in a flash: the cavashawn diaries

cavashawn diary 11/4/09: tales of celebrity in three cities

2009-11-04T00:24:00.011-05:00

If there was a common thread in these past few weeks, it may have been our continued brushes with quasi-celebrity. Now, lets face it, with reality TV being such a phenomenon and the media becoming an all-consuming 24-hour machine constantly making people famous for nothing, celebrity isn't all that uncommon these days. But that doesn't make it any less exciting now, does it?

The Big Man (with a Small Ego) on Campus
If you take I-80 West through Illinois, across the mighty Mississippi River and past the World's Largest Truck Stop, you'll find yourself in Iowa City, home of the University of Iowa. We were there last Saturday for a show supporting Chicago scene vets Lucky Boys Confusion (members of whom are currently in AM (American) Taxi. Iowa is a newer Midwestern state for us, but it's slowly becoming a more familiar dot on the map.

I was vaguely aware the Iowa Hawkeyes were having an excellent football season, but after witnessing a bar full of Hawkeye faithful explode after a dramatic last-second win over Michigan State (to stay undefeated), the point was seared into my mind. The Hawkeyes were heroes in the national spotlight. Students were in a great mood, and the show was a blast. We had fun hanging out with some of the other bands, including Danger Is My Middle Name, and got to spend time with friends. It was a night on the Big-10 college town in all its glory.

<--champions go big. they go for the venti.

We awoke to an absolutely perfect, crisp, fall Sunday morning in Iowa City. With the sky a brilliant blue and and tree-lined streets bursting with yellow, orange, and red, it was almost as if we walked into a U of I brochure, except for maybe the occasional puddle of vomit on the sidewalk. What better way to begin this day than with a cup of coffee from one of the quaint shoppes uptown? Apparently we had the same idea as Kirk Ferrentz, head football coach and the reigning BMOC. The man himself walked right in behind us at Starbucks! He had most likely flown back from Michigan after the game and was starting maybe one of the greatest Sundays of his life with a venti coffee. Scott struck up a conversation and we briefly conversed with the guy. I'm happy to report, that, despite totally being a man at the possible pinnacle of his career, he was a friendly, humble dude. An authentic Big-10 college town moment. Priceless.

A few days later & a few hundred miles south on the Mississippi
If it were 1875 and we were traveling via steamboat, it might have taken us 4 days to get from Iowa to STL. But since we were with van, it back to Chicago before heading southwest again. Yes, it was back to St. Louis for the first time since June. We were headlining a bill with our friends The Hey Day and State & Madison, and there was a good crowd out, especially considering it was Wednesday. We have some incredible fans in St. Louis, and it really is always a pleasure to play there. I have nothing but great memories associated with the city.

If you're wondering if we met Nellie, the answer is no. But if you'll remember correctly, Cicero's is the spot where we first met Todd, singer of John Boys Courage and former(?) host of Cicero's open mic. Well, since we last saw Todd, a lot has changed for him. Puff Daddy transormed Todd's life, and I don't mean in the way that you felt when you first heard "Come With Me" on the Godzilla soundtrack.

<--todd, just as intense in real life as he is on MTV

As we flipped through television channels a few months ago, we came across Starmaker, apparently PDiddy's & MTVs response to American Idol. As we sat on our high horses, bashing every contestent from the safety of couch (us being broke musicians watching Starmaker in our living room mind you), none other than Todd popped onto the screen. The same insanely intense dude we watched host Tuesday night open mic was in the running to be Diddy's next star. 5 weeks later we watched him lose in the finals. Runner-up. We didn't see Todd Wednesday, but we couldn't help but think of him. Maybe only a few people watch MTV these days, but damnit, 4 of us were there on stage.

Hey, Hey Heey...Keep Pushing Guys...
From St. Louis it was I-70 to I-74 to Covington, KY a stones throw across the Ohio River from Cincinnati, just a few miles from where we grew up.

Every year NACA (National Associaton of Campus Activities) holds a regional convention for the Mid-America conference. Colleges from Illinois, Michigan, Indiana, Michigan, PA, Ohio & Kentucky converged in Covington to see and hire on-campus entertainment for the spring. This entails 3 days of showcasing comedians, musicians, a capella cross-dressers, a guy who shows reptiles, pretty much anything college students might find entertaining. We found ourselves working with our NACA agency trying to win votes for on-site showcase. All of the attendees vote in one lucky group (of the 30 or so extra acts who showed up) to showcase on the last day, Saturday.

SO the four of us sat in our Auburn Moon Agency booth and tried to sell every single person who walked by to vote for our band. Luckily these were some of the most open-minded music-loving students in the Midwest, so regardless, it was a great opportunity to meet a lot of new potential fans. But it required constant hustling and persistence. It was tough, and, well, we had to keep pushing. We needed inspiration. We needed an inspirational figure, a leader, to show us the way. But who?

That's Dennis Haskins, but you may know him as Mr. Belding, the principal from Saved By The Bell. Yes, Mr. Belding. A massive, massive figure from our generation's youth. There he was, sharing our booth (also booked by Auburn Moon) giving us words of wisdom. "Keep pushing guys", he kept telling us. And that we did. How could possibly we let Mr. Belding down?

<--he's still kicking. hard. thanks mr. belding, you really know just what to say and when.

So we went on to win the showcase, voted in by students of the heartland. It was amazing. We played Saturday and had a blast hanging out with so many friends (some old, some new) including The Hey Day, Tim Blaine, and We Shot The Moon. We met tons of students and will be playing a hefty amount of on-campus shows this spring.

We're back in Chicago for the next month or so working on a bunch of new songs and improving our acoustic set, which we'll be showing off December 1st at Schubas as a part of the New York Songwriters Circle Chicago Showcase.

cavashawn diary : catching up

2009-10-11T14:04:00.002-05:00

So I realize my last post was in July. It's October. I've had some time off from blogging, but I've been busy doing my best to survive. We've really had our hands full traveling, promoting, and trying to make enough dough to pay our rent. Things are moving along and we continue to make great progress, but reality is, well, reality. Our rent is cheap but we're just not making enough money to get by on the band alone anymore. It's time to dig in and really survive. We still want to travel, expand our fanbase and promote our shows the way we know they need to be promoted. In order to do this, we have to make more money. So we're scraping up odd-ball jobs and doing our best to keep the ship afloat, and the blog took a backseat.

But I really do miss the writing, and I realized I'm doing myself a disservice by not keeping up with what we've been up to. I like looking back at my blog and seeing my thoughts and reflections on events as they happened. It's interesting to compare hindsight with those (almost) real-time thoughts and feelings. My own selfish motives have drawn me back to the blogosphere.

When I originally started "The Cavashawn Diaries", there was no such thing as twitter, and I wanted to keep things updated daily. Twitter has pretty much blown up since then, and we keep the cavashawn twitter page updated all day everyday. If you want to know what's going on in our world, that's a go-to.

So in light of a busy schedule and the ever-changing technological landscape, I'm changing the format of this blog a bit. Think less documentation, more reflection, insight, etc. Every Monday (starting tomorrow) I'm going to post an entry that attempts to wrap up the week. I think this might be more realistic. A weekly blog. We'll see how it goes.

cavashawn diary: THEFT

2009-07-28T00:06:00.007-05:00

<-thanks to sarah daniel for this shot at WPF saturday.

It was bound to happen eventually. I think I knew deep down that it just couldn't last forever. Yes, I always knew someday I'd have to part ways with my Fall '99 LL Bean backback. I just didn't expect it to be this way. But then again you never do.

Yes, someone entered our van and stole our video camera and my backpack, which happened to have my vest, 2 t-shirts, jeans, my wallet, my iPod, and the band's phone. It sucks, but it could've been much worse. How I will replace this stuff, I'm not sure, but my wallet had no money in it (ha!), and I did have my Blackberry and sunglasses on my body. It could have been much, much worse. It's incredible how quickly something like that went down. We were right next to the van loading in and out, at no point more than 40 yards away. Lesson learned.

<- chi street team badass nikki was, um, on fire saturday

But besides that, Wicker Park Fest was a blast. We had some sound issues, but the concert was excellent. There was a great crowd to check us out and street festitivals in the summer are just plain fun. We stuck around to check out the headlining set by our friends Treaty of Paris at 8 on the same stage. It was a jolly summer weekend, the kind that make Chicago winters worth the wait.

cavashawn diary : 7/16/09

2009-07-16T21:16:00.007-05:00

And so we closed a chapter in the Cavashawn story last week. The EP that started in October (and RE-started in January) took us to the West Coast for the first time and solidified our current musical identity is now out for good everywhere. Sure, June 17th was the big day, and with iTunes, etc. a physical release isn't as practically necessary, but we wanted to have CD release shows in our four main cities. There's something both symbolic and meaningful about presenting the fruits of our labor to the people we're proud to have recruited as fans. And It so worked out that Milwaukee was the last of these four cities. Summerfest was just too right of a place to do it.

For us, Summerfest has become a great summer tradition. The festival truly celebrates and supports bands and musicians, particularly ones from the Midwest. The fact that such a well run, well executed festival exists and supports up-coming-artists while still featuring so many hugely world-wide popular acts is downright special.

This year it was bigger, better, more exciting for us - basically it was moving up from the kids table to the adults table at Thanksgiving. The past two years we played a smaller stage, in the afternoon, to a few hundred people. It was still incredible, easily our one of our favorite shows of the summer. Year 3 at Summerfest for us was in front of a large crowd, on the 4th of July, in the evening. It was one of the biggest crowds we've played in front of in a while, and it was, well, everything we could've hoped for.

Thanks to everyone who voted for us during the set and online, we ended up winning the "Emerging Artist of the Day". Summerfest hooks it up. We won about $600 worth of much needed gear. Cymbals, microphones, headphones - we were thrilled. Summerfest was nothing short of spectacular. We made the drive back to Chicago that night feeling very much alive and very much Midwestern.

Chapter 2: Tales of Other Great Cities of the Midwest, Particularly That One in Indiana

And so with the fresh scent of Milwaukee's Great Lake Coast still lingering in the confines of our big red machine, our next stop was the Indianapolis for an acoustic set at the VIP Lounge of the Verizon Wireless Music Center before the No Doubt/Paramore concert there. Despite a slight panic that set in as we realized we were really, really late, we managed to get set up and going in time for it to all work out. The acoustic set is coming along nicely, and we felt like it went over pretty well. We also got to check out both No Doubt and Paramore. Great concert. No Doubt absolutely brought the place down. We left impressed.

cavashawn diary : 6.28.09

2009-06-28T22:36:00.009-05:00

So last night we were at the Madison Theater in Covington, KY. Covington has all of the benefits of being in greater Cincinnati, just with three times as many drive-thru liquor stores and tobacco outlets.

Despite it being a relatively disorganized pre-show and general confusion abound, I think it was one of our best performances in Cincinnati ever. It was a phenomenal crowd, thanks in part to the fact that we were sharing the bill with Cincinnati vets July For Kings. People knew the words (even to the new songs!) and the energy was intense. Great crowd, great venue, good sound. I can't tell you how many times we haven't had that combo, so it's always refreshing to have things go so smooth. It was smooth despite there being one of those 'worst-case scenario moments' for drummers, and well, it was self-inflicted and my own stupid fault.

I had the terrible misfortune of blowing out a snare drum two songs into the set. I think I stripped a screw that connects the actual snares to the drum as we were setting up before the show. This has only happened to me once, 4 years ago, and it was a pretty big deal. The snare drum crack is the backbeat, literally the sound of rock time. It's the ticking of your watch, the smack that spits 2 & 4 in everyone's face - it's why drunk people dance at concerts. In short, it's the rock drummer's go-to. So you can imagine my horror when the beautiful, crisp punch of my favorite snare became the doughey slop of a non-snared snare drum. It sucks, and it sounds sooo bad.

So during the short section after our 2nd song where Scott was talking, I jumped back to grab my backup snare. We've been lugging around this backup snare to every show since this happened 4 years ago - just as a precaution. I frantically found that the backup snare was not in fact ready to play. Fuck, right? After all those years of lugging it around I don't have it ready to work. I really hate myself in those moments. Really. And so as Scott did his best to talk our way through it, I desperately searched for alternatives backstage. Luckily, Dan, drummer for July For Kings, was willing to let me borrow his snare for the rest of the set. Thank you Dan. The rest of the set was pretty excellent, but I am definitely putting my gear through the grinder this week. I'll be damned if that is ever going to happen again. Back to Chicago Tuesday morrning.

Here's a video (post-snare replacement) of Friendly Fire that Dave Hood shot last night. Thanks Dave!

cavashawn diary : 6.26.09

2009-06-26T20:15:00.007-05:00

SAINT LOUIS

<-you can thank the infamous scott feister for this pic of clifford in tow.

Summer is definitely here, and we are back to the good times of being on the road. Yesterday we made the trip from the shores of Lake Michigan to the banks of the Mississippi, tripping from Chicago to the great state of Missouri. The Midwest is green, corn seems to have been planted, and unfortunately, the Cardinals are atop the NL Central.

The show last night at Cicero's went particularly well. We had a great energetic crowd show up and I thought we played pretty well. Saint Louis is a unique place for us, because we started from scratch. We hardly knew anyone in Missouri when we started, and we haven't caught many breaks (i.e., opening for a larger band, etc.). We've slowly built a great fan-base in this music-loving town, mostly through the Internet. Early on we met some diehard music fans and worked together with them to get the word out about the band. We shipped out flyers and posters, coordinated on Facebook and MySpace, and have inched our way forward. It seems to have been working. People know the words, and the place was pretty full, primarily with our fans. St. Louis makes us believe we can do it. That's why, despite hating the Cardinals (like, really hate) I love the city.

Today was another hot, sunny day as we drove straight west through Illinois, Indiana, and into Ohio. We're in Cincinnati now, prepping for our show tomorrow night at The Madison Theater. It's late June in the Ohio River valley, complete with all the crickets, firecrackers, and humidity you may have come to expect. Summer! It's healthy.

cavashawn diary : 6.24.09

2009-06-25T00:59:00.004-05:00

And the incredible week that started last Wednesday sludges on. The CD was released 7 days ago today, and it has literally been an emotional blur of sweat, stress, and ultimately triumph. We're in the dog days of Summer, and it's unseasonably hot, gross, and muggy. Our bodies move more slowly in this heat, and we sweat sitting around the TV on the sofa, lights low with more noticably warm laptops burning our legs as we try to keep up with the flurry of Internet activity that has been the result of this CD's release. We are stealing feels of AC when we can.

There are about a million and one things going on right now, including the fact that we have an Emmy-winning documentary crew following us around shooting footage for a piece they're working on about entrepreneurship in the music biz. This is clearly awesome, but it also means we have two extra bodies in our already relatively crammed apartment. Life is chaotic right now, but it's amazing. My room is a mess. I need to do laundry in the worst way, but every single day has been jam-packed with one thing after another. Something as time-consuming as laundry simply does not seem to be a priority right now, so I continue to recycle clothes.

After Friday's show at Metro, the rest of the weekend was a bit disjointed, but necessary to re-charge. Chris and I ran around to a lot of the MobFest activities, and got drunk on Saturday night and stayed out late with Dan and Mike from The Fold, watching the sunrise as we finally got back to our apartment. It was awesome. And necessary. The past month has been extremely demanding, and Friday's show was something of a catharsis. It was a lot to grapple with, not so much putting out a CD and playing a show, but feeling the existential weight of knowing that everything, everything - every single day for the past 2 years, the personal struggles, the countless rehearsing, shitty shows, the merciless amount of work that is an endless, enduring reality - was devoted just to getting to where we were Friday night.

And was it a great place to be? Absolutely. There were clear moments that I felt as if I was living in a dream I had when I was 16. But I think what set in Friday for me at least, was the awareness that while I have poured every ounce of my mind, heart, and body for two years straight into this band (and the same is true of the other 3 guys too), we've done this all just to give ourselves a fighting chance. There are no guarantees, no clear light at the end of the tunnel, and no checkpoints to ensure that yes, you're doing the right thing, you're on the right path. All you have is your gut. If this is just the beginning, is it really going to be this hard? That was the question that was sinking in for me Friday. Not that the answer even really matters.

But it's an incredible high to be in the middle of this all. I think I've reached a new level of appreciation for life this week, a feeling of freedom that only comes from unshakeable commitment. And I think this heat is going to my head.

But enough of the heavy stuff. Off to St. Louis tomorrow. More updates via twitter and this blog as the weekend unfolds.

countdown to cavashawn: it's out!

2009-06-17T21:03:00.001-05:00

It's out! It's out! Stream it on MySpace, buy it on iTunes. Busy
day, but it's finally out!

Sent from my iPhone

countdown to cavashawn june 17th: 2 days!

2009-06-15T16:38:00.003-05:00

And we begin a big week. Posters are up, CDs have been shipped to people who pre-ordered, we have new merchandise in, and to be honest, I think we're all a bit whipped. It has been such an intense process - there are seemingly an endless amount of things we could be doing at any moment, but in the end, I guess we've done the best we could to get the word out - now we'll just see how it goes.

Thanks to the help of some incredible people on our street team, we have posters up all across Chicago, St. Louis, and Cincinnati. We sent out over 20,000 flyers to people in the mail with the hopes that they would find their way to some new fans. We've been putting in hours at the rehearsal space, trying to perfect the show, hoping that we'll be able to take these shows by storm.

At this point, it's up to everyone else. If you are reading this, post something on your facebook wall, or send an e-mail to people you know might be interested. This truly is a grassroots effort, and at this point, it's out of our hands. We'll be posting new music to our websites all week, so stay tuned.

countdown to cavashawn june 17th : 7 days

2009-06-10T11:48:00.002-05:00

Wednesday June 10th: 7 days till Cavashawn

1 Week!

A primary order Monday was getting a bunch of stuff shipped, including the CDs to our online store distributor in Florida. Being that the pre-order CDs are set to ship from the distributor Friday, Monday was the day they needed to get out of our apartment. I also went to LaSalle Power Co. downtown Monday night for a happy hour thing. We're in the process of putting together a show there in July, so we were working out some of the details.

And so yesterday was more of the same. Postering, organizing flyers via mail distribution, and then rehearsing. We're building our set for these CD release shows and working through all of the songs, trying to improve sections, and tighten up spots that might need some improvement.

And so today we're going to do some postering before going in to do some more rehearsal. These are not the sexiest days, but we're enjoying it.

countdown to cavashawn june 17th : 13 days

2009-06-05T01:55:00.004-05:00

Thursday June 4th - 13 Days till Cavashawn

I'm not even sure what exactly Ben is doing in this picture, but it's in the "Sierra Mist" green room at Q101. I wonder if Pepsi is pleased. We went down to tape a segment for Local 101, an institution of Chicago local music. The program will air this Sunday, and we'll be premiering Secret Satisfaction, a new song off of the EP.

Interesting experience. Q101 is smack right in the middle of Merchandise Mart, a huge building right across the river from the loop, pretty much in the heart of downtown Chicago. It's fancy and clean, kind of a reminder that, no matter how fucking cool the people who run the local music programs are (and trust me, they're pretty fucking cool) ultimately radio is big business. There is definitely some money changing hands. Whose hands I'm not sure, but I'm guessing it's not the folks who support local bands. Breaking into the system that is radio takes more than throwing up some posters up on a newspaper stand.

countdown to cavashawn june 17th : 14 days

2009-06-04T00:20:00.002-05:00

- The video is officially posted on our website and myspace pages! It's incredible how difficult this was, particularly for the media player on our site.

- Postering is going to happen tomorrow in & around Chicago's northside. We should be good to knock out a few zones with the help of some gracious and incredible volunteers. (Super Ranchers, if we were George W.)

- We also had a spotlight run on MySpace music's page today, which was cool. It's always nice to see when that goes down.

- Posted the Cavashawn Weekly to e-mail and to facebook. A lot of news this week. Not complaining, just sayin.

- Aerosmith rules. Enough said?

countdown to cavashawn june 17 : 15 days

2009-06-03T00:46:00.000-05:00

Tuesday June 2nd - 15 days till Cavashawn

So another weekend has passed. Congrats to both of my brothers, who graduated from HS and college respectively. I spent the weekend in Cincinnati attending the grad party.

But we're back in the swing of things, and hit the ground running today. Much of my today was spent working on converting the video to the various formats we need to post it on various pages. Freeware really can be a pain in the ass. But within the next few days we should have the Keep The Light on video posted on Facebook, YouTube, and a slew of other sites. In case you haven't seen it, here's the video:

Cavashawn - Keep The Light On

Benton is working on a new video blog, this one will shed light into what we've been doing to prep for the CD release shows. I won't give it all away, but it involves racquetball.

We also recently posted Friendly Fire to our facebook page (this was the whole 'announce it on twitter first thing') Friendly Fire is a song that has been around forever, and it has really stood the test of time. We love playing it as much as we did the first time around, and it is cool that we finally have a recorded version of the song that does it justice.

Besides that we are in the process of organizing the troops to put up posters across the city in willing retailers. Saturday was a terrible day for the poster party, and we ended up having to reschedule. So right now we are trying to organize a means to get them all up. If you're on our street team you'll probably be getting an e-mail within the next day or so pleading for help.

Did you see Conan's premier last night? It was great! And he ran across the country to Cheap Trick's 'Surrender'. Awesome.

countdown to cavashawn june 17: 22 days

2009-05-27T23:14:00.004-05:00

countdown to cavashawn june 17: 23 days

2009-05-26T23:42:00.007-05:00

On June 17th we'll be putting out our second EP. We started the process last October and, while there have been a number of bumps, we finally have the CD ready to go. So while we've put in a lot of time thus far, for the next 40 days we'll be kicking it into overdrive. I figured I would start blogging on the process. We're an independent band and that means we have to do 97% of everything related to putting this release out. For the next 40 days, if you're so inclined and want to read this, you'll get some insight into what we're doing to make sure this all goes down.

Tuesday May 27 - 23 Days till Cavashawn

Of all the important things we did last week, nothing trumps our trip to the zoo with the Chicago street team. Little to our knowledge, the Brookfield Zoo is one of the top zoos in the nation, and we were lucky enough to have our friend Stephanie as our host and tour guide. If our band was George W. Bush and street team effort was money, Stephanie would be a Super Ranger.

So we spent Sunday enjoying the Brookfield Zoo with about 10 street teamers. Seriously, it was a lot of fun. Chris got to feed to goats in the children's section. Shit like that makes him happy.

Yesterday was spent scheduling our weeks out through the CD release shows. We officially have a plan, which is good, because while we were functioning and had a general idea of what we were trying to do, etc., now we actually have a schedule and agenda. I put together a color-coded schedule and printed a copy out for everyone so we're all on the same page for timing, etc. We were watching some Green Day documentary and Matt Dirnt was quoted as saying something to the effect that, because Good Riddance was so poppy and the opposite of what punk is, putting it out was actually the most punk thing they could do. Now I'm not so sure if that logic is sound, but I love the song. And if he's right, I'm a fucking rock star.

So we are putting up posters, posters, posters. Scott and I have been literally hitting the streets every day this week, putting up posters across the city. And as we were running out of our first 300 posters today, we just picked up a shipment in of 2000, so we should have our hands full. Man, you really just can't beat the feeling of postering your face everywhere. I think the Captain Morgan's commercial probably sums up the douchey feeling that we have to overcome. Buried. Those thoughts are buried.

We also now have facebook events for all of our CD release shows. So if you haven't confirmed yet for Chicago, St. Louis, Cincinnati, or Milwaukee, now's the perfect opportunity. We also spent last week trying to convince people to vote for us to get on the Summerfest 2009 compilation. Since we were identified as an "Emerging Artist" by the festival, we are thrown in the running to be on the compilation, which gets out to 10,000 music fans. Voting officially ended today, so we'll know how we fared soon, hopefully tomorrow.

So postering and rehearsing. We are working on improving the set and a few tasty new covers we may sprinkle in from time to time. We're rehearsing almost every day, basically so Ben can learn how to play bass.

But man, he can definitely make a mean video blog. Did you see the new one yet?

Speaking of videos, the video for Keep The Light On will premier Friday.

So "the grind" continues.

countdown to cavashawn june 17th : resumes!

2009-05-25T23:30:00.000-05:00

After a week of hectic, hectic awesomeness, I will resume blogging on the countdown tomorrow. We've got a great week in store. A music video? Friday? Yep.

countdown to cavashawn june 17th : 29 days

2009-05-20T01:04:00.003-05:00

i feel like life is a mess if i don't have ideas in illegible scribble on paper larger than 8.5 x 11

So while we have the foundations of what we want to do, the next step for me is to organize them all into something of a calendar/task list. It's a dorky vibe I'm putting out, but I HATE not having a clear plan. So while the others roll their eyes, I think they secretly love it. OK maybe not, but at least we're getting stuff done.

This week has been excellent week for adding to our street team, and we've been trying to keep up with them, sending out new flyers, etc. So while many packages are out, we are sending new ones every day. I've been trying to stay in touch with people who we sent packagaes to via twitter and text, but still haven't heard back from everyone.

Chris and I also finally put in the beginnings of the T-shirt order. Due to popular demand (as voiced right here on this blog!) we are TRYING to get V-necks in some of the new designs, but we still haven't heard a final word on pricing.

I also heard word today from our mastering engineer that the bonus tracks we're giving away to anyone who pre-orders the disk are almost ready. If you pre-ordered, bonus tracks are on the way!

And Chicago folks, just got word that we'll be doing something of a feature on the Local 101 (on Q101) sometime in the near future. Get pumped!

Tomorrow Scott and I begin postering.

countdown to cavashawn june 17th : Day 34

2009-05-14T12:15:00.006-05:00

On June 17th we'll be putting out our second EP. We started the process last October and, while there have been a number of bumps, we finally have the CD ready to go. So while we've put in a lot of time thus far, for the next 40 days we'll be kicking it into overdrive. I figured I would start blogging on the process. We're an independent band and that means we have to do 97% of everything related to putting this release out. For the next 40 days, if you're so inclined and want to read this, you'll get some insight into what we're doing to make sure this all goes down.

Wednesday - 34 Days till Cavashawn

So yesterday was the day of the flyer. We have something around 29,000 flyers in our apartment, and it was time to ship them out to all of our street teamers across the Midwest. At times this street team promotion thing definitely feels like we are biting off more than we can chew, but as long as we're very organized (not something that comes easy to us), I think it is pretty effective.

The pressure with sending out flyers to some 150 people across the country is that if you're going to spend money on shipping and printing, you really REALLY want to make sure people are getting them and passing them out. At some point last year I took on the responsibility of staying in touch with everyone on our street team, and it has turned into quite the full-time circus act. Of course, this is the symptom of the band doing well because it means we've convinced hundreds of people to help us spread the word. I'm not complaining. When we started this thing last year though, we were at around 20. The workload difference is staggering.

We have actual street teams set up in 5 cities - Chicago, Cincinnati, Milwaukee, St. Louis, and Philadlephia. We also have about 30 or so people from across the country who don't live in these cities but have volunteered to help us spread the word anyway. So between facebook, e-mail, and text messages, I do my best to stay in touch with everyone and do everything I can possibly do to help them help us. A few days ago Benton organized a list of every show worth promoting at in May/June in these cities, and we're including some suggestions in the packages. I also send out a message on facebook/email to each of these Caravans every week (well, almost every week) giving them a heads up on when flyers are coming, and suggestions of things they can do that would help the cause. I love doing this, but it has definitley blown up into something bigger than I ever imagined.

But of course, what more could you ask for? If people are going to volunteer to help our band, we're going to make sure they are given every opportunity to make it happen. Why wouldn't you?

Yesterday I also spent time updating our iLike and facebook pages. I'm digging the new layout on the "music" tab. We're trying to get up to 2000 fans on facebook this week. Did you know you can suggest pages to friends? Do us a favor and give it a shot.

And so it continues. Benton is working furiously on a new video blog. Scott and Chris have their hands full staying up to date with the 45,000 MySpace fans. Things keep on moving!

countdown to cavashawn june 17th: day 35

2009-05-13T14:52:00.003-05:00

On June 17th we'll be putting out our second EP. We started the process last October and, while there have been a number of bumps, we finally have the CD ready to go. So while we've put in a lot of time thus far, for the next 40 days we'll be kicking it into overdrive. I figured I would start blogging on the process. We're an independent band and that means we have to do 97% of everything related to putting this release out. For the next 40 days, if you're so inclined and want to read this, you'll get some insight into what we're doing to make sure this all goes down.

Tuesday May 13th - 35 days till Cavashawn

Yesterday we were all over the place and a little disjointed, since Scott somehow managed to pull off the most amazing feat of the year, getting tickets to Bruce Springsteen and then managing to win a lottery that put him front row. Yes, I said FRONT. ROW. At the United Center. Front row.

So while he was getting The Boss' crotch in the face all night long, we took some time to start planning out the different features and activities we want to incorporate into the promotion for this EP release. It was a brainstorming session of sorts, and we came up with some interesting stuff, including the typical (video blogs, this blog, twitter updates) but also storytelling video clips (of some of our favorite moments in the past year), and a 4-part history of the band (blog format?) where we'll tell our story (how we met, what we've done, highlights, etc) for new fans who might be interested in catching up. Any other ideas you might be interested in seeing? Let us know.

Ben has been working on compiling a list of all the concerts coming to Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Louis, or Cincinnati that might be worth promoting at. We're in the process of organizing that whole situation so flyers get to people who get to the show and get them in the hands of new music fans. We also started the beginnings of our poster schedule. Putting up the amount of posters that we want to put up is going to take a lot of time, so we have to make sure we schedule the timing out correctly.

So from there the evening consisted of putting together some a news post for the website/myspace and writing the weekly newsletter, which went out last night. If you're not getting that, you can subscribe for it here.

Day 34 continues! Today we are trying to organize the 29,000 flyers we have in our living room. The flyers are out of the boxes. It's quite the sight.

countdown to cavashawn june 17th : day 36

2009-05-12T09:40:00.008-05:00

On June 17th we'll be putting out our second EP. We started the process last October and, while there have been a number of bumps, we finally have the CD ready to go. So while we've put in a lot of time thus far, for the next 40 days we'll be kicking it into overdrive. I figured I would start blogging on the process. We're an independent band and that means we have to do 97% of everything related to putting this release out. For the next 40 days, if you're so inclined and want to read this, you'll get some insight into what we're doing to make sure this all goes down.

Monday - 36 Days till Cavashawn

So Monday it was, and it was off to a bang.

We ended up getting back into town at around 2:30 last night, but we were up by 10:00 this morning prepping for our trip down to the loop to meet with our music attorney. We're in the process of working through some contracts (not recording ones..that would be nice, right?) and planning out what some of our goals for the next few months are.

So after a predictable parking nightmare that ended in us shelling out $20 for a space, we ended up having about a very productive 2 hour meeting, which was followed by us treating ourselves to Asian dumplings at a fast food chain.

It was about then that we got word that A TON of flyers we had ordered were delivered to our publicist's office (our apartment building's mail service is sketchy to say the least) in the near west side area of Wicker Park. We picked those guys up on our way back to the apartment. These are ALL of the flyers for the CD release shows in Chicago, Cincinnati, St. Louis, and Milwaukee, and basic ones that just promote the EP. I believe there are 29,000 flyers in all, which means we are really going to need help getting them all out. But they're cheap, so we figured go big or go home. Between the CDs, the posters, and now all of these flyers, our apartment looks like a warehouse:

So we finally got back at around 4:30 and began respond to a bunch of e-mails and myspace message we'd been letting sit. Benton is working on a new video blog.

OH, and it was also around this time that we CONFIRMED that our Chicago CD Release show will be June 19th at Metro in Chicago. We'll be direct support for American Taxi, our friends who just signed to Virgin Records. This show is going to be excellent. We could not be more stoked.

By 6:30 it was back downtown to LaSalle Power Company to meet with some friends involved with summer music festivals and the like. That place is really growing on me, and cheap drinks don't suck. We were lucky enough to finally a few of the people who are putting together this show at Metro, which will be part of MOBfest. Interesting stuff.

We got back at 9 or so and caught the end of the Blackhawks game, a team which we are slowly warming up to. We grew up with minor league hockey in Cincinnati (IHL anyone?), so we feel we can take allegience to the Blackhawks without feeling like traitors.

From there I spent the rest of the night working on Photoshop stuff for the website and MySpace. We're trying to build this Countdown to Cavashawn thing, but we don't quite have all of the content yet. Here's one of the images I was working on:

We'll probably throw that onto our MySpace page in our little flash news widget. Working on some new updates for the site today...

countdown to cavashawn: days 39. 38, 37

2009-05-10T22:15:00.008-05:00

we probably won't order it in black until winter, but imagine this on a lighter color.

We're all really digging the gypsy one.

We also had a quick rehearsal Friday night, basically just running through the set. Since we had a show Saturday, we wanted to make sure we had transitions and flow down. It is something like a routine maintenance - keeping things tight. We also talked about learning a new cover and threw around some ideas. Lo-Fi '80s tunes (think Spike) seem to be a popular theme these days, but we're also always down to learn a song from what I consider the golden era ('65-'75). We'll see what comes to fruition.

Saturday - 38 Days till Cavashawn
Saturday we nailed down the order for new posters. Posters are a pretty important part of our strategy to wear people down until they check out our band. We made something of a mark last summer putting them up in the places we thought music fans in Chicago might hang out. We were thorough, some would say excessive, but the word spread fast. In June we could barely book a show in the city on a weekend - by the end of August we were asked to headline a Friday at Metro. We think part of that had to do with the fact that people kept seeing our stupid posters.

Since we're turning a new corner, it seemed appropriate to get fresh posters printed and do it up again. This time we're shooting for all 4 of the cities we're playing CD release shows in - Milwaukee, Chicago, Cincinnati, and St. Louis. The major challenge? Deciding how many to get and in which size. While we were toying with the idea of getting 18"x24", they were just way too expensive compared to the 11"x17"s. 11x17s it is. Thrilling, huh? Here's the design we're using - you may have seen it before:

Saturday continued:

After packing up at the rehearsal space and loading up the trailer Saturday afternoon, we left Chicago at around 2:30 and hit I-65 south to Indianapolis. As we would soon discover, though, Greater Indianapolis would probably a be more accurate description. And if you want to get even more specific we're talking suburban strip complete with a drive-thru Starbucks and a Home Depot down the street (which actually came in very handy). This was a show trade with The Holiday, an Indianapolis band, and to be honest, we expected them to draw the crowd, since it was in fact their hometown. We ended bringing about as many people as they did, which pretty much meant the audience was, well, thin. Additionally the venue was in fact a church.

Now, all of this is cool. We're open to anything and have played in much, much less desirable venues. While a church isn't necessarily what we'd consider our musical scene, we're pretty much down for whatever, and we think our music works in just about any situation. We didn't expect the circumstances, but then again, that's how it goes. So we made lemonade out of lemons, bought 40s, drank them in the van in the church parking lot and we made the night work.

In fact we had a good time. We have some amazing, dedicated fans who travelled from all over the place to see the show, most notably a gentleman who flew in from Atlanta JUST TO SEE CAVASHAWN. We are humbled. And really, The Holiday guys are a good band, quality guys, and have a cool sound. They just need to put a little Midwestern elbow grease into promoting their shows harder.

Sunday - 37 Days till Cavashawn
So that was last night. It being Mother's Day and all of our mothers only being about 90 miles from Indianapolis, we decided to spend the day today in Cincinnati. It was good and relaxing, something of a day off. The big news of the day was that we DID get a rough edit of our music video for Keep The Light On, and it is looking fantastic. We are completely thrilled. Drumroll please...ok here are some screen shots from our FIRST EVER music video:

Minds across America are now blown, I'm sure.

So weekend over. Back to Chicago by 2 AM hopefully. I'm feeling a great week coming on.

40 days : cavashawn on june 17

2009-05-08T00:35:00.004-05:00

So here we go. On June 17th we'll be putting out our second EP. We started the process last October and, while there have been a number of bumps, we finally have the CD ready to go. So while we've put in a lot of time thus far, for the next 40 days we'll be kicking it into overdrive. I figured I would start blogging on the process. We're an independent band and that means we have to do 97% of everything related to putting this release out. For the next 40 days, if you're so inclined and want to read this, you'll get some insight into what we're doing to make sure this all goes down.

May 8th, 2009 - 40 days till Cavashawn

Today we finally got new T-shirt designs to choose from. There were 3 of them, and while we love them all we have to decide whether or not we can afford to get 2 of them or just settle for 1. We'll probably end up going with 2 even though it will be twice the cost. We're thinking we can probably make up the money in extra sales to cover the extra design. We're in desperate need of new merchandise, so this will be a nice addition. We're shooting to have them in by June 15th, so this means we'll have to make a decision pretty soon.

I personally also spent time today working on setting up our mobile club through Mozes, an online site that hosts bands and artists' mobile clubs. I'm still trying to figure out the details, but I spoke with a dude at SXSW who worked there and convinced me it was going to do everything we needed.

I also had the nerdy task of trying to figure out how to sync our facebook status (the cavashawn page) to our twitter feeds. Alas, it is more difficult than I ever would've imagined, but I think we figured out something that will work. I guess only time will tell.

We also spent time today making sure promotional efforts were organized related to our relationship with MySpace. We've been lucky enough to be chosen as a band they will help promote independently, but this also means we have to agree on a promotional schedule. As of now, it looks like we'll be able to premier our "Keep the Light on Video" on May 29th. Everything else MySpace related will go down in June.

Time today was also spent rehearsing some new songs and working out harmonies for Thrill. We're really trying to up the harmonies and the overall musicianship for our live show. By breaking down songs we've been able to really improve weak areas. For a while we would just rehearse our set everyday, and while that kept us tight, taking a more critical approach is definitely improving things.

cavashawn diary : 5/5/09

2009-05-04T13:07:00.009-05:00

So it is FINALLY nice here in Chicago. We've waited forever, but the trees are in bloom, it's sunny out, and I finally have an excuse to wear sunglasses. We're remembering why this city is such a great place to live.

This weekend was a great weekend in the world of Cavashawn. It involved two starkly different shows, but both for the best. Friday we played a fraternity party in Terre Haute, IN. Saturday we played a hometown show at Beat Kitchen in Chicago. Different worlds, same sic-nasty grooves for entertainment.

Fraternity parties are fun, but are always a LOT of work because they typically require we bring and run our own sound. This entails lugging twice as much gear as we typically do. We've done our fair share of parties, and while it might seem like a dream come true (party, play music, get paid?) we've actually come to have something more of a neutral attitude.

We had some help running the sound this time, thanks to our long time friend Eric Brengle, but we still had to haul thousands of pounds of equipment down into the "valley" below the house where the party was taking place. And then back up. So as much fun as it was, we were VERY ready to leave at 4 AM after we finally got all of the gear out of the valley/stage, up two wet flights of steps through a beer covered hallway, out the front door and into our trailer.

We were tired, but not too tired to hit up IHOP (my first time!). Basically delirious from heavy lifting and lack of sleep, we all ordered food and couldn't believe old people were up reading the paper.

After a brief 5 hours of sleep, we were up and back on the road at 10 AM the next morning, headed back to Chicago for the big show at Beat Kitchen. Since we were listening to music via computer, I figured I would share our playlist. Hopefully this is visible. Here's what we were listening to:

So we made it back and we were loading into Beat Kitchen by 3PM. By 6PM there was a line halfway down Hoyne St. The place was absolutely packed - only 10 short of a sell out. We are definitely getting there. We were hoping to sell the show out, but all things considered, we were thrilled to have the energetic crowd that we did. It was one of the best shows we've ever played. The crowd was electric and it was, as far as fan participation goes, this show really took things up a notch.

We played with two great Chicago bands, our good friends Coventry and Bright Like Japan, a newer band we quickly hit it off with. I thought it was one of the finer bills we've had.

By 10:30 PM we were packed up and headed downtown to LaSalle Power Company, a new rock venue/bar in the Loop - an area in which we rarely socialize. Despite being out of our "comfort zone" (anywhere north of North Avenue, and Stanleys at Racine & Van Buren) , we decided to give this place a shot. In fact we had a blast hanging out with the dudes in Coventry, the drummer and bassist from Bright Like Japan, and a slew of other friends who decided to come downtown. Good times.

Tomorrow we're staring a new countdown campaign for the EP release. Oh..and..

HUGE CHICAGO CD RELEASE SHOW TBA...stay tuned

Cavashawn on Fearless Radio Today

2009-04-30T09:26:00.004-05:00

Cavashawn will be interviewed live on Fearless Radio today at 5:00 CST. To tune in and listen to the interview, visit the Fearless website.

cavashawn diary: 4/18/09

2009-04-18T14:22:00.003-05:00

So I write this as we're speeding up 1-79 racing to Pittsburgh. See, we left our hotel at 6:45AM this morning in Evansville, IN. That seems pretty early, and yeah, it was. Unfortunately it was about 45 minutes too late and we're now rushing to Pittsburgh.

But anyway, last night was a GREAT time. We opened for Secondhand Serenade, a band we didn't know really what to think of going into the night. They're going great right now, have a single bumping on Top-40 radio, they're all over MTV, FUSE and VH1, and he seems to constantly be on tour. It would seem plausible that so much success could go to one's head, but we saw no evidence of such. The guys in the band were super cool and friendly, and the show went smooth.

The crowd at the University of Evansville was great! We met a ton of new people and played for 600-700 students. It was definitely a blast. Hopefully we can do it again sometime.

But anyway, back to the grind. Updates as we get to Pittsburgh. Are you following us on twitter? Microblogging there all night.