Pepper's OHANA is Upon Us

Greetings folks, I must admit it's been several months since my last confession, but that certainly doesn't mean that I haven't been busy! Allow me to catch you up on what's been going on with me this year.

For starters, Lose Control has been hard at work on our sophomore album which is yet to be titled. We are recording the album at Kona Inn Recording in Redondo Beach with Mike Sutherland behind the helm as producer. Mike has also signed on board to be our manager which is great news for us as he is an invaluable asset, our 5th member, and a close friend. 

As of now, we have three tracks mostly finished with two more that are well on their way. We are shooting for ten songs total so I'd say we are about 35% done with a long way to go. We actually just finished writing the 10th song last week. I must say though this album is sounding awesome! We tracked all of the instruments live together which captures our sound much more accurately, and gives the songs a much more raw rock n' roll feel. I'll keep you updated as things progress, and we will probably be floating one of the tracks out in the next month or so. For now, just know that it's sounding bad ass and we are very happy with it.

LOSE CONTROL promo 2016

Aside from recording with Lose Control, I have also been gigging quite a bit around my home town of Hermosa Beach with acoustic guitar in hand. I'm working on putting together a bunch of my own songs and recording a solo album this year, so these gigs have been a great place to work on new material and play some fun covers as well. I just ordered a new microphone from Miktek, a little audio company who endorses me, and once it comes in I plan on recording a bunch of demos that I will release into the wild with corresponding youtube videos later this year. I may release a song a week or something like that just to try something different, but I'll keep you posted on that.

Outside the music realm, you may or may not know this, but I am also a licensed real estate agent and have been practicing real estate for many years. I sold a house in Manhattan Beach last month which took up a good chunk of my time, and was an overall great experience. Be sure to contact me if you are every looking for a good real estate agent (end advertisement).

Finally, I am happy to announce that Pepper will be releasing their new album, Ohana, on April 29th this year. I did quite a bit of production work on this album last year and am really proud of how it turned out. The pre-order is now available, and I highly recommend that you grab a copy, it sounds fantastic! 

Available now for pre-order!

That's about it for now. I certainly have my work cut out for me over the next few months so be sure to check back soon and I will hopefully have some new music to share with you. Thank you for your continued support of my musical endeavors, hopefully this is the year I hit it big. Take care.

-Jeff

The Appendix: Nature's Freeloader

Pre-Op

Well the rumors are true, I have been excommunicated from the Church of the Appendix. It all started last Wednesday with some sharp lower abdominal pain that landed me in the Emergency Room by Thursday morning. Several tests revealed appendicitis which has but one remedy; extraction via surgery. If the inflamed appendix is not removed immediately then it will undoubtedly burst some time in the near future and turn deadly very quickly.

I had to wait around all afternoon for an operating table and was under the knife by about 8:30pm. The surgery was a complete success with no complications, but unfortunately I did have to stay overnight due to the late hour of my surgery. The more unfortunate part is that the guy I shared a room with snored like a wildebeest and when he wasn't snoring he was groaning in pain. It was like paying a premium rate for the room next to the torture chamber.  

There's not too much information out there for what to do once you get home from a laparoscopic appendectomy (say that 10 times fast), other than basically just go get better. I spent the first two days laying on my back, taking pain killers and watching movies. Finally on Sunday I was able to ditch the pain killers and move around a little bit and I used those precious steps to do a photo shoot with Lose Control. The photo shoot is just one of many steps taken by Lose Control to get ready for more content in the new year so stay tuned on that.

As of today I am finally feeling closer to normal, although I now must refer to if my life as "post-appendix". I'll still have a few more days of laying low, but luckily I will be doing so on the beautiful island of Oahu. I had to cancel my gigs for the week, but promise to back in action in about a week or so. As of now, I am just glad to be rid of that freeloading appendix who does nothing for the human body other than wage war once it gets bored with it. Damn thing didn't even pay for gas money, let alone it's own hospital bill.

Post-Op

On the bright side, this experience has been yet another reminder of my own mortality. Although there is no known cause for appendicitis, it's been nice to take a step back and start focusing on my health as we transition into the new year. Even just a couple small steps like changing my diet and drinking habits I'm sure will yield much healthier results which in turn will lead to a happier and more productive life. Also, I must mention that the amount of support I received from family and friends was overwhelming, and I'm so thankful to have so many wonderful people in my life to be there when I get knocked down. Thank you all from the bottom of my heart.     

That's it for now, enjoy the holidays!

-Jeff

That'll Show Em!

So you're in a band in the 21st century, and then all of a sudden someone from a "radio station" emails you and they're interested in your music!! You get so excited that you write back right away, only to get hit with a generic response telling you to submit your music somewhere... I think I nailed the response on this one:

Dear *****,

I'm generically copying and pasting something significant into your email chain since I can tell with 100% certainty that you did not read my initial response. I do, however, in some small way appreciate your effort to convolute what's left of the music world, so here's to the deaf ears that this falls upon. If you've made it this far and you truly wanna work with a kick-ass rock band, then inquire again. 

Jeff

Well Look Who Finally Got Their Own Blog!

I know, I know... This has been a long time coming. The longer that I waited, the more daunting of a task it became to start designing a website. Luckily for me, companies like Squarespace have finally emerged that allow for an inexpensive and easy way to design your own personal space. It has still been about a two week long process that has unearthed a tremendous amount of past memories and material, but all in all it's been quite a fruitful endeavor. I have scoured every corner of every hard drive that I have with the ultimate goal of painting a detailed picture of myself so that my audience can better understand me, both as a musician and a person. Plus, I'm tired of having to tell people where I am playing every week, it's finally all in one place! 

As many of you may or may not know, I have lived the life of a musician for quite some time, and through my experiences I've been able to develop a particular set of writing skills that have made for some great stories, or maybe it's the other way around. Either way, my main motivation for setting up a website is that I really miss writing and sharing said stories with the unsuspecting public. Throughout the next few weeks, I will be tracking down all of my old "Road Notes" from my first band Sand Section and finally organizing them into one place. Unfortunately I had all of them saved on our Sand Section website which has been taken down, but I am in the process of recovering them (Thanks Mom!). In these entries I take the reader through a day in the life of a traveling musician, and for those of you who have read them are aware, I'm pretty damn honest. I also write Road Notes for my band Lose Control that for the time being can be found at www.LoseControlRock.com.

The first Road Notes that I want to share can be found below, followed by many other posts over the past half decade for your reading pleasure. Going back and reading them has made me feel like I have already lived several lives, and yet here I am at 28 years old with what I can only expect to be an even longer road ahead. From here forward, even though I am sedentary for the next month or so, I'll still be posting every week and keeping you updated on not only life stories, but many other topics that interest me and that I find "share-worthy". I hope you find my new website easy to navigate, and as far as I know, you should be able to comment on any of these posts and leave feedback which is always appreciated. For those of you who have read this far and are still thinking "who the fuck is this guy?" then maybe a good place to start would the "BIOGRAPHY" tab. For everyone else, thanks for reading, enjoy!

-Jeff