What has been going on?
I'll start this blog off by saying that it is in no way a promotion to get more fans, plays, or general exposure. This is mainly to give an explanation about where we've been and what has really happened to Soundescape these past nine months, and where Soundescape will be going in months and years to come
The Beginning: Jason.
Elephant in the room, right? The last show performed with Jason Thompson as the drummer of Soundescape was the night of December 31, 2008 at Escondido's First Night Extravaganza. Inner-band things had already been occurring up to and including that night that raised band tension pretty high, but the truth was, we planned to stay together because we all loved the music we wrote together. Playing a good show after you just disagreed heatedly with your drummer (or singer) is like great make up sex after a fight in a relationship. Everyone should know that Jason was asked to leave the band for a majority of private, personal reasons; not because of any political of petty band reasons. I would have defended his actions to the death to keep him in the band had I believed he truly wanted to continue to play drums... But he didn't. He told me it was like work- not fun anymore, stressful, tiring... So we asked him to leave. He has kept up with what he said he enjoyed doing more- web design and band management. I will leave it at that.
Was Jason the heart and soul of Soundescape? No, not by a good measure, but when you spend over four years writing with one style of drummer, it takes a lot to fill that hole. We've written a lot of good songs since dismissing Jason, and you will agree that they are just as Soundescape as ever.
The Falling: Acousteffect.
Except for only two evenings, the year of 2009 has been only acoustic shows for Soundescape. If you haven't yet, try taking a listen to our all-acoustic album, acousteffect. It was written as an affordable follow-up to balanceffect and was intended to show that we can be dynamic, as well as provide us time to record and produce our next electric album. Seriously, if you haven't heard it, get a copy. My number is 760 270 5442. Call me or text me anytime, and I will do my best to get a copy to you. It's a great piece of work, and Christian and I would greatly appreciate you taking a listen to it.
Unfortunately, we were scammed out of $1500 and our studio time for the new album. It made acousteffect appear like our "hey we're a dying band here... let's re-release our first album" stunt, and it killed our chances of a quick rebound... especially without a drummer. Every show we played felt like we were just playing for our own amusement. I know that's not true. Some of you fans are so amazing with your appreciation it makes me want to cry, but nonetheless; attendance dropped, sales dropped, the myspace became a ghostly skeleton with less than ten plays a day and never any comments... Just an overall weird feeling. This was all added to the already weird feelings of moving from our house/ studio to a new place and the oh-so-awkwardness of trying out awful drummers every few weeks.
We realized by about June that I was starting to drift from the band towards school, where Christian was drifting... well he's Christian, let's just say he was drifting. He and I came to realize that we were suffering from electric withdrawal... When you get used to playing a Gibson SG on a Marshall stack, it's kinda hard to suddenly go cold turkey and only play acoustic shows. I have to say that Glen Henry (a.k.a. DJ Beleaf) of
The Breax really helped us out when he asked Soundescape to come perform at The Movement, in San Marcos. With Christian's
extremely talented brother Cory on the drums, we had ourselves not only a night to remember, but a night where we realized that Soundescape could never die while Christian and I still remained.
The Rising: Esjay Jones.
When you finish reading this blog, after you get in touch with me about that copy of acousteffect, you should go to the myspace of our top friend, Stealing Love Jones. We met Esjay Jones one night at the venue Dream Street, in Ocean Beach. We were the local opener that night for "the number 1 band in South Africa," who were on their first USA tour. Even after exchanging numbers and cds, I was far from thinking that I'd ever run into Esjay or her band again... wrong.
As fate would have it, I receive a text message one day while riding the train to school. (It's actually the Sprinter, but I like to say train in case someone has the imagination to believe I was on my way to Hogwarts or something.) Anyway, the text is from some strange, 15-digit number and contains the second half of a two-part message. The entire message, in a nutshell, was "hey it's Esjay! Remember me? I'm moving out your way to the states and I'd really like to work with you as part of my new band. I know Soundescape means a lot to you, but please think about it."
As if Soundescape was actually sitting on record deal contracts or something, I thought about it.
I guess she seemed too good to be true at the time... Why would the number one artist of an entire country suddenly want us as her band? I mean... we're good, but c'mon... she's already had five number one hits in South Africa. Well, it turns out we really made an impression that night in Ocean Beach. Even after touring the country, (part of which was done with Smashing Pumpkins), we stuck in Esjay's mind as viable American musicians. Cool, huh?
The Present: Stealing Love Jones.
So Esjay has been here for about two months and Christian and I have become part of the new STEALING LOVE JONES. We've had a great time playing music together
so far, and I can honestly say that Esjay has become one of the best friends I've made in my life in a very short amount of time.
It's quite an experience working/ playing with someone who knows the music industry like Esjay. Christian and I know our ways around a fretboard and 1/4" cables, but planning shows and capturing the crowd are overwhelming weaknesses we possess. She can really suck people in to the show and make everyone have a good time, and I really enjoy being a part of the execution. She lets us play her music, but requires us to have our own natural flair and style on stage. Writing with her is a whole new deal, not to mention some Soundescape rewrites that have become part of the Stealing Love Jones repertoire. (Hear Me Out as a number one single in South Africa, anyone?)
We're now working our way up from the very bottom, but in less than two months, we have risen far above the recognition of Soundescape in the San Diego bar scene... (and for the first time, we're making regular money playing music! yay) Esjay, Christian, and I plan to continue working hard here in the States to become a band of national recognition, but we won't forget to travel to South Africa for all of the loyal Stealing Love Jones fans out there as well. We'll be making our first trip to headline a South African Tour this November- January and then will return to keep on truckin here... playing whatever shows we can get in Southern California and surrounding areas. We plan to do this for a long time, hopefully until Stealing Love Jones makes it big here and even a little farther.
The Future: Soundescape
For not having any measurable amount of success, we've been through a hell of a lot in this band. It's been a strenuous, exiting, stressful, heartbreaking, expensive coming-of-age for Christian and I. From being boys just playing music with no consequences, to becoming men trying to secure a future playing music and trying to ignore Life's consequences... we've really grown together. Christian and I just aren't best friends. It's way more when you connect on the musical level like we do. And because of that, we will never be able to cease being Soundescape. For now, the music of Soundescape is on hiatus for an undetermined amount of time (, save for some small shows every now and again). However, we will come back. We must. For us to try and never play Soundescape music again would be a disservice to ourselves, and we think it would be a disservice to the world of music. (We think we're good... not Earth-shattering, but we are pretty good).
If you are reading this as a fan, know that we have always appreciated you... and we mean to show it better. If you're reading this and you aren't a fan... well I'm sorry I wasted 20 minutes of your life, but you probably should have either become a fan or navigated out of here in the first paragraph or so.
This will likely be the last blog of 2009, but keep in touch whenever you want. We still check the page daily. While we're Stealing Love Jones, we're much more prone to giving away free things anyway, so it'd probably help you out to keep in contact for now. ;)
~written by Rowdy