one with The Brian Travis Band, feel free to get in touch. Email me at tastethismoment@hotmail.com

For more info about what exactly a house concert is, this website offers some good information:

http://www.concertsinyourhome.com/

or the Wiki definition: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_concert

Broke.

I am freaking broke. I have no idea where rent is gonna come from next month. Kind of freaking out. I hope people buy my CD on itunes. That would be so RAD to make rent off of CD sales. C’mon people, I’ve made a great CD. Buy it and help me afford to survive so that I can make more art.

Also, become a FAN of the BTB on Facebook:

Another Trip Around The Sun…

I am about to complete another trip around the sun and once again I am going to celebrate by doing what I do. I’m playing a show with my band at The Hotel Cafe on Aug 21st. Aug 22nd is my actual birthday, but I am hoping to be in the middle of some magical jam when midnight rolls around. It has been quite a year…but I am looking forward to the next one. I feel healthier, more rested and more fit than I have in eons. I am in a new emotional state and learning a lot about myself. But it is not easy. I’ve been working freelance in a tough economy but barely making ends meet. Learning a lot about radical self reliance.

The band is still going strong. The Brian Travis Band cannot die it seems. It just keeps morphing into something new…I let go a long time ago and am resigned to following my muse. She has been showing me some interesting musical places. I want to breath new life into old ideas, I want to do something completely different. I want to tear it all down and build it all up again.

Death By Misadventure: A Twisted Collection Of Children’s Music By Brian Travis

Now that all of my friends are having offspring I feel that it is a good time to write childrens songs…but the kids songs I am writing are not your typical happy go lucky affair. Mine are genuinely twisted. I have five solid songs written and I may put music to ‘Pink & Fleshy Bear Treats’ and recite the poem as spoken word over music.

Here is the song list so far:

1. Girls Aren’t Allowed In Forts (a rock version of this song has been recorded on the latest BTB record)
2. My Dad Is Better Than Your Dad (you know he is)
3. Stay Out Of My Room (having a little brother or sister sucks)
4. I think Your Mom & Dad Have Been Replaced By Aliens (based on a true story)
5. Before The World Ends (a happy little number about the end of the world)
6. Pink & Fleshy Bear Treats (bears love to maul little kids who wander through the woods alone)

So I am about 4 or 5 songs away from a full length children’s album!

Matters of the Heart

I do not have a focused theme for this post. Nothing has made me particularly angry or irked me enough to write anything scathing. I’ve not been inspired by the wonder of life on Earth to write something inspirational either. This is kind of a prozac pontification…middle of the road ramblings.

It’s possible that being left in limbo regarding a certain someone has something to do with my general and unfocused malaise. I have found myself encumbered with feelings for an extraordinary lady. This person has cultivated something inside me that has lain dormant for a long long time. Unfortunately, as soon as she awoke these feelings inside me, she pulled away. I feel slightly taken for granted and a little like I’ve been given a dose of my own medicine in the love dept.

But at the same time, what I’ve been learning about myself as a result of this experience has been extraordinary. I wish I did not feel so helpless and confused so much of the time regarding what is going on between myself and this person. It has been an exercise in growth and understanding. I’m faced with some long overdue lessons that I’ve been avoiding learning. And at the same time, I’m feeling a little led on and abused, even though I know the other person involved is probably oblivious to the fact that she is mistreating my heart. I know she cares about me and I know that her misgivings are subconscious in nature – but it does not mean that they are any less painful.

Tunecore Widget

Check it out! You can listen and download my latest music using this handy dandy widget! Enjoy…

Santa Cruz vs. Los Angeles

As a musician without a car I’ve been semi-trapped in Los Angeles for a few years now with no real way to just hit the road and tour behind my music the way I would like. This had caused me to play in LA more than I prefer, and it has also kept me from expanding my fan base beyond the borders of Los Angeles county.

About a month ago I was offered a gig in Santa Cruz to play with The Five Deadly Venoms. I took the gig without a clear idea of how I was going to get 6 hours north and back. A few days prior to the gig, I began to scour the craigslist rideshare posts in hopes of finding a ride. Eventually I connected with a very sweet girl from Redondo Beach who happened to be taking a trip up the coast and wanted the company of a musician. We met around noon-ish the following day and loaded up her car with my backpack, merchandise and guitar and had a grand adventure on the road to Santa Cruz while the summer is good and young. It turned out that my Redondo beach companion and I shared a lot of the same interests and were perfectly matched for the trip. We stopped often and took in the sights and hung out on the beach once arriving in SC and enjoyed the start of a perfect norcal sunset as the waves pummeled the surf.

I was picked up by the promoter/and my good friend Sven and stayed in a beautiful cabin surrounded by a nook of redwood trees overlooking the San Lorenzo river. Svens’ back deck hung directly over the babbling river and the sound of the water rushing over rocks was the orchestral soundtrack during the few nights I spent there. My days were spent exploring the town I used to live in and running into old friends almost everywhere. Summertime was in full swing and the town was bursting with vibrant life. The community was as laid back as ever and I re-discovered why I fell in love with Santa Cruz the first time around.

On Wed night, July 8th I performed with my old band, Wishcraft along with Mohias, The Five Deadly Venoms and Vicky Peterson. It was a great show and there were hundreds of people filling the venue. Nearly every friend I ever had in Santa Cruz was there. After my set, I sold a good amount of CD’s to my old friends who were all excited to listen to my newest work. I spent most of the evening signing copies of my CD and posing for pictures with old friends. I sold out of the remaining physical copies of my new CD that night and left the gig with a good amount of cash in my pocket.

The following days were spent going to breakfast with friends, hitting the beach and embarking on plenty of margarita missions. When Friday rolled around and I was set to meet up with another rideshare back to LA, I was irritated and vexed that I had to leave. Santa Cruz is a paradise and it was great to return after nearly 5 years of absence.

Once back in LA, I had preparations to make for my next show in the city of angels. I was booked at Cinespace for an event called The Bohemian Shindig. A big club event in hollywood with 21 bands and a handful of visual artists. My group was booked to play at 10:40pm in the VIP lounge. I had spent most of my time promoting the Cinespace show once I returned from my blissed out Santa Cruz adventure. I sent an email blast to my 1500 contact email list, my 397 Facebook friends and sent bulletins advertising the show on myspace. I called, sent texts and basically informed everyone I knew about the show.

We lugged our gear to the club and up 2 flights of stairs to play in a smoke filled lounge with a dinky PA system and a pretty packed room of chatty smoking people. I knew almost no one there, and only 4 BTB fans made it to the event. That is 4 out of nearly 2,000 that I contacted. This was a Friday night show…not a Tuesday night at 11pm mind you. The fact that only 4 people showed up to see me in LA was a huge let down for me amplified by the fact that hundreds of people came out to see me in Santa Cruz on a Wednesday night a few weeks prior.

The assembly line nature of the gig with 7 acts on each of the 3 stages over the course of the night left most of the artists feeling a rushed lack of respect and the sound equipment was substandard in the VIP lounge. Our sound man did the best job he could with the rinky dink equipment, but our set suffered greatly from the tin-can sound of the vocals which did not have enough wattage to sit comfortably on top of the rest of the music. As a result, it was difficult for me to connect with an audience of strangers who would rather smoke and chat than listen to a band they have never heard of.

Not a single person signed our mailing list and no one bought a single CD.

I left the gig wondering why I ever left my house in the first place. From what I could tell, that show did very little for any of the bands who played. The crowd was unresponsive and primarily there to party rather than to check out the talented people who were performing for them. We felt like a human jukebox that everyone ignores at a bar while drinking with friends. We were making music, but no one was listening and they were only aware that something was happening when we would finish a tune, creating a void where sound used to be.

So LA was a Montana-sized let down after the groovy, down to earth love fest that was Santa Cruz. My next LA show is at the Hotel Cafe on August 21st. I hope it goes better than Cinespace or I will lose faith in this town altogether.

Audiogram 6

The Yamaha Audiogram 6 is awesome! Yes, I’ve finally joined the digital recording revolution and can now make my next album on my laptop…if making albums are even part of how music will be ‘bundled’ as product in the near future…

For the moment, I’m just super stoked to be recording decent quality homespun demos of all these songs that are pouring out of me right now.

Seriously, I’ve written like 5 songs in the last month or so…it feels so great to be productive as a songwriter again…my last creative burst was last summer/fall 2008.

Bad news: I’m out of work again. The Malibu job dried up. I designed all the designs they needed and now I am on to whatever is next. Such is the life of a freelance graphic artist. I’ve got some $ saved and I can take some time to keep the band stuff going…I’m looking into booking shows in Ireland this fall.