Greetings friends, family, fans, brothers, sisters~

We'll cut right to the chase; our Musical Ninja Brother Rossi will be leaving Niobium as of February 2010.  This was a voluntary decision reached entirely by Rossi for his own personal reasons.  His statement is as follows:

Brothers and Sisters,

 First of all I need to say I love you all. As of Febuary 1st, I, Rossi, will be enrolled in Luthier school in Vancouver, British Columbia. Because of this, I will no longer be the bass player of Niobium.  I thank you all for being understanding of my choices. An opportunity has been offered to me to pursue another life experience that I believe I must follow. My reasons are my own and want everyone to understand that. Why I am doing this is for me to better myself and get a better education for something I feel very passionate about. For a time I was very passionate about making music with Niobium. We had a lot of great times and wrote some amazing music, I am very proud to be a part of that. The band and everyone involved with it has allowed me to grow beyond what I could have expected and I have met so many amazing people. Things change as well as people and if the band makes it while I am away I will be more than happy for all involved. I have always wanted this for myself and have to follow the signs.   I have no regrets about what I am doing and wish all of them the best of luck. If the band is to make it, know that they deserve it, and have put blood, sweat and tears into making their dreams come true. I have the utmost respect, admiration and love for everything and everyone that has been in my life since I moved here years ago. I will always love you all. Thank you all for your support.

Let it be known that there is not one ounce of hard feelings between parties, and we wish Rossi the absolute best of success with his future endeavors.  Rossi has been with us through every single up and every single down (there were many), his musical contributions were vital (if you care to know, The Maze was pretty much almost all Rossi Bass Ninja Pfshopilis) and as a brother, he was there any time anybody needed him to listen and put in his two cents.  We will miss him much, and while he'll be gone, he will not be out of our lives by any means. 

The business is now that Niobium has an open Bass position.  We are actively seeking a replacement for full integration within the band (read as: cult. Mwahahaha!).  We are looking for somebody that follows generally along the following criteria:

CHOPS
-Must have a fairly comprehensive, intelligent grasp of music theory, song structure, random off-time signatures, the ability to improvise freely and plus points for weird, out-of-the-box type creativity. 
-Singing ability is not necessary but a plus. 
-Must have excellent stage presence and consistent performances. 

SHOWS and REHEARSAL
-Must be open to playing shows every weekend, especially in summer, sometimes 2-3 a weekend, and the accompanying travel.
*Bonus points for having a flexible enough schedule to do shows basically any time they may be offered, including weekdays.
-Must be able to rehearse 1-2 evenings a week, as well as have the free time to work on other Niobium business including booking, promotion and marketing. 
-Big plus points if you 'know the ropes' so to speak in regards with the business side of band life.  We have to manage ourselves in every aspect of our operations, and value each members contributions.  If you are not in a band, it may/may not surprise you to know that 95% of it is NOT music, it's trudging through the trenches doing unglamorous stuff.

GEAR
-Must have own reliable, Pro bass setup. 
-Must have reliable transportation.

ATTITUDE
This is almost more important than anything else. 
No drama magnets, no hot tempers, no drug addictions, no egos.  All of these things impede productivity and rock the boat.  Our group operates best when you 'go with the flow', no matter what flow may be coming your way. 
What you SHOULD have, however, is the following:
-A sense of humor.  This is vital.  Seriously, just trust us on this one.
-An active imagination
-It would help you to know a bit about any, all, or some of the following: obtuse mathematics, musical encryption, platonic solids, Astrological Biogenetic Spontaneous Trans-dimentional Evanescence, Ray Kurzweil's theories on Transhumanism, how the pyramids were REALLY built, DMT, how to properly brush your teeth, transcendental meditation and what it means to be Nothing for Good/and/or why nothing is actually something, or nothing. 

We will warn you that this project is the center of our lives, and has been for 5 years.  We are personally involved to the fullest in it.  To varying extents, it should also be this to you.

IF INTERESTED
Please send us an e-mail to niobiummusic@gmail.com with the following:
-Name, Age, Location
-Describe your bass experience - past projects, years playing, style, that sort of thing.
-If you have mp3's or videos, that is awesome, send it along.
-Describe yourself personally, what you're about, influences, your approach to music, anything you feel is relative. How's life?

Namaste,
NIOBIUM - Kirkland James, Adam Bomb, Justice Draconis, Drewza and Rossi

We have been outta commission for a long while.  We still exist, and we are poised to come back stronger than ever.  BUT WE NEED YOUR HELP!!!

We are now accepting donations to help fund the album.  I stress this is not for profit, but simply to break even on costs.

Each donation level will contain gifts in return for your generosity. 

A $10 donation gets you a copy of our Debut Album, personalized and signed by the band. 

A $15 donation will get you
-Our Debut Album, signed and personalized.
-A very special edition lyric sheet in special packaging.

A $20 donation gets you:
-Niobium's Debut Album signed by the band members
-Limited Edition Lyric Sheet
-Limited Run Sticker/Button Set
-Limited Edition 11x17 Niobium poster signed by the band

A $30 donation adds on a Niobium T-shirt

A $40 donation adds on a handmade Niobium-metal Flower of Life Jewel.

Any donation above $40 will also get you liner-note thanks (deadline to be announced at later date), regular thanks, and good karma!

We will also be accepting arbitrary donations in any amount, because any amount really does help.

Donating is simple.  Just go to our Myspace Homepage, and find the Donation buttons.  Your donation is safe and so is your information, and you know it's for a good cause.  You can use your PayPal account if you have one, or any major credit card.

We thank you all for continued support.  Without you, we would not exist nor have any reason to.  We look forward to being back out amongst you all.

Namaste, Peace, Love, and Light.

-Niobium

Greetings friends~

We have not been very active lately, as you may have noticed, so I decided it time to let everyone know where the album is at (Yes, stiiiill recording)!  I should honestly be updating you guys more often... But it's only cuz we've been rockin' the busy like a busy be rockin'.  I promise I'll be better.

As of today, we have finished basic tracking for Drums, Guitars, and Bass.  There are some loose ends that need to tied up, but it's not much.  After I go through and make sure everything's nice and toasty, I will be sending it to Steve Wresh, who will be mixing the entire record.  After that, we will finish up on Justice's parts and Vocals with Me and Chad Liljegren, who is Executive Producing the album, co-engineering, co-producing, managing... let's just say he's doing a lot :)

So we are ALMOST DONE.  We've had some delays, some trials, some tribulations, but everything is sounding very good so far.  We had the drums recorded by Chopper Black and his students in Studio 1 @ McNally Smith College, and he's been doing it for decades, so they are pretty slammin' if you ask me.  Everything else has been recorded by ourselves in one of four rooms: a basement, a kitchen, an office-type room with a burnt out light and a yellow room that I can't stand full height in.  Kinda like one of our bathrooms, I have to tilt my head to be in the room.

.... and there's pretty wallpaper in there too.

Anyway, one of the reasons this is taking so long is because we're all working day jobs full time, and I have to be at every session, and so two days a week is much less than we'd like.  Plus we're taking our time with this making sure everything sounds right.  AND we don't have the money to go into an actual studio.  We're pretty confident though that this album will sound very good. We hope you like it.

We are going to have a very early spring release date provided everything from here on out goes smoothly.  We will be done with all basic tracking by the New Year.  Mixing will be done late January - February, and then it will be sent off to be mastered by Chris Langer at Castle Productions, and then once we get our album artwork and the CD printed, we will have it in our hands.

We are very anxious to release this record and get out and play again.  It's very hard for us to sit here and be idle when all we want to do is get back into the world.

Here are the songs that will be going on the album, in no particular order:

Hey Olde Man - new and improved!
Yang Tze - new and improved!
Oak, Ash & Thorn - never before recorded!
Conversion Syndrome - never before recorded!
The Secret Adventure of Innocence  - never before recorded!
To Our Last Soldier - new and improved!
Carpal Tunnel - don't listen on a full bladder!
Baptism By Fire - new and improved!
Call of the Tribe - new and improved!
The Maze - never before recorded!
These Fine People - never before recorded!

There is a track we ditched, and another one that may or may not be on there, I guess we'll just have to see.

We have ideas for our album artwork, but nothing in hardcopy.  But we will be getting this worked out soon.
There are a few changes on a few of the songs that nobody has heard, just some extra little goodies that will hopefully surprise and amaze, kinda like the commercials for Emerald's Nuts.

We will also be featuring a very special guest on the album, but it's a secret.  He's been at a few shows, lurking around... He's been laughed at all his life, but now HE will have the last laugh.  Literally.

We're going to be releasing video footage soon as well.

Suffice it to say, we have been working diligently trying to get this done as fast as possible.  Thank you all for continued support, we want to be back out as soon as we can.

Stay tuned for more frequent updates as we begin to get back in the game.  Next year will be the biggest year ever for Niobium, so expect bigger and better things from us as we venture forth. 

Namaste~
-Adam

First off, thank you to all who made it to our last two shows! You always make our experience on stage amazing, and we can't thank you enough.

I've gotten a lot of questions in the past month about how things are going in Niobium Land.
"How is the record coming along?"
"When will the record be out?"
"What's this I've heard about webisodes?"
"When are you guys playing here next?"
etc......

The record is coming along great. A bit slow, but things are starting to speed up exponentially as we get further along. Please understand that we are doing 70-80% of the album by ourselves. Not only that, but we are financing the entire thing ourselves as well, so certain things are taking a bit longer than if we were paying an engineer $100/hour to work w/ us on all of this. The benefits to this strategy are that we don't go into an astronomical amount of debt, we can document the entire process, and we get to make this record sound EXACTLY how it should. We are taking our time... yes, but rest assured the wait is going to be well worth the product.

The full album should be done (hopefully) by late august or early september w/ a release scheduled for October or November. Once everything has been laid out, we will be sending it off to mastering, and then for final press and packaging. The packaging concept itself has been taking a large amount of our planning and thought process. With the advent of Itunes and other online digital media sources, we have decided to up the ante for those who follow through w/ the tried and true method of buying an actual cd. Without giving too much away, I CAN say that the entire package is going to be a work of art.... it won't be just any old cd for sure, and you may find a few xtra things included to further your experience and listening enjoyment. Of course, you will still be able to purchase the tracks online as well. However, all of you old schoolers out there will get some special stuff for buying an actual disc.

Webisodes Webisodes Webisodes........ *sigh* I was a tad premature when I announced that the webisodes would be up in a few weeks. It turns out we don't know a whole ton about organizing, editing, and producing video. A process which seemed as though it would be simple at first has turned into quite the endeavor and learning experience altogether. Once again though, rest assured that content is on its way. We're part of the way through the first webisode, and once we knock the first one out, the ones that follow should be a bit easier to get a handle on. We have not forgotten about you!!!

Shows...... As much of a bummer it is, we haven't been booking terribly many shows due to the time required for recording in order to make this album sound the best that it can sound. We'll be around for sure... Just a little less often so that we can get the rest of this finished. On the up side of all of this, all of this down time has been pumping the creative juices around, and Niobium is already started writing on our second album. In all actuality, we already have 2-3 songs completely finished and another 3-4 in the works, so the second album will most likely happen MUCH faster than the first one.

We want you all to know how much we appreciate all of the love and support you all have given (and continue to give) us. We would not be doing this were it not for all of you, and even if we did do it, it wouldn't be nearly as fun w/out all of our fans and friends to share it with. You are the Tribe... not us. You are the ones who TRULY make Niobium what it is, and for that, we thank you.

More updates soon!

Namaste'
Kirkland James

What's up Tribe?!?! 
Kirkland James here reporting from just outside Delilahs house (who the hell is Delilah?!)
Well brothers and sisters, it has been insane thus far.  Any by insane, I mean traversing the border between insanity and sheer genius.  Where to begin???

Chopper Black has done a most excellent job in recording all of the drums.  We have but a few songs left in the drum dept, and Chopper really does make things sound amazing.  In our book, Chopper is the stuff of legend :).  Those of you who have seen Drew play knows that Animal hasn't got shit on this dude as far as chops go.  He has had his work cut out for him to say the least (we all have).  It's not easy basing your rhythms upon sacred geometry and complex time signatures that are constantly changing.  Throw in a pair of headphones and a click track, and it's enough to make even the most seasoned musician crumble miserably. 

Thankfully we eat, sleep, breathe, and excrete music.  Otherwise this album would not be possible.  Back to what's been going on...

For the past month, Adam and I have been spending every spare waking (sometimes not waking) moment in the bowels of Delilahs house recording, re-recording, and perfecting the guitars.  This is where traversing the border of sanity and insanity comes into play.  As you all know, Adam and I are....well...."interesting" people.  You take the two of us, place us in complete isolation, add a pinch of sleep deprivation, wrap it all up in a 16 hour time block, and "interesting" things are GOING to happen.

To illustrate my point further, and mainly because we simply can't help ourselves, we will be shortly releasing a Niobium mini-series of webisodes documenting the many strange things that go on in our world while recording.  I can personally guarantee that the content therein is of such a fantastic, mind numbing nature that it  will most certainly leave you breathless and in awe of the depths of sheer insanity that can be achieved by two humans.

The journey continues my friends.  In the coming weeks Adam will be finishing his guitars.  Dr. Pshopilis will then begin the creation of Niobiums undercurrents (AKA Bass geetar).  After that, Justice will be recording the didgeridoo and keys.  Finally, we will finish the album w/ all of the vocals and "xtra tracks".  That's right....... We still have SEVERAL suprises up our sleeves for the coming year both in our media AND live shows.

Stay tuned for the yet untitled Niobium Webisode Series coming in the next few weeks.  We are going to bring the Tribe with us the whole way, from start to finish and every strange place in between for this album.  We hope you have as much fun with it as we do.
Until we meet again in our Temple of Sound....

Namaste'
Kirkland James