Ok, pals and chums, a little update in the world of yours truly.

The past couple months have been quite interesting. For starters, I'm a full fledged freelance graphic artist now, in business. (roll the applause tape)
What an ideal job. I get to work from home, and I get paid decent money, doing something I enjoy doing. I chill in my room, throw on some good metal tunes and create cool graphic art for hours, while getting paid for it. Granted, things can get a little hairy sometimes, but it comes with the job and that's just the way it is. I've already racked up some clients and business is doing good.
Out of all this time I've been doing graphic design and artwork for my personal enjoyment and my bands and getting good at it, I got smart and realized I could make some money doing this shit. And thus, JMR Designs was conceived.

So with that, keep on the lookout for Knuckle Incorporated, an up and coming apparel line that I design for. I did the first run of tshirts that are coming out soon and they're pretty cool. If you like skulls, blood, grungy patterns, brass knuckles and stuff like Affliction Clothing, TapouT, and that sort of thing, check out Knuckle Inc. It's kind of in that vein.

On the other side of the coin, I'm doing graphic work for KickPics, a world recognized martial arts photography firm. I design posters, edit photos and things like that. I thought this was a cool thing and I can relate to the nature of the work.
Many of you don't know this, but I was heavily into martial arts and I trained when I was younger.

Ok, music world.......(drum roll)
I've joined up with BioMachine recently as the main skinsman beating on the drums for that project and it's coming along great.
Ken Williams (guitarist) and I go back a couple years, as we used to jam together in Suicide Nation (formerly Acts of Aggression) and Ken was a longtime old friend of Tony Taylor (Suicide Nation/AOA guitarist). Long story short, Suicide Nation broke up and reformed about two-three months later under a different name, but Ken wouldn't be joining us at that time. Meanwhile while I was still jamming in Suicide Nation, Ken was doing his own thing and fast forward through time, BioMachine came to fruition. It actually started as an industrial side project between Ken and Tony, but they eventually parted ways and Ken kept BioMachine on the back burner until resurrecting and revamping it recently.

It's heavy, it's hard hitting, intelligent, progressive, diverse, and it gives me room to utilize my metal elements, as it fits the music and allows me to bring more of my metal writing style to the table. I dig it, and Ken and Greg are superb musicians who are open to being diverse, and easy to work with. I look forward to seeing what the future has in store and the stuff that we come up with. With all our tastes combined, I'm sure it will make for some cool stuff. You can check out a sample of BioMachine at
www.myspace.com/biomachineusa
Just a taste of what we're doing

The track on the page is not my playing, but there will be some stuff up on the page with my playing on it eventually and some video stuff of some jam sessions. Sit tight, kids. We've got some cool ideas we've been working with recently.

At the moment, we're still writing and searching for a good vocalist (and you know how hard that is, these days). Possibly a second guitarist. Hopefully sometime by the summer we'll have at least an EP, a singer and some shows. At least that's our goal. Don't quote me on it because who knows if things will go accordingly to that plan.

And as we all know, most of the time, things never go according to plan.

All we can do is work the best we can and take our time to write some ass kicking tunes. Haste makes waste and we don't want to slop together some halfass bullshit for the sake of getting an EP out or playing a show ASAP. We've all been down that road at least once, and looking back on it, it wasn't such a good idea and could've been better. You live and you learn though.
Moving on......

Ah yes, the Ballz. We're still working on the new album, doing preproduction, and squeezing some shows in between. We're not out of the woods yet, but it's coming along. I'm possibly due for some more drum tracking next week. Playing it by ear at the moment. There's so many good songs ideas in the can right now that we're still yet to get to. I'm excited.

Oooh, did I mention I officially now have a custom Ballz Deluxe front bass drum head? Fuckin A right doggy! It's about time.

Warning! Rant ahead!
I'd like to take a minute or 5 and rant about an experience I had this past Saturday. Seriously, our tax dollars pay for this stupidity?

Check it.
Saturday afternoon, abour 4 pm or so. BioMachine bassist Greg and I are traveling down Sashabaw on the way to practice, in a tan Jimmy (remember that detail, because it comes into play later on in the story.)
Police sirens, we pull off to the side of the road in front of DTE to make way, only to find out that said police cruiser was pulling up right behind us. Wonderful.....
Note, there was nothing wrong with Greg's truck, we obeyed all traffic laws and weren't acting or doing anything out of the ordinary or suspicious. Greg was legal, sober, had no warrants or anything, and his truck was legal. I was sober as well, and I have a clean record. Just two guys going to band practice.
Standard procedure, the female officer comes to the window, requests license and registration and all that fun stuff. Greg obliges. Female officer then answers Greg's question of
"Is there a problem, officer?"
Female officer - "I pulled you over because we had a couple calls come in about a tan Trailblazer (remember that) driving erratically and swerving all over the road."

Then asks Greg to step out of the vehicle, leads him away, and searches him. Few minutes later, a male officer comes to my window, asks me for ID and why Greg was driving like an idiot, only for me to answer
"What? He wasn't driving like an idiot." after informing him that his female counterpart already had my ID.

60 seconds goes by, male officer and female officer come back to my window, ask me to step out, put my hands behind my back and lace my fingers. Great, I'm thinking, I'm getting arrested and I don't even know why. Greg is in the back of one of the police cruisers. Meanwhile, everybody on Sashabaw is gawking at the long haired metal guy wearing camo shorts and spikes in his hat, (me) getting his hands placed behind his back by a Sheriff's deputy.

Only I didn't feel cuffs get slapped on my wrists. They searched me while holding my hands behind my back, stripped me of my hat, wallet and chain and belongings in my pockets then, male officer led me away to his cruiser and stuck me in the back seat, shut the door and walks away.........

Only to stop a half second later and realize he forgot to turn the inside lock on for the doors so I wouldn't be able to get out. Opens the door again, flips the switch, closes door and walks away. Then they searched Greg's truck, naturally, not finding anything.

In the meantime, the following ensued, I guess, while me and Greg were separated. The female officer gave him the typical field sobriety tests (count backwards from 80, ABC's etc) and asked him such questions like "Have you been drinking today?"
No was Greg's answer. She had asked me the same thing when I was getting searched. I had a glass of wine at Zuby's house when we went to go pick up my drums and said so. But still, what does that have to do with anything? I wasn't driving.

Then I guess she asked Greg if he had been smoking marijuana. No, was his reply. Then she says "What about your buddy?" (referring to me)
Greg says "He doesn't even smoke marijuana!"
Female officer - "Well why not?!"
Greg - "I don't know, maybe he's smart! I have no idea."

Female officer further questions Greg's ability to drive and his sobriety. She gave him another test.
"Pick a number between 13 and 15"
Greg, being on edge after getting thrown through the ringer and not in his right mind as a result of it, blurts out; "12"
Female officer - "I said 13 and 15!!!! Are you sure you're ok to drive?"
Greg - "Sorry, 14!"

After much convincing (deemed un-needed in my eyes, because if these cops were smart, they'd realize that Greg was sober plain as day, let alone realize that they had wrong fucking truck and people in the first place!!!,) Greg finally proved to these idiots that he was sober. Meanwhile I'm in the back of the cruiser wondering what the hell is going on. Male officer comes, goes to open the door and realizes that it's locked (doh!!). I see an expression on his face that could be put into these words; "Doh! Damnit!"
Wow, as if this whole situation in general didn't make you look enough like an idiot, you had to go the extra mile and top it off by first; forgetting to lock me in the car, and then; forgetting the fact that I was locked in when you came to let me out!
(roll applause tape) You deserve an award!
Anywho, he circles around the car, sticks the key in the driver's door, opens, flips the switch then comes back around to me and lets me out.
"Go have a seat back in the vehicle"

Greg's out of the car now, still cuffed. Ken's blowing up Greg's phone on the dashboard. I answered and filled him in on what was going on. Greg returns to the truck and drives away......

And they STILL didn't realize that they had the wrong truck!

This is the stupidity that our tax dollars pay for? Seriously! Greg drives a tan Jimmy! Not a Trailblazer! It clearly says Jimmy on the back of his truck. You think they would have seen that when they pulled up behind us, and when they took Greg behind the truck to search him.

Realistically, you might ask... "Why didn't you point out the mistake when they came to the window the first time?"
Well, I'll be honest, it slipped my mind when I first heard it and didn't realize it at first until we were already knee deep in the whole quagmire.
Besides, I was just going with the flow and I didn't wanna challenge em. Some cops have some massive power trip problems and will get shitty if you as so much as point something out to them that's contradictory and reveals a mistake on their part. Then, who knows what will happen. I wasn't in the mood to pick a fight that day. I just wanted it to go as smoothly as possible so I could go beat on some drums, knowing that they're not going to find anything to pin on us and knowing that we're not in any kind of trouble at all.

That's the problem with some officers these days. You give an individual a little bit of authority/power over people, and they let it go to their head and abuse it. Therefore you get warped assholes on power trips. Look buddy, that badge of yours gives you the power to protect and serve the community and enforce the law appropriately. Not harass people and act like a fuckin Nazi. Please, go catch real criminals and leave us law abiding citizens alone.

In closing, the whole thing sucked a hefty bag of dick in Hell. But I made it to practice!

Soooo, that's my rant.
Fuck the system..........

FMD