brightmillion blog

so we’ve made a live show recording available for free download at the new brightmillion.com site! just click on the “music” tab then click on the right hand side of the page where it says “live show bootlegs” the track up there was recorded by a fan in las vegas @ the beauty bar. it’s of 2 songs “introduction”  & “Waiting Wires”

the new ride

more sunny days here in LA.. ive been soaking up some sun and working on my new ride…. a 1992 volvo 240 ..!! it needed alittle love, so i gave it a full tune up, spark plugs, distributor cap, rotor, oil filter, oil change, and front brake pads! next is a fuel filter .. seems the fuel pressure is a bit low,, hopefully its just a clogged filter… well, enough about car stuff,,,,actually, i dont know much at all about cars/ mechanic type things, but have been trying to learn more about it lately… mostly out of necessity!!  with the “new” old volvo and the bandvan… there is plenty of “vintage” car work to be done.. and without unlimited funds, mechanics can get spendy! with the magic of the interweb, there is alot of info avail to us all about how to do most everything. so… why not get dirty and give it a try !  i prob saved us a ton of $ by doing these things myself,, even if you take in the account of the time spent to learn how to do it//  and i see it this way- i can either pay a mechanic $500 to do the work, which means i have to somehow work x-number of hours to come up with the $500… OR   i can skip the “work” middle man, spend my time learning a new skill and not have to pay anyone.. prob the same amount of hours of my time spent, but at doing something new and productive!!  work smarter not harder!  so… i think we can all work less and be a little craftier in our daily lives to make up the difference!! if you dont spend as much, you dont have to make as much, etc…. but that doesnt mean you have to have less.. just acquire the extra stuff in a craftier way then $ exchange.. in my opinion bartering &  DIY can get a lot value bang for the buck than simple $ exchange… most everyone thinks they dont get paid enough per hour to their day job, so why not try to work less of those “not paid enough” hours by not needing as much cash to get the things you want?>??    so—- grow some food! change your own break pads!! – dont know how??, just ask, i’ll help you out! or we can prob figure it out on the web somewhere  ;)   of course, this is not to say anything against mechanics! by all means if you hate cars and have the $ let em do the dirty work! im just sayin, sometimes its more interesting to learn how to do it yourself.

i’ve been reading “the conquest of happiness” by bertrand russell and he was actually talking about this very thing today,, saying that a lot of folks are unhappy in their day to day lives for no real apparent reason,,, he suggested that some of it might be from the modern society making the small things in life almost too easy to acquire, so there is no real struggle for the necessities  of life..  not that people dont struggle to work to make $ to pay for necessities, but that once you have the $ , the $ exchange isnt fulfilling. you didnt have to grow or catch your food, build your shelter, etc, so the small instinctual survival needs and drives are in a way ignored and never fulfilled… maybe we can all get a little more in this area by becoming a bit more self sufficient..?? be a little handier grow a veggie in a pot on the patio, sew up that shirt with the hole in it rather than just buying new one..? it feels good to be productive on a base level, to take of yourself and your family, or dog or cat or whatever.!! its easy to buy things, just get some $ and hand it over! anyone can do that… but not anyone can learn how to build something or make something, or grow something or whatnot….  the table you build may not be as pretty as the one at ikea, but it will probably be more beautiful  :)

 Link to this page

 Link to this page

my typewriter

frantically booking the next CA tour for sept/oct… seems to far away, BUT in the venue booking world its already getting booked up quick!  we’ve been focusing on our album writing/recording so much lately, that i havent had as much time as needed to book the tour… so i’ve spent the last couple days working in it. — we want to play in your city! if you have an idea of where we should play in your town, let us know we will be on the road sept 10-oct 13 this time around, going from  san diego to SF bay area, over to vegas and back. some dates are already confirmed, and are listed on the the “tour” page of brightmillion.com  more dates are being worked out as we speak, i’ll let you know as soon as they are confirmed.

this tour should be a little more relaxed on our prep, since we have the bandvan in good shape now – new brakes and its running good…. we have our T-Shirt printing press rockin, and have some CDs left over from our last assembly run. — its more a ffocus on getting as many shows as we can in the time allotted… we are still looking for shows in Santa Barbara, Fresno, Bakersfield, San Jose,,, if anyone can suggest places????

we are toying with the idea of converting the bandvan into a sleepervan & then towing our gear in a trailer,, that way we always have our home on wheels, and dont need to rely in motels…  its just a thought right now, still need to figure out how big a trailer we’d need and if we can get the jacuzzi into the back of the van!!

the new songs are coming along….. recording isnt going quite as quick as we’d hoped…. but i guess it pays to get it right

tony is in michigan for the week visiting his family, so its up to me to hold down the brightmillion fort…. planning on spending a lot of the week in various parks pondering lyrics…….

 Link to this page

 Link to this page

monterey, ca

hey! long time no blog…. we’ve been busy locked up in the studio working on new songs for the album and havnt been getting out much….

but, i have been working late nights to get the brightmillion.com website up and running… !!! i dont know anything about websites.. but it all seems to work, so cross your fingers! chances are ,, if you are reading this, you are finding it o the brighmtillion.com site, so all should be working… if thats not where you found this.. go check it out now! — @ www.brightmillion.com

I wanted a single site that you can find out everything you need to know about the band, all in one place. – status updates, tour dates, photos and videos (updated almost daily), music- you can listen to and download MP3s directly from our site now! , also a complete brightmillion merch store- all new products are up there- the new Tour T-Shirts, 4 different Posters, CDs, etc,etc////  check back often to get the latest news. — better yet, sign up on the email newsletter to get important updates directly to your inbox-  for more frequent updates, follow us on twitter (twitter.com/brightmillion), facebook (facebook.com/brightmillion) and youtube (youtube.com/brightmillion)

we look forward to having more frequent photos, videos, blogs etc to share with you!!

the album is sort of behind sched in the sense that we were hoping to start recording it by now,, but we’ve been making such good progress in the writing stages, that we’ve been taking a bit more time before hitting record…… slow and steady wins the race,,, right??  we will however be playing some of the new songs at our live shows in the near future with or without finished recordings////

recording guitars

what else is new…. hmmm… it HOT here in LA, seems like everywhere in the US it is right now, so that’s prob not big news to anyone

ummm….. the brightmillion farm is growing good, i’ve been picking lots of yummy produce lately, cucumbers, squash, eggplant, tomato, peppers,celery, kale, dandelion,onions, mint, oregano, and more.!!!!!!

seems like its been awhile since my last blog that there should be more news to catch up on,,, um,,,, the bandvan got new brakes! so we can stop again… which is always good. it seems it works best when it both goes and stops..

tony’s been gearing up his kit with new hardware, soon to be unveiled at the next show. i havnt even seen it yet, but i hear its real purty

i sorta broke off a tuning peg from one of my SGs at a recent show, seems swinging a guitar and hitting the head stock into an amp doesnt fare well with little knobbies..  i’ve been looking for replacement tuners.. anyone got suggestions? got my eye on the sperzel trim-locks, which should help me stay in better tuning while beating up the guitars live… also maybe upgrading to graphite bridges to lessen string breakage.

go go gadget guitar

i am still booking the fall tour, so hopefully will get a few more dates in YOUR area check the tour page for the complete listing.

2:50 am, i guess time for bed. oh yeah, we got anew little kitty named billy :

billy

he was abandoned at our vet’s office and they found that he had FeLV … which unfortunately means he would most likely never get adopted  so… they knew we had a house full of FeLV cats, so gave us ring!  he is a typical 3 month old kitten WIRED AND CRAZY! i also got a call from the kitten rescue shelter we work with that they have a female calico that is in desperate need of a foster home, so looks like we’ll be getting yet another member of the household soon….!!!! yes, i am becoming the ‘crazy cat lady’

ammpper

 Link to this page

 Link to this page

so…………… i’ve decided that good ol brightmillion.com needs to actually exist… well, its always existed i suppose.. but i figured it would actually be cool if it was a “one stop shop” for brightmillion…. so!!!!  go there now and check it out!! —  brightmillion.com     i’m still fixing a couple little things. but all in all its a rockin— i got lots of photos to upload still, but everything else is there…

its been a busy couple days– since i dont know anything about websites or programming or html,etc… but decided i should just teach myself… hmmm what??  the old interweb/google search is a beautiful thing!! you cn  learn anything if you put your mind to it!  so, please be gentle, its my first website build, but i think it should have everything you could be looking for from brightmillion… photos. videos. blog. news. links. merch. oh my!

well, im a gettin back to more html’n so the site is hopefully finished tonight…..???!!!!

oh, so go to this link! – a blogger posted this live recording of us in las vegas, from our last tour-!!  go to the link and scroll down to find a music player of us playin!!

http://joys-of-rotation.blogspot.com/search/label/brightmillion

!!!!!!

 Link to this page

 Link to this page

When we were stranded in Vegas with clunked out bandvan we saw this 70’s tribute band called the Devonshire’s. They played all sorts of great songs from jethro Tull. Moody blues. And some from Zeppelin and the who. Gotta love free outdoor entertainment.

 Link to this page

 Link to this page

hey! we are back in LA after a long adventure in Las Vegas! if you have been following the twitter feed, you already know we broke down on the way and were stranded in the desert,, then vegas for a few days! i’ll write a longer long winded blog about it later today, with all the gory details… but til then, i just wanted to post this- someone at the las vegas beauty bar show taped some of our set and posted it to their blog-

http://joys-of-rotation.blogspot.com/2010/06/your-
pretty-face-is-going-to-hell.html

here is the audio file if you want to download it/ hear it-

brightmillion_intro_waiting wires

it is our new yet-to -be- titled instrumental, and ‘waiting wires’ thanks to the unknown blogger for posting it!

our next show is in Los Angeles, this thursday, june 10th @ 11pm – @ LaBries in Glendale. then next friday june 18 in Pasadena – @ Old Town pub. – off to water the raspberries and unload the van from tour time.. more pics, vids, etc real soon from the shows.

brightmillion_intro_waiting wires

 Link to this page

 Link to this page

Hooray for monterey~! we had a Great show tonight if i do say so myself we played well, there was a great crowd, a nice venue, very accommodating promoter and soundman — what else could you ask for?? well, how about a ton of great reviews, write ups and mentions in the local Monterey papers! woohoo!! thank you to everyone who promoted our show tonight- we were very fortunate to have some very nice things said about us in the different local print papers, blogs, reviewers and such. It for sure helped bring out the crowd and helped us sell some merch to put gas in the van

i suppose it isnt polite to toot your won horn,,, but  :)  blogmonterey.com said our show was one of the Top Things To Do this memorial day weekend !

Monterey Herald, when talking about this weekend’s things to do said “Standouts I can mention here include the moody pop-rock of SoCal’s Brightmillion on Saturday night @ Jose’s”

The Monterey County Weekly said

“BRIGHTMILLION AT JOSE’S It’s hard to believe that Southern California’s Brightmillion is a duo. That is not because they can raise an unholy racket like other rock duos including The White Stripes and the Black Keys, but because their songs on Myspace including “Wasting Away” and “Even Though” are so radio ready that it’s hard to imagine that just two people can create such a polished product.”

thanks to Yuki for taking photos and video of us tonight!! new videos from last night and tonight are posted on our YouTube channel- www.youtube.com/brightmillion — go check em out

pics are posted in our flickr account and here!

we met a bunch of very nice folks tonight and got some local scoop on where to go, what radio stations are cool to hit next time we are in town,  good venues in surrounding towns etc. we’ve been learning alot this tour about what/where to go on the next time we pass thru. most of the venues we’ve played were great and worth hitting again, but it is nice to get the local insider opinion on where we would be well received next time we are in town – and finding out about new cities in the areas, that might have cool clubs, radio stations, etc that might like us.  we are trying to keep good notes on all we are taking in… so we can remember everything!!

we will spending the night again in Monterey and we then have a few DAYS OFF!! after shows the last 5 days straight i think i can use a little breather    whooo   we have a couple days off until we are in Las Vegas, but plenty to do in the meantime…. so maybe not a whole lot of resting,, BUT,, we’ll try. we will be in Vegas thurs and fri, then barstow sat, and los angeles the following thursday. we will be driving back to LA Sun at some point, depending on when we wake up…. its 4am already… so probably not a super early start

a couple days in LA to regroup b4 heading up to vegas. — what to do with all that time..??? !! well, maybe get the a/c fixed on the van, tune up/spark plugs, radiator flush, oil change for the van,, print more tshirts, fix some cables that have been destroyed on the shows, charge some batterries.. hmmm i guess way too much to do!

we are starting to book the next tour and i already feel like we are running behind getting it organized soon enough– if anyone knows of any independent booking agents… send em our way!!! our goal is to be on the road AT LEAST 100 days this year.

thanks everyone for the support so far on the tour, we hope to end it with a bang in Los Angeles, @ LaBrie’s june 10th

we had a nice day in Monterey today, Tony trying for a Chipotle ‘2 burritos at one sitting’ record, a walk on the pebble beach board walk, some ocean views, rock climbing, fresh air hiking, then to wrap it all up tonight after the show, Tony tried the japanese food Nattou for the first time… it is a fermented soy bean type food, that i think is very GROSS,,, but lots of folks love it… to me it smells disgusting, sort of like dirty socks… but tony was set on trying it ,, well, it was an adventure, and,,, I was rolling video the whole time!! i’ll post on youtube tomorrow.. WARNING!!! the video may or may not end in tony vomiting…!!!!   uuuugggggg

looking forward to seeing the fat cats back in LA and seeing if the garden is still alive,, and sleeping in a bed will be nice too….!

oh, and we found Holman highway here in monterey , which i’ll take as a good omen for th future,  not sure why that would be, but hey, its my highway so i’ll take  it how i want to

 Link to this page

 Link to this page

gooooood mornin from sunny monterey, ca  we rolled in late late night after being brainwashed in San Francisco! – well, after playing at a venue called brainwash – a laundromat, cafe,bar… folks can drink tap beer while doing your laundry, and if you do your laundry during happy hour, you get free beer … somebody has a good business idea i think.. they were quite busy in the afternoon when we arrived, and a constant stream of people at night too. the house PA system went crazy half way into our set and sent a massive BZZZZZZZ into ou in-ear-monitors, so tony and i mostly rocked out to static, but folks tell us it sounded good in there- nice & loud.. we were a bit worried cuz the 2 acts before us were a soft jazz combo and a folk singer, we thought maybe they made a mistake booking a rock n roll band, but our friend running the joint said we were welcome to make noise.- after the show when we apologized if we were too loud, he said, “its only too loud if the band sucks, you guys were awesome”   awww thank you

my brother took some video of us, i’ll get it from him later today and post it up here! i only got a candid shot of the laundromat,,,

BRAINWASH!! SF, CA

the band that was supposed to play after us cancelled on their lead man, so he was gonna play his blues guitar set by himself….. that is until tony stepped in and became his band for the night! so while i sat down to take a breather after our show, tony played another set! he’s sleeping in a bit this morning to make up for it

tony plays some pick up blues & boogie

here’s a couple pics from the show @ San Luis Obispo @ Cheap Thrills records… our hosts were very kind to us there, and we hope to go back and play there again soon – they also stocked some of our ’start a new day’ EP in there store! so you can head over there and pick up a copy if you are in the area. 

we played in the Cheap Thrills 'barn' during the farmer's market

outside of the cheap thrills barn!

san luis obispo cheap thrills records

Video from the San Luis Obispo Acoustic show @ Linnaea’s ::

 Link to this page

 Link to this page

hola! 

we are still in San Luis Obispo – starting to feel like temporary home, got a good lay of the land, back at out new hang out – Linnaea’s Cafe. we played an acoustic show here last night,  and are back for coffee this morning. they serve vegan foods during the day and cookies and organic fair trade coffee tony sampled the Polenta something or other for breakfast, sort of looked like a green yellow goo pile, but he said it was excellent, yesterday was the mock meatloaf with mash potatoes and gravy.

tony likey the polenta goo

here is our hotel bathroom breakfast:: we brought a hundred pounds of oranges with us, we’ve been super juicing and super smoothying everyday, so we are feeling good!!

juicy oranages

juice-less oranges!

the show here last night was a great time, the venue has high ceilings and lots of old wood so it sounded great we made some great new friends from santa maria on tues- they came out to our show in the park there, and they were kind enough to drive up to SLO (san luis obispo, yup, we call it SLO now, cuz we r in with the locals,,, !)  our new friend, a fellow by the name of izaac that we met in santa maria was kind enough to jump up on stage and play some songs after we were finished to keep the crowd hanging and having fun! he is a great musician and songwriter! he brought up some family to watch our show and we were also able to convince his sister – an opera singer- to get up and sing us a song – she has the most beautiful voice. – she owns a coffee show in Santa Maria called Coffee and Company – if you are in the area- go check it out!! ::

Coffee and Company -

245 Town Center West
Santa Maria, CA 93458
(805) 928-6492

there is a possibility we might be playing an acoustic show there on our way back down the coast on monday the 31st! we’ll let you know for sure if it is confirmed. they were all the most friendly folks and made our stay in SLO a good time. 

the linnaea's musicians- joe & candice, izaac, dan, tony

dan @ linnaea's cafe, san luis obispo

dan @ linnaea's cafe, san luis obispo

izaac ciro @ linnaea's cafe

joe tickling the ivory's

gotta make some gas $..!!

 we finally got our new T-Shirts printed yesterday!! we didnt have enough time before leaving LA to build our new printing press — so we just thru some wood, screws and tools in a bucket and figured we’d have some time on the road to build it- ! after building our contraption in the motel 6 parking lot, we printed some shirts in our room !! the artwork is of course by Heather Lloyd (www.blackbirdflying.net) and looks SOOOO GOOD!!!! the design really makes us look like we know what were doing as far as shirt making goes – THANKS HEATHER@!!!!! we have 2 styles available- both are super soft light weight shirts – the girls cut is a light blue with brown print, and fellow’s option is a green of sorts color also with brown print–  the drawing is the one that is featured on our Bandvan Maiden Voyage Tour Poster – also available at the shows and on the merch store- merch.brightmillion.com!! the shirts are priced at $15 which is a steal considering an original Heather Lloyd goes for at least $100,000 these days

parking lot printing press construction

parking lot printing press construction

parking lot printing press construction

parking lot printing press construction

parking lot printing press construction

parking lot printing press construction

washing out the screen in hotel shower

test print,, not too shabby... a few adjustments and we were ready to assembly line it!

the press in action, tony showcasing the finished goods

 Link to this page

 Link to this page

Hey!!! We r still out on the road trucking along– been a busy weekend so I’ve fallen behind on the blogging gonna try to get you daily updates fromhere on in. We played solvang,ca on sat and it was GREAT! Very lively crowd, lots of dancing, even some guest singers helping out on a few tunes! One of our most fun shows ever I’d haveto say. Hopefully they will invite us back soon to do it again.
We didn’t reuse it was gonna be freezing cold there!!! We were way under dressed when we rolled into town COLD!! I thought it was summer… . We played for 3 hrs so it was a marathon show… Luckily we were having a ton of fun so didn’t realize how tired we were til the next day!! The town of solvang is a touristy town that is Denmark themed…. Giant windmills all around and a ton of little shops — that all close at 5pm…!! We rolled inaround 7 and we thought we were in a ghost town. The place we played is the only place open at night- so that was good for drawing a crowd!!
We closed down the venue rockin til they kicked evryone out- then we headed over the the Chumash casino to get some late night gambling in.. Well, no we didn’t do any gambling (the tour budget is less than thin as it is!) we did take advantage of the 24 hr starbucks while noticing that we couldn’t find a happy person in the whole casino…. Everyone was so serious or angry. It’s a bummer to see so many people in desperate place hoping for the payout.. People need to realize that the house always wins.. So you have to go there to have fun, not gamble away your children s food money..!!!! We tried to smile at as many people as we could while in there . Hopefully it cheered a few folks up.

On sun we headed to oxnard,ca to rock the Beachcomber Tavern thanks Pete for having us out again! always great to play there. Great crowd as usual we were mega tired from the all night show on sat buy we still took it down
It was gale force winds on the beach and walking outside was a freezing cold sand storm. Like loading gear in the Armageddon !! Hopefully we will back there real soon.

Mon was a day off as far as shows go but not time to relax..!! Tons of prep for this weeks shows we won’t be back in la til next Tuesday so we had to make sure we had everything– since we are doing various shows on this tour- full band, super stripped acoustic, semi acoustic. And a few gigs where we are providing the PA so lots of stuff to pack into the bandvan!!! I THINK? We have everything….. I guess we’ll find out soon enough

Oh on another note. Another vegas show has just been added!! We will be playing @ Meatheads June 5 fri night @ 12:30-late nite! 2 chances to catch us in Vegas so we better see u there!

Well only an hour of sleep last night so gotta get to bed… More about our show today in Santa Maria o. Tomorrows blog. We are having a great time, thanks to everyone for your support!!!

 Link to this page

 Link to this page