boxing day & drum brushes

I love Boxing Day. You can just blob out after Christmas and play with all your presents.
Anyway, yesterday went well. As usual I woke up at 5:30. (well I woke up at 4:00 last year)
I got these awesome as drum brushes - they have steel brushes at one end and wire brushes at the other. They're really cool. I used them in our song, I Wish You Were Here today. It sounded real cool.
nate

25th of December

Merry Christmas everyone!

From Mayday

Man I love writing

I love writing things.
I like writing books and let my imagination run wild. I like txting people lots. I like writing about things. I like writing in my diary, and of course I like writing blogs.
Man writing's cool. I'm so glad God invented it.
I don't like writing poetry though. No way.
Or essays.
Though once I wrote an entire essay randomly on the computer about how impractical igloos were.
It was quite fun.
I think the reason I like writing songs is because of the lyrics. I always write them first, and the tune always kind of follows on behind.
Now someone's probably going to point out that isn't writing poems like writing songs?
Well I entirely disagree.
The other weird thing is that Daniel, who is lead singer of our band, and in the most powerful position as a general rule, SHOULD be writing all our songs (or at least the lyrics). Cos that's what singers usually do.
And he's good at poetry too. He even likes it!
But he's not very good in the songwriting department (no offence Dan).
So we're a bit of a back-to front band. But I guess it's not all that weird. After all, when we started our band, I was the lead singer.
(And I was trying to convince Dan to play another instrument for our band, among those was the guitar. Then Nate says "Why don't you play the guitar?" and I think about it for a second then said "Why not?")
Oh well I don't really mind. Personally I like what I do and even though it's a bit different from the norm, it all sounds really well in the end.

Jordan

Wow! I won

Man today was funny.

First we checked out the plums but none were ripe. So off I headed to do my guitar practice. I only managed to do 8 minutes though before Nate interupted me and we did band practice. Properly.

It was all good apart from I wish you were here which we havn't practiced for ages and we kept getting off time in it. And we forgot to do another song as well.

But we played One to a Hundred real good. We rocked it up and it was loads better to play. Mum's capo works much better on my electric guitar.

Then we had lunch, and Mum told me and Dan to make our little sisters some lunch. We put some cheese toasties on to grill and go off.

10 minutes later Daniel runs outside to tell me the ovens on fire!

My goodness I am sooooooo forgetful!

Then in the afternoon after we tidied the house, Will and Mitch came over and we made a movie. It was actually a serious one too. Then we watched it and it was real good.

After dropping them home we made tea and Christmas mince pies, and after tea and dishes, I suddenly remembered that I forgot to do my guitar practice.

Meanwhile Nate's suddenly developed a splitting headache and went to bed.

Another cool thing was yesterday I found out I had an email! No-one ever emails me so I was pretty excited. It was from Soul Purpose and they told me I'd won in a photo competition, and the prize was two cds.

The photo had to be of you with either Parachute Band or Primal Band. And it said to be creative.

So as I've never met anyone from either of tohose bands I used the next best thing:

Yeah, pretty cheesy I know but it's outside the box.

I tried to get Beka to take one for me but she was to busy and so I took this all by myself. I didn't even use the self timer. Probably cos I don't know how to.

So that was pretty awesome.

Also I've been thinking we need a new band picture cos that top one is months old. But Beka's been so busy working it's been impossible to get one.

Jordan

Mumsdollar are awesome!!!

So here I am typing and listening to Mumsdollar. They are actually a realllllllllyy cool band. I mean, now they're up there in my list. Lets see. If you haven't heard any of these bands, you're crazy!
Stellar Kart (they always come first!)
Everyday Sunday
Mumsdollar
Rapture Ruckus
The Ember Days
Kutless
and many more.......
They are all so awesome man. Anyway, I'm really looking forward to Parachute 09. We got the programme the other days and The Ember Days are on Mainstage. That's going to be soooo awesome.
nate

The 12 days of Christmas

Only three days to Christmas!
Awesome!
Man I love Christmas time. The food, the presents, the fun, the family, the festive season, the Christmas trees, the carols.
I really want to get Relient K's christmas album Let it snow baby, Let it reindeer. It is awesome!
Speaking off which, I wonder what their newest cd, The Bird and the Bee sides. Weird name if you ask me. But it still might be good. Cos Relient K are awesome. Their lyrics are awesome.
And their guitarists!

Jordan

Parachute program!

Man I'm so excited!
It's like Christmas!
Christmas is only 4 days away.
Oh dear, I still need to make a few presents.
Anyway, the reason I'm soo excited is because they released the Parachute lineup today. We printed it off and waited for Beka to get home from work so we could show her.Then we highlighted all our favourites and scrawled green by the ones we are definitly going to see.
The only sad thing is that False Start, which we wanted to see are on at a REALLY dumb time. In the middle of all the big acts at Mainstage! Grrrr!
Another annoying thing is that Availine, a band I wanted to see are at a dumb time to. So I probably won't be able to see them either. =(
Apart from that it's all good. Really good. All of the main acts except for David Crowder Band have at least two shows each. Awesome! I can't wait to see Kutless. And Kingston. And Casting Crowns. And Mumsdollar. And Family Force 5. And Nathan King. And David Crowder band, Arms Reach, Season Pass (which we kinda saw this year), and Parachute Band, and Rapture Ruckus.
And guess what?
The Ember Days are playing on Mainstage!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Man I was so excited about that!
Bring it on!

Jordan

One to a Hundred

Yeah ok so Nate spilled the beans about the big "surprise" hoped you liked the song whoever was there.
Well quite a while ago I was pondering the question "Would we get stage fright?"
And now we've done it, I reckon the answer is no.
We did it pretty perfectly even if we did have a few problems.
Which actually weren't our fault.
But oh well. It was pretty good.
The thing was we'd practiced that song so many million times that doing it on stage was a breeze. Just like doing it at home.
So here's the words to the song:

One To a Hundred

Do you remember when you were just one/ And you wanted to walk and you wanted to run/ And you took each day as it came/ And when it was over you'd start again

It's just a part of life/ Let's live like we're alive

Do you remember when you're twenty-one/ And you're plans had been made and your dreams had begun/ You had to speed up you couldn't slow down/ You grew up and took your feet off the ground

It's just a part of life/ Let's live like we're alive

Will you remember when you're a hundred and one/ Will you look back at the things you've done? It's time for you to start brand new/ This life is over, now the next ones begun
~dedicated to Grandad (c) Copyright Mayday 2008

Jordan

Our first concert! - sort of....

Man I'm zonked...
Lastnite me Jords and Dan had our first concert. Well, not really, but there were thirty adults - most old people though. So it was our Grandad's 70th birthday and we decided to put together a Mayday song for the entertainment part thingie.We just did that one song, called One to A Hundred. And we peformed it perfectly, too. no stagefright or anything, we just did it! So it went pretty well and it was all good. I've forgotten the words but Jords will write them in when he posts something.
The only problem was, getting my drum set to the hall. We had to stuff it in Beka's small five-seater-car, as well as me and Beka in it! Then there was a problem with the bass drum pedal. Daryl came home from Palmeston North and fixed it though, which was cool. So it went pretty much better than we hoped
nate
p.s. that was the surprise by the way. you see our Grandad reads our blog frequently and was'nt supposed to know about our song so yeah

things i love

well i must say i love stargate.
i love guitars too.
and kutless.
and stellar kart.
and everyday sunday
and my family.
and my band bros.
i also love chocolate.
the bible is rockin' as the most inspirational book ever.
i didn't like rap until i heard rapture ruckus.
and calling elijah.
now i think rap is ok.
not as good as pop/punk/rock though.
of course i just love rock worship like parachute band, magnify and especially the ember days.
i really like raisins too for some random reason.
and i am just in love with zeppelins. (don't ask why.)
i like electric lights to. i'm just going to turn one on because my eyes are getting sore in the dark.
that's much better.
i love plums too. they taste like summer. especially the ones of our plum tree.
i don't like depression.
not that i'm depressed.
i don't like it in other people.
i love parachute.
i really like moshing even if you do get injuries and mild concussion.
not that that's ever happened to me.
and i love a good movie.
like prince caspian.
man i want to watch that movie now.
i love icecreams on hot days.
i love having food.
i love drinking water.
i love being able to acess music and write blogs through the computer.
i love playing soccer.
and running.
and skiing.
and rock-climbing.
think about all the poor kids my age who never get to try these things. the people who don't even have mums or dads.
the people who have hiv/aids.
the people who live in poverty we couldn't imagine.
the people who are our brothers and sisters.
i don't know about you but it makes me feel sad.
it makes me feel like having a job other than a paper-run just so i could sponser a kid.
it makes me feel like making a difference.

Jordan

The biggest and bestest drum set I've ever seen.

Today me and Jords had our music lessons at Daryl's. I went on Daryl's drumkit. Man it was awesome! There were nine cymbals and three extra drums. The snare was worth two and a half thousand dollars! It sounded real good though.It was real loud though. I had to wear earmuffs! There was also a double kick pedal, which was really cool. You had to switch off the high-hat to use it though. Anyway, it was a mean drumkit and sooo cool playing it.
We got back home and did some band practice. It was real weird playing on my drumkit which seemed so tiny. haha one day I'll have a drumkit like Daryl's.
nate

Everyday Sunday & Rapture Ruckus

Man, at Palmeston today, me and Beka and Jord's brought Everyday Sunday's latest album, "Wake Up Wake Up!" and listened to it all the way home. It is sooooooooooo awesome! Seriously, its one of those good good, really good cd's. As soon as we got home I loaded them onto my mp3 and I just listened to them b4 for an hour! And also Dan got Rapture Ruckus Live on Parachute 08 which is pretty cool as well. Cd's. cd's, cd's! Everyday Sunday are seriously awesome, though. Like up there with Stellar Kart!!!!! Although Stellar Kart are still slightly better. Woah - its 10:00 gotta go
nate

the random roadtrip

Well the surprise is going well-kind of. I'm getting a bit tired of it but all revealed by the end of the week. And then we need not work on it so much. We did a bit tonight and Dad gave us a hand.........
Ok enough of the suspense.
Today was real cool. Me, Beka and Nate roadtripped to Palmy to do a bit of shopping. We also went to some friends places. We had a swim in a pool and it was heaps of fun. I shoved Nate in lots. And guess what? We got Everyday Sunday: Wake Up! Wake Up!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I was so excited. We listened to it all the way home and I'm uploading it to my mp3 right this moment (that's if it works. My mp3 is real stupid and copies them to some place I don't know where and it's really bugging me. I've tried to copy the stupid thing on at least three times now.)
Soooooo that was really good.
And that's about it.

Jordan

One week and a day ago.....

K as you may have noticed we are not in this picture but Mumsdollar are so that's why I put it there. It's from the concert last week. Man that was a mean time. Beka should have got a picture of The Ember Days. They were really awesome, almost as good as Mumsdollar. Except you couldn't mosh to them. They did A Drop of Blood which is a real cool song, which was the only one I know. Thanks to the radio (Go LifeFm!). And their other songs where good to. They played this mean as instrumental and a real cool song called Seven which was about the boating disaster
at Elim Collage when those seven people died. I only just found that out a few days ago looking on their myspace page.
Anyway Mumsdollar were real good, real loud and rocked hardcore. They were playing so hard out that we retreated from the moshpit. One of their guitarist broke 3 strings! Man! They did Sticks and Stones while we were still in the moshpit. That song is seriously cool. And they did about 3 others I knew. There was this one called Sunrise, and right at the end of the set these two last ones, Rescue Me, and One Day. They were so good. It was just massive.
I can't wait to see them on Mainstage at Parachute!!!

Jordan

Can you hear it?

The sound of silence/ That keeps me up at night.

~Mumsdollar

Jordan

I got up to 30 kmph!!!!!!!

Well today was real fun we went round to our friends place and made a movie. It was real funny. Man it's fun making movies. Then we had a massive scrap on their big tramp. As usual.
And somehow we managed to get the Head too, in a box of Favourites. My goodness, that has to be the most nasty thing someone's done with the head.
But don't worry I have a few diabolical plans up my sleeve.........
Anyway we didn't do any band practice. Cos we had a day off. I managed to finish Josh's present though, and I had a driving lesson. I drove all the way up to the supermarket and parked in there. And only stalled three times! And I even got up to thirty k! (yes I know how pathetic that sounds! It's really fast when you're driving though............)
Much less boring than yesterday. Haha.

Jordan

drum lessons.....

woah next week me and Jords are going to the Withey's for our drum and guitar lessons on Thursday. Daryl has his entire drumkit set up - it has eight cymbals! Awesome aye? Its going to be a mean time!
nate

''The Head''

Well today was good. Beka got ''the head'' in a box of chocolates! If you don;t know what the head is go to pass the head please - there's a link to it from our blog.
And I picked up something at the church which kinda has something to do with the surprise Jords has been on about so i can't tell u what it is sorry.
And me, Beka, and Jords are planning a roadtrip on Tuesday to Palmeston North which will be cool too.
nate

The random day

My lip is seriously sore right now cos I have a cold sore and to get rid off the ugly thing I put Frankencence on it. Then I put some zinc on it. Now my lip is stinging like a bee sat on it. So I'm blogging to take my mind off it.
Anyway today was real random. I did Josh's present on the morning, and then we went to the warehouse. Then we had to go in the Christmas Parade for soccer, so we walked up and down High Street. Fun. Then when we came home our cousins were here and we mucked around. Me and Nate were real bored. We to do band practice but Mum, Dad and Aunty Julie were in the sitting-room and being good little boys we decided not to blow their ears off. So we sat outside. We were so bored that we sat watching a ladybug crawl on the bricks. Whee. Then everyone came to see what we were doing. Like it was very enthralling! So me and Nate went down the front. Nate had a stupid idea off watching a rock to see if it moved. I thought that was real dumb, so I proposed the idea of running round the block. Nate thought we should do it in the go-kart which was sitting close by. Pretty handy. So off we went. It cheered us up considerbly. That's always a good thing to do when you're bored.
(Actually I wasn't THAT bored cos I could have done my guitar practice, Dan's present, or written a book but that would have left Nate bored and with no one to talk too.)
And we did get to do band practice after all. Awesome. Out of it all is actuslly working still which I'm pleased about. Except in the middle off it Mum came and started harmonizing with Dan on his mike. I didn't see the problem but somehow it made Dan pretty mad.
So then we went round the block again. Dan was on the scooter, and Nate managed to steer into a ditch. And we beat Daniel home. Haha!
We had a good day really, even if it did have it's fallbacks.
It's not the boredest I've ever been either. There was that time in Auckland. And I didn't even have my guitar to play!

Jordan

P.S I did have a guitar then but it was Mum's which as we know has nylon strings. Ugh. =(

P.S Mum thanks for letting me use your guitar. It's quite handy really. We just need to replace the bottom three strings.......

The Secret

Well it's going awesome here we had a great practice today, but I can't talk about it as much as I'd like to. Cos it's a secret. But don't worry it will all come clear in about seven days.
Anyway it's not a bad secret. It's a good one. I just can't reveal what it is just yet.
Actually it's not really a secret. It's more of a surprise
So what else have we been up to? Not much really just the usual. I've been listening to the Mumsdollar cd heaps lately, the one Beka borrowed off Kerry. It's real cool. We should have got it at the concert.

Jordan

200

I was just looking on our blogspot and it turns out we've written 200 blogs (this is our 201st blog). Pretty impressive.
Anyway, today was pretty good cos all our songs worked. Also Mum found the missing clamp-on for the guitar so I played around with that for literally ages. And later in today I finished writing a song which was really awesome. I've had bits floating around for ages but have't got around to finishing them. So anyway I finished it finally. It's called Can't Stand to be Sleeping. And I've got about 3 songs to work on as well. It's all going sweet.

Jords

Today

Well, band practice today was the best we've ever done it with the drums! It went really awesome. B-)
And also our cousins from Saudi Arabia came to visit today which was good. And this is our 200th post! yay :-)
nate

yay!!!!!

yay its the holidays for us! no more school for three months!
yessssss
nate

Dad looks different

Well, today we came back from our paper-run at 7:30 in the morning. I went into the bathroom to wash my hands. Then I saw Dad. First, I thought there was a really weird guy in our bathroom. But then I realized it was Dad. He'd shaved his beard completely off! Now every time I look at him I feel like I'm looking at a photo album!
haha nate

mumsdollar concert

Wow on Saturday night me and dan and jord and beka went up with the youth group up to Bay City in Hastings. There was a Mumsdollar concert on. We got lost first, but eventually arrived at about 7:30pm. so we got there and saw the ember days who were really good. they played this awesome song called 'a drop of blood' And their drummer was really good.
Then mumsdollar came on and it was awesome. They played 'Sticks and Stones' which is the awesomest song ever. We were moshing heaps. The mosh pit was a bit dangerous though. People kept shoving you everywhere.
Anyway this random guy gave dan some earplugs.
I got all of their signatures afterwards and it was a really cool concert. we had the funnest time ever. we got home at 1:00 in the morning! B-o B-0 B-O
nate
ps jords was actually supposed to blog about the concert but he's at bible study and i got bored. don't tell him haha

Turn on the Lights

Wow the Mumsdollar concert was AWESOME but I'll wait to see if we get any pictures before raving on about it. But Mumsdollar and the Ember Days are definitely favourites now. I am so going to see them at Parachute.
Anyway today we decided to not write that song just yet and instead we fixed up Turn on the Lights and it sounds so cool now.
Another good thing is I've woken up now, and I feel alive like crazy. Well yesterday I didn't,but I was pretty wasted from staying up to 1'o clock on Saturday night.
So it's all great here.

Jordan

Annoyences.

Today was pretty good, except we tried to write that song and it really DID NOT work at all.
We didn't get anywhere. Mostly because Dan went out when we were ready to write it and then when he got back we were stuck and couldn't think of anything.
Which was pretty annoying. So I went off and did my guitar practice. Not very constructive, but hey.
It's a bit annoying cos I want a few more keyboard bits in our songs (cos now we've got the microphone stand we can use it) but unfortunatly Daniel is not as creative as Nate was. He tends to just play stuff not make it up. No offence. It's better some than none. It's just that I think our songs need a bit of musical variation. Taking back everything I said a month ago, I'm actually thinking we could throw a bit of reggae in there too.
Well the good news is that there's that concert tomorrrow night which is real exciting. It should be pretty inspiraring. And if not, well it'll be a great night out anyway

Jordan

I can drive! (well kind of)

Wow I am so excited cos today I got my Learner's so now I can drive around! Isn't that just the coolest? I had to spend ages waiting in the AA place though. There were so many people there! But finally it was all over and I only got one wrong so it was real good. And then this evening I drove the van up to Nana's. I wasn't very good, but then again it was the first time I've driven in town. I had trouble getting around the corners. I think I need some more practice.
We did some band stuff today and Make up your Mind worked this time which was good. We were going to write that song but didn't have enough time cos it was time for our lessons. Daryll showed me this cool as reggae song by Tiki Tane and Daniel learnt how to sing.
Anyway that's about it.

Jordan

my special cookie

wow it was cool as today i brought an icecream and they gave me a free cookie. it was a cool cookie. and a nice cookie as well. Dan and Josh went to get an icecream as well. they didn't get a cookie though. oh well i guess i'm just special like that.
nate

Our Special Day

Well today is Jords special day but he'll tell you why.
And its me and Dan's special day as well. We're allowed to go to Parachute 09 on the bus with tthe Dempsters! Man I'm so excited. Its going to be the funnest time ever.
nate

Parachute 09 opening set!

Hi everybody!
Exciting news! On Parachute's website http://websites.parachutemusic.com/festival/2009/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=263&Itemid=30 you can get the chance to vote who plays the opening set at PO9!!!!!!!!!!!
Ok here's my opinion-something I'll always give you.
Vote Small Town Heroics!!!
Honestly. Please. They kinda sound like Stellar Kart. And that's a good thing.
Or vote for Arms Reach. They are really cool.
Check it out on the website and vote!

Jordan

The microphone stand at last.....

Well a good thing and a bad thing happened today. The bad thing was that someone stole our website so could hack into our blog. So if we stop writing then you know why!
And the good thing was we got a microphone stand! So we did band practice this afternoon which went really well. Except there's something wrong with my snare drum and the snare keeps flipping off. So I have to tell Darryl about that at drum lessons. And I saw the car Beka loves - the Datson 2-80 on the way to Waipuk. It is totally awesome. Like the best car ever. As in ever! And now my tooth's fixed yay
nate

It's not working.

I'm annoyed.
I just can't seem to write any songs. I have a few verses jotted down but nothing else springs to mind. I am so out of ideas. When I want to I can't. I want to get at least one of them finished , and I keep thinking of good guitar things, but my songwritings all down the drain.
This has happened to me before. I get a phrase where I write two to five songs and then it all dries up. And the stuff you think of takes so long to do and then when you've finished it actually isn't very good, and you feel like you've stretched it out instead of it coming.
It's kind of hard to explain. So I'll do what I did last time it happened. Just stop. Give myself a break. Time to relax. Even though I feel like I'm pretty relaxed all ready.
So I'm off to write my book.

Jordan

December 1

Wow its December already. And Christmas is just around the corner. And that's about it for the 1st of December. Except I'm going to Waipuk with Beka tomorow to fix my chipped tooth which chipped for the first time at Easter about 4 or 5 years ago. And around every six months it falls off again. This time it chipped after a month though. Stupid aye
nate

The last day of november

Well we didn't write that song this week. I thought we wouldn't.
And to top it off I have bad hayfever. Which has made me quite annoyed.
It hasn't been the greatest weekend.
The songwriting is not happening either. It's just switched off. I'm uninspired. Well actually I am a bit by Everyday Sunday but it's still not working very well.
Life at the moment seems a tad grey. You know, kind of boring, same old, same old. I need something to wake me up.
And I'm not talking about coffee either.

Jordan

i believe

i believe i'm a new creation

been planned out just before creation
before the first star in the sky
i was a star in his eye

-rapture ruckus
nate

reggae on drumz rocks!

yea, playing reggae on the drums is so much fun i love it
nate

camp's the best

I really like this picture. We took it at camp in herbetville in January this year. Except in the original Dan looks weird.

edited photo: (the best)


original photo:


nate

convertibles and datson 2-80's

today was another of those really hot days. and to top it off me and dan and jord had to deliver 500 pamphlets over half the town. then i had to run to the bank and deliver something. then i had to run to town and drop off a movie and buy potatoes. beka was picking me up but she wasn't at healthnuts so i had a wild-goose-chase everywhere for her. then i found her. then we had to walk to the supermarket to get pasta and then we finally got home. so now my legs are sore! oh and i saw this mean as yellow convertible with mean wheels. and beka saw a datson 2-80 which she smartly took a picture of. it's really cool. but i was on my bike and i didn't have a camera on my phone. it didn't matter though cause i've been using the same battery on my phone for a whole week without charging it so it kept turning off which was irritatingly annoying when i ran out of pamphlets and had to text mum so she could drop me off some more. but i finally managed it.
nate

9:59

Well I'm here to inform everybody that at the very moment of writing this it is 9:59 pm. And that's New Zealand time.
If I was talking Saudi Arabian time then the people over there wouldn't have even woken up. Lazy bones.
I find it weird to think while we're having summer, over in USA the people over there will be shovelling snow from their driveways.
So spare them a thought when you're melting at Parachute.

Jordan

Microphone stands

Haven't been up to much lately. Did a bit of band practice today. It's sounding pretty good but we need to practice a few of our songs more. Some we've got perfectly but others just need a bit more spicing up.

Problem is it's going to be tricky spicing them up when I'm really the only one who can do any of that. Not that Dan or Nate are suddenly obscure it's just Daniel can't really do that great on the keyboard when he has to use one hand to hold his microphone up (we need a microphone stand!). And even though Nate is the best drummer (for his age) that I've seen, theres not many fiddly bits you can do on drums. Well you know what I mean. You can't even play chords, not to mention notes on them.

It's getting a bit annoying.

Well we're planning on writing What I've done for Myself sometime this week if it all goes well but we probably won't get around to doing it tomorrow cos we've got a paper run.

Man I wish we had another guitarist sometimes. Or even a bass player.

Even though we're pretty good as it is. We just need a microphone stand! This one would do:

Or even this one:

But unfourtunatly we have neither of them. Though that last one looks easy to make...................

Jordan

The Hottest day of the year

I'm sure it was today. Honestly I practically could feel my face melting off when I did the paper run. To top it all off I got hayfever from all the pollen floating around in the muggy air and spent half the day sneezing. All this did not add up for a good band practice at all. It was one of those days when it's hard to do anything except read. I didn't even feel like playing my guitar that much. (Very unusual I assure you)
It was 35 degrees! And this is Dannevirke we're talking about!
Oh well at least we didn't have it as bad as Beka. She had to an exam in this weather!
So hopefully tomorrow it's cooler. Otherwise I'll have to stick my head in the freezer.

Jordan

Happy things

Hey its Dan here, Nate and Jaws are "babysitting" our friends and I'm stuck at home reeeeaaaaaalllllly bored.But I'm still happy for somethings, like our new amp, and freezing ice-blocks on a hot day, and cold rivers to jump into, and cool pictures like this one (see below)

thats it

Dan

Bother

I forgot what I's goin to write about! nice nate

Amp Number 2!!!!

Ok everybody this has got to be one of the most exciting bits of news for our band (apart from Nate's drumkit arriving of course.)
We scored ourselves that amp today! Dan and Dad stayed up last night fixing it and this morning I couldn't wait to get up and try it. Thanks Dad, you're the best!!
The problem was though the fact that it was a bass amp. So Dad said that it should be for my guitar.
I didn't really much like that idea though cos it's quite a bit smaller than my amp. But I gave it a shot anyway and was quite surprised. It makes my guitar sound WAY better. So now it's the guitar amp. And Dan's using my one for his microphone.
There's only one small problem. Seeing as Dan's on the keyboard he can't really play and hold the mike so he has to keep putting it down and picking it up and it's pretty annoying cos he misses out on some parts like that. We really need a microphone stand.
But otherwise it's all sweet. We are seriously up and running now.
Only a concert left t0 go!

Jordan

Well here I am on a friday night....

Well here I am on a Friday night on the computer writing. Rosie's really annoying and won't go to sleep. She keeps saying "Where Mummy?" (its 9:36) Mum and Jord and Beka are at Youth Group. Dad and Dan are making an amp in the workshop, and Josh and Kezi are asleep (unlike Rosie!)
And today I was raking leaves when the raked slipped and hit me in the side of the foot. So now my foot really hurts. So I have nothing else to do but write the blog. And I'm really tired... but its been a good day. Gtg rescue Rosie
nate

Around is finished (finally)

Hey everyone!
We've had a pretty good day today. In the morning after the usual schoolwork we sat down and stuck in to fixing up another one of our songs.
And it worked! Got it all sorted now and it sounds pretty mint. A slow song- not got very many of them.
The rest of the day we went around talking in Yoda voices. It was quite fun. As I said, "Crazy,we are!"
The songwriting process is coming along-very slowly I must admit but at least it's coming along. I've got pieces of at least five songs written down on notepaper by my bed-still got one from August (back when we went skiing!) in there.
It's the finishing off which is the hard bit. The last song I wrote just straight off was ummmmm can't remember. I think it might have been Kiwi on my Wall (which, coincidently was the third song I ever wrote. We've canned the first two.).
Anyway that's about it for today. Oh and someone told me today that our music is very Ameican Punk-ish (which I'd never heard of, but apparently the sound is kinda like Greenday and Stellar Kart.).
So I was pretty stoked about that.

Jordan

everday sunday rule!!!

wow everyday sunday are the meanest band ever! beka heard one of their songs on Life FM so we randomely looked them up. Then they turned out to be really cool. They use PRS (Paul Reed Smith) guitars and their song Find me tonight is sooooo cool. But you can probably read all that about them when you go to their myspace page. (There's a link to it on the right-hand-side of our blog). They're like.... up there near the top of the chart.
nate

I have an official haircutter!

Today we had a rockin' band practice. We did everything right - including Make up your Mind - which went surprisingly well. Beka gave me another rockstar haircut (she's pretty much the official now).
And the new Soul Purpose magazine came out so we've been gluing our eyes to that as well.
nate

Amazing stuff

I couldn't believe it!
Today we played Make up your Mind and it actually worked! It even sounded good!
It was truly amazing.
And I was thinking of canning that too.
Good thing I didn't.

Jordan

I love lists.

I do. It's kind of weird.

So here's one of my lists: The top 5 guitars I'd most like to have.

1. Vox Guitar organ.

Needs no introduction.PRS 513

Because it has five pickups and 13 sounds!3.Gibson Flying V

It's beautiful!!!!!!!!!!!!!!4.Any wooden guitar

It's so smooth and again it's a PRS guitar and Stellar Kart, Everyday Sunday, Kutless, Family Force 5, Linkin Park, Switchfoot and Casting Crowns use PRS guitars.5. A V-wing accustic

I have a thing for these. Ever since I saw one in the Rockshop.

There's a few more actually but I have to go now so that'll do.

Jordan

Everyday Sunday

We found out this real cool band last night called Everyday Sunday. Beka had randomly heard one of their songs on Life Fm, and so I decided to look them up.
I was pretty much blown away. On their Myspace page they had a few of their songs, and they were just awesome. Kind of a bit like Stellar Kart without the keyboard. And with a bit of Kingston thrown in the mix.
It's like a fresh breath of insparation. What I hate in a band is when they sound like some other band. Not their own thing.
But these guys are original.
I wish they were coming to Parachute.

Jordan

Happy days

I've finally managed to get Dad around to fixing that amp! Okay, he hasn't started it yet, but he's said he'll get it finished by the end of the week.
Didn't get much time to practice today as I was pretty busy. Well kinda anyway.
We went on a photoshoot tonight but it was pretty much the same as usual; nothing special. We went into this place where your supposed to walk your dogs. So we pretended Dan was a dog (the things we do to our lead singer!) and went in. Then we saw an actual guy with a dog and it wasn't on a lead. We thought our story wouldn't hold much water so we hid up a tree while Beka took some pictures. Then we went back into Beka's car,turned the radio up and roared down High Street.
(Don't worry-we didn't really! I think Beka was under the speed limit and her car can't roar anyway.)
Happy days mate.

Jordan

Born for this

This is what we were born to do. This is who we are.
And we're not changing to something else.
We are ourselves.
Let's rock the world!

Jordan

Life

It's all going along good here. Haven't done much but we're just polishing up on our stuff, making it sound a lot better. Cos even some of the songs that we've "fixed up" don't sound that great.
Also I keep thinking of real cool openings- I've got about five so far! I think I need to write a few songs to go with them.
So right now we've got a handful of well-polished songs we just need somewhere to play them.
Man I'm busy. Or I would be if I got around to doing all the stuff which I need to. I just like procrastinating.
But I've been thinking (sometimes not such a good idea!).
At time's life seems a bit pointless. Now I'm not trying to sound suicidal here, but it seems like you enter this world, then you work to survive, and try to get above it all, get away from your problems. Then you leave this world. Taking nothing.
It's not pointless though. Sometime's it's boring but never pointless. We have a time limit on this earth and it's what we do with it which counts. We're here to help each other. Not to just get by.
That's what we were created for.
Lets get out there and do it!

Jordan

I just went crazy on the drums

yea i did man it was fun lol
nate

Stars

Lastnite me and Beka and Jords went outside in the dark and did sparklers. Then Beka got a "massive bruise" by kicking something unknown. So we sat on the tramp and looked at the stars which were really pretty.

In the dark....

Woah! I'm writing this whole blog with the computer screen off! So if I make any spelling mistakes its not my fault, k?...... Well I guess it is, actually.
nate

Well today we went to the Dempsters and had the randomest time ever.Then we came home and painted Beka's new room. If you ask me I'm sick of painting. But I can't really do anything about that.
And as soon when it gets dark me and Beka and Jords are going to go outside and play with sparklers and take pictures.
So we're waiting for it to get dark right now.

Nate

Boredom

Sometimes I really think life is so boring.
This morning I was pretty bored.
And guess what? Now that I'm not bored any more, I've thought up about five things I could of done while I was bored.
But I didn't do any of them.
I hate that.
When you're bored you seem to never be able to think of what to do.
It's annoying.
What I wish I had was a recording device. Cos then we could record all our songs and it'd be fun to muck around on.
But I don't have one of them.
So I'll just have to think of something else.

The end

Jaws

Writer's block

Just when you want to write something, all the words disappear from your head.
When you're living as usual, sometime's at the randomest moments you get this sentence, phrase, verse or idea in your head and you have to go and write it down before you forget it.
It's so unreliable and that's the beuty of it.
You can't force a song to happen, it just has to happen.
Otherwise it dosn't work.
Sometime's I wonder where all the ideas come from. Mum reckons they all come from God. I reckon she's right. Some of them just seem so good, so absolutly amazing that you can't really believe we thought of that ourselves.
So at the moment I'm really wanting to write another song for our side project Ground Zero (we havn't had a practice for ages and we're supposed to go to Fuse next year-ARGH!)
but as I've said, I can't think of anthing.
I guess I'll have to wait and see what happens.
That's the only way to do it.
Maybe I'm to distracted. When we went on a ski trip the first time this year I was quite bored on the way back so I had time to think. But the second time round the radio was on full bore on a boring as programme, and it was so annoying me that I couldn't write a scrap. So I just gave up.
I think I must have writer's block.
I still manage to write my blog fine though.

Jordan

One-wheelers

We've had quite a good couple of days. Yesterday we finally thought of something we could do for Around (but then got completely off the subject when Dad came inside and wanted Nate to play something.) Then today we were practicing our new song and my guitar teacher thought it was real good.
Apart from that though we haven't been up to much at all.
Yesterday we went on quite a few photoshoots with Beka, it was pretty cool. I still haven't seen the pictures though.
And today we mostly spent outside mucking around. We built this cool bike ramp and went up it at top speed on Josh's little bmx and it was real cool. Except I'm to big for it and when I did it the first time I ended up accidentally landing on the back wheel so I was doing a one-wheeler.
Then I fell over.
So I decided that I better not for my saftey.

Anyway that's completly off topic. Whatever the topic is.

Jordan

my "early" night

So........havn't been up to much lately except we tried to try another song today. Didn't work so well (didn't work at all actually)
Anyway I was hoping I could write one of those deep and meaningful blogs or even a real random one but Mum was on here and now it's 10. 41 and I was planning to have an early night.
So much for that.
We went on a bit of a photoshoot tonight it was pretty cool. Though I was mostly txting through it and for once Nate was taking all the pictures.
Anyway I better head off to bed cos I'm supposed to be waking up at 6 tomorrow for another photoshoot!
My goodness.
Also I have some very sad news. I was looking up a few bands on Sunday and I found out that My Life Story have decided to call it a day and have disbanded.
I was quite gutted about that.

Jordan

folding papers comes after writing blogs..

I really should be folding the papers but I feel like writing the blog. And besides I just painted the laundry with Mum for an hour. Then I had a shower. And now its 8:00! You know that saying 'time flys when you're having fun'? I reckon its not about time speeding up, but about having so much fun that you forget the time. Because time does'nt speed up. I actually rcckon it does. Very slowly though. Like, half a second every year or around that. This year shot by so quick you can hardly remember it. Woah.. think about that one. I'm going to be up for a while wondering how time can shoot by so quick that you can't remember it. Confusing. Anyway, the moral is time doesn't speed up....... - its just your imagination. And thats about it.
nate

yay!!!!!!

yay! we have our other computer keyboard back. B-D
nate

I should get my learner's.......

I stayed up late last night to watch the election and thank goodness, National came in. Hopefully they do make a change.One thing though. Apparently they're going to raise the driving age to 18.
Dumb.
I havn't been feeling to good lately so we didn't practice anything today not that we had much time anyway. And I felt slightly better after playing my guitar too.
Obviously.

Jordan

man today was funny...

man today was funny. at the church picnic me and william had to find a falling star as part of a scavenger hunt. i had a micheal owen top on (he's a star soccer player) so william picked me up and threw me on the ground! haha i only just got that
nate

Our new keyboard is dumb..

We have a new keyboard on our computer. I hate it. The a, n, e, and m have faded away. And it makes stupid noises when you press a key. And the backspace button is tiny! Its annoying.
nate

politics and writing lessons

I've been real slack lately at writing my blog, but once again there's absolutly nothing to talk
about.
Actually I take it all back. There's always something to talk about.
The hard thing is deciding what.
Like I could be blabbering on about nothing for ages and everyone reading this would say boring and skip to the stellar kart blog.
Enough of the writing lesson.
Oh actually I guess tonight is pretty important cos it's election day.
Now i want to get this straight. I don't like politicians. As a general rule they're always covering something up, slandering each other, or making dumb laws.
The thing which annoys me most is the fact that they don't seem like real people who actually want to do what the people want.
Enough of the politics too.
Still, I'm hoping that National get in. I really am wanting a change for the better for New Zealand.
We'll have to wait and see what happens.

Jordan

P.s there is something funny about the election. someone found a bobblehead of john key in the supermarket and we're going to play a real fun game with it at youth group it's going to be a blast!

Why I don't like reggae

Nothing to report really.
Except I learnt some more reggae today.
So did Nate.
I still don't think we'll put any reggae in our band. Not that I have anything against it. It's just not my style.
End of story.
I'd rather play Tears in Heaven any day.
Actually, to tell the truth, it is quite fun to play cos it sounds so (dare I say that word) funky.
And it's harder than my usual boring down-stroke guitar playing. So it gives me a challenge.
I just don't like listening to it.
Or maybe it's just Spacifix I don't like listening to.
There's actually this kind of annoying reggae song which used to be on the radio all the time, which I thought was pretty cool actually. It was by some guy called Taki Tanne.
Anyway that's quite enough about reggae.
Just goes to show that there's not anything else to write about except my personal tastes in music. So while I'm here I might as state a few more bands whose music I think just rocks.
Daughtry would have to be there. And Kutless. Kingston rock too. I quite like Mumsdollar as well, Fm Static are still the meanest, this Kiwi band which I have not seen yet or even heard much (unfortunatly) called Arm's Reach, Paramore are cool too. And there's this real cool band I've discovered lately called Search the City who sound really awesome so I'd pop them up there too. If you havn't heard Son of a Gun, then look it up, you won't regret it!
If you like rock that is......................

Jordan

We're finished!

Man I'm stoked.
We have finally finished our song after about two weeks of writing, practicing and refining, the 8th song we've written, and musicly the best.
We just completly rip it up when performing it.
Anyway, it took forever to finish but it was worth it. Next time we might fix up one of our older ones; probably a slow song cos we've only got one of them.
Here's the words:

Moonlight Shadows

I'm wide awake/I can't escape/ The shadows of the moonlight/ And I'll accomplish/ My final wish/ To see the sunrise

But I'm not going to break/ It's said and done/ If I can't walk away/ Then I'll run

Where's the sense in it all/ I wasn't planning to fall/ But it seems I've seen my final defeat/
And now I'm slipping away/ Is this my final mistake/ I'm so incomplete/ I need you with me/ Cos I can't see the end of this mystery

Break the chains/ I need a change/ Will I be stuck forever/ And once again/ I'm to blame/
Can we get it back together

I haven't got this far/ Just to fall apart/ I need you more than anyone knows/ I see the truth in these moonlight shadows
(c) copyright Mayday 08

I was so glad when we'd finished it. Bring on the next one!!

Jordan

the new car

wow we have a new car now! Its a real flash Subaru. The seats look they were made for boy racers. They probably were actually.
Anyway Mum and Dad picked it up on Sunday. Unfortunately there wasn't enough room in the car for me and Dan so we went to William & Mitchell's and bounced from the shed roof onto the tramp which kept us occupied for four hours!
Anyway Mum took us for a spin in the car today for the first time. It had a cd player so we put on Daughtry. It was awesome. And now Beka's claimed the other car so we can go on heaps of mean roadtrips.
nate

My weekend

Ok I have been studying my brain out this weekend. Along with playing pool, ping-pong, embracing my pyromaniacness, not txting anyone for a full day, and what's worse not touching my guitar AT ALL for a whole day!!!!!!!!! =O =O =O =O
Along the way I managed to cook up some mince (which apparently with the right combination of mince, nachos and sour cream tasted like catfood- I was severely insulted I tell you), managed to avoid getting pulled out in rips, stared at stars, tried whirling a fire-stick, got in numerous arguments about Pirates of the Caribbean 3, got up to question 120 in the 2006 version of the road code, ate lolly cake, looked at stars, slept under a ping-pong table, wrote out a sign in charcoal, played the most funny game of Supersnap, heard crazy storys involving rubber chickens*, got mad cos I missed a Kingston concert =(), listened to music lots, sung happy birthday, ate M+Ms, jumped over waves and got very wet, watched people try to light some sand on fire, avoided getting sunburnt, saw the coolest sunrise (it was red as!!!) got my photo taken, forgot my toothbrush, had to brush my teeth with my finger, walked through cutting grass in the dark, watched a very funny spoof of the Terminator, used a wooden plak as a fireman's pole, sunk some pool balls, read reader's digest, listened to 12 days of Christmas by Relient K which is the funniest song ever, had milo, used most of my phone's battery by playing a game, and had the best weekend I've had in a long,long time!

Jordan

*It's complicated, I'll explain later

I'm smart

Man I havn't written a blog for so long I almost forgot how to sign in.
Smart.
Jordan

My drumkit has soul.

I have to admit it seriously does.
nate

Wow..

Check out our new header! It's called the missing shoe. Amazing how one picture can tell a whole story.
nate

one of those days..........

Just thought I'd blog a really quick post, not that we've been up to much today. Practiced a bit more as usual. Read a few books, watched some tv.
Nothing spectacular.
It's been one of those mundane days. Even the weather hasn't been doing it's job. I mean it's spring but it's been rain, rain,rain lately in our small town.
I think I'm waiting for summer.
Reminds me of a song from one of my favourite cd's, Mhmmm [Reliet K], called High of 75. When I first heard the title I thought it was talking about 1975 but actually it's all about the weather.

We were talking together/ I said what's up with this weather/ Don't no whether or not how sad I just got/ Was on my own volition or if I'm just missing the sun

And tomorrow I know will be rainy at best/ And the forecast I know is that I'll be depressed/ But I'll wait outside hoping that I catch sight of the sun

Because on and off/ The clouds have fought/ For control over the sky/ And lately the weather has been so pi-polar/ And consequently so have I

But now I'm sunny with a high/ Of 75/ Since you took my heavy heart/ And made it light/ And it's funny how you find you enjoy your life/ When you're happy to be alive

And the temprature is freezing and then after dark/ There's a cold front sweeping in over my heart/ And we might break up/ If I don't wake up to the sun

Now that's a good song to listen to on day's like today.
And that's enough about the weather.

Jordan

Halelujah

Right so yesterday I spent all night teaching myself a song.
Someone randomly decided that I should look up the chords for Halelujah, a song by Paramore.
So I found this website which not only had the chords but had this video of this guy playing it on guitar. It was so cool!
The chords wern't actually that much help so I watched the video a few times and figured out what he was doing. I was stoked!
I only managed to get the opening done though but it was time to go to bed then.
I might finish the rest off now though.
And we got the chorus of Moonlight Shadows finished today, and the whole song is almost finished. It sounds great.
Gotta go!

Jordan

P.s I'll probably see if I can learn Wishes and Dreams next! I love that song!!

It sounds awesome..

Gosh..... our song sounds sooooo good.. So far we've got up to the second verse and it's sounding really awesome.
And me and Jords looked up a music video of this awesome as Paramore song on YouTube. He watched it and we somehow figured it out. So we've been playing it all day. Sort of. Jords will tell you the full story of that anyway.
Nate

$1 icecream day

Hello everybody!

I guess lots of people have been enjoying Labour weekend but actually up until about Saturday I didn't know it was Labour weekend. That just shows how well-informed I am.

Anyway today was extra special cos it was $1 icecream day! So everyone went and bought icecreams.

Me and Beka decided to be special and go get icecream in Woodville, so we went on a big roadtrip with a few of Beka's friends.

It was great fun.

And today we wrote the pre chorus of our new sog and we were going to do the chorus but ran out of time =(

We also went on a random run this morning which was about 4 km and I got so puffed and I've decided that I am officially really out of shape.

Having the silly ski injury doesn't really help much either!

Anyway that's about it for today. It was mint!

Jordan

must fly

Oh bother I've just remembered I havn't finished my guitar practice. So sorry but I must leave and play Tears in Heaven now.
It's like the meanest song ever.
Gotta go
Jaws

Moonlight Shadows

Oh man I'm really excited now because we've just got some awesome news.

First up we started writing Moonlight Shadows today at last which I was stoked about.

We tried to get the first verse done, but it didn't work to well. Turns out I'd written the start line with a tune similar to the start of Innocent. Nice one. It's funny how much of what you listen to leaks subconciously through your writing.

Then we decided that I'd go into our room and write a mean as introduction on the guitar while the keyboard men (N8 and Dan obviously) would write the verse.

And by the way we decided we wouldn't use the violen opening. It sounds cool but when we tried to write it the other day (when I hadn't written the lyrics, i.e about 3 weeks ago) me and Dan decided to practice it and ended up playing it about 50 times and by the end we were all heartily sick of it. There's only so much you can take. =)

So we decided it didn't fit.

Anyway so off I went into our bedroom and I made up the meanest ever opening. Then Nate got me in and he's like do you have anything and I said yeah but it's in the wrong key. But I played it to him anyway and he thought it was awesome.

Then we made it even better cos he made up this really cool strum which fits it so well. We practiced the opening with drums several times.

Then after peeling some potatoes for tea we went and polished off the opening and showed it to Dan then made up the entire first verse. Just like that. It was so cool.

Then we had to stop cos by now it was about half past six!

But we might finish it off tomorrow. If the rest of the song sounds as good, it'll be the best song we've ever done.

So we're quite proud of ourselves.

And guess what? At dinner Dad told us he'd ordered a part for that amp so he can finally get on to fixing it now!!!!!!!!!!

At last we will be able to hear Daniel.

Jordan

Yeah Beka!

High-fives all around - Beka got her full licence today! She got 93%! Nice one Buzz!
(Nate)

Guitars rock

Just in case everyone's wondering we did fix up Out of it All and it sounds millions better now cos we've added fiddly bits and it's all going great.
At the moment I'm really hoping I can get a job cos I've just decided I reeaaallly want a special effects pedal.
Or a new guitar.
Ok I'm not that drastic yet but my guitar isn't the best on the block.
But it's very extremly handy and I love it actually.
And the other day I was going to put I wish you were here on our blog but unfourtunatly it didn't have one of those funny music players which they have on myspace.
So then I tried to post it on like how we did our poor video of Break this Silence but that didn't work either.
Then again maybe that's a good thing because we peformed it quite badly.
And in the background you can hear Josh toppling dominoes.

Jordan

The coolest photo ever.....

I'm reallllly loving this picture of me at the moment..

nate

Mean pictures...

Well you see yesterday we went on a photoshoot. And it was realllllly cold. We got hot chips & ate them while taking pictures. There's this NZ Photo Competition.. I feel pretty sure we're going to win it with the awesome pictures we took. Here's us eating chips.... Then we took heaps of pictures of us being crazy... oh it was fun.. Oh and my hair was looking really cool... Beka gave me this awesome rhaircut and now I look like a rockstar..
This is the story of the missing shoe. It says a lot. And this picture's awesome.
Yea it was heaps of fun,

Nate

I Wanna Live

Like today could be my last day

To give

All I have before its too late

Goodbye to all the fear and doubt

Cause this love is what Life's about

-Stellar Kart

I need to write a drum solo..

Yes I do. A loooong one.

We need to write more songs.

We do. Cos some of the ones I wrote when we were first starting out aren't that great and now I think that I'm a much better songwriter.
The problem is however we've been off our feet trying to get everything fine with the new layout and the drums we're they're supposed to be and me in time, and Dan learning some of the songs on the keyboard and trying to persuade Dad to build us that amp for Dan's microphone (which he still hasn't done!) that there's not much time for writing new stuff.
Cos honestly we havn't written anything for our new line-up. The only thing we've done was
I wish you were here and that dosen't really count. It's kind of a bit annoying. Maybe our songs will sound better if we write for our instruments.
Not that I'm going to give up on all of our older songs. There's still Cling to the Cross, Turn on the Lights, Under this Sun, Around, and The Complaint to do.
*Deep sigh*
We'll find a way somehow. It's just a lot of work to do.
Well at least we can't say we're not busy.
With any luck it'll be all sounding sweet (like Stellar Kart [i wish!] haha) by 2010.
Bring it on!

Jordan

Rock-climbing

We havn't been doing much lately. We had a pretty terible practice yesterday. Two guesses.
I was out of time again!!! =O
Anyway enough about that.
Onto the good side.
Which happened to be Friday. (*Man I havn't blogged for ages!*) Me and Buzz went up to Flaxmere with the youth group to go rockclimbing. Mum came to and she didn't climb anything. She just got ropeburn. [that was probably my fault............] . Anyway up we climbed afer the instructer had given a far to long (not to mention boring) speech about how to rock climb. I'd already been before so me and Chris were like "Far out just get on with it!"
When we FINALLY were allowed to start climbing I zoomed up the wall........well kinda, then the instructer tells us to get down and swap with our belaying partners.
I was annoyed, to say the least.
Hehe anyway I managed to climb six walls over the course of the night and it was awesome. My hands did end up a little sore but that's all part of the fun.
The hardest one was probably the last one I was quite stuck there for a bit but I managed to make it all the way to the top.
There'd be a really good view of Flaxmere from there cos you're really high up (about 15 metres). The only problem is they don't have any windows. Kinda silly but I guess it's one less thing to worry about getting vandalized.
And you know the scariest thing about rock-climbing? When you're halfway up a wall clinging to a rock -which is far to small and attached to the wall by screws- and then it moves under you!!!!!
Of course you're all safely harnessed up and stuff but it's still quite freaky.
Anyway after that was all done we drove home. And listened to Linkin Park. Not the dodgy songs, the few good ones.
It was a awesome night.
I gotta do it again
Jaws

Not so bad..

Jords doesn't want to write the blog - he wants to do his guitar practice so much cause he hasn't done it today. And its 9:00 by the way! :-)
So its my turn again.
I just noticed today, actually, that when you think of something bad, its not as bad when you do it. Take our paper-run for instance. We think - bother, the paper-run again - but its not as bad as we actually think it is.
Here comes Jords.
Nate

Songs songs & more songs

Well right now I'm loving that song Tears In Heaven. When Jords plays it on the guitar me and Beka are like, teach me that bit now! And he just rolls his eyes.
But I seriously just want to play that song! It sounds soooo cool! And then I can show off to everyone! But I have to say I want to play Zero by Hawk Nelson more!
Nate

Life is interesting.

Well I'm utterly bored right now, actually. Mum and Jords and Beka are rock climbing with the Youth Group. And Dad's sick in bed. So I have to look after the little kids again. 8-D

Out of it all

Wow guess what? We fixed up another one of our songs yesterday, one of the best one's I've written: Out of it All. It was surprisingly easy actually cos it's a mostly guitar song, and we just had to add drums really. Though it may be a tad simple, and I might see if we can add a few fiddly bits (which always make it sound better.) And the next song we're going to do is Turn on the Lights, then another slow song.....

And another exciting piece of news....apparantly you can apply for your band to go on the Debut stage at Parachute!
Not that I'm going to-not yet anyway! I think it'd be better to get everything sounding a lot better (including vocals) and maybe practice a bit on a few local stages before heading to the big event.
Oh well Parachute still will be awesome without Mayday!
Maybe in 2010
Jordan

Barricade the road that goes nowhere

I choose the true road to somewhere

-Parachute Band

nate

Cooler than ever...

Wow today when we did band practice and all got carried away and went hardcore on our song Kiwi On my Wall. Its a really catchy, groovy, song. Its a totally pointless song. Jords and Dan jumped up and down a lot. I couldn't really though.
And Beka cut my hair tonight which was rather exciting. Now I apparently look like a rockstar!
nate

Sea of faces

Yes this song is by Kutless.. a very cool band indeed.

And I'm not just a man

Who's been lost in this world
Lost in a sea of faces

nate

Home is best....

Oh man I'm sore all over! My legs and arms ache and my lips are sunburnt! Aaaaarrgh!!! But I had the meanest weekend of my life - it was sooooo much fun! There wasn't anything bad about it. The camp we stayed at was really cool - especially the table soccer..
But home is best....
Nate

Kutless are my next favourite band

This is a real quick post to say that I really love Kutless and I am so ever excited that they are coming to Parachute. Kerry let me borrow two cds and some of their songs are so awesome. They are so my next favourite band. Their rocky songs are really energetic and they'd be so mean to see live.
I am so going to mosh.
And the troops are all back now but the little kids are sick so we can't do band practice. =(
Nate's even more annoyed, though, cos he can't do drum practice with his brand new Rapture Ruckus drumsticks which Beka gave him.
And she got me a Kingston cd too and it's real cool. 8-0
Jordan

I'm all alone (in a crowd)

It dosn't quite make sense but it's true.
All my bros except Josh are off playing soccer up by the Lake and Buz is off to a concert, moshing to Rapture Ruckus, Mumsdollar and Kingston as I speak.
Well maybe not exactly now. But you know.
I just want to go to a concert right now and let the music wash over me while I'm jumping up and down.
It won't be a pernament soloution but it might help.
I don't even know if there is a pernament soloution.
Maybe you just have to live until you die.
I don't understand life.
It's a rollercoaster. Well I can't exactly say that cos I've never been on a rollercoaster before, so I can't draw any comparisims. But it goes up and down dosn't it? Like life.
Jordan

I'm cool........

Hey has anybody ever played guitar in the back of the van? Cos it seriously is the funnest thing to do when your practicing. Just make sure you have the van to yourself or certain members of the family might get annoyed with you playing the same song over and over and over. Which is what I mainly do in my guitar practice.
We were up in Palmy today and I was going "Arghh! I won't be able to do my guitar practice!" This would have been a very tragic tale indeed if someone hadn't had the brainy idea to bring it along (and no it wasn't my idea) So inbetween listening to Life Fm/my Mp3 (which is what I mostly did all day), I practiced my guitar in the back of the van. The seats were up so there was a bit of space and we brought Nate's beanbag too and it was quite comfy. Except I kept getting hot.
But oh well the experience was worth it.
You really should give it a go.
Of course it wouldn't quite be the same if you tried it with drums.
You'd probably go deaf in such an enclosed space.
Unless you were wearing headphones.
Which you bought from The Rip-off Chinese Trading Company, and were cheap junk. So you went deaf anyway.
Thus proves the advantage of guitar over drums.
Anyway, I've wandered off the subject.
So yes. That is what happened to me today.
Jaws

Nothing much..

Well I'm pretty excited right now. Tomorrow me and Dan are going up to Taupo on a bus for a soccer tournament. That's going to be mean as. And today the builder totally redid our sunroom. Lastnight there was a big hole in our wall and now there's a new sliding door there. It looks really weird.
Anyway today me and Jords did our song I wish you were here quite perfectly. It sounded really good.
Gotta go now
Nate

Randomly random

Today was the randomest day ever and I did absolutely no work to our band. But I did practice my song we recorded yesterday with the metronome to get my timing up to crack. I'm not sure f it worked, but yeah. Hopefully if I keep doing that my subconscious mind might catch on to something and play in time.

Oh yes and I'm writing a new song-but that's still not news cos I haven't finished it yet. I'm taking it nice and slow.

Here's some pictures we took the other day of us rocking the house down.

Jordan

Exciting news (very) 8-D

Okay...... so we tried to record Jordan's song "I wish you were here" yesterday on his mp3 which had a really low budget recording device on. And it didn't sound too great. Well, we were in luck today. One of Dad's friends was staying the night, and he happened to have an $800.00 recording device on him, that he uses for recording sermons.
Well he let us use it to record one song. We chose I Wish You were Here, so got down to it straight away.
Jords made a few mistakes and we got a bit out of time when the drums kicked in, but apart from that it went pretty well.
We listened to it afterwards. The recording device makes it sound so clear and perfect!
It took up 46 megabites, but it was worth it. We copied it onto our mp3's.
So that was real cool. And I'm going to listen to it it all the way to Waipukarou tomorrow. I have a dentist appointment. Aaaargghhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Wish me luck.
haha, cya
nate
P.S. If we can put it on our blog we will, so keep watching!

I Hate having not enough time

Not that I did today it's just that Nate and Dan went off to do soccer practice for 1/2 the day so I was left to do the paper run by myself.
Ok with Josh and Mummy and Kezi too, which was very helpfull cos if I had of done it by myself I would have got lost.
I'm not joking. I would have. I have absolutly NO idea what streets Nate and Dan do. I probably would have ended up on the other side of town. But yeah. After that I was stuffed so I just sat down and read my book. Well I couldn't exactly do band practice could I?
Not by myself anyway.
Man it was annoying!
And then when they finally got home, turns out Dan had a headache!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Just my luck. I wanted to record a song too but yeah. =(
Still I guess there was one cool thing. Me and Nate practiced Turn on the Lights which has to be one of the bestest songs I've ever written and we just did it how we used to with me on the guitar and Nate playing the keyboard.
Oh it was good.
I just like it like that. Its ever so complicated when we get Dan trying to play the keyboard. Not that he's not good at it. In fact he's quite awesome and is getting along better than I expected. It's just the simple fact that you can play a song better when you've written it yourself.
(Which Dan has yet to do).
Apart from that it's going quite well apart from the fact that if we had a concert right now it probably wouldn't be even quarter of an hour long as we only have four songs completly fixed up.
Oh well.
Motto for the day: Smile when it sucks.

Jordan

Happy Birthday!

Well I was going to put up a picture of a cake but i don't have one haha so you'll have to just imagine one =).
Anyway today is October the Fifth which is a special day!!!!
So Happy Birthday to Jacob! He used to be my bestest friend then he moved to New Plymoth it was very sad.
I havn't caught up with him since early January which was quite a long while ago now, but anyway he's still one of my bestest friends. People you know from when you were two always are the best of friends.
Thats my theroy anyway.
He's sixteen now. That sounds really ancient. He's probably got his restricted and potters round the city in a beat-up car!
Na I'm joking if I know Jacob he'll be in his room drawing.
Happy birthday mate!
Jordan

Driving lesson

right now i'm brushing my teeth. seriously i am. anyway i'm going to write my blog really quickly before we go to church.
so we havn't been up to much lately except constant band practice i must say we're getting quite a lot better at playing together thankfully and i swapped my pick for a less thick one so now hopefully my guitar strings won't break.
hopefully.
anyway yesterday i had a drivig lesson it was loads of fun. i was quite good actually and i even passed two cars man i'm skillfull. so now i've made up my mind that i'm going to study the road code so i can get my learners. even though it's boring =(
oh well got to go now.

jordan

I'm lost for words

Most of the time I seriously am lost for words though. And it's not because I've seen something amazing. It's when I'm trying to say something but I forget the word at the end of the sentence. Or I forget how to say it so it comes out wrong. I can still remember when I said I thought a cat was very 'solomon'. I meant to say solemn actually but it didn't come out right.
It can get very annoying aye.
Actually I wrote "I'm lost for words" cos I didn't know what to write about.
Jordan

Failures and Violins make a bad mix

Guess what?

We didn't write the song. I had a feeling it wouldn't work that way. I just couldn't think of anything at all except not-so-great rhymes and the other guys weren't helping much at all. =(

So we ended up getting nothing done except playing the opening a million times and man did I get sick of that violin. Not that I have anything against violins really. When they're background that is, they sound really cool. They just can be, what's the word, squeaky. I don't like squeaky things. Well okay, mice are pretty cute and I like Guinea Pigs a bit too (especially the late Darth Hamster) but animals aside I don't go much for squeaks. Especially in instruments.

But we finally found a use for Daniel's violin in our band (Something we actually were trying to when we started our band; in one of our songs-Cling to the Cross -it was going to be a violin song. So after I wrote the words I gave it to Daniel to turn into a song, and the long and short of it was we didn't like his version so we stuffed it and wrote it on the piano and I said we could teach Daniel the tune and he could play it on his violin but he said he couldn't so I didn't press it and that was the first time we tried to put a violin in one of our songs)

Anyway, as I was saying, we'd finally found a use for Daniel's violin but what use is a really cool opening if you don't have a song for it.

Then Nate suggested we make it an instrumental but I didn't like that idea so I tried (unsuccessfully) to write it myself. It didn't quite work out the way I wanted, so I couldn't be bothered any more, and that was the end of that.

I think if I really want to get it done, I'll keep thinking about it until some words get in my head, then I'll write them down on a bit of paper in my room and then get out my faithful accoustic guitar, which I actually like better than my eletric on the account that none of it's strings have broken and it sounds cooler, and then I'll fit music to the words.

That's how I wrote I wish you Were Here anyway and it seemed to work.

Anyway, speaking of I wish you Were Here I'm thinking of recording that song. Seriously. I don't know if I'll be able to get it on my blog or not but if I actually do it, and it all sounds good, considering I'm going to record it on my tiny Mp3 (which for real bands isn't the best option but hey we're on a limited budget here.) , I'll give it my best shot.

Jordan

Ps. Daniel still hasn't got an amp yet so we can't record anything else yet sorry.

My guitar string broke today

I'm pretty stoked cos I'm discovering new bands all over the place so I'm obviously going to have to update my influences.
Also we checked out some of the people who are coming to Parachute, there was this cool as band called Arms Reach who kind of looked about as crazy as us (if that's humanly possible) and this other mean band called Smalltown Heroics. Kind of a random name but we had a listen on their website and man did they sound cool. Kind of a New Zealand version of Stellar Kart. I wish we could say that about Mayday!!!!
They have DEFINITELY influenced us (Stellar Kart that is) but the unfortunately the similarities end there.
I guess if there's a band we sound like it's ummmm................... I can't think of any! I guess that means we're original then. And I like originalaty. (If that's a word that is. If it's not it is now cos I've just made it up. It's very original.)
Anyway yeah. That's what we've been hearing.
Oh and we heard Moala's sole project today too! She's in Mana3 by the way. It sounded really cool. Except for I wasn't listening properly cos I was changing one of my guitar strings. Silly guitar. Since I got it about four months ago, all it's strings except one have broke.
At least I know how to change it quickly now as long as I have a screwdriver, a spare string, a decent pair of sidecutters and guitar tuner.
Musn't forget them if we ever have a concert.

Jordan

New song on the way!

Today we were going to write a song but we didn't get around to it. The usual way that we write our songs is to wake up at 6:00 in the morning. Then we write the music for the song on the keyboard. After that we fit in the drums and guitar into it and practice it until we know it good enough.
That's getting a tad boring now. Too much work. So we're going to write our next song, Moonlight Shadows, altogether, and just sing the tune how it sounds right - the Ground Zero way!
And now I have to finish cause I want to draw cartoons.
Seeya,
Nate

Wake me up when September ends

Yup, I love that song!!!

And guess what? We finally got one of our songs perfectly fixed up. It sounded so perfect, something I didn't believe was possible yesterday.

(It's mostly cos Nate is playing quiter-good on him!!!!) And for once my guitar is on time. YAY!!!!!

So I'm happy aye.

By the way I so totally want this:

It's a Vox guitar organ with 18 knobs!!!! Oh you could do so much with that guitar.

The only problem is for some reason the idea never caught on and only about 80 were made so the chances of getting one is very rare because even if I do find one for sale it's going to be like $8000 at least.

So I guess I'll just have to admire it's picture. Haha.

Jordan

This blog is a contradiction

You know what?
It's funny how your opinions change over time. When I first started my blog I was raving on about how I really wanted a drummer for our band and it would be so mean and bla bla bla bla.
Well back then I was of the notion that Nate wouldn't be the drummer, but now he is. So today I found myself thinking "Man I liked it back in the old days when Nate was on the keyboards. It was so much easier, we pretty much were in time, and we could hear ourselves think (and sing). But now it's bash bash bash and I get out of time heaps."
Don't tell Nate I said that.

Jordan

We didn't write that song.

It's the last day of the month.
Boy I sure got discouraged today. =( Not again. It was mostly because I always get out of time in the guitar it sucks so bad. I really think it's a major problem cos we can never be a decent band if I'm always off time.
I figured out though that we need to simplify our songs. They're to complicated. And when they're complicated we all get confused. All we need is a catchy tune and a bit of a background beat. All sorted. So we're going to do that tomorrow.
By the way, we didn't write that song anyway. How did I know?
Mostly because our 'songwriting sessions' never work out well. Actually we didn't get time to do it today.
Anyway my moral for today is to never give up once you've started cos once you've hit the bottom the only way to go is up.
And if it dosn't work at least you can't say you never tried.

Jordan
Ps. I'm still smiling!!!!!!! =)

The story of a Jellybaby.

Well once upon a time, in a supermarket, yes that's right, a supermarket, called New World actually ( or rather it was just called New World,), there was a jellybaby.

The jellybaby lived in a case full of friends and he had a good life staring out through cool plastic wondering what the funny people were doing.

Until one day a giant SCOOP came in a nd picked him right up and he was put in a clear plastic bag with a whole lot of very scary lollys (especially the eskimo). Then they were moving all around the place, and out of the supermarket, after a brief stop at the counter, and the bag was swaying and very soon the jellybaby felt seasick. Or rather it felt bagsick. Whatever.

Then it stopped and the jellybaby was taken out into fresh air, and he was just admiring the vies when SNAP! a bright camera flash errupted in his eyes. The Jellybaby thought he'd gone blind but he hadn't really he was just a bit of a drama queen that's all. And for the record, he didn't have any eyes either which kind of makes it hard to go blind.

Then to his horror, a head loomed in, and this is the scary part,

HIS HEAD WAS BITTEN OFF!

and I'm afraid to say the rest of him followed.

Jordan

I love mustaches

Today was great!!!!
You know in those random sorts of ways when you invite some friends round, film some very funny and extremly pointless movies (about science-fiction superheroes) and then spend the rest of the time mucking about.
It was loads of fun, and it showed me that life isn't just one big battle where you have to soldier on every day. It's a battle all right but there's some breaks. Thank goodness.
And tomorrow we're planning to write a song. Hahaha! I don't see what's so funny, but yeah.
It remains to be seen if we'll actually do it, even if we are prepared. Sometimes plans go wrong....
I'm smiling.

Jordan
Ps. I love mustaches. Is that how you spell it?
Time to turn the spell checker on I see.