As a disclaimer, if you haven't finished Deathly Hallows, this blog might ruin some of it.

I know most of this is mega-late, but-finally-here it is; a recap of our amazing Harry Potter summer!

The summer started off with our very first live show ever--The Wizrockfest in Anaheim.

The weeks leading up to the event were pretty stressful. I mean, moreso than they should have been.  Basically from the moment I (Josh) got home from college, we began rehearsing. Unfortunately we only had a 3 week period to practice all of our songs.  About a week or so before the show, we began recording our first real CD, Wizard Rock Cake. 

Yes, those are pins from Roonil Wazlib, The Whomping Willows and The Wizrocklopedia

Literally, we put the finishing touches on the CD the night before we left. If we had more time, we would have tried to include more songs, I just didn't think we'd be able to put out the best quality recordings of some of the songs. So, a few songs will have to wait until Album 2.  The song I was saddest to see not make the cut was Caves are for Lovers, which was one of my favorite ideas for a song.  Basically it's about the way caves are misrepresented in books (especially HBP); they're not dark and sinister, they're more like a good place for a picnic. Another song that definitely will make it onto the next album is Waking Up, which is written from Harry's point of view the morning after book 6 ends. I think the lyrics were posted on a blog more than a year ago and it's still one of my favorite songs, lyrically. A Toast is the type of song I'd love to close the next album with. It uses similar chords to Wizard Rock Cake (though both songs sound nothing alike) and I'm hoping we can finally record it the way I envision it sounding like. Also, Flashes of Red & Gold is our acoustic love-ballad-of-fury. We even recorded the song at one point, but I couldn't nail the vocals. I'm hoping we can redo it and make it rock someday.


We drove about 8 hours the night before to the L.A. area. I specifically remember going through the setlist in my head as I tried to go to sleep and unconsciously kicking my feet to the beat of the songs. I did this so much, that I actually woke poor Gabe up at least 3 or 4 times.

So the next morning we gathered our stuff, put on our ties and whatnot and headed over to the library. We showed up about 2 hours before the show started, so we could do soundcheck, meet everyone, etc...



When we arrived, there were only 3 or 4 people, from 13 Grimmauld Place (the awesome group that put the show on).  This was the first time I recall ever introducing myself with "Hi, I'm Josh from the Bandon Banshees." It still seems weird to do so.

Nevertheless, we began to set up our equipment as we waited for people and equipment to show up. And it suddenly dawned on me that I was going to get the worst sunburn of the summer.  If only we had brought sunscreen...

As people and bands (OK, mostly bands) began to trickle in, I remember almost feeling starstruck, to some degree.  Here I was, amongst dozens of people I had only known from Myspace and emails, about to help put on a Wrock show. It's a strange feeling.


Gabe, Jon of Sue & the Hufflepuffs, Josh

The Hermione Crookshanks Experience was the first band to perform and Kristine put on a very entertaining show. Her kazoo solo was a highlight. She even debuted some songs off her new CD, which I'm sure you already own. If not, what are you waiting for? It's awesometastic.


Then a Couple of Harrys performed. They were selling some really cool posters, too, but took off before we could buy one.

Finally, we took to the stage and performed our songs for the first time live (we hadn't even really performed these songs in front of our friends at this point!)



Bobby, of Dumbledore's Army (who definitely deserves the award for nicest person in the history of Wizard Rock) lent us his acoustic guitar and we closed our set with Magical Me, the first song wizard rock song we ever wrote. For the heck of it we even added a solo towards the end, and I got to play the drums, which was a blast.

After our set, Dumbledore's Army rocked the house. Bobby really has great stage presence and put on a very entertaining show. We even got sing the "whoa-oh!"  parts on 'The Marauders Aren't Alright'.' Forgetting the song, I continued to stay on stage when there was no "whoa-oh's" left in the song. There's a short Youtube clip somewhere out there with me adding a whoa-oh, realizing it doesn't belong in the song, then leaving the stage.

After a short break, Sue & the Hufflepuffs took the stage. This was one of the highlights of the show for me, especially the multi-multi instrument Like a Snitch.

After Sue & the Hufflepuffs, Jace of Catchlove and Talons & Tea Leaves fame (have you caught the Prophecy video of T&TL and Marked as His Equal playing together? It's awesome!!) performed, even duetting with Alex of The Remus Lupins on Kelly Clarkson's (the witch, not the muggle) Since You've Been Gone. In the words of Will Ferrell as James Lipton 'it was like looking into the face of God and him saying 'you are my most beautiful and wondrous creation' "


After Jace's set, Logan Zon Acoustic performed. I remember thinking 'this isn't really wizard rock, this is more, like, ninja-rock or something. We watched from our makeshift merch table and got the chance to talk with a bunch of really awesome people.

My only regret is that we didn't really stick around our booth selling CDs very often. So, sorry if someone tried to buy a CD and we weren't around. I would've just taken one! ;)

The last band was The Remus Lupins.  I couldn't help but notice that the crowd at least tripled by the time Alex hit the stage. I personally was very excited to see a Remus Lupins show. We went to a Good Cheer/ Remus Lupins show last year, which must've started early, and only caught the last few songs of The Remus Lupins set. So this was out first full show.

See if you can spot all of the Wizard Rock bands and personalities. I see Jace, Devin of the Owl Post, Jon of Sue & the Hufflepuffs, Kristine of tHCE, Mark of Marked as His Equal, Dinah, AKA WizRockLove-The next Squib Girl, Kelly of ECP and Alex of tRL, of course. And I'm in there somewhere.

Needless to say, Alex put on a great show, especially considering he hadn't slept in, like, 19 weeks.


Afterwards we stuck around and took a bunch of pictures. After finally getting everyone organized we took a photo with all of the bands that were still around. Since we took so many pictures, many of us couldn't help but notice that Alex of The Remus Lupins was probably the love of our lives, instantly creating the first 9  person ship, Aljadenimarkrisjonaboshby.


Here's a picture of us with Kelly of Enchanted Ceiling Productions. She made our awesome logo and in return we stole this picture from her profile:


After a few weeks of summer goodness, we saw Harry & the Potters perform in Sacramento. Unlike last year, where a few hundred of us packed into a small library meeting room, this show was completely crowded. I don't even think this picture gives a good impression of how many people showed up--it was astounding to me.

<br>And I'm still amazed that Harry and the Potters (and everyone else in the Wizard Rock community, as far as I know) is completely doing everthing themselves, without any major record labels or promoters. It's amazing to see how far wizard rock has gone just in this last year alone.



The following week we waited in line at midnight for the Order of the Phoenix movie premiere.  Regardless of what many people say, I really enjoyed this one. I go into the movies with the mindset that every scene I've ever enjoyed will be cut out and at least one of the characters will be more mustachioed than I imagined (Lupin).

Then, about 2 weeks later, the greatest moment in the history of the world occured; the Deathly Hallows book release! I don't think I can sum up in words how awesome the experience of the book was. I had to reread it a second time just to take in what I had missed (I read some parts so fast that I don't recall half of what happened--particularly the Hogwarts battle).

Overall, it was a fantastic way to finish a fantastic series. I have no complaints. (OK,OK, I have one; how did Ron and Hermione get out of the Chamber of Secrets towards the end, when they were retrieving the Basilisk's fang?)

The midnight release

For the release, a bunch of us got together and dressed up. I made sure to sport my Wizard Rock pins, including a Sue & the Hufflepuffs, Wizrocklopedia, Whomping Willows, and Roonil Wazlib pin. And I even won a hat in a Harry Potter trivia contest!

Throughout this summer I've also been organizing One More Peaceful Day, the summer WizRock compilation that 's been delayed about 1000 (or 2) times. Extra special thanks goes to Squib Girl, for being a Wizard Rock instigator and sparking the idea for this CD earlier this year.

Just over a week after the the book release, we played at a Harry Potter party with Dungbombs Rock!, put on by the world-famous Dinah

Dungbombs Rock! performing

If our show in Anaheim rocked people's socks off, then, at this show, we just asked people to gently remove their socks. In other words, we made quite a few mistakes. But the Save Ginny Weasley duet that I sang with Chris of Dungbombs Rock! was a blast to play. I turned into Phil Collins for a few minutes, trying to drum and sing at the same time.  It would've worked great, if only the microphone stand didn't keep moving.

Needless to say, it was great to see so many Harry Potter fans under one roof.  And the party was an absolute blast. We even fit in a game of HP:Scene It. And free candy always rocks.

Which pretty much takes us up to tonight. Tomorrow we leave for a mini-road-trip to see The Whomping Willows and The Parselmouths perform. Slowly, but surely, I'm catching all of my favorite wizard rock bands on tour. And this will be a perfect close to an amazing summer.

For the rest of the year, we're hoping to be involved in a West Coast Yule Ball and we're also slowly beginning to work on Album 2. What better time to write music than a rainy fall day? We have a few songs already written and a few more we've started that sound pretty great so far. Hopefully we can start recording something in the next few weeks to put up on the profile.

Well, it's been an amazing summer. Thank-you to everyone that came out and saw us perform, thank-you to all of our friends that have helped us put together the various CDs and shows this year. And thank-you for reading this very long blog.
~Josh