Man... This past month has been a friggin' whirlwind.  I refuse to believe November is nearly gone. Anyway...  Jesse and I are almost done with our debut Christmas album, "Herod the Fink", and while recording the last drum session, I thought it might be cool to see what I look like when I play.  Well, as fate would have i...

Yeah, I'm tired, but man - life is good.  I spent way too much time on our Herod The Fink project last night (and into the wee-hours of this morning), but it was so worth it.  We are really cranking to release a truly unique Christmas album.  My only regret is that we didn't start this sooner, so we could get more content.  But ...

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I just got done playing some sweet jazz for a client, and with the usual rock 'n' roll requests coming in, this was a great change of pace. I'm always intrigued at the different nuances that exist between styles of music as it pertains to rhythm and percussion.  Rock and roll pounds out some great 4/4 along the occasional 3/4 timing, with so...

A few months ago, I thought I'd get a bit more serious about setting up a semi-professional studio in my home.  It's worked out great, so far! As I've worked with clients, they've been more than happy with the results, and I'm learning new techniques and tricks of the trade at the same time.  So far, so good. So, along this trail, I b...

Through the 20 plus years I've been playing drums, I've had all sorts of drumkits, and I've used all sorts of heads.  Well, it came time to replace my snare head recently, and I was offered a new type of head by Remo. The Remo Ambassador Black Suede is a single-ply head which is meant to offer a softer sound without muffling the inherent res...

From the first memories I have, my life has been lived through rhythm.  There has always been an inherent "groove" of my life.  From walking down the sidewalk after school when I was in Jr. High, pacing the rhythm of the lines in the cement, and timing my steps accordingly, keeping the "1,2,3,4" clock in my head going ...

Wow... It's been a long, long time since I updated anything about my life on here.  Mostly because stuff got really busy, and really interesting about April of this year.  I've documented all the crud that we've gone through, so no need to rehash that. What I would like to say is that music is more a part of my life now than it ever has...

My sister died a week short of her birthday. It was really hard but we got through it.   Today, my nephew drove me right up the wall. I couldn't believe how much energy he had and how much trouble he could get into. Ben did most of the taking care of as I was busy with helping Holly with her resume   I get to move out for the first ti...

You know you've got a great project when its name is "Herod Fink", and it's Christmas-themed with an alternative flavor.  Yeah...  I'm really enjoying life right now. Anyway, so far, this project has been a whirlwind, but one we definitely cannot get enough of.  we couldn't stand it anymore, so we posted a little diddy f...

A couple of weeks ago, I spent some time in my car driving to and from Salt Lake City.  During the trip, I had the opportunity to listen to one of the best talks on Women's Roles in the LDS faith.  I was so impressed by the contents of this talk, I had to listen to the entire thing twice. Both times, both my heart and my eyes were fille...

This morning i had to go and work on a box at 8:30 and my grandpa came and picked me up at my house. But since well its my grandpa we didnt end up leaving until about 10:00 but we got there and still got the job done which is awesome and i made twenty bucks. But finally for the first i got to drive a truck on the roads for the first time. And i hav...

The golden rule seems to have come out of this chapter. The first thing that caught my attention in this chapter is the possible meaning of verses 4 and 5.  the "mote in thy brother's eye" verses.  Some people would interpret this as "live and let live", or "worry about yourself, not others".   To...

  Poetry 2 with 3 added by Kelly Miller                                                                           &n...

Reading the beginning of this chapter, it's interesting that Mosiah put laws into place which made voicing anything which could be interpreted as "persecutions" against the church, illegal - and it seemed to work.  There was "peace" for a number of years due to that law.  The church even began to grow and prosper more ...

todays the day i wake-up and cry. todays the mamorial for greg i miss him so much.greg has no clue how many tears ive cried for him. if i had one little chance to say i miss you, iwant you alive, it kills me everyday your gone...but i didnt even get to say good-bye.but everything happens to us all that makes us die inside...

Oh... My... Goodness... I can't think of where to begin, so I'll just start typing. Two days ago we decided it was time to cut the umbilical for the other guys who were the old I.T. team for the company I work for. We did so by changing all passwords (or so I thought), and that's about it. We thought we had em'.... So.... We all went home and...

Aside from being booked solid last week, Advanced Budget Studios has made some progress on the techinical side as well.  Up until now, we have only been able to handle 8 simultaneous streams of audio into the workstation, however, due to the success we've been having, we saw a need to upgrade.  We now have two M-audio delta 1010's synced ...

From the beginning of this chapter, it's obvious that Christ means business when he makes covenants.  Causing entire books to be written, and then keeping 100% of everything that is written means something. I wonder why the people thought that Christ's coming "destroyed" the prophets?  Interesting. I love verse 9.  &q...

Advanced Budget Studios has been gearing up to build a control room, so we haven't had many clients come in lately, but when Fatigi comes calling, we definitely listen. Tonight's session was spent sprucing up some previous recordings,  Fishing For The Sun got a complete guitar overhaul, which made an already-awesome song even better.  S...

A week ago, an acquaintance of mine from my highschool days, Matt Harker, was hit and killed while biking to work.  A day later, a friend contacted me and wondered if he could use the studio to produce a song in Matt's memory.  Although I didn't know Matt very well, I knew him well enough to know he was the type of person who did his best...

Herod the Fink is a Christmas collaboration project between Jesse Crowley and Jason Jones which has been going on now for 3 glorious years at Advanced Budget Studios.  This year's offering is a 4-song EP. The music this year ranges from a bluegrass crossing punk style of "Joy To The World" to an introspective look in to each of our...

The studio walls are up!  ... and they are ... HUGE!  Honestly the level of excitement I have for this studio build is right up there with the excitement of my marriage and the births of my children.  I can't believe this is actually happening! Anyway.... I'll be posting more random updates on Facebook (which will link to publi...

Since I purchased my 2007 Mustang GT in January of 2007, I've been putting 85 Octane gas in it. I didn't notice any pings, nor anything else to make me think I was putting the wrong gas in it. Well, my dad was in it two days ago and asked me what gas I was using. When I told him, he couldn't believe I would do such a thing. Well.... In my defe...

 So, with the new G+ hangout update, all of my Chrome extensions quit working ("My Hangouts", "Hangout Canopy", etc...), and I was wondering how in the heck to find hangouts to meet new people... Well, it's actually very easy. Within G+, search for #hangoutpost Then, in the drop-down right-side of the submenu, click &...

Man...  When I started reading this one,  I forgot it was about the Anti-Nephi-Lehi's who sacrificed themselves for the word of God.  Wow. Along with the previous chapter, I find it interesting that the main source of contention among all the Lamanites are the people who were once Nephites themselves.  The Amalekites and the A...

Oh, man...  I just got back from a wonderful geek lunch with the guys 'n' gals from UPHPU (Utah PHP Users Group), and it was a blast.  ... heh... makes me smile just thinkin' about it.  Okay... I didn't just get back.  I had to make sure I could get done today what I promised my boss, and then I would write about it. Well... ...

I've been finding it hard to write / blog lately, simply because I have no desire to write.  I've been thinking about this for a bit, so I decided to write about ... writing. In order to write  / blog, I have to have something to write about - obviously.  What isn't so obvious is, I always have something to write about. I came to...

As I read this chapter, I found the question in my head, "why was Nephi prompted to put Isaiah in here?" One thing I'm noticing in this chapter and the last, is the writing style of Isaiah is quite starkly contrasted against the writing of Nephi.  It's wildly poetic. I enjoyed this chapter as much as I did the last.  I didn'...

The first thing that stood out to me this time around was the anger of Lamoni's father.  Try to place yourself in the situation Lamoni found himself in.  There are so many variables in the situation, it's hard to imagine exactly what was going on with the family undercurrents, but holy cow.  Lamoni's father drew his freaking sword an...