In the Mind of Nate

Hello All, I would like to thank everybody that took the time to read my post from last week . I was truly unaware I wasn’t the only one that was having anxious feelings upon our upcoming high school reunion. And I’m glad that we were all able to overcome that and have a good night to remember. Like many other issues that troubles our lives, they are often easier to overcome when you discover other people better dealing with the same problems. After all, the feeling of isolation or lack of understanding only compounds a problem. So “strength in numbers” as they say. I’m still amazed by the fact that, despite all the time that has passed and how we have gone our separate ways, so many of us were in the same place mentally. Maybe this is because we all started off in the same place. Who knows? But I do know that it for me it was not only a great time, but a real eye opener about life in general. I maybe acting a bit dramatic here or taken by how wonderful the reuni...

Hello everyone, Happy Year. It's still early enough in the year to say that right? Anyway, I wish all of you a much better and prosperous 2022. This year is believed to bring about changes and abundance. Which after the last 2 years is really needed. The world has definitely changed drastically in the last couple of years. Just think about how people have changed not only their routine but how they interact with one another. We're being told that we should deprive ourselves of one of our very basic needs. Human contact. We were told to isolate ourselves, and only interact from a distance. Even more strangely, actual physical contact. People I've been conditioned to be at the very least weary, if not afraid giving another person a handshake. We're being told it's necessary for survival, it has affected our health in another way. Think about why prisons put people in solitary confinement. They're taking away ...

Hello again, I would like to start by thanking everybody who reached out to me last week. Especially those who shared having similar experiences growing up. It makes a person realize that they shouldn't feel ashamed over but they've been through since other people can relate to it. but here I go, stating the obvious again. This past week I had much more time on my hands, and for the most part that was a good thing. I did find myself overthinking or going into a negative pattern with all the empty space around me. It is very symbolic of somebody's passing. You go to a place or enter a room that the person that is no longer with us once occupied and there is this ominously empty feeling it goes along with what you see there. Especially if a person had died suddenly. I was really mindful of this after seeing the scene in "the Men with" Marlon Brando (his first starring role infact), which was set in a VA Hospital and one of the guys there went in for a ...

Hello, in my last entry it may have insinuated that I found it easy to overcome some of the mental health issues that were either pre-existing or happened to develop during the pandemic. anything that goes untreated is going to become worse and you will not simply go away overnight. So even if it's so you can do I encourage people to just do one small thing in the direction towards recovery. Even researching where to find counseling is something. We are all aware of how the mind works, so what I am going to speak about will certainly not come as a shock to most people. This week I suffered a loss in my immediate family. For my own reasons, I would like to keep some details private. I was not close with this person, even though they helped raise me. When they were at their best of course. Even with all the bad things that transpired their was some good. For the most part everyone has some good in them if you look hard enough. We would talk about music, like most people in tha...

Hello everyone, at this point it wouldn't even be redundant to say I'm sorry that I haven't blogged in a while. It's nearly downright embarrassing that I haven't. Especially since this is the longest I have gone without making a new post. Ironically enough, I was planning on doing this post almost a year ago. So obviously a lot has gone on between now and then. We recently released a new album called "the Sorrows" and we've already done three out of town trips to perform. In the interim, we have parted ways with some bandmembers and gain new ones. One of which literally risked life and limb on one of the tours. The actions of our new drummer, Kenn Holley who came in literally one week before we were going to go out on the road are the complete opposite of the title of this post. I'm sure many of you recognize the title as a line from a song by The late great Tom Petty . He was certainly onto something, and that's not the only re...

A mutual friend had told me that Dean was about to start promoting his new solo project, along with their debut album "Life Lessons" and his new company: "Plan 916" where with the help of Owner Matt Kustom he has developed his own signature guitar pickups. This prompted me to listen to his new album and get some insight into how he formed this new project and his history as a musician Brandishing a persona that appears to be a hybrid of Johnny Depp and Stone Cold Steve Austin who happens to know how to shred on guitar, Dean has been performing live since 2002 with his first band,which was formed in the previous year: Eyeless ,and then with Deathstick,Verfallen and Salvage . He then went onto tour with more notable acts like: The Independents,Black Cat Attack and Darrow Chemical Company and currently is a member of Darkness Descends and Children of October ,and surprisingly a Hip Hip act known as the Draf and Retro Glam . However, "Life Lesso...

Now that the Holiday consumerism fest is over, those of us that have their sights set on accomplishing projects can finally get down to it. Although, it may be a bit harder the first weeks with all that extra Holiday weight you maybe carrying around. For myself, it is a very difficult part of the Holidays having to drop everything and trying to celebrate with not even one major task out of the way. Although the New Year does bring us hope that we can make things better for ourselves and many believe how you enter the New Year is how you shape the rest of it. As I'm sure you noticed by now, this a downtime for the entertainment industry as a whole. Show attendance and club events usually don't have as many numbers as they do in the months prior to the Holidays. The music industry actually shuts down and all business starts up again in the New Year, as there are many behind the scenes things happening and many trade shows in January, such as the NAMM show. So what is th...

Earlier on in the week, I found myself commenting on a Facebook post by a slightly discouraged musician from a new younger band out of NYC called Candy Brain that feels that the music industry is ruining music for him. I think he was speaking more about the local "seen" which is basically just a staging area and not the be all end of all the music business(Thank God). Luckily, there were a few people like myself to shed some light on this. Years ago, the Record companies decided your fate and very few bands could control their own destinies. Simply because the resources available to us now where not there 20, 25 or even 30 years ago.Remember there was no Itunes or Cdbaby , so no record deal meant no distribution. Yes you could go into a studio on your own and record(if you were lucky enough to even afford that let alone getting your finished product duplicated), hoping a record label would take notice of your valiant effort and offer you some sort of deal which would in...

    I wanted to copy an old blog I had made years ago on myspace with some tips, reference materials and links to help people learn more about promotions and the music business. However, the new myspace has deleted all the blogs created on their page. Instead of getting mad, sulking and feeling stuck yet again here I am taking a more progmatic approach to this, while knowing it could be worse. I still have most of the books I have read and I remember most of the links. However, many of them probably are outdated. Ironically enough, I thought I had saved this blog years ago but all I saved was a blog with links for pages that Imbolg has profiles on (and lets face it who wants to see that). Lesson learned (yet again) Always have a back up. If did not have most of these books, or a good enough memory to remember most of what I was trying to enter I would have lost most of this information for good. I hate to put this off yet again, but I will have to create another blo...

In music, everyone will point out your flaws, unless you are the Rolling Stones After my last post, I noticed that I didn’t get much response from people as some of my previous posts. Even with a video,and it being my Birthday. But, I did realize that in my hast to not waste my day as I rushed off to see the Hangover 3 that I made several grammatical and typographical errors. Which brings me to my topic of choice, Failure .I really was shocked that some of my regular readers did not even comment. However, as stated previously I made many errors and looked at what I created in the eyes of a first time reader. Some one who was careless enough to not examine his work and present it in an orderly fashion shouldn’t expect to be taken seriously(from now on I will be even more meticulous when it comes to my final edit,lesson learned). As far as my regular readers, many people are away,planning trips and what not. You can never let one flop be your last post,last album,show,whatev...