See, it works, my adsense bar is much better!

By posting that big poitless list of things realted to music I successfully made the adsense match my liking, isn't that cool!

Moved In!!!!

Yup, all the nick-nacks and DOO-Dads have been carefully toted across the city and are resting in our new apartment. THe cat is freaked out ( she won't come out from under the covers in our bed) but she'll be O.K. Just need to get over to the old place and run the vacuum and do an idiot check, that should be easy! I really want to take this opportunity to thank Corey Frey, a good friend of mine who helped me move all the big items (sofa, beds......) and pulled a horse trailer with his pickup truck to haul the stuff too!

Now onto the good stuff. You should see the size of the tub in the master bathroom, I can stand facing the shower head with my arms straight out bent 90' at the elbows and neither one of my arms will be touching the wall or curtain, and facing the broad wall I can stand with my arms extended bent at the wrist (up) and not touch either wall. Pretty spiffy! Not to mention the place is a lot bigger than our old place, and has a better layout (it doesn't seem so much like a typical apartment) and better amenities (pools, fitness area, man-made lakes to swim/fish/boat on) Look for pictures of the new place soon at www.sincitywolskes.com

Nasty Habits ROcks!!!

Not that this wasn't already known to me, but it was totally confirmed this weekend. We had our first official gig as Nasty Habits at the Indian Springs casino about 45 minutes north of Las Vegas. It is a small casino with a pretty big bar and a great dance floor. THe crowd was a little thin Friday night, but the place was hopping on Saturday night! THe Overall vibe pouring off the stage was great! THere was communication between players, wicked licks being traded by our two guitar players and Uncle Sean, our buddy who actually got us the gig and sat in with us both nights. THe sound was good, the playing was good, the crowd loved it, and we got more dates at Indian Springs!! Check out our Myspace or Website to see our current bookings.

Friday night I couldn't sleep, partly because it was our first night in the new place, and partly because the gig went so well (when I was 18 I used to get a lot of adrenaline during gigs and could not go to sleep right after a gig, but it's been probably 8 years since I last experienced that rush!).

Look for more news about Nasty Habits as we progress.

Big stuff moved in! Almost completely moved!!

We took a horse trailer full of big houshold items to the new place, including the computer, and wer are almost ready to rock and Roll!! I've got to take a nap because I've got a gig up the road tonight.

Rock and Roll

Just trying to make the adsense banner not focus on a subject that I don't like. so here is a random listing of things that have to do with music.

Did you know that Guitar Center and Musicians friend are the same company?! That's why the Guitars and Basses or Pro Audio Gear or Drums in the catalog and in the music store are always the same price!

Sam Ash is not affiliated with either, Nor are any of them affiliated with Ed Romans, the worlds largest guitar store (it says so on the billboards).

Most players still use Fenders or Gibsons, however a strong and loyal following sticks with Peavey and Ibanez, and the most discerning players (me) have gone to Schecter guitars.

One of my favorite bands is Lynyrd Skynyrd who are still touring to this day, and are my artist of the week..

I personally believe that every kid should have a guitar when they turn 12, if they don't like it they can always learn a lesson in selling items on Ebay which has become a work at home, get rich type of thing nowadays. and more parents should consider the bass guitar for their kids, after all it got me where I am today...Disregard the last part.........

My twin brother Matt inspired me to do a bunch of links and they say that imitation is the highest form of flattery. We used to play in a band called Mourning Stone, all original hard rockin' music with some friends, and before that our first band was Seuss. Since the demise of Mourning Stone I have played in Across the Tracks, the Trisha Benton Band and Betty and the Liars.

Recently I was making a MYSPACE account for Nasty Habits when I stumbled across some of my old friend in Salisbury Maryland and their bands. There is Dash Eight, Dr. Jones, and Trisha Benton on there along with countless other rockin' bands from back east.

To continue with the list of things musical there is:
Pro Sound News
Carvin
www.behringer.com
Dbx
Allen and Heath
Yorkville
Hartke
Yamaha
Shure
Sensaphonics

Cool, so that should give the page more respectable things to advertise for. Rock and Roll.

Band pic

Here is the Band, Nasty Habits from Left to right it's Bruce, Jon, Tommy, Steve, Corey

We have picked up some more dates, and are happily getting our Demo out to the people in Vegas who do bookings for events and such. We are also looking forward to a return engagement at the STARBRIGHT THEATER with LINDA GENTILLE, a fantastic piano player who played with Liberace and keeps his love for a good show going to this very day!! There are even pictures from our last shows with Linda on her website!

Also, anybody here in town, if you are looking for a Rock and Blues band that is not afraid of variety and fun, look no further than us! Nasty Habits is ready to rock your party or event until the sun comes up if necessary! If you have a crowd that likes to dance, and you really want to impress them with this years company party, give us a call, we'll make sure your event is the best yet!!

Tire safety awareness week

Well, I heard on the news that it is National Tire Safety Awareness Week which really helped me out, like I couldn't tell the front right tire is worn to a dangerous level, thanks NHTSA!! Now, what are we going to do about all those People of questionable entry who are driving on bad tires, can we deport them for that? Man I love awareness Weeks, they give me such enthusiasm! I just can't stop thinking about chasing down all those people with bad tires and sending them to Wal Mart (Commie) supercenters to have their tires changed by their Professional tire changing professionals. I'll bet while they are there they can also get their hair professionally done, get some new glasses from the eyeglass professionals(obviously they couldn't see that thir tires were bad) and be pushed out the isle they are shopping in by a Pallet jack equiped shelf stocking professional. and what about the cops? THey could have a little contest to see which Law Enforcement professional can get the most citations for bad tires on our roadways! Plus that would generate more income for the county too! Man, it really seems that this whole Idea of reminding us how bad our tires are is gonna be great for our economy, the stores will be making money, we'll cean up the overall look of the general public (with their new haircuts) and we'll all be a lot safer!! Looks like a winner all around. Know anybody who doesn't like Awareness Days? Follow that there link if you are one!

Signed the lease today!

So we have the keys, we are going to start moving tomorrow!!
It will be nice to get out of this neighbourhood. It never really occured that this was a really bad part of town, besides the few things we had happen to us in two and a half years, but now as we drive back into this neighbourhood after visiting our new apartment, it really is pretty crummy! Not only is it in somewhat of an undesirable part of town, I never really paid attention to how many suspicious people were always lerking around.. It seems the mexicans will open any oriface of their car to make it look like they have an excuse to be hanging around in the parking lot by the dozens, and the african americans, they've never seemed to need an excuse or a reason, they have nothing better to fo. I actually heard this conversation outside my window the other day (we have one of thos two foot high electrical boxes right outside our window, and certain people seem to think that it's a bench and hang out there all day and night) "Nah, man, if I even WENT to school i'd be doin' better than that nigga." " Fo Sho, I could get a job just as easily as that M#&$#F*#&$R and I ain't gone to no damn school in a year....." lovely isn't it?!

We will send pictures of our new, non sketchy hood once we are moved in!!!

Nasty Habits Music (Demo) Available -- blogger editor not making links....

Corey Frey, the drummer in Nasty Habits mixed our demo and now it is available online to listen!! You can check it out on our WEBSITE (http://nastyhabitslv.com) or you can listen to it from our new MYSPACE account (www.myspace.com/nastyhabitslv)! I figured it's the hottest thing going right now, so we can generate much more traffic, right! We are looking forward to getting some photos so we will have the start of a press pack and can start pounding the pavement for gigs. If you know of anyone in the Las Vegas or surrounding areas who is going to have an event, or knows someone in the industry, please send them our way!! We are pleased with the demo, feel free to sheck it out!! My favourite tune is 'Unchain my Heart' we really gave it our own feel and I think it's quite good! (I may be just slightly biased...)

The move is soon to be underway!

Wanna help? later this week I'll be packing our belongings and hauling them about 25 minutes to our new home. We got an apartment set up in Desert Shores, a nice neighborhood that has four man-made lakes with fishing and swimming and small watercrafts and beach volleyball.... it is a nice area to go for a walk or ride your bike too! Kelly really hates moving, so I am going to try to get most of the moving done during the day while she is at work. I can't say that I love moving, but I had a minivan when I was 18, I got used to moving (you know the bumper sticker 'yes it's my pickup, no I won't help you move' that applies to minivans too, everybody and their mother wants you to haul stuf...) so the only big items we have are the Beds (queen and twin) the sofa and loveseat, so I think I should be able to get away with one trip using a U-Haul flat trailer and the rest in the Jeep.... I'll keep updating with our progress! Keep looking!

Hip Hop = Danger! SO SAYS THE SHERIFF

Recently, the Sheriff of Las Vegas sent a request to the casinos and concert venues in the valley suggesting that they not book hip hop acts anymore. His reasoning was simple: He's the one who has to clean up the mess after these shows break out into violence. I'm not saying that all hip hop fans are prone to violence, it's just a hazard when that's the attitude pouring off the stage.

You don't hear mainstream rock bands talking about the stuff that these hip hop guys are pushing (Gang membership/Guns/Hookers/Bling/Violence), and keep in mind I said MAINSTREAM. You see the difference between the rock world and the hip hop world is that little bit of bending into the man, not throwing all of the questionable content onto the airwaves and letting the listeners sort out what they want to hear and what they don't. For this, I applaud the Hip Hop community, Embrace your 'ART' and own it, however, in owning it you must be willing to face the consequences.

So I'd like to challenge anyone in the Hip Hop community to this: Look around Vegas, see if there are other venues that feature music with this sort of violent energy, There may be a lot of Metal bands in Vegas (most of our original scene is Heavy Rock), but listen to what they are saying, it's not all 'Kill you Mom and Eat your Dog' music. And the shows don't end up with riots, either. Find me a rock musician or band who has been shot in the studio (there have been a number of murders in Vegas at Hip Hop studios), we tend to take matters into our own hands the same as the Hip Hop guys, only we approach conflict resolution from a professional standpoint. If person A has offended me or my Homies and it is affecting my business, I will resolve the issue with Person A, not shoot Him/Her.

I'd like to add a note about society (how I see it from my part of the world)... If you are sitting in your car with the music blaring and your two year old is in the back seat as you sing along, complete with all of the "M-F'ers" and other bad language, don't be surprised that your son is going to turn out to be a hoodlum. There are 4 and 5 year old kids spouting off words and phrases that I didn't know until I was easily into my preteen years, and they had to have picked it up from somewhere (even if it was not their parents, some other kids may have heard the words from THERE parents....)

So hold your rally (a grand total of about 50 people attended), but step back and look at the business you are in and the history of violence that has come with it and then tell me it is wrong to suggest that the valley would be better off without these shows. If these shows continue or are brought back to Fort Cheyenne casino (three blocks from my apartment) will there be fights and shootings like the last time? And the time before that, and the time before that........ And show me a Rock or Pop or Blues orJazz or Country musician who has shot a cop dead recently...

Anywho, I just think it's a little nuts for these folks to complain because you have to change your industry, your business, in order to earn society's respect and trust again. We didn't stop you from getting booked, you and yours did, nuff said.

opportunities part 2

So I've been doing the sound at Gracepoint church here in town , and I recently started playing bass with them too! THe worship director, WOJO gave me a phone number for a guy who works for the City of North Las Vegas and said that he was looking for sound engineers for some part time work. I sent off my resume and will be having an interview with him later this week!! Please keep this in your prayers! Thanks!!

Too many fun things to do!!

So recently I embeded music into the web formatting of my blog, isn't that neat! I'll be changing the featured artist every week, so be sure to check back often!! also be sure to leave your comments, taht's what this is here for... I was really looking forward to hearing your views about the union option, but only received one response... anywho, Keep on blogging!!!

Found Funny Video from a few years back, hope you enjoy it!!

This is some funny stuff right here!!

Lonely weekend

Kelly was in Yuma visiting her Mother and Grandmother for the weekend. I guess in the movies, this would be when the husband goes on some great misadventure..... not so for me. Just a lot of rough nights (isn't it strange how you get really used to having your significant other with you at night?...)

I've been looking at apartments (we've been in a very old condo/apartment for 2.5 years, and are looking to get into a better neighbourhood) so Saturday I went and scoped out a few models, some were noticably better than others.... One was smaller than the one we are ion now, took a quick look and got out of there....... One had a geat floorplan, but is a few miles east of our current location (most of what we do outside of home {church, Band practise} is on the north=west side of the valley). THere are a few more (tons more) to look at, so I'll be right to it Monday.

This weekend's meals consisted of a lot of Green Tea (I drink a pot a day) and microwave burritos.... really. I love the ones you get at the grocery store for 5 for $2.00, and as long as you have only one for a meal, it's not going to load you up on fat and calories (they pack a lot of protein and fiber in those things). Today for lunch I nuked a peice of Salmon and put some BBQ sauce on it, toasted some bread and called it lunch! Not sure if I'll do dinner, it's 7:15 and I have to pick Kelly up at the car rental dropoff place soon.

At least she'll be home safe and sound (Yeah!!!) , maybe I'll get some restfull sleep tonight.

THere's something to be said about reading directions......

"Now, if someone would just show me where the'End' is, we can stop this madness before it foes too far......"

O.K., so that's probably not what my Nephew Brandon is thinking about his new little brother Andrew, but you gota admit, it's kinda funny.....

CONGRATS TO CARLA AND ROB OWENS ON THE BIRTH OF A HEALTHY BABY BOY THIS MORNING, LOVE YOU SIS!!!!!!!!

Resume available online

I have posted my tech resume online, anyone interested can take a look.

www.sincitywolskes.com/techresume.odt

New web page for Kelly and Jon Wolske

We have had the domain name for a while, but check out www.sincitywolskes.com for the web page, it is still a work in progress, but at leat it is up and running!!!

Man leaves cave, enters digital age....

Command Central before the PC... No offense to the Roland VS880 (pictured to the right of the mixer), I just don't have enough time on it to get good results.....


Getting a band demo is a tedious project, often with many pitfalls and the end result is usual only mildly gratifying.... Most of the time you wind up using an older peice of equipment that is borrowed from a freind, and no matter how savvy you are, you can't get the best results from the unit, so you deal with 'so-so'. Such was the case for the Nasty Habits demo, we had tracks done, they were O.K., we were waiting to get the final touches down, but weren't superly happy with the results. Just recently we decided to restart the demo ( a thought that usually ends up meaning a lot more time, more headaches....) Corey, the drummer, brought over a computer that he had built specifically for recording, using a prgram called Saw Studio. Being an anolog guy , it was tough to look at the computer and take it seriously (especially since the demo version of Saw that I downloaded from the company's site didn't even work), but I figured we'd give it a go... For some history, the only experience that I have had with completely digital recording was a studio project that turned out sounding worse than most of the previously mentioned demos ever did, and it was at a 'professional' studio... Now onto the good stuff... Corey was showing me the ropes, because I sit at 'Command Central' in our rehearsal room, and man did it seem easy! The interface on the screen is set up to look just like a tape machine, but it's all on the computer. We hooked up the signal converter that takes a regular line signal and makes it digital, we patched in a few goodies that we have available and BAM!!! We tracked the drums (thank God for Roland V-drums!!), bass and two guitar tracks live, the result was much better than usual, and it was noticable upon playback, with no extra mixing, so the finished product is going to be superb!!! ( the first version of the demo we played the original CD of the song, laid down the drum part to the CD, then added the other parts seperately, it sounded dead, no energy.... This new demo has more energy than I have ever heard on a demo, and it's not just us playing the songs too fast...) We have to lay down the keyboard tracks and the vocals this week, then it will be time to mix and master, I can't wait!! I've never been so eager to work on a demo before!! I can't wait until we can upload the demo to our website, and I can load it onto my MP3 player and jam out!!! I just can't believe how good it sounds already! We haven't applied any processing to the tracks yet, so we have no other direction to go than up with this demo.

I am a believer, it can be done, great sounding recordings can be done on a computer, there, I said it... I'm not going to throw all my tape players away just yet, but I have certainly seen the light as far as digital recording goes!!

To join a Union, or not to join a union, that is my question.

When talking to an audio engineer about my current situation ( waiting to hear about gigs), he mentioned looking at the union hall. Not being a member of the union, I had no idea just what he was talking about. I went to the union hall (I.A.T.S.E.), and really you can only go into a front area with the receptionists at the window. I informed her that I was looking for information, having never looked into a union before. Her response was 'If you come back with a resume, we'll forward it to training and see if we can use you." Right away a union member advised me, 'You do audio work? If you had your resume and your 'blacks' (black pants and shirt) today we could put you to work..." so my question is this:

As a freelance audio person, will joining the local union stop me from getting jobs with the crews that I have been working with (who obviously hire non- union people, yet follow all of the union pay guidlines), or will it really be more work and better opportunities?

If the crews that I have been working with are paying union scale, does that mean that they are not 'anti-union'? I'm just really quite confused. I would hate to continue to work in the way that I have if it would conflict with the union, should I choose to join, and I do like the sound of available work (and steady from what I've heard) that the union has available.... Please leave me your thoughts on the matter, they would be greatly appreciated.