We have gotten a TON of e-mails about this lately so I'm gonna throw out a general answer for now.

Due to the holiday season, and the crazy work schedules that go along with it we currently have no shows scheduled between now and the end of the year. That is not to say we absolutely won't be playing any this month. Just that we do not at this time have any shows scheduled.

You see 3 of the 4 band members work "day jobs" in retail stores. Due to the holiday season and people who celebrate the holidays by buying tons of crap from retails stores we currently have crazy unpredictable work schedules which include a lot of nights and weekends (and basically being on call) making it nearly impossible to schedule shows. If that bums you out blame God and his homies for making up Christmas and Hanukkah. Or perhaps blame corporations for the over commercialization of  Christmas and the obsession with Consumerism that plagues our nation.

We're really really sorry. Believe me when I say we LOVE playing Christmas and New Years shows. Hell we love playing ANY shows. Hopefully we will have a free weekend and be able to schedule a show or two before the year is over but if we cannot we look forward to seeing you at our shows next year when the retail rush slows down and we return to somewhat more normal work hours.

2008 Promises to be the Year of the Loser and we can't wait to kick things off with a bang. Look for new shows, a new website and of course the New Album which we are currently spending all of our free time finishing, and web videos such as LOTY Q&A and a making of the new album. Theres even talk of a music video........ maybe.... if you're really really good.

So be sure to stay tuned. We will let you all know if the show situation changes. If you don't hear from us between now and then have a Happy Holiday, whichever one of the 50 billion you may be celebrating. (Festivas anyone?)

Keep on rocking in the free world!

-Josh
Losers of the Year

Losers of the Year enjoy playing private parties and get togethers. But because every event is different we have a short questionnaire for you to answer when interested in booking LOTY to play your private event.

1) Is it an indoor show or an outdoor show?
This is important because outdoor shows in the winter time are very very cold! Outdoor shows are also louder due to the lack of physical barriers between the music and the rest of the neighborhood. Making it far more likely the party will be shut down on a noise complaint. It doesn't mean we won't do it. We just want to know in advance. If you don't have room inside your house Garages work great as long as theres room. We have played in spaces as small as 12x12 before but believe me it was very cramped. The more room we have to rock out the better.

2) If outdoors is there a place to set up and play?
This is important because we do not put our gear in the dirt or grass. A patio or slab of concrete is recommended. The equipment we use for our shows is very expensive and difficult to replace if broken. It is also very dangerous if allowed to get wet. Because of that it is important we keep it clean and dry at all times.

3) If there is no place to set up and play is there room for us to bring out and set up our portable stage?
We have a portable stage which is about 25 feet long and 16 feet wide when assembled. It folds up into a box trailer about half the width. If there is no place suitable to set up our gear is there room in your yard for us to bring out our stage?

4) When is the show? (Proposed day and time)
We can do last minute if scheduling permits but we prefer a week or two in advance so we can try to get time off work, etc. Believe it or not we still have crappy day jobs.

5) Will we be getting paid?
It's not mandatory you pay us, but it is nice. If the host wants to pay us, we currently do not have a set pricelist and simpy let them pay whatever they feel we are worth. Generally we make anywhere from $100-$200 dollars with the bare minimum being gas money (roughly $45 bucks) but like I said its not mandatory we do free shows all the time.

6) How many people do you expect at the party?
This is good so we know what we're getting into.

7) What is the average age of people attending?
If its going to be a lot of younger kids (under 10) we like to know so we can censor ourselves accordingly. We try not to swear if theres a lot of little kids around. Simply because they have enough bad role models in this world.

8) If you had to guess would you say most of the people attending like Rock music? Or do they tend to listen to Rap/HipHop/R&B type of music? We play what can only be described as fast rock music. Its not Nickel Back type music, its not screaming, old school punk, or classic rock. It's just upbeat rock music. Think Foo Fighters, Green Day type of stuff.

9) How long would you like us to perform for?
We have played as short as 15mins and as long as 4 hours. If you want an extremely long set we'll need to know in advance so we can make a list of songs to play. The average show is about 45mins.

10) Can we bring a friend or two?
We generally don't bring anyone but now and then one of our extremely close friends hears we're having a show and wants to go really badly.

If you would like us to perform at your private party answer these questions and send us a message.

First off: If you have pics or videos of us please send them to our Myspace so we can put them up!

Thank you for hanging out all day and watching us perform. That really meant the world to us. It was great to get to talk to so many cool people and finally meet many of you in person. That was one of our best shows, if not THE best show we've ever done. It was great. The energy was amazing. The crowd was amazing. You guys rocked. We had a blast.

Almost everyone has complained that we didn't win and that we should have. That means a lot to me. Playing last has its advantages and its disadvantages. The advantage was playing with all of those cool lights. The disadvantage was until people see us play, nobody was going to vote for us for "most popular" prize and since the contest was over as soon as we left the stage there wasn't really anytime for people to do so. But that prize was only worth $300 dollars in Samash gift cards so no big loss.

And just to let you all know I received our score cards (which had final tallies of the other top bands scribbled on it) and we were only 5 points short of winning grand prize last night. Our final score was 108 and the winners was 113. We got a 10 out of 10 in all of the really important categories. 9's and 8's in a few others. But we came up short on Sound and Continuity in which we got a 5 and a 3.  If there was a category for crowd participation and reaction we would have won because of you guys!

But considering some of the comments I've gotten from those of you who were in the crowd that sounds about right. Apparently Justin's vocals weren't loud enough and his lead guitar volume was too close to my own to where you couldn't differentiate between the two. Our cabs were miced and volumes were out of our control but hey the other bands did sound better and I think the judges were being fair.

Both of the judges are really nice people who have a lot of knowledge of music and deserve a great deal of recognition for sitting through 12 bands over the course of the entire day. On a side note the two judges told me they thought we were the "funnest band to watch" and that alone makes me happy!

So while I'm flattered you all think we should have won, and I agree that would have been cool. I'm not upset at all. You guys in the audience (there was approx. 1500 of you) gave me hope that people actually DO care about local independent music. And believe me when I say I would rather play a kick ass show in front of 1500 people and lose than play to nobody and win!

I think the entire band is happy with the way last night went. We had a blast and showed everyone what they've been missing.

-Josh
Losers of the Year

So we finally finished our brand new recording studio. We had our first practice in it the other day. It's awesome! We have big plans for this studio. Not only are we going to record our 2nd album but we plan on having live webcasts of our practice sessions as well. So all of you can watch us sweat our balls off as we rock out.

But for now we're practicing. Since we've been without a practice place for over a month we need to get back up to speed before we go about recording our album. The new album WILL be available on iTunes when its released. And it will include all of the kickass songs you guys have come to love at our shows!

And yes we'll take down the shitty recordings we have on our myspace and replace them with awesome recordings of new songs from our new album.

For now keep telling your friends about us and be sure to come watch us play at PC Club on Bear Valley Road by the mall on Saturday July 28th! It's a big recycling thing. And we like the environment so there!

Until next time.

Riggity Roll!

Hey Losers,
    Josh from Losers of the Year here. I want to know what songs YOU want us to play at our next show which will be at the San Bernardino County Fair on Saturday May 12th. Yes it's THAT close. So post a comment and tells us what song you'd like us to play.

It can be one of our songs that you want to hear or a song by your favorite band that you want us to cover. If we can learn it and have time for it we will play it! So make sure you get your requests in now!

Riggidy Roll,
Josh

Hola,
    It's Josh with another edition of Band Update. The ONLY blog that allows you to see first hand, behind the scenes, exactly what the hell is going on with your favorite band Losers of the Year. The first thing I want to tell you about is our latest campaign. We're trying to convince the oddly reluctant Trilogy Theatre to put us on the bill for the April 19th show featuring A Static Lullaby.

I'm sure some if not all of you have gotten an e-mail or a comment or a text message or a straight up phone call from me or one of the other band members asking you to contact Trilogy Theatre and ask them to book us. We've been busting our asses to make sure every true fan we have sends Trilogy a message! Over the years we've played with some pretty big bands. The Matches, Kill Radio, Zolof the Rock and Roll Destroyer, Hey Mike and Sub Urban Legends but nobody as big or as popular as A Static Lullaby.

So once again. If you haven't sent them a message please click the link above and do so now! We want to show them how much of a following we have!

Next up on the agenda our CD. We're finally going to be able to order the first 100 prints. As soon as the duplication company responds to my e-mail and I finish filling out these forms. So those of you who have had your heart set on owning it be sure to drop us a line so you can get one of these first 100. They will be worth something someday when we're doing world tours and recording our 5th album. Everyone else will have a copy of the 3rd or 4th edition re-released from our major record label but you will own one of the first 100 ever printed. This would be like buying a copy of 39 Smooth straight out of the back of Green Days van.

We have a bunch of shows coming up, on May 12th we're playing the San Bernardino county fair and possibly the Relay For Life show at the Apple Valley Highschool in Newton T. Bass stadium with The Phatcat Swingers. We'll be doing another Relay For Life show on June 2nd at VVC as well as playing the 4th of July Celebration at the fair. We're currently working on scheduling some shows at Mavericks Stadium, setting up FREE SHOWS all over the desert with Catch-22 Productions and if all goes well we're going to do our infamous Halloween Shows this October. We were forced to take last Halloween off. But we'll be back this year!

We're also looking to schedule and play shows outside of the high desert as often as possible so if anyone has any connections or suggestions let us know. Oh yeah we also made a new stage and fixed up our van over the last few months. But yeah thats all. So until next time....

Riggidy Roll!

-Josh
Losers of the Year

 

 

Hey Losers,
    Josh here with a Band Update. Today we relocated Loser Studios to our parents backyard. For those of you who are reading Band Update for the first time, Loser Studios is our mobile practice studio which we built by converting a 40 foot semi-trailer. We had our first band practice in almost a month today. It went well, we were a little rusty but that was expected. It will take a week or two to get back up to where we were.

After taking the month off to do the record we're ready to come back full throttle and start doing shows again. See you in December. 

Hola,
It's Josh B. from the band Losers of the Year or "Perdedores del año" if you speak El Spañisho like I do. Big news guys. This is news many of you have been waiting for... You know that CD that we've been compiling slowly over the last 2 years? You know the one we started back in December of 2004? The one that has had several numerous setbacks? The one many of you probably thought would NEVER be finished.

Well it's finished. Sorta. Kinda. You see the recording process is all done. We're finishing up some last minute details. Letting some people who are close to us and have heard our music before hear it so we can get their feedback. And since you're obviously a fan (I can tell by the fact that you're actually reading BAND UPDATE) if you want to be a critic as well let me know by posting a comment here! There are only a few requirements you must meet.

1) I want HONEST feedback.
If you like it thats always good to hear, but I'm interested in what you DON'T like as well. In fact moreso, because if you alert me to something I never noticed before I want to be able to change it before we get it mass produced. And if you don't find anything wrong feel free to tell me that as well.

2) You must review the production value, not the music.
Don't get me wrong I do appriciate feedback on our writing and musical skills and I love to hear about which songs you like and which songs you hate. This just isn't really a good place for that! And by that I mean we get critique on our music in e-mails and at our shows. And we encourage it. But here I want critique on the production of this CD.

See it's been a long road. We recorded it all by ourselves in 3 different studios we built ourselves, over the course of almost 2 years using equipment we bought ourselves and trained ourselves to use. We actually had to teach ourselves how to be sound engineers so I know its not going to be perfect. But most recording flaws can be fixed so if you find one let me know!

For instance is the recording muffled? The mix clean and balanced? Do the guitars sound bright and full? Can you hear the bass? Is the mix too loud? Too quiet? Do the lead vocals sound good? How about the backups? Do all the songs sound equally loud and balanced? Does it stand up quality wise to the CDs you bought from Bestbuy? How does it differ?

3) You must be as descriptive, detailed and specific as possible.

° We will need the name of the track you found a problem with.
° Where the problem occures in the song (2nd chorus, a certain word, the entire thing, etc)
° What the problem is or what it sounds like. (Note: "It sucks" does not help at all.)
° Any type of special sound setup you're using (Subwoofers, surround sound, etc)

So yeah let me know in the comments section if you wanna be one of the first to listen too and critique our CD! Be honest! And be picky! We're releasing this CD no matter what, so even if you send us comments that totally trash talk the whole thing and say it sucks ass and we should just give up we're still releasing it. But we want it to be the best CD it can be! So please don't hold back! I wanna hear your honest opinion! I wanna know what the average listener is going to hear and complain about (if anything) and I wanna try to fix it before we mass produce it.

While I'm on the subject of mass production. We need to sell more T-shirts and stuff to pay for the mass production of this CD. It's going to cost us about 300 bucks to get 100 of these bad boys made and retail ready. So if you want to buy a LOTY T-shirt now is the time to do so! Just contact me via the comments or send the band a message and let me know we'll get a T-shirt out to you ASAP and if you act now I'll even throw in a button, two stickers and a limited edition 8x10 Autographed photo with every order.

You get all that for just $10 dollars! We really need to make this CD happen so please show your support and buy our stuff!  Oh and more big news from LOTY is on its way soon. So stay tuned to Band Update and don't forget to subscribe to this blog!

Rock, Rock on!
-Josh

Hey Losers,
    It's been over a month since my last band update. A lot is going on. Not just with the band but with our personal lives as well. We're in the process of moving. Not any great distance just Apple Valley. But the process has been a long complicated, frustrating, misadventure. We've also all come down with a very bad cold. I completely lost my voice and am in the process of recovering before our shows next month.

LOTY T-shirts have been mass produced and we sold a lot at our last show which we played over the weekend in Barstow. We had a blast at that show, the crowd was awesome. We hung out and talked to everyone for like an hour afterwards. We're selling T-shirts to finance the mass production of our CD. Speaking of the CD, just before getting this nasty bitch of a cold I did manage to finish all of the lead vocals for the album.

The only thing left to do is record backups and master the whole thing. Once the other LOTY Boys get well we'll finish it up and then its just a matter of financing its mass production. So if you want to buy a LOTY T-shirt to help us fund our first CD leave a comment here and I'll be sure to get one out to you.

As always we're accepting fan submissions, so if you have photos or videos you've shot at one of our shows, photos of you doing the loser sign, wearing our T-shirts or whatever, send them to us and we'll be happy to put them online! You guys are really what decide if we sink or swim. If you want to see LOTY make it in the big leagues its really up to you. The more you spread the word and talk us up the further we'll go.

It's as easy as posting a bulletin about us, slapping one of our stickers on your car, your locker at school, or even just wearing one of our buttons on your jacket, purse or lip piercing so others can see it. Heck a really good way to spread the word is to bring a friend with you to a LOTY show!

And boy do we have shows coming up. We have three shows planned for October so be on the lookout. First up is Victorvilles 'Spice Of Life' festival. Losers of the Year will be playing SOL on October 7th. The details still haven't been worked out yet but when we have more information we'll let you know.

The VERY next day Sunday October 8th we have a show with The Matches at Victorvilles very own Trilogy Threatre. Heres that info....

And then October 21st Losers of the Year returns to Barstow and The Whiskey Tango to create a sequel to the musical magic that appeared this past weekend. Traditionally we've always played the Haunted House on Halloween but apparently this year Ultimate Nightmares is not going to be building a haunted house for us to play at. Maybe something else will come up for a Halloween show and I wont be reduced to dressing up as Gene Simmons from KISS and asking drunk girls if they'd like me to use my awesome tongue... then again it could be worse.

As part of the Halloween tradition we've always taken the month of November off to recoperate. Normally after that final outdoor show on the 31st we're all sick with the cold and can barely speak. Hopefully that wont be the case this year and we can keep playing right on through to the end of the year. December is after all right around the corner which means a Christmas show your one chance to see us perform the X-Mas song LIVE ON STAGE!

Band Update Readers will be the first to know when that "one time a year" show is scheduled!

One final word. Me and Justin bought new guitars and Jason has a new Bass. So if you wanna see that new gear and what it can do head on out to our next shows. Show your support. Dance, jump around, sing along, make these shows the best damn shows they can be. Trust me, whatever energy you give we'll give back 10 times on stage! So show us we're rocking your socks off!

Oh and don't forget to..

Rock, Rock On!
-Josh
Lead singer, Losers of the Year

Hey Losers,
    I have one word for you!

T-SHIRTS!!!

Sorry the image sucks, my camera sucks! I put that shirt on my acoustic and snapped a picture! So yeah we have T-shirts that are going to be for sale very very very shortly. We've been making these bad boys for about a week now. I'm thinking they'll be for sale for somewhere around $8-$10 dollars which is actually cheap if you price most band shirts!

We're going to be launching a new website called http://www.ClothingForLosers.com which will feature this and many other available T-shirts for sale online. Look for it soon.

The reason I'm telling all of you guys out there in LOTY LAND about these T-shirts is we're going to spend the money we make on mass producing our CD. Yes that is right the CD! The very very very very very LONG awaited (and long delayed) Losers of the Year CD that we started recording back in December of 2004 is finally going to be ready for mass consumption.

You see while Jason (bass player) was out of state for the last two weeks we finished our recording studio. This will be the 3rd or fourth studio we have built while trying to finish our damn album. It keeps getting delayed in part because we keep losing our studio space. And we'll probably lose it again at the end of October so I'm on a mission to finish the album before the end of next month. Hell the end of this month if humanly possible. Then its just a matter of getting that bad boy mass produced and out for sale!

We'll be losing our studio space because LOTY is moving. Probably to Apple Valley. Jeremy is probably going to get his own place, meanwhile Jason and I will probably get our own place as well. Which means if the current mobile studio we just finished cant be moved to the new property we'll have to rebuild it in one of our living rooms or Garages.

No big deal we'll just make it bigger and better than ever like we always do. So yeah if you want to support our band and help us release our first CD by buying one of these AWESOME Losers of the Year T-shirts just leave us a comment here in the blog telling us what your shirt size is. We'll contact you and make sure you're the first get one!

Peace out!

Josh
Losers of the Year