Venicestock 2010 Poster
17 Aug 2010, 3:55pm in News by SJWe got the poster in for Venicestock 2010.
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We got the poster in for Venicestock 2010.
Check it out!
Why Did I Get Into This?
One of the most often asked questions I get is why did I start playing music. I usually have two answers which are a bit flippant and easy: 1) Girls, and 2) I was born this way.
The first response, is obvious. For some reason, girls like musicians. I figured if I can be ugly and still get the attention of pretty girls it would be ok. I remember taking my guitar to school in high school and practicing in the quad during lunch time. After a few minutes, a couple of girls would come and sit down next to me and eat their lunch and I’d chat with them a bit. Then a few minutes later, there would be another couple of girls. Well, it doesn’t take a psychology genius to figure how that could affect the thinking of a teenage male.
Since those formative years I’ve used my music to express these relationships I’ve had with girls, usually after the relationships have ended. So of course those songs tend to be a bit negative, but they helped express what I couldn’t have said without music. Obviously we all experience these feelings, and I’m glad that people have connected with those songs. That’s why I bother recording and releasing and promoting the songs after I’ve written them, so that you can have them too and connect with them.
The songs I’ve written this year have been more positive, forward, hopeful, etc. I wrote them for a girl that I’ve known for a couple of years. We had always just been friends but people had always asked me if there was something else between us, and if not, they suggested there should be. The Universe even conspired relentlessly in the matter. Anyway, I don’t want this blog to turn into an episode of Oprah so I won’t go into needless details, but have no fear dear reader, give me a situation like that and I’ll be there to fuck it up lickety-splitly. There was denial, a deception, a decoy, and probably a few other ‘d’ words to convolute the whole thing. But besides all that, and intertwined with all that, there were the songs.
At the end of the day, these new songs were failures and didn’t really do what I hoped they would do. The one time in my life I get romantic for a girl and I somehow manage to still mess it up. This girl and I barely even talk anymore, it’s not unfriendly, it’s just quiet and peaceful, and nothing makes me happier to see her smile when I run into her when I’m out and about. Her songs were meant for much more than that though, so I have a handful of shitty failure songs sitting around and I’m not sure what to do with them.
But let’s move on to the second answer I usually give when asked why I started playing music, 2) I was born this way. I’m a songwriter, and these are songs that I’ve written. I don’t have much say in the matter, the songs just form inside of me and then I play them. So despite however I might feel about them I think it’s time for me to turn them over to you.
Here are the demo versions of the songs, they’re kind of rough, but I hope you enjoy them:
http://www.reverbnation.com/saintjohn
Cheers,
SJ
Days 6 and 7. Why does it have to end?
So much happened in seven days, I’ll never be able to describe the whole tour in a blog. Overall, it was an exciting adventure for all of us.
Most importantly, I have to tell you how awesome my band is, I dearly love them. Not only are they great musicians, but they really stepped up and pitched in to make this tour happen. I very often like to do impossible tasks with too little time, and Gabriel, Emma, and Luca were there right behind me doing whatever they could to help and it’s because of them that the tour was so successful. They rock from top to bottom.
Next, we are also very indebted to the folks that helped us get the heck out of town and offered encouragement from home. Just knowing that they were home keeping track of where we were and how we were doing and cheering us on helped give us tons of confidence. Thank you!
And then to all the folks we met on the road, at shows, at pubs, on the streets, cafés, gas stations, etc., and came out to connect with our music, you’re the reason why we packed that SUV to the point where we were all smashed in and drove too many hours in a day without knowing where we would be sleeping, eating, showering, peeing or pooping. We love playing music for you, plain and simple. We LOVE it.
It was really great to get out of LA for a week and meet and play for folks in NorCal and Oregon. I really like what they have going on in their towns and cities. The vibe they create is laid back, fun, kind, the food and beer is delicious, the scenery is gorgeous with all the trees, mountains, and rivers, and they really value music in their lives. The venues we played were friendly, professional, and committed to getting good music for their patrons. LA venues can learn a lot from the venues up north.
NorCal and Oregon, we’re coming back soon. I promise. We love your beer, we love your little hippie enclaves, we love your food, we love your vibe.
See you soon!
Love,
SJ
Day 5, still alive!!!
Today was another sightseeing day. Gabriel and Emma went to a museum while Luca and I went eating and drinking. That’s not exactly true, but not exactly false either.
My friend Greg who lives in Portland came by and picked up me and Luca and we went to a couple of cool bars. We also tried some food at these carts that Portland has all around town, kind of like how Venice Beach has the food trucks that swarm around on popular nights. But these carts are here all the time. Surprisingly tasty and inexpensive, which is good for poor gypsies like ourselves.
One of the bars we went to had a large outdoor seating area with wooden beer hall style tables. Right where I sat down someone had carved a “Venice 13″ skull into the table. It was nice to have a little taste of home defaced coincidentally(?) right in front of me.
Our last show in Portland was interesting. We met one of the other bands and they graciously offered to put us up for the night. Ghost Town Waltz, you guys rock! One of our previous cellists was also in town by coincidence and she came to our show at the Ash Street Saloon. Meghan, it was great to see you! We really have liked everyone we’ve met in Portland so far, really good folks.
We’re off to Eugene for our last show up North on this tour. It’s a place called Sam Bond’s Garage and we’ve heard lots of great things about it so we’re looking forward to another fun show. I love living in Venice Beach, but LA just doesn’t have the great vibe for music that Portland does. Portland, rock on with what you’ve got, we’ll see you again soon!
All the best,
SJ
Day 4 of the tour. The best yet. We had some time to wander around Portland, meet a lot of folks, get into a little trouble, play a couple of shows, etc.
First off, if you haven’t ever been to Portland, you have to go to Powell’s Books. It’s the biggest bookstore I’ve ever seen, it pretty much takes up a city block. They have everything, including free WiFi for me to update our tour journal right now.
We also found a great toy store which kept us occupied for about an hour with great stuff. Pictures attached.
The highlights of the day were our shows of course though. We had only planned one show at the Goodfoot Pub, which was a full set in-between a really great open mic night. The other players were much better than you’d see at any open mic in Los Angeles. After that show we hung out and met a bunch of cool folks and had some delicious local micro-brew beers and a slice of pizza that almost convinced me to only eat pizza for the rest of my life.
We then hightailed it over to another pub a few miles a way that we heard was having a great jam session that night. It was better than great, it was magical. The pub was called the Pub At The End Of The Universe. The layout of the place was so interesting with odd little rooms that led into each other and each one had really laid back folks just hanging out. Everyone was so friendly and eager to hear about Venice and I was interested to hear about what they all have going on in Portland. it was 1AM on a Monday night, and the place was packed with neighborhood folks just out for a good night. So good.
Oh, and the pub also had a delicious veggie lasagna with garlic bread and more micro-brews. Yes, I had two dinners.
Talk to you tomorrow, I hope the beginning of your Summer has been as fun as ours.
Cheers!
SJ
Day 3. Holy smokes, this was the longest, most action-packed, draining, and rewarding day on the tour so far.
It started off with me waking up before everyone else and making tea. And when I say “making tea”, I mean “almost burning down our host’s home”. Fortunately, Gabriel woke up and saw the smoke coming off the stove and saved the day. The tea was still lovely.
We packed the SUV to head up from San Francisco to go to Portland. It was an 11 hour drive, and we saw some beautiful rivers, lakes, mountains, volcanoes, etc. Luca made more room in the back so we didn’t have to hear him complain as much. However, the Italian football team tied with New Zealand (congrats to all my Kiwi friends, great match!) and was despondent for the next couple of hours. We’re sure Italy will come back in the next match for a win…
We arrived in Portland and hung out at the venue for a bit. They had a vending machine for musicians with guitar strings, drum sticks, guitar cables, etc etc. Super cool. They also had Galaga, pinball machines, and really great local folks. Some of the other folks playing that night were exceptionally weird and wonderful (including a performance piece about the first monkey in space from the perspective of the monkey). The venue (Slabtown) asked us to come back and play a residency there and considering how much we really like Portland it sounds very very tempting.
Totally exhausted from the drive and the show we rolled back to the motel. Gabriel and I pretended to be a gay couple and then sneaked Emma and Luca in after so we didn’t have to pay extra. Touring on the cheap is not for the faint of heart.
We’re getting much tighter as a band, playing our derriers off, and having a lot of fun, which is exactly why we’re here.
Tomorrow we have the day off from traveling so we’ll have some time to explore Portland before our show that night.
All the best,
SJ
Day two, muolto successful. We had a great time with our host family and headed later in the day to San Francisco. SF is such a great city, we need to come back many, many, many times. The Brain Wash was a bar/diner/laundromat (in the back). Just like SF, the Brain Wash was totally eclectic.
Emma should never be allowed to parallel park, unless of course we have an extra 3 hours to kill.
The crowd at the Brain Wash was really fun, dancing, grooving, drunk, young, old, just cool. After the show we headed out and Gabriel ate a whole pizza by himself. We’ll be heading out to by some larger pants for him tomorrow.
Sorry I don’t have more pictures, we had some technical difficulties with our camera. But we’ll definitely take more tomorrow on our way to Portland, Oregon.
Talk to you tomorrow!
SJ
PS. If you want to check out when/where we’re playing on this tour, go here: http://www.sjatr.com/shows
Day 1 of our first tour was pretty rad. Emma tetris-ed all the gear in to the SUV miraculously, leaving Luca smashed into his seat. He’s actually about four inches shorter now from being squished in the back for so long.
We arrived in Berkeley and immediately headed over to Rasputin’s Record Shop and Amoeba Records. I spent about 2 hours going through the $1 vinyl bins. Oh man, they had some super good stuff.
We got to the venue and met some of the locals, super cool folks. One of my favourites was John, a gentleman that looked like an older version of my brother, he even acted a bit like him. He’s one of those guys that’s at the bar every night, playing darts and generally holding the walls up. The show at the Starry Plough was brilliant. It was Paul McCartney’s birthday so we made sure that we rocked ‘Why Don’t We Do It In The Road’ for a bit. The crowd was awesome and they made us feel like we were home.
After milling about after the show meeting folks and signing CDs etc., we headed over to Emma’s Aunt’s house, our host family for the Bay Area shows. Her little daughters drew a super cute welcome sign and put it up on the door for us. They were all lovely and super cool. They had chickens and mice and a dog and hermit crabs and fish. We had eggs for breakfast the next day laid by their chickens, really cool.
We’re getting ready for our Day 2 show, will update more soon.
Wish us luck!
Best,
SJ
Hanging out on the couch (as I have been for the past 3 weeks), waiting for the band to arrive for our Sunday acoustic rehearsal. They are stuck in traffic. I’ll give them a pass though, they did a great job at our gig on Friday.
It’s another June Gloom day here in Venice Beach, CA. Hopefully the haze will burn off in a bit so we can go back to our regularly scheduled Summer weather.
If you’re reading this and you were at our Galaxy Theatre show opening for Wang Chung on Friday, then I have to tell you thanks very much for your ridiculously nice applause and support! We had such a great time playing for you. The Wang Chung folks were great people too, lots of fun.
The World Cup is off to a pretty slow start. USA v ENG 1-1?!?!?!? I hope USA does very well since they are my adopted country, but being Canadian, ENG is my fallback team of choice since Canada can’t get its football/soccer act together. Luca (our drummer extraordinaire) is supporting his native Italy, but he can’t seem to stop diving to the floor long enough to wave his flag (for those of you who don’t get it, Italian players are notorious for diving during matches, pretending to be fouled and crying to the referee in hopes that the other team will get a yellow card). I have to say, for a country that pretends to be so macho, they’re pretty gay.
So now what? We have a NorthWest tour coming up in about a week. Hopefully that won’t be a huge mess, and even if it is I think it’ll be super fun. Are there any pretty girls in the NorthWest? Have guitar, will travel.
Here are some pictures from our show with Wang Chung:
Talk to you soon!
All the best,
SJ
Woke up, looked out the window, it’s a beautiful sunny Sunday morning and I saw a couple of dolphins surfacing and diving under some slow glassy waves. Sunday mornings don’t get much better than that.
I’ve spent most of the week horizontal due to a back injury. I have gained a lot of empathy for old people. Every single thing I do is painful, even coughing. And since there is no universal health care in this country and I can’t afford insurance we’re just crossing our fingers and hoping it fixes itself. I’m pretty sure it will fix itself, this morning it even feels a bit better. The yoga child’s pose has also been working wonders. This journal entry will be short though, I can’t sit up for too long until my back reminds me it prefers horizontalness. Anyway, I’m really bored of talking about my back, so…
I wrote a couple of new songs this week. I even managed to record a rough demo of one of them yesterday before my back demanded that gravity win. I put it in the bottom of this journal entry if you want to check it out.
I was also wrong this week. Wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong. The Universe has been relentlessly giving me signs pointing me in a particular direction. Spooky and relentlessly, much much more than coincidence would allow. The folks that saw it from the outside even said “yeah, duh!”. So I finally gave in and went that direction, but it turns out it was the wrong direction. So I just shook my head, turned around, and walked back hoping that the Universe wouldn’t be too upset. I did everything I could though, maybe even too much. It makes no sense, but that’s the way it is. That muse is gone and I’ll be drawing from a different source now.
The computer that I use for recording and has my MP3 collection is also not working, but a friend has lent me her record player. I will never listen to an MP3 again. Listening to vinyl records on this player has been way too much fun. It feels like it’s 1970 in my living room right now. Hold on, I need to flip it to side four (it’s a 2 disc set) of CSN&Y 4 Way Street…
Ok, I’m back. I only have 5 records right now, will be venturing out to the record store once I’m mobile again.
Hahah. “OHIO” is now playing in my living room. Universe, you’re a funny mofo. Well, it’s a great song in any case.
We are opening a show for Wang Chung in a couple of weeks, if you’re in Southern California you should join us, it’s going to be huge fun. And it’s even more fun because you can get discounted tickets from us here: http://www.sjatr.com/wangchung
Lords, ladies, and gentlemen, have a happy week. I leave you with this (forgive the quality, it’s just a demo):
come closer
the long way out is over here
electricity pouring from the socket
carbon monoxide kisses
an alarm wired to my front pocket
come closer, it’ll be ok
let me whisper, it’ll be ok
i’ll pour salt around your bed
to keep the nightmares away
from the roof i’ll keep watch all around
until i don’t know night from day
come closer, come closer, it’ll be ok
let me whisper, let me whisper, it’ll be ok
i was holding on
lord knows i held it in
but if you’d asked the stars
they’d say i should win
come closer, come closer, it’ll be ok
let me whisper, let me whisper, it’ll be ok
All the best,
SJ
Ahoy!
It’s a truly gorgeous day here in Venice, California. We’ve had some very grey and windy days recently, the whistling and howling was relentless. I live in southern California, not northern Scotland, for a reason. But today is sunny and warm, and the ocean is a beautiful bluegreen.
I just got in from a bike ride on along the beach, it’s a great way to keep my heart pumping and gives me new sounds to build songs on. A friend recently gave this bike to me. It’s old and rusted and has no brakes, but it’s fun and fast, so I’m pretty sure it’s going to be the instrument of my death.
I babysat a couple of dogs for a friend yesterday. Good dogs. I’m still not in a position to have a dog of my own, but having these guys around is fun. They’re super smart and way too cute.
We’re giving away ‘Victory Tree’ this week as a free download:
http://www.reverbnation.com/play_now/song_2730551
Our tour manager is also booking shows for our West Coast tour and we’ve been rehearsing quite a bit to get in shape for it and the tons of shows we have coming up in May. It’ll be my first formal tour, so it’s going to be a lot of fun.
Well, I should get going, I have a song to write. I hope to see you soon.
All the best,
SJ
http://www.facebook.com/saintjohn
http://www.twitter.com/saintjohn
It’s been a busy week. We cleaned up our rehearsal studio, it looks about 1000 times better now. It’s in the basement of one of the oldest buildings in Venice and it’s just a really fun place to play. And the ghosts are finally getting used to the ruckus.
I wrote a new song that I like, it’s another silly love song. It’s Spring, what can I do?
I told a secret to somebody this week. It was my secret, so I didn’t break anybody’s confidence. Dunno if I should have said anything, but it seemed like that’s what the Universe wanted. Eventually I have to always tell the truth. The only reason I mention it here is because it actually has something to do with some recent songs and what they’re about.
We’ve been flirting with adding a couple new members to the band. We’ll see how they work out, it’s a lot of work to be in this band, we are a bit maniacal.
Check our show schedule, we have a whole bunch of shows coming up in May. We’re starting to work some new songs into the set also. It’s a lot of fun to flesh them out and to see how playing them live changes them.
We have a free download this week, it’s a song from ‘Mercy’ called ‘Part Of Me’:
http://www.reverbnation.com/play_now/song_2730587
Feel free to share that link and spread it around, I pretty much owe my whole career to cool folks like you telling your friends about my music, so please keep it up, I very much appreciate it!
Best,
SJ
http://www.facebook.com/saintjohn
http://www.twitter.com/saintjohn
http://www.breakthruradio.com/index.php?show=9895
Saint John’s interview starts a few minutes into the playback on that link.
Cheers!
Hey Folks! I have some shows coming up in the next few weeks around Southern California with some new songs and new band members to introduce you to. We also have a couple more radio shows soon. Yes, yes we do.
We had a lovely time at our live show on KSCR. There were folks coming in and taking tons of pics, so I’m sure there will be up more later, especially the ones with my delicious chocolate milkshake!