I’m generally in the minority on this from what I can tell.  Social networking as a prerequisite for a successful site can only mean, I assume, that most people demand the feature in as many aspects of their daily lives as is possible.  So I’m not one to knock it as a concept, really.  I’m a “live and let live” sort of person–I don’t generally care what you do as long as you’re not hurting me or others.  People can social network the shit out each other for all I care.  And it’s not as though I take no part in it.  I’m on Facebook daily and I enjoy reading the occasional witty status update (operating word: OCCASIONAL) and seeing photos of my friends’ recent drunken escapades.  But I just can’t bring myself to fully embrace the extent to which it’s taking over our daily lives.

Because I enjoy Facebook, I try to make it my primary, and if possible only, mode of social networking.  I don’t want to log into ten sites a day to see what YouTube videos random people have posted.  It’s because of this that I’ve all but abandoned MySpace, the original outlet of most people’s networking needs.  But MySpace is a good example of a necessary evil for musicians; I don’t really want to be on there, but it’s important for all bands to have a page.  It’s like Twitter, which has been blowing up as of late.  I do have a “personal” Twitter, but it’s just a feed of my Facebook statuses and I never really use it other than that.  I’d probably avoid Twitter altogether if it weren’t for the fact that it’s important for Shaimus to have a presence on the site.  Maybe I’ll use mine more often later on, but for now it’s really just kind of there as a placeholder for when I decide what I really want to do with it.

This blog is no different, really.  I’ve spent a lot of time pondering what specifically to use it for.  Just news updates?  Boring.  Deep, intimate descriptions of my thoughts and feelings?  Too personal.  A long, thoughtful post every six months?  Seems too infrequent to keep anyone interested.  Constant little posts about what I’m doing?  Seems to revealing or mundane.  So what, then?  I’m still not really sure.  One of my least favorite aspects of social networking is the constant urge it gives you to say what you’re feeling at any given moment, and the constant feeling of others that they’re close to you and keeping up to date with your life by reading a few sentences a day.  I don’t want anyone to think they know me via the Internet, and I’m a private person who is well aware that in my industry the more success you have, the less privacy you often get.  I’m increasingly cautious of what I put out there online, how I present myself, and how much I reveal.  But at the same time, it’s so great for musicians to use the Internet to connect directly with fans and have them feel involved.  It’s a double-edged sword for sure.

And so I’ll continue pondering and strategizing my online presence, probably to no end.  But luckily I have no obligation to decide either way what kind of “social networker” I am.  Many people have found their place, but I have not.  And that’s OK for now.  I’ll just continue on with my everyday life as I normally would, but with an option to be a little more “connected.”  I just have one simple request: don’t buy into the idea that just because you CAN constantly update people with your activities, it doesn’t mean they really care that the club sandwich you had for lunch had way too much mayo on it.  Some things are best kept to yourself and left a little sacred; the inane things are the most sacred of all.

Elizabeth and the Catapult

I was a big fan of their self-titled and self-released EP, but their first full-length album on the Verve label is worth listening to over and over and over.  And over again.  These are songs that are not only well-crafted, but immortalized in a pristine production that reveals more with each listen. (What a cliche thing to say.  This is why I hate writing about music.)

Visit their site here.

Zigmat

My good friend Steve Yonkin plays bass for this cool electro-pop/rock band (is that a good description?  I neither know nor care) who is up to lots of very good things these days.  Listen to them now so that you can be with the “in” crowd before they’re really popular and make you look like a bandwagoner.

Visit their site here.

Apache Stone

My college roommate and one of my best friends Hank Woods moved to New York City when I moved to LA.  I often sat around in the sun, wondering what the hell he was going to do with his life having grown up playing jazz trumpet and then suddenly shifting to rock guitar during school.  It turns out he would get picked up for a gig with Rescue Me star Mike Lombardi’s band, Apache Stone, and now he’s more of a rock star than I’ll ever dream of being.  Even more of one than he’ll ever dream of being!

Visit their site here.

OK fine.  One thing about me to finish this post off.  The Shaimus song “Tie You Down” will be appearing in the ABC Family show “Ruby and the Rockits” on September 22nd.  But I knew you’d already be watching that show anyway, so I was just gonna let it be a surprise.

Eh, it’s just a website.  And it probably looks terrible on Internet Explorer, cause I never tested it.  Just switch to Firefox already.  The real news is that I’ve put up some new music.  Head over to my music page to listen to a pair of new songs, “Find Your Way” (which is actually an updated arrangement of a song I wrote and recorded a long time ago) and “Down to the Wire,” a rocker with a guitar solo for that crowd.

Be sure to become my Facebook “fan” via the sidebar link, since Facebook is where I post music, updates, etc.  More music is on its way, and you can be the first to know via that somewhat popular social network site.  And any time you can be the first to know about something, that’s just one more thing you can brag about to your neighbors to make them feel worse about themselves.

Spring has turned to summer, and the mercury has steadily risen.  What have I been up to?  Everything and nothing at the same time it would seem.  I’ve had vast stretches of off time that were used for extensive relaxing in addition to countless menial tasks meant to get my life in order and accomplish personal goals.  When Shaimus lost a guitarist this past spring (though we are making our triumphant return to the stage on August 4th at the Troubadour), I came upon even more unexpected free time than I had even planned on, and one task I’ve taken to has been laying down some music that I’ve been meaning to record for ages.  More on that in a (near) future post.

Some things over the past few months have gone oh so well.  Others have gone oh so poorly.  Such is life, so “they” say.  Although I wouldn’t mind life strictly going well for at least a little while.  A few months here and there, maybe?  I suppose I could be asking too much.  I think a recent story sums up my life as of late quite well.  Perhaps it does the same for yours:

Five years ago, I was at a party for student employees at Berklee College of Music, where I worked in the Media Development office.  They had a raffle with gift certificates to Newbury Comics, a popular local music/comic/pop culture store.  The biggest one was worth $100, and by a rare stroke of luck I happened to win it.  For a college student, a hundred bucks seemed like a pile of gold bricks, so I set it aside and plotted what CDs and DVDs I would add to my collection.  A few days later, it was gone.  Whether I had misplaced it, unintentionally thrown it away, or was the victim of theft I had no idea.  But there was no trace of it.  I silently cried on the inside.  Then I moved on with my life.

Flash forward to May 2009.  Hank Woods, my former roommate/one of my best friends/guitarist of the Mike Lombardi-fronted rock band Apache Stone, calls me one sunny afternoon. While this sort of occurrence is not out of the blue, what he asked me about was.  “I seem to recall about five years ago you lost a Newbury Comics gift certificate,” he said.  Turns out, while discussing the finer points of the music business with a friend, Hank had pulled out a book that he hadn’t opened since college.  What should fall onto the street but my old prize.  What are the odds?  And conveniently, just days later he was headed from New York City to Los Angeles and would be able to hand it directly to me.  I also discovered that Newbury Comics, a local Boston company, happened to have a website that I could order from.

What a rollercoaster of luck I was on–win $100.  Lose it without a trace in Boston, MA.  Have it found five years later in New York and returned to me on the West Coast.  Then to top the story off, after browsing the Newbury Comics site for an hour and figuring out what I would be getting, I went to check out only to find that you can’t use their gift certificates online.

Chalk that last one up to life, but I’ll have the last laugh anyway.  Just might take a little more than five more years.

Also, for three days this week I had the pleasure of being on the set of the Sony Screen Gems film The Roommate, a thriller starring Minka Kelly (Friday Night Lights), Cam Gigandet (Twilight), and Leighton Meester (Gossip Girl). Two of our songs are going to be featured in the movie, and we got to “perform” them for the film. Phil unfortunately couldn’t make it one of the days, so Cam pretended to be the lead singer/keyboardist with the help of a little movie magic (i.e. lip syncing). Hilarious. He and I even got lines, but I expect mine will end up on the cutting room floor.

Leaving the set was sad, I felt like I was going home from summer camp. But I don’t exactly have the desire to be a movie star, so I can’t say I wanted to stay forever. Although they DID make my hair look cool and force me to wear clothes that “hip” people wear. So at least I was cool for three days of my life. I think the movie is scheduled to be released next year, so I’m looking forward to seeing how it turns out. Below is a picture of Cam, Johannes and I with director Christian Christiansen. He, like everybody else on the set, was a really nice guy. More photos from our time on the set, including glimpses of our prison cell-like trailers and my skin-tight jeans, can be seen here.

And finally this week, I accomplished the lifelong dream of appearing in an online video with Tay Zonday, AKA the “Chocolate Rain” guy! I present to you, Totally Sketch’s True Internet Story of Keyboard Cat:

I hated retail with a passion.  Customers tend to believe that since you’re trying to make them happy, they can walk all over you and treat you like shit because it’s their right.  Of course, not all customers are assholes; I met a lot of really cool, nice people while working in the accessories department of Guitar Center.  But the fact is, I have story upon story of arrogant douchebags and how they attempted to equate me with something roughly the value of the dog crap residue that was lodged in their shoe soles.

One of the reasons I left my Sunset Blvd sales post was that I just don’t have the right attitude for customer service.  When people prod me, I tend to prod back.  When someone tries to put me down, my initial response is generally to put them in their place with an acerbic remark of some sort.  I just wasn’t made for retail, it would seem.

One of my favorite stories from working at Guitar Center has to do with a very common occurrence of idiocy that happened every day in that store—people trying to haggle down prices on small items that they are not planning on buying in bulk. A guy came up to the counter and said, “What’s the best deal you can give me on those D’Addario strings?”

My first response when people asked me that was to simply turn my head, look at the price, and repeat it right back to them. “$3.50 a pack, sir.” His response: “Is that the best you can do?”

At this point I’m already irritated with the guy. He makes no attempt to work up a rapport with the employee who has the power to give him a discount. He is trying to haggle down one of the lowest-priced products of one of the lowest-priced items in the store, guitar strings. But I was usually happy to accommodate such requests if they were looking to buy 10 or 15 packs at a time. So the rest of the conversation went as follows:

Me - “Well, how many do you want to get today?”
Him - “Oh, just one.”
Me - “Is that the best you can do?”
Him - *grumbling* “OK, OK, I get it.”

He proceeded to buy it at—gasp—full price. From then on, a co-worker of mine referred to me as Evan “Is That The Best You Can Do” Brown.

When all is said and done, this album was about three years in the making. The earliest songs were written and honed during our 2006 summer West Coast tour, including “Turn the Other Way,” “Interview,” and embryonic versions of “Don’t Want the Story” and “While We’re Young.” “Heads or Tails” was written during a time when Phil, Johannes and I were playing acoustic shows in L.A. while Dave and Cam finished up school on the other side of the country. “Tie You Down” was a last second addition that practically didn’t even make it on the album, and recording was pushed back a couple weeks just so we could finish it; good thing, too, as that turned out to be one of the best and most popular songs on the record.

That was around late October/early November of 2007. We tracked all of Cam’s drums in our old Van Nuys rehearsal space that December; imagine his impatience having recorded almost all of his parts over a year before the album would even come out. We followed this with laying down roughly finished versions of five of the strongest tracks which would be used for our demo. Our demo was sorely in need of an update, since the band’s sound had developed so much from our first album that it didn’t accurately represent us anymore. These new songs were far more illustrative of the “Shaimus sound” as it had come to be over the past couple years—a more cohesive, collaborative band effort with more energy and focus than Paper Sun (not to say there isn’t good material on that CD).

We took a brief break from recording after that. Trying to throw high-quality recordings together at a breakneck pace while contending with often-miserable day jobs was very taxing on all of us. During this break, we made a music video for “Turn the Other Way” with Adam Kerpelman. Not only did we feel like the song was a good choice for a single, but its theme of 9 to 5 frustration resonated with all of us. Oh, and of course it gave us an awesome excuse to smash the shit out of some office equipment.

Once summer 2008 rolled around we were antsy to finish what we’d started. We finished up guitars for the remaining five songs in our new West L.A. rehearsal space, recorded real piano in some recording studios to replace the samples that were used on the demo, and got final takes of all vocals, auxiliary percussion, and other odds and ends (mostly recorded in bedroom closets). Finally, Johannes busted his ass mixing the entire thing after it was all edited properly, Phil put the final touches on the artwork, we sent it off to get mastered and replicated, and then sat back and breathed a giant, collective sigh of relief. Oh, and Phil made a music video with a Powershot camera in his underwear.

This album represents a lot of blood, sweat, tears and calluses, and I think it turned out great. It’s certainly the best thing I’ve been a part of musically, and I put so much of myself into it that I can’t help but be nothing but proud. So, get more of a sense of the process of making this record with the next video, take a listen to the samples below and consider buying it. Now is the time for us to spread the word about all our hard work, and you can help!

Available from www.shaimus.com

Also available on

But of course artists soldier on, often outstaying their welcome for the simple fact that they can still sell records. Bands like U2 and Aerosmith just keep adding faceless releases that do nothing to their discography other than increase its number, often obscuring the fact that, at some point, they were on top of their game and making top-notch music (for me personally this is illustrated much better with Aerosmith as I’m a sort of middle-of-the-road guy with U2, but you get the point). Or, perhaps more frustratingly, bands like Bon Jovi and Def Leppard who have rightfully called it quits that come back for more when no one really wanted them to in the first place. It’s not that these bands shouldn’t get back together and tour again, but the new albums are almost always a huge let down and lack the energy and electricity of their earlier material.

There are exceptions to every rule, of course, and there are some great artists who continue to release quality music for decades. But this happens so often, I had to ask myself why. Do artists naturally lose their edge with age? Is the rebellious “fuck you” attitude of younger rock-n-rollers inescapably softened as they grow older, wiser, and more successful? Both of these are legitimate possibilities. But what it really seems to come down to is a brand of lethargy that is inevitably allowed after an artist has become established. Emerging artists work against an intimidating tide of opposition: control freak A&R people, seasoned career advisors, and executives with dollar signs in their eyes. The amount of times a young musician is told he can’t, shouldn’t, couldn’t, or won’t do something is about as frequent as Jaleel White is asked to say “Did I do that” in the Urkel voice by strangers on the street.

Conversely, the more success a band has, the more freedom they gain. At first this is extremely liberating, allowing artists to break out of the mold and make some of their best work. But at some point, the pendulum seems destined to start swinging back. You know why Paul McCartney has released a number of terrible albums despite the fact that he spent years establishing himself as one of the finest songwriters in history? Because nobody would ever dare say “no” to Macca. He has almost no choice but to be constantly surrounded by sycophantic well-wishers who just think it’s a great honor to be in the control room when he lays down a track with his viola bass. U2 releases “Get On Your Boots” because nobody is going to tell them it’s a stupid song. Why? “Because they’re fucking U2, man!”

But back to Paul McCartney for my conclusion, because he sums up the point so nicely. A few years ago, he released what was easily one of the best albums he’s ever done as a solo artist, Chaos and Creation in the Backyard. What had come over him when he did it? He had hired producer Nigel Goodrich, who started telling him to make a bunch of changes and drop any songs he didn’t like from the recording. I even read an interview when Paul said he was taken aback by Goodrich’s attitude at first, thinking he didn’t have to take it and could just as easily get rid of him. But he came to realize that attitude was exactly what he needed to make a great record. And it worked.

Now flash back to Paul’s old band, The Beatles. (You’ve heard of them, right?) An extraordinary career to say the least, and they closed it out with Abbey Road, an album that one can make a compelling argument for being their best (or at least pretty damn close). One might wonder what we might have missed out on if they just kept going a few more records, but it wasn’t too long after that when we heard some not-so-par-for-the-course songs from at least one of the principal songwriters of the group. How happy would folks be to add a bad Beatles album to their collection? It sticks out like a sore thumb.

I always have some misgivings when I hear Radiohead is going to release a new album for fear that their creative juices are running low. But with the fact that In Rainbows was so great, I can’t help but wonder: should they go out on top while they still can, or am I at risk of missing out on some incredible music if they stop too early? Maybe a bad album or two isn’t such a bad thing, after all.

But no.  Lo and behold, “Interview” is actually music.  Prove it, you say?  Fine.  Phil proves it in the video below, underwear and all.  The video is for anyone who’s ever gotten new editing software and decided to freak out their friendly neighborhood epileptic.  The underwear part is for the ladies.  Everyone wins!

I will be very happy when this album is in my hands.  Incidentally, you can pre-order the album from www.shaimus.com now and save two bucks off the normal $10 price tag that will accompany it in a couple weeks.  And while you’re waiting for it to come in the mail, autographs and all, watch this video.