stahl here

life is a tricky little bugger sometimes. it comes at you in all shapes and sizes. it's funny, because here I am at 23 pretty lost. i was talking to our manager and I said i think i am having my quarter life crisis. i know NYC is where I am supposed to be with devin. almost 2 1/2 years. it has kicked our asses and beat us more times than I can count, but at the end of the day, i can sit on my bed with my acoustic guitar, and strum an idea out and hear the hustle and bustle of the city around me and just say "here i am, i'm doing this".

i've shaken alot of hands since i've moved here. people I haven't seen again, don't remember their names, probably won't ever see them again. i'm not exactly a social butterfly. I probably know 4 people in the whole city other than devin and josh and my sister. i keep to myself quite a bit. a real certified loner if you will. i don't mind it though.

anyhoo, after 2 years of getting excited, and then being let down time and time again, i think i finally have some real to be excited about. devin and I have gotten a nice amount of real life experience under our belts and have kind of found who we are amongst this chaotic urban jungle. we've gone through some band members as some of you have noticed. i was wandering around my favorite music website www.absolutepunk.net and came across a classified ad from Sal about how he and his friend were looking to start or join a band. their band from long island had broken up.

it's weird because sal said he hadn't logged into his ap.net account in forever and randomly decided to post that ad without really expecting much, and i found the ad almost immediately after it was posted. we met a few days later, he and adam came into the city and we took a cab across town to where I was staying at the time.

i don't really know what i'm getting at to be exact. i just feel like we have found our reflection out on long island. two guys who are just as music hungry as devin and I are, and have constantly been given the shit end of the stick. you know it's right when you all just kind of make eye contact while playing something and feel the same goose bumps and crack a little smile without saying any words.

sure there has been alot of wasted time, days where I never left the apartment, just kind of moped around not being very happy. it is kind of... scary when you only really feel you have one purpose or one thing you would be good at. I was supposed to be married by the time i was 25 and have a job and family according to my life plans when I was a teenager, and here I am 23, and I don't see that happening anytime soon.

there has been many times where I could have been doing something to help further my career, but couldn't get the motivation or energy to even do that. you'd think it would come easy or be a no brainer, but it is quite difficult actually when you have to fend completely for yourself. I'd imagine it to be alot easier when you have a professor or someone breathing down your neck saying you HAVE to do this, or that, and by this time, or you will fail miserably.

it is frustrating when your family and other people don't really understand what it is you do. I'm the cousin, or nephew, or whatever, who "came to new york city to become famous" and i'm not on the billboards or on t.v. or anything yet after 2 years. well the truth is, career wise, we haven't released a single new anything. no one in the industry has heard a peep from us since we put out serendipity THREE years ago. wow, yeah 3 years. It was may of 2005. we've been working on it, sometimes harder than other times, but here we are now.

we've probably gone through some 35-40 songs in various stages and forms over the past 2 years and are narrowing that down as to what we are actually going to be using. we get together twice a week and i wish it was more, and do what we need to do. say hi to sal and adam. they are good dudes with a passion I haven't seen from anyone else in a long time. they get it. sooo we are going to use this summer to write and record everything we can, and start playing shows left and right. we will be all over the east coast, and hopefully have a show in my old kentucky home again by the end of the year.

i just wake up everyday, and this is the only thing I want to do. i'm sick and tired of reading off specials to people who don't know how to dine out. i'm not in this for money, or the fame, or any of that. there is no better feeling than hearing music i've created with my friends bounce of the walls during a live show. if i can do that everynight and if it even helps me be able to support a family some day, then hell yes.

see ya soon!!

much love

chris, adam, devin and sal.