March 22, 2004 We play a small coffee shop type venue that a cool vibe and cool people awaiting our arrival. The place fills up and we play the usual set. All is well despite the fact that I can’t hear myself at all in the monitors and I’m fairly certain that I was singing more off key than on. Any ways, regardless, good times ensued and new friends were made. Interesting town… southern Baptist oddities. March 21, 2004 We awake and have a happy birthday lunch for Adam then hit the road(metaphorically) for a seven hour journey to Monroe, Louisiana where we play tonight…… We arrive at what appears to be the end of an abandoned downtown warehouse district that was actually warehouseless. We unload into a small room with a pa and well aged walls surrounded by sincerely loved couches and low light. Radiohead buzzes in the background as we set up. We lie around nursing warm beer when like ghosts from the beyond, kids start showing up in small droves. The night rocks and everyone knows the words to our songs like warm water over ice we meld softly into the night. It was nice to hear familiar words from foreign bodies… I still hear them… “if I run I ust become like all the faking lights”… “Hallaluha, I’m not breathing”… What a fantastic, warm welcome from Monroe, Louisiana… we love you. After the show we decide to journey onward to Jackson Mississippi and take our chances with yet another myriad hotel chain. All is well… we sleep… the headaches continue. It’s been 4 days and an entire bottle of Tylonal… no improvement. March 20, 2004 Today we drove into the madness and debauchery that is South by Southwest. We met up with our record label chaps and they proceeded to adorn us with wine and beer and liquor until our minds grew numb. Mine, in particular, began to pulsate and throb with a pain that I can only describe as a fish hook through the eye and a diamond bit drill press plunging into my temple. So, I decided to skip the festivities and went to the van to lie down. I slept a bit and awoke semi-numb and cringing. It is now 11pm and we play in an hour for a room full of drunken industry folk and lookers on. We play… quite loosely I might add… Adam was a little drunk… it was his birthday! We talk to lots of incredibly cool people and then continue to load our van as the Black Rabbits take the stage…strange. It’s now about 1:30am and we get invited to a crazy party at an old run down shack/mansion. Dave and Adam go back to the hotel at this point but Matthew and I traverse onward into the night. Even though we had passes we had to scale a medium sized stone wall to get into what I can only describe to you as a movie that was being filmed on earth either in 1974 or 2050. The Stills were rocking in the foreground and we meandered about amongst the copious amounts of illegal substances and “open containers”. .. Crackled and hazy.. . nostalgic yet new.. it just felt like we were at the last party on earth right before everything was about the end. This band is cool as hell! The sound is awesome. Strange lurking trees haunted us from around the parimeter and granted us a feeling of enchanted dream like buzzing that filled our souls with chill and warm water. 2 ½ hours later… the cops arrive… we have to leave. We return to the hotel and finally slink into the wonders of sleep. Please allow me to now say a few words about SXSW. While there, it felt as if the world had ended, a bomb had destroyed all of civilized humanity and all that was left was this… a ruined city, half burning, where people ran rampid and did nothing but sin onward with a glorious tendancy into the night. Streets knew no cars, only people… life had no meaning except for the meaning you held within yourself. Your music only fuels the tranquil apathy of this beautiful downward existence. March 16-19, 2004 So we left for tour on the 16th and pretty much just hung out at Matt’s house in Arkansas, rehearsing and petting his dogs for a few days; it was nice. Only a 16 and a half hour drive too… not bad! We played a show in Fort Smith on the 18th at a place called the Gate. There was 31 people there and with the help of Snailhunter we rocked them all to hell and back. The 19th was a driving day that sort of felt like a long collogue of bitter vengeance, killer hoards of black birds, shattered glass and all around starving bad experience. Things continued in this debauched quagmire of a day as we arrived at our hotel in Austin, TX at about midnight and attempted to go to a “24 hour” gas station/convenience store down the street to buy cigarettes which ironically turned out to be closed. We decide to retire the day and return to the hotel room only to find one king size bed shoved into a rather decrepitly small hotel “sweet”. (note to self: the word “limited” when associated with the name of a national/ regional hotel chain is only but a synonym for “shithole”). Any ways, we were too tired to care so we flung back the covers in full preparation for a night of mildly uncomfortable spooning only to discover a somewhat disturbing bloody hand print on the sheets beneath us. It was then we decided that perhaps we were in the wrong neighborhood. Of course, even at this oddly movie horror moment we carried on and decided to sleep there anyway. Saturday, December 27, 2003 ...Hey Michael, Dave here... Just wanted to say hey publicly to you and pose a question to you... Hey Dave, Michael here... What is it? Well Michael all I want to know is: why does Rock N Roll seem to be so bloody dead in this country right now? Well Dave, that’s a good question and I tell you this... it’s not our fault!! Because we freak’n rock! I mean, come on! That guitar riff we wrote the other day... killer riff and wow, what a great sense of mass appeal did it have. Any ways, who cares man! Did you leave the iron on? UUUMMmm, no... I mean.. I don’t think so. OK I DID, GET OFF MY BACK!! Wednesday, December 24, 2003 Hey everyone, Michael here. I am feeling better. Thanks for the care packages and meat sandwiches and pancakes. I appreciate my associate’s flattery on the new songs. I’ve been in my room for 48 hours and I’ve just now emerged. It was a dark time and a long journal through hell but I found the light and managed to come aloft with some new tunes to boot. I think “the man” will like them and the masses will crave them. As for you.. you will see too. Underneath that tree I waited for the tar to stop raining. I am dangerous. Tuesday, December 23, 2003 Even newer breaking news.. this just in.. Michael is over the flu and is now merely coping with the after effects of Nymh flashbacks. Truth be told, no one will truly be able to understand what he experienced, but I know this much for certain.. the new lovedrug songs kick serious ass in an amazing act of God on guitar with a choir boy riding shotgun sort of way. Friday, December 19,2003 Some breaking news.. this just in.. Michael has the flu and he can’t stop reciting the opening prologue from the Secret of Nymh. You know.. “Jonathon Brisby was killed today while helping with the plan. It is four years since our departure from Nymh and our world is changing”. Michael has always been a fanciful boy at heart but I fear his delusions are becoming increasingly surreal. However, don’t be disconsolate, he will soon recover and hopefully stop with his rantings. Tuesday, November 04, 2003 Hello to all, so much has happened in the past couple of months that all hopes of journaling our lives for all to read has become somewhat of a hardship. For this we do sincerely apologize and hope that this makes up for it in at least some small way. What has Lovedrug been up to?.. you might ask? Well, between the copious amounts of shows, meetings, label showcases, agency showcases, tweeking of sounds, eating of dinners, drinking of free beverages, working on art work for the record, designing a new website, booking studio time, writing songs for the next album, flying to and fro, attempting to convince our drummer to move from Arkansas to Ohio, working day jobs, trying to pay rent by making coffee, selling cars, fixing computers, building houses and serving food, juggling the balls and keeping our personal lives in order, there hasn't been much time for thom foolery or bally whoo. Nonetheless, we here at the Lovedrug headquarters would like to formerly thank all those who supported us at CMJ. Everyone was so good to us and ASCAP helped us get going in the conference and for this we owe you a great deal of gratitude.... THANK YOU from the bottom of our hearts. We will see you all again soon! All of the labels that took time to come check us out... thank you. To all you "druggies" out there; we have many many new shows ahead and much to plan for so, we look forward to rocking out in a town near you very soon. Tuesday, October 28, 2003 In a recent conversation with a coleague of mine the question below was posed upon me, and as I began to rattle off my thoughts and furies in regards to the presuposed notions and misnomers of the music industry I thought that I might summerize my thoughts and share them with a bit more clarity. So, Colin, if you do actually end up reading this: thanks for the Jameson and congrads on that thing we talked about. Any ways, for the rest of you reading, the question that was posed was this: "hey, do you think that the music industry is bullshit? And if so, do you think it can be overcome?" I will now comment on this matter; If in a small vaccum of space many musical artists, both successful and nonsuccessful alike, could get together and say these words simultaneously; "is the music industry bullshit?" you might find that the majority of the room(being 98%) would roll their green eyes and take upon themselves an expression that would most likely be equivilent to that of a vegan smothering their faces in bleeding red meat. Of course at least 75% of the 98% would be making this face simply because that's what you do when this topic is brought to light; the other 23% of the room would actually have legitimate reasons( and by legitimate I mean first hand). The other 2% simply have no idea and aren't clever enough to fake disconselance, so we shant talk about them right now. Any ways, as my coleague so poetically posed the question, and as many pose the question and say it with or without thinking of the termanologies and their meanings, the words "music" and "industry" are often used in nieve allegence to such adjatives as "bullshit" or "unfair", and/or "fucking unfair bullshit". (Let me now please state that I am in no way critisizing my coleagues' use of termanology. I am simply rendoring my opinion on how most people bring this topic into discussion) So, "music" and "industry". The question becomes quite simple and clear once properly addressed and complemplated upon; as an artist, do you want your music to be an industry? In any regard. Industry for yourself, industry for others around you, industry for the mythical man or woman in the office at the top floor in the leather chair holding the archeologically soon to be sought after, fame and fortune dream jar? OR Do you regard your music as an endangered species, for those to admire from a distance but never touch? For the artists who understand this concept the "music" and the "industry" lie somewhere inbetween endangered and a petting zoo. These are the artists who, with determination, talent, fucking LOADS of patience, money, perfect timing, the right people in their corner and willingness to change yet be stubborn, actually make it(and by "make it" I mean have a successful carreer as a musical artist for more than 5 years). By the way, these people make up about 2% of the 23% who actually have legitimate complaints about the "industry". So, when all is said and done the music industry is only bullshit to those who chose not to accept and understand it's ploys and inner workings. Those who do accept them and understand them and even more: learn how to manipulate them are then able to use these ploys an inner workings for bettering themselves as the artist and advancing their carreers. In regards to the second part of the question, "do you think it can be overcome?" I believe I have already answered that. There is nothing to overcome once you see the gears turning on the inside and figure out how they work.... I suppose the only thing to overcome is how to get inside to see the gears. Few have the will and determination to do so. Regardless of what I say and what young rising want to be rockers might think, there is one undeniable fact that remains true in this situation: If you want a career in music then you have to make your music an industry and I will atest to this: it involves a fucking hell of alot more resposiblility and determination than going through college and achieving the 40 hour work week. At least with that there is a beginning, an end and some sense of security inbetween or at least a 80/20 bet. It still cracks me up to think that there are bands out there who think their odds are even close to that good in regards to "making it" just because somebody somewhere likes them, when they don't have the first damn clue about what that even means to have a career in this business. In closing I say this; to those who know what it takes to be successful see the "music industry" as a safe waiting to be cracked and within lie the tools to make their real dreams come true. To those who know not.... see a steaming pile of mammal fecies. For some, ignorance is bliss; in the music industry ignorance will get you blissfully nowhere. I for one chose to see the gears. Sincerely, Michael Shepard of LOVEDRUG Sunday, October 05, 2003 My First Weekend With lovedrug....... it's two minutes before show time, the smokefilled club is packed tight and buzzing with anticipation and I have every guitar part i've been learning for the past few week are flying back and forth through my brain gettin all jumbled.............yes ladies and gentleman its none other than David Thomas Owen the fourth's first show with Lovedrug..... As soon as we started it came completely naturally......truth is I don't even remember exactly what happened......probably due to the drinks consumed before the show to calm my nerves...hands shaking...sweating palms... Each show on the following nights that ensued became increasingly more comfortable and by night# 4 on my first lovedrug tour I was feeling at home; not completely unlike a duck in oil soaked Mediteranian waters. Things are now swinging beautifully and Michael and I are locking in like two (heterosexual)puzzle pieces that were destined to be put together in some sort of alternate universe same knot on the rope music making way. So, being an official band memeber now feels like coming home and I look forward to writing the next record with Michael and Adam.