October has been a busy month for the band, what with two back to back 8-hour session of recording and re-dubbing tracks at Expression College for the Digital Arts in Emeryville, CA, a hilariously great time at Trinity Gold Media Studios in Napa, CA while recording our new single ‘Annabelle’, and participating in a Battle of the Bands in South San Francisco as well as playing live at San Francisco State University’s radio station, KSFS one cold Tuesday night. Capping off this busy month was a private event for a friend in Sacramento, CA where the band crammed ourselves into a cozy and narrow living room space playing to a split-audience of guests who were half indoors by the kitchen, (cuz that’s where the food is, why not?), and half to the people on the patio beyond the open sliding glass door.
Being illuminated by 450 watts of track-lighting, it was interesting playing to those folks on the patio because when I turned my head to sing that direction, all I could see was myself singing right back myself in the reflection off the glass. Fun times were had by all and, (shock of shocks), it was, to date, our second gig where we were reimbursed making us, officially……professional musicians!
Did I mention that we advanced to the next round at that Battle of the Bands? Did I also mention that the grand prize is $1,500,00? Kevin Karr, our lead guitarist who often calls himself ‘Lead Idiot’ while recording at Expression, said, “…[when] we win that Battle of the Bands we’re producing the whole first album!”
As the front man of this band, (it’s me, Lewis, Hi!), it makes me proud to know that there is such dedication to the music, as well as each other, here. While it has been said that we’re the greatest bunch of nobodies anyone hasn’t heard, I was looking at our stats on ReverbNation, recently, and without my paying too much attention, we have managed to surpass the one-thousand fan marker by about eighty people. The challenge is getting them all to come to a show at the same time because internet fans and organic fans are two completely different things.
On the bright side of that, Kevin was at an event this past weekend and was recognized by two separate people who thought he was ‘in a movie or something’. It turns out that each had seen us perform at the Red Devil Lounge in San Francisco and the Aqus Cafe in Petaluma, respectively. Congratulations to Kevin for achieving the status of ‘That Guy From That Band’! It’s always rewarding when I hand out my business card to someone and after they chuckle at the tag line printed under the band name, (Geek-Pop for the Masses), they take on an air of familiarity by saying, “Junkyard Academy, OH! I’ve *heard* of you guys!”. While rewarding, I’m stumped as to *how* they know us because we don’t have the opportunity to play out that often…a fact I am aiming to change soon…
Looking back to when I started this whole thing, (as a four piece band, not from when I was scribbling tunes about everything and everything), my only goal was to play to thousands of screaming fans, (the ‘good kind’, not the ‘screaming in terror’ kind), and in order to do this, getting the music professionally recorded is of paramount importance. We have some pretty awesome people to thank for the tracks we’ve recorded thus far and I know we’ve have many more to record, but I am happy to report that we are dangerously close to having that final mix of ‘Annabelle’ in the can. So far as a release date is concerned; that’s undetermined as we’re awaiting tracks to arrive from one of the studios so we can begin mixing and mastering.
‘Annabelle’ we’ll paired with our thematic ‘Geek Club’ and ‘February Snow’ along with a couple other tracks from our extensive repertoire.
At the end of the day, we’ve been busy and it has been tiring a times, but we’re more than excited about the future-to-come for the faculty and staff of the Junkyard Academy.
Enroll now at our Facebook Page, Shoot us a tweet or two at our Twitter page and have a listen to what we have to serve in the ‘Music Hall‘ page of our website.
Stay in school, learn math and science, be proud of being geeky and always remember to…
Sing, Dance, Live…
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