Hired Help

If you have been keeping up with my blog (my stats say 125,000 of you have), then you'll know I am in a bit of a writing predicament. I have some great friends supporting the project, but most don't live in Chicago. I figured I needed some help. And fast! So, I took some of the extra money that I made from my "Be Careful of Credit Cards" tour I did in 2005, and hired some studio musicians. Since most of that money is gone, I had to find some cheap help. I hired one professional guitarist. His name is Joey Baggadonuts and he has worked on some really great stuff. He recorded a guitar solo on one of Fall Out Boy's songs and he was stand-in for Bon Jovi in the "It's My Life" music video. He is currently lead guitarist for one of my favorite bands, The Punks of LHS. PLEASE check them out and buy a t-shirt or something! Check em

Anyways, he didn't feel comfortable being alone with me so he insisted on hiring a professional singer. Luckily, as Joey and I were having lunch at the hot dog stand in front of The Home Depot, we met Mateo. He is a young illegal Mexican who was looking for work. He said he was a skilled drywaller and vocalist. So we took our chances and hired him at $8 a vocal track. We only did one so it ended up being a real bargain. And before you say that I'm mean for paying him that much, I should tell you that I broke my strict "No babies in the studio" rule for him. (Apparently he had traded his watch for a baby during the van ride from El Paso to Chicago.) They came up with a song about Mateo's favorite Mexican treat that his mom made, chocolate cotton candy. I am not sure it will make in on the album, but I managed to take a quick video of them doing vocals together.



*The lyrics of Chocolate Cotton Candy do not reflect the views of Spillproof TiJ, his management team, or record label LAUGH TRACK RECORDS/EMI.

HUGE NEWS! ALBUM TITLE AND RELEASE DATE ANNOUNCED

I am super excited to announce that the new album will drop next year on December 12th!

"Just In Time To Die" will be in stores 12/12/12. Please pick up a copy (If it's the last thing you do...)

midterms and midterm elections

I only had one midterm for school.

I didn't vote for political whatevers.

93% of Americans said Spillproof TiJ is better at guitar than Brett Pond.

I apologized to Brett recently for the cyber bullying. You see, Brett is having a difficult time writing his new album. Maybe we will do a split EP on vinyl? Maybe we will go home and die? Maybe we will cyber bully Josiah Rosenberger until he writes songs for our albums?

arhaus

I'll be writing a new song called "Mirrors, Beers, and Pap Smears" with my wife, Landon Roemersberger, and Elizabeth Keach. It will premier on MTV next tuesday.

Mighty Mighty White Dwarfs (supernova)

The big One Star Galaxy reunion is over. The old band is dead again, maybe until another important birthday (Mine is GOLDEN next year...). I'd like to thank everyone who came. There were over 520 tickets sold, which seemed a little low, but at least I made enough to cover my rent for a few months. The worst part of all that being over is that I have to start working on this dang album again. I am off to a bad start. The good news is that it's starting to get chilly in Chicago, so besides catching a cold I am hoping to catch some depression. Something bad is bound to happen... maybe I'll get a B on a test or misplace my debit card. I'm just not sure I can write good songs with out it. All the great artists of our time are writing sad songs (Josiah Rosenberger, Brett Pond, David Bowie). But I suppose I could write a song about catching a cold too.

Spillproof is an Adjective

I have no idea what I am doing. I only know bar chords.

1,000 reeses pieces

If you aren't familiar with the history of Spillproof TiJ, you may not know that I was a founding member of the supergroup known as One Star Galaxy from 2001 to 2003. I played drums and wrote several of the songs. The band only had one record, "Thanks for the Memories," which was the top grossing album at Morton Junior High School in 2002 (Possibly of all time). The band continued as the guys and I started high school, only with a new found fascination in aviation so we changed the band name to Air Fair and began writing lyrics that made less sense. Songwriting remained important to me and I released "Handicap Ho-down" while still playing drums for OSG. The EP was a huge hit so I decided to make Spillproof TiJ a permanent entity.

I know that I have just begun the journey of writing a new album, but lets face it: I'm a lousy guitar player and weak pianist. So while I continue to practice and record bad covers, I've been given the opportunity to reunite with the old One Star Galaxy boys and do a reunion show. So you might not hear new music from Spillproof for a little longer, but please make it out to Pizza Works on October 17 to see One Star Galaxy as well as 4 other great bands that Josiah Rosenberger is in. Anything that kid touches turns to gold...literally, gold records. I'm counting on it.

I'll probably be getting sued by Warner Music Group for this, but here is One Star Galaxy's "Thanks for the Memories" FOR FREE!

Hot like Pancakes

As promised, here is the complete discography (As far as I know, there may be bootlegs from the Great Bootleg Boom of the 90's)

CLICK IT OR TICKET

In other news, I've tracked the first minute of a new song. Actually it's a remake because I still don't remember how to write a song.

A man, a plan, a canal: Panama

I got some new stuff: A Stylophone, Waves and Amplitube, I almost have Reason figured out, I bought a Korg Monotron a few minutes ago, I just downloaded an app on my phone called "Sight Read" in hopes that I can play the piano better.

It's been 9 years since "Handicap Ho-down", so I am ready to get back into the music making game. Although I've had some mild success with singles like "Cowboy Joe (Inconceivable Agriculture Life)" and "January (featuring Mighty Midgets)," it has still been a while since Spillproof TiJ has written a chart-topper.

I'm good. But I'm not that good. I hope to enlist the help of my best buds and fellow label-mates, Penpal and the one-and-only Josiah Rosenberger. Again, I'm good. But they're better. I just tried writing a song a little bit ago and it was awful. It even made me lose my appetite for M Burger (a delicious burger place not 2 blocks from my apartment building that's full of old people). I'm still going to go there, of course, but I am far less excited.

So why I am blogging this journey? Because there is a reason Spillproof TiJ hasn't made music for so long: lack of motivation (and a minor kool-aid spill back in '06). I figure if there are people watching my progress, I will be less inclined to give up. I wouldn't want to disappoint my fans. And touring buddies, Taking Back Sunday.

Since Spillproof TiJ has been out of it for a while, I will be uploading my whole discography in the next few days. Free of charge for the first time (A $79.95 value).

Also, check out THIS as a reminder of how awesome I am.


UPDATE: M Burger closed at 7. Already disappointed I started a blog.