Lifehouse and Old St. Pats

We should apologize for our brief hiatus from blogging ... but there is so much good stuff coming up that we wanted to have a venue for telling you that are interested all about it! This past Saturday, our band had the pleasure to open for one of our biggest shows to date ... The World's Largest Block Party at Old St. Patrick's Church in Chicago. We shared the stage with Brett Dennen and Lifehouse. We had the chance to hang with these musicians and the following materialized.

One look at current media reveals the popular view of musicians ... Tom Cruise from Rock of Ages anyone?  But our band got to spend a bit of time hanging out with the guys from Lifehouse, and we can honestly say that they were really genuinely good dudes.  While we may not have all been huge LH fans before, we certainly will follow the band from here on out, just for the manner in which they treated us.

For starters, our band always has a "rho-sham-bo" when it comes to knocking on the proverbial door to a big band's green room.  Usually good 'ole Benny has to do the honors, but has been successful so far in not getting beaten to the ground by security, or embarrassed by walking in on a greek orgy (again see Rock of Ages).  

When it came to Jason Wade from LH, Will, our drummer, caught him at the food table and just snagged the opportunity to chat with him.  Not only was Jason totally cool about it (because let's face it, he might not have heard of Vintage Blue yet) but he came over and stood and talked with about 7 of us that were sitting in sweat pools after our set.  Then he also took pictures with us and was generally just awesome.  Definitely a moment we will not forget.

So many good things have been happening for us and we just cannot help but be pleased to know that being persistent, hard-working and kind actually does pay off.  Much like it clearly has for Jason and all the guys from LH.  

WE HOPE TO SEE ALL OF YOU SOON:

---- SUMMERFEST on Friday July 6th @2:30 ----

--- VIP Show for Dave Matthews July 7th @ Alpine Valley ---

www.vintagebluemusic.com

Songwriting (How it Almost Happens)

We have a secret to tell you.  Our first record featured every song we had written as a band.  Pretty crazy.  Many musicians spend a lifetime writing songs that they hone and craft until a tenth of them are selected, carefully ordered and then produced over months and months of recording.  Why did we choose to lay down all of our material?  At the core of it, we suppose we really did not know if we would ever get the chance to make a "real" record again.  We were so fortunate to meet the people we met and make the connections we made, that we just were not sure we would ever have the opportunity to do it again. What if we never wrote another song?

Writing music is hard work, nerve-wracking and exhausting, but it can also be fun, exciting and a personal psychology lesson.  Often times writing music can be as simple as writing down a simple melody and adding some meaningful lyrics.  Other times songs sweep into your mind while you are walking to work, or eating a sandwich or hanging out with someone you love.  But, turning music you wrote into a record is a whole different beast.  There are plenty of songs out in the world that are amazing songs, written by songwriters or bands, that will never become a record.  The reason is, creating a record is like creating a piece of art.  Do you think Monet would have finished one of his paintings if the first lily he painted was lopsided and looked more like a pancreas?  What would Bob Ross have been without "happy clouds"? A record is a musician's chance to let you into their mind and to tell you what they are and who they want to be.  We believe our record did the first, but probably not the second.

We went into the studio armed with a collection of songs that we really wanted on a record ... NOT a collection of songs that WERE a record.  The distinction is key.  Don't get us wrong, we are so proud of the product.  We still get huge grins every time one of our songs is played on the radio or comes up on our ipod.  But as we head into writing material for our next album, we want to grow and learn about ourselves, our band, our sound and about what we want to be.

In Mat Kearney's song "In the Middle" he rap-sings about making records when he says "one life to write one, two years to repeat."  In his own capricious way Mat describes the labor of love that is a band's first album, and the stress and pressure to repeat a process that may have taken literally, as Mat says, a lifetime to produce, within a year or two.


What we hope you hear, as we begin to foster these songs by playing them live and sharing them with all of you, is that we are growing.  We hope that you can see the development of our songwriting and we hope that eventually we will find a solid group of tunes that we will take to the studio as a record.  The result, we believe, will be a leaner, meaner, tighter group of songs that will come to define Vintage Blue.  Look out.

Cover Songs

Ask any band that survives by writing their own music playing live what are their recurring band "discussions" and you are sure to receive any number of answers.  They might range from things like ... "our bassist is always hammered," to "our lead singer constantly complains about her hair."  However there is always one band discussion that gets more heated than most, and the topic would seem so petty and simple to most people outside the band ...

Recently our band had a heated discussion about whether we should cover the Fitz and The Tantrums tune "Moneygrabber."  Some guys in the band really liked the tune and felt that it played to our strengths ... it has a horn section, it has a cool groove, a female backup singer, etc.  Others in the band were strongly against the tune as the Fitz version doesn't even have a guitar and we have two!

We played the song through a couple times at practice and it sounded good for a first run, but not everyone was sold.  Over the next few days a heated battle ensued.  The battle lines were drawn over how to choose a cover.  Why is this such an important thing for a band?  We suggest you think about some of your favorite concerts that you have ever attended.  What do you remember most?  Surely you remember the two or three 'hit' songs, when the crowd was singing along or waiving their lighters to "Every Rose Has Its Thorn," but you probably remember when Dave Matthews played a freaking 10 minute solid "Burnin' Down the House," or when John Mayer covered "Free Fallin'."

The fact is, choosing a cover song is an important decision, because with that single choice, you have the opportunity to give a fan attending your show an insight into your band; an insight into what your band likes and to how we can creatively adapt to fit someone else's song into their style.  One way to consider the cover song as a band, is to consider it as your opportunity to showcase your personality outside of the songs and lyrics people have associated with you.

Our story ended like this ... We decided to do "Moneygrabber."  We all committed to the song, came up with a guitar part that fit the tune, and even put in some theatrical pieces to really turn it into a great performance.  We performed it this past Saturday at Double Door in Chicago and the response was awesome.  Whether or not people knew the song was irrelevant.  We had so much fun delivering the song ... and THAT is the key.

The Importance of YOU!

Maybe you have read about our recent campaign to play at Bonnaroo.  We got the idea because recently the band came across an article about Danika Holmes (article here).  Danika is an indie artist from Iowa who had a dream to play the Heartland Jam Music Festival in Davenport, Iowa.  She contacted the festival talent buyers multiple times and received no response.  While many artists may have given up at this time, Danika decided to re-tool and motivate her fans.

Danika decided to start a campaign at 4am on her social media sites, with the intention to get herself into the Heartland Jam.  By 8 pm that same day, 100 of her fans had posted on the Heartland page.  By 9 pm the concert promoters contacted Danika and invited her to play on their MAIN STAGE!

This story was such a great inspiration to us that we started our own little campaign.  We are aiming for one of the largest festivals in the country - The Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival in Manchester, TN.   Please post on the Bonnaroo FB page any photos, video, or other VB items you may have with this message: #BonnarooNeedsVintageBlue .

The bottom line of this story is that our band has always been about the fans.  We started out entertaining family and friends, and have grown our little enterprise to heights we never imagined.  Along the way we have gained so many new friends and new fans.  We appreciate everything you do for us, and want you to know that every person you tell about our band, every post, and every "like" that you make, IT DOES HELP!

So please, keep tweeting, keep sharing our music and pages, and post about us anywhere you think we should be!!  Radio, TV, Venues, Festivals ... YOU TELL THEM!  Your voice MATTERS!  And thank you from all of us.

Thank you!
     -  Vintage Blue

March: Madness, Wisconsin & Lovehammers

March is usually the signal of spring; a time of rebirth, sunshine, and a signal that the warm fun of summer is on the way.  For some March means baseball beginning with spring training, SXSW, hockey playoffs and March Madness.  For others spring just means more time by the lake, eating out, and enjoying their fine cities.  This will be our first March as Vintage Blue and we are looking forward to an amazing first spring as a band.

First off, at the end of February we had the opportunity to have our first band webcast!  It was such a cool experience and over 35,000 people viewed our live broadcast on Stickam.com.  We will be making this a REGULAR appearance every first and third Tuesday or each month, starting on March 20th!

Secondly, March will represent the first time we get to play a couple of new venues, and our first time in MILWAUKEE!!!  On March 23rd we will have our first show at the Tonic Room in Chicago, where will we be welcoming in New York City's own Deadbeat Darling as they make their way down to SXSW.  On March 24th we will be invading our neighbors to the north when we play Fire On Water in Milwaukee.

Thirdly, We are so excited to play this Saturday with Marty Casey and the Lovehammers at House of Blues Chicago.  This will be our fourth show at the most prestiguous music venue in Chicago in the last six months and we are more excited than ever.  It will be an epic evening and has already SOLD OUT!!  Hope to see you all there!

Lastly, March is the time of year when booking for summer festivals gets going.  We need your support!  Please share our music, website and info with all your friends.  We thank you in advance!!!

-Vintage Blue

Strike The Mics: Released

Over one year of creative energy, serious commitment, love, frustration, countless sleepless nights, listening and relistening, tweaking, tracking, practicing, recording, mixing, re-mixing, travelling and mastering finally consummated in the release of our first LP Strike The Mics.  We could not be happier with the result.

Many thanks go out to all the fine people who helped make the album what it is today.  First and foremost to our producer and good friend Jamie Candiloro.  Thank you so much for everything you taught us.  About becoming professionals, about listening, about focus and about becoming true writers and builders.  Thank you for your commitment to us and everything we wanted our music to be.  We cannot ever thank you enough for the work you did on this record and we look forward to working on the next one with you.

To Krista, Jason, and everyone at Rock Ridge Music, our marketing gurus: thank you for your commitment to pushing our record to every corner of the country; getting us press coverage in SOCO Magazine, on Windows Media Guide and into webzines and  blogs from Los Angeles, Nashville and New York.  Thank you also for your continuing efforts to push our music to Billboard.com and to Chicago outlets as well.

Thanks also to all of you that supported us during the making of this album.  Because of you, we have a very real shot of showing up in the Billboard Charts which would be a truly amazing next step for this band.  Not only that, but our e-mail, fanpages and mailing list has nearly doubled in size and we are so excited to continue bringing you our music on bigger and better stages here in Chicago.  We hope that you will continue to tell everyone you know about the band, about the record and about whatever songs move you.  THANKS!!!

BONUS:  On the release date we were on Fearless Radio here in Chicago.  We performed two songs live and acoustic in studio.  You can download the podcast here in case you missed it!  http://www.fearlessradio.com/index.php/component/k2/item/2502-vintage-blue.html

Local Music That Really Rocks

This weekend the band decided to play the part of fan, and go check out some local music here in Chicago.  We can honestly say that Chicago is a hotbed for some really highly talented musical acts.  If you have ever been to one of our shows you know that we always like to watch the other acts from the floor with our fans, we never hide back in the green room.  As a band, we believe that celebrating this opportunity that all of you give us, is the most important thing we can do.  That means we like to rock out with you too!

On Friday night a couple of us went to the House of Blues Chicago to see AM Taxi and Dot Dot Dot.  Like good music fans we showed up early and unexpectedly discovered another great band in State and Madison.  All in all the evening was a success, as we got the chance to chat with members of each band.  By far, the highlight of the night was Marc Walloch of Company of Thieves who was filling in with AM Taxi.  Marc's playing was spot on, and the tones he created with his vintage setup were nothing short of incredible and clearly the result of a man focused on his craft.

On Saturday we went to Double Door to see our friends Workout Music drop their long-awaited CD.  As an added bonus, we got to see a lean, tight and energized set from Farraday as well.  Our history is a bit intertwined with Farraday since we played their first show ever with them at The Cubby Bear early last year.  The night at Double Door was awesome and full of sweat, high energy, a balloon drop and it was the best we have heard both bands maybe ever.  Props to Manny Sanchez from I.V. Lab Studios.

What we realized this weekend is that we have truly been blessed to play in a city with so much talent and to have made so many good friends in the industry in such a short time.  Bottom line, if you are ever sitting around your place and wondering ... what the hell should I do tonight ... chances are there is a great band playing somewhere in this city.  Go out, take a chance, help us continue to pursue our dreams.  Thanks!