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...

Okay...  So this chapter wasn't brimming with the deep doctrines of the Gospel, but it did have a few nuggets. I would absolutely love to see some sort of diagram of exactly what the Nephites did to build up their cities.  I have so many ideas in my head of what it could have been, but to what extent that's true, I have no idea.  I...

You dont have to hide or pretend who you reallly are around me ill expect you. Not your past or what other people say can change my mind. Ill be there through thick and thin all the way until the end. if your sad than im sad to. If your mad im mad to. if you say we arent friends or anything more ill understand. But ill be there with open hands....

Seems that the testimony of Nephi against the people of Zarahemlah was centered around their disbelief in Christ.  Interesting that, as soon a Satan has control over a people, Christ is the first doctrine which is attacked. Also the story of the finding of the murderer of Seezoram is interesting through the eyes of the foreknowledge of God.&...

Today I had time to reflect on everything which happened this year.  I'll try my best to articulate my thoughts, though I'm not exactly sure what will turn up. 2007 was a year of goal making, goal breaking, and goal taking. I really hate to say this, in fact, I hesitate to even make mention of it, due to its total cliche, but it's really t...

Just in case you haven't heard the latest about Tiny Boats' debut album release, a good friend of the studio, Matt Mylroie, a music producer in Florida, had these good words to say about The Broken Vessels. A portion is quoted below, where the full review can be found here. "This album is hard to describe, but it is a fantastic blend of ...

OK, so my family had this stupid wager about when I'd be asked out right.... Well I wagered 3 months, cuz you know I'm ME. But my family all wagerd two to the three weeks, I even had some guy wager! But I just stayed here and tryed to stay focused on my work, home work, yard work, house work all that junk. I started talking to my friend who've I've...

I totally forgot to blog about this, but my band, TODAY, is opening for the Salt Lake City Real Soccer game!  We start playing at 5:00pm! See you there! Click here for more info.  www.mimicrocks.com...

Pondering on the words of Elder Burgess, I am led down a thought process a bit different than where his talk went. I've been noticing that we as humans define ourselves quite differently, and most do it subconsciously, than we think we do. The whole concept of "defining oneself" baffled me some years ago. My parents and my church ta...

Sorry for the outage, guys. If you tried to access ilovemyjournal.com between last Friday and today, you probably just got a "timed out" response. We had some technical difficulties, but all is well now.  No journals were affected. If you notice anything wrong with your journal, please contact me....

So, about 4 or 5 years ago, I met a guy named Jesse Crowley, and we played music together.  At first we played music that other people wrote, but then Jesse got bored with that, and decided to write Christmas music instead.  We recorded a few Christmas albums, and I think they turned out pretty good. So, Jesse decided that wasn't enough...

I just got done reading, listening to, and watching the general conference talk "Ask In Faith", by Elder David A. Bednar. I must say, having missed the original broadcasting of this conference, I heard all the hype about this talk in the ensuing weeks and months.  It seemed that this talk was all the rage about learning how to &quo...

Well, people....  Most of yesterday (until this morning around 12:30am) I spent trying to figure out what to do about my email situation. Here's my situation:  I get so much friggin' spam, I can't stand it.  This shouldn't be news to anyone.  The person who receives no spam is a person who doesn't have an inbox. So, I decided ...

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...

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'...

So, I've had the opportunity for the past few months to work full time with clients from all over Utah Valley.  From the sweet harmonies of By Request's soft country swing, to the relentless brutal drive of The Suffering's hardcore sound, the longer I'm in company with musicians of this area, the more I'm convinced that Utah Valley seems to be...

 So, I was just in bed just about to fall asleep (like within 1 or 2 minutes of sleeping), and I felt like I needed to come and write in my journal. My prayers on Sunday evening, I believe it was, felt just like I was communing with the Spirit.  Everything spiritual seemed so easily understood and understandable. Man, I hope this make...

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...

I guess I just take for granted all the tips 'n' tricks I've learned over the past 10 years I've been building my own systems (along with most of my family's and friend's computers), so with that thought, let me try to explain how I build computers. First off, this article is intended for those people who are not necessarily tech-wizards, but ar...

 So...  I thought I'd be going to bed, but here I am. When the Spirit directed me to come down and write down my testimony, I wasn't (and still am not) quite sure what to write.  This certainly isn't due to a lack of testimony comparative to other times I've done this, but rather quite the exact opposite.  It is because my tes...

All the other times I've read this chapter, it's been mostly about the whole baptism thing.  Now, I don't discredit the sermon given about Christ being baptised, and the necessity for our being baptized to make it to heaven... ...But this time, something else struck me. Ya know...  I love having chats with people about the Gospel.&nbs...