Whoa!

So I realized that I haven't blogged in forever. Stupid twitter that makes me just not want to blog at great length.

Well to bring you up to date...nothing has really been going on. We had an awesome show this past weekend. We played in Dekalb at The House Cafe. It was a decent turn out and we got to play with our friends and soon to be split comrades The Nominees Are, which is always a blast. After the show, we went back to their place and hung out/played drinking games. As usual, it was a total blast due to how cool those guys are and how hilarious James is drunk.

For the most part its been head down powering through. Nothing really to excited I suppose.

I got the unfortunate news this weekend that my puppy Licorice, which many of you know, has an enormous softball sized tumor on her chest and its growing pretty rapidly. The vet told us that she didn't have to much time left, but she doesn't act like she's dying if she is. She was rolling around in the snow like her usual playful self. With the exception of being a bit drowsy more often (because of the amount of drugs we are putting into her) she is the same cheery puppy that she usually is. So with a little bit of luck she'll live longer than a couple more weeks.

Work is still work. Working on a lot of projects for the PR company that are a lot of fun.

So, I keep coming up with really ambitious life goals, but life goals that I know I'll regret if I don't accomplish. The first is running a relatively successful record label. I love music so much and I really enjoy the idea of putting out music that I love. I've learned, and continue to learn, so much about the music industry. The only problem is how big of a scary adventure it'll be due to how cut throat the music industry. Not to mention, the obvious point that the music industry is in just as much turmoil as the economy is.

This idea of this record label spawned this want for having this giant conglomerate of things that I'd like to be apart of. I want to own a venue as well and I'd have the label offices in the venue. Attached to the venue I'd like a music shop (both a record store and an instrument store). I don't think that's capitalized enough by venues. There is a huge benfit to having a music shop next door. There are needs that bands have that are on the spot: strings, drumheads, maybe a guitar, etc.

Also out of this building I'd like to run a magazine. I've loved writing for one. I love writing music. I know a lot of talented writers.

Lastly, a clothing line. I have a tremendous appreciate for designers. Mostly because I can't do it at all and think its totally cool that people come up with this stuff.

Deriving from all these things is a couple important concepts.

One is that everyone of these things lends to the other. Your market is in every one of these things. You can sell label merch at shows. You can doing merchandising for your bands through your clothing company. Well all at the same time promoting them through a magazine. People who are interested in music at shows are people that are going to buy records and stuff from a music shop. Your whole market is constantly looking at something you are providing, which in turn just constantly creates these revenue streams. Also Dave has some really rad ideas about incorporating a coffee shop esque venue like The House. Which sells coffee and beer and there is a rad stage and incorporating a logging in system to purchase and download music thats playing on the PA in the shop. I know I'm not explaining it well he could do it a lot better ask him. But you can play your labels bands in the coffee shop and sell your music there. There are just so many different avenues to get out what you are doing.

Of course, all this depends on your label being well known for putting out good music, which of course we would ;).

The second is that there is this GIANT empty space in the Chicago music scene. There are so many many bands that are so good that just can't get up to the surface for air. Those awesome bands eventually die out in this watered down scene full of shitty dance pop bands. The focus of this whole conglomerate would be to focus on Chicago scene bands and helping them. Even ones we weren't representing. Just help them put tours together or get promo stuff in other cities, if we had the contacts. Use what we can to push these bands up. Don't get me wrong there are mediums that are trying to do that in Chicago, but someone are falling by the wayside terribly inadequate. Like Cresendo Magazine, which is a really awesome local magazine. They are doing good awesome stuff for a lot of local bands, but there seems to be an exclusive group of people that are getting into the zine.

I have a lot of ideas floating in my head about everything I want to do. As I was telling Dave yesterday, its a matter of starting a foundation with the label and developing these other things out of the bricks from the bands we represent. OR a matter of winning the lottery which is 145 million tonight. Then we could do everything we want in like a year. haha.

Hopefully, you guys will see and be apart of all these ideas. The best part of all my friends is not only are they all willing to help, but they are all really good at things that are really helpful. I have a whole team at my disposal who want to help create this giant beast because they care about music. Even the people that can't write articles or write code are willing to bust their asses in anyway they can. And that's fucking awesome. I think that message gets lost with a lot of these "success" stories. Like the Metro or Fat Wreck Chords or Epitaph. These awesome establishments weren't built because of Joe Shannahan or Fat Mike or Brett Gurewitz. All these people that have really awesome legacies wouldn't be any where if they didn't get help. These businesses were built from the neck breaking work from bands and friends and opportunities. Hopefully, we can do that too.

-Chris