Monday, start the new week with a new band.....

Well, maybe not the newest band, but new enough and new to you, my band, The Involuntarys.

Check us out here:  http://www.theinvoluntarys.com

We're also on facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Involuntarys/98380295618

There is a little player at the bottom of the window once you enter the site, this will shuffle through our newer album, which we recorded in July, I believe.  Our stuff is also available on iTunes if that's your thing. The Site is in need of some updating, I grant you, but the player that lets you hear the songs is worth the visit.

We have two full-lengths. I joined just after they finished the first one. The first one is a very "Dropkick Murphy's" type street punk sound. Very basic and driving.

With this latest release, our members have switched around a bit. When I joined, I was rhythm guitar, beefing a 3-piece up into a 4-piece allowing the original guitarist to play more solos and provide a fuller sound. Now he has moved several states away, so I became lead and we've taken on a new rhythm guitar player.  He's good with backing vocals and can write songs cleverly; definitely a good fit. With these transitions, our sound evolved. Our songs are quite varied these days. None are interchangeable, I think, but there's still a strong sense of unity to the record. I'm really proud of it and think you'll like it, even if punk isn't your bag, I'd wager there's a song for you.

The overall sound is very punk, but the style from song to song differs, there's a reggae inspired song, a few that are only a minute or so long and super-fast, some longer 2-3 min ones that are "NOFX-y" if you will, a couple are more "rock" oriented... it's a decent disk people. So, I hope you enjoy what you hear. My favorites are "Born to Die" "Daniel Plainview buys a Field" and "Airbrushed Under the Rug"

Friday, Friday, Friday

     Hey guys, thanks for your responses to my first post. I'm actually pretty excited to start keeping a real blog.  I will post links and whatnot to our stuff very soon.

     We don't have any shows this weekend. We've actually been getting ready for a special one-time-only covers set for a Halloween event at a "historic" local punk rock bar.

     Every Halloween they get a handful of bands to cover entire sets of "real" bands. A few years ago, an old band of mine did an entire Ramones set. That was more of a challenge than you'd think. Sure, it's 97% power and barre chords, but when the songs are THAT similar, the arrangements are easy to mess up. This year it requires some real costumes, and much more lead work. It's also way outside my standard list of artists on the ole iPod.  I don't want to give anything away, but I'm gonna need some sweat proof silver face paint, and some platform boots.

Ugh, part of me is excited, the other part of me is totally dreading it. We'll see how it goes. I won't be updating this weekend because the lady and I are going out of state, but rest assured, I will get back with everyone.

The first post...

     Greetings all!  As you can see, this is my first post.  I will use this blog to talk about my life as the guitarist in a punk rock band in Indianapolis. It can be a pretty boring little settlement, especially if drinking in bars full of frat boys and Jersey Shore looking dudes isn't your thing.

      It's a town that prides itself on the way it's downtown looks. There's always something new going on, or being built. If you were airlifted directly to downtown Indy, you'd probably be pretty impressed. Take a cab 10 minutes in ANY direction, however and you would be disgusted. We think we're pretty cool in Indy and don't put much into anything outside the major framework of activities. I.E. The Colts, The Indy 500, The Brickyard 400, concerts at Conseco Fieldhouse, Lucas Oil Stadium, and the White River Lawn. This is where all the advertising dollars go, this is what we care about here. It's a somewhat wealthy town that is set up so you don't have to encounter the dirty parts if you don't want to... and you are in the proper tax bracket.

This is Fall Creek Road. It runs from downtown to the northeast side, namely Geist Reservoir. Everyone knows Geist. It's a very waelthy community built around a large reservoir. This is where Mellencamp rides jet skis, and where the Colts players build their homes. Fall Creek Road is a beautiful, scenic, curvy route that takes you to and from Geist. It even has lane control that allows you to turn onto, but not off of it during certain hours. Its ALWAYS moving quickly, even at 5pm on a Friday. It's one of the best maintained roads in the city, and you never, ever have to drive on it unless you are between downtown and Geist. It is for the rich folks, so they don't have to drive with the rest of us ruffians. I bring it up because it's such a fine example of how Indianapolis is set up, and who it aims to please. We have LCS (Little City Syndrome) which is very much like LMS (Little Man Syndrome)... think Gary Coleman as a security guard. We try so hard to compete with New York and LA, but we'll never be as interesting or expansive as Chicago, let alone NY. So you can imagine trying to gain momentum as a punk rock musician in such a Toby Keith kind of town, it isn't easy, or cheap.

Despite this obvious lack of attention to the true, independent music scene, there are countless local bands. Hundreds of original acts, and even more cover band type groups.  The only press we have is NUVO, the local indie art/music rag. It's a good publication, I enjoy it, but there's just not enough room for them to talk about everyone. The result is way too many bands all scratching around in the same sandbox, fighting over the same toys.  It's not easy to stand out.  I feel like our band has done a decent job of it though.

We've recently played with The Queers, The Cobra Skulls (of Fat Wreck Chords), and we closed for Doug Stanhope, the comic. We've also won Punk Rock Night awards two years in a row. Last year's for best new band and this year's for best new album. So it's not that bad, but you really have to work, practice, write cleverly, and gig like it's going out of style.

Anyway, this has been my exposition post. Setting the scene if you will. Hopefully you found it interesting and wish to read my future posts. Thanks for checking it out and have a pleasant tomorrow.