Kin

Chemtrail is making its first on-stage appearance at the Stone Pony tonight. There’s an interesting mix of bands: first a cover band (they were great) and now a reggae band called Dub Proof (v.mellow; Pretty sweet). There will be one more band, then Chemtrail, then the headliner, The Joe Harvard Band, and finally a closing group. I’ll post another pic & maybe an audio file if I can manage to grab one.

I recently got to catch up with my cousin, who had tales from a recent gig she worked on. Saturday I caught the proof on Bravo…
Congrats, Marie!

Holy crap. Look what showed up in the mail from Gramma today. I’m speechless… It’s so… so… that it just might be awesome!

That’s right. It’s a dog purse.

Chemtrail- Top Advant Garde Act, originally uploaded by katatak.

Chemtrail was nominated in 4 categories for the 15th Annual Asbury Music Awards which were held at The Stone Pony in Asbury Park¹ tonight. Although they didn’t win any of the individual awards, the band as a whole won Top Advant Garde Act! We decided the Advant Garde is where they put all the other bands that don’t really fit into any of the other 10 genres to which they awarded a ‘Top Act’ trophy. Whatever genre they are considered, this is a super-awesome pat on the back for them. The other awards for which they were considered were Top Drummer– Chris Lukens, Top Guitarist–Dan Ridenour, and (of course!) Top Bassist– J.Maggio. sweet.

One of the coolest things about the band’s honor tonight is that there was a ballot that anyone could fill out to vote… but we didn’t know about it. So this somewhat of a popularity contest wasn’t something that we sent out emails to all of our friends to vote for. I even had someone ask me about who did the voting- if there was somewhere online that she could go to give them a vote, but in all my searchings around, I’d not seen any links to this ballot (until now- found on Google). We did find out at some point after the ballots were due in (possibly even between Thursday and tonight), so at that point we couldn’t ask friends to vote. So that just makes it all the more cool that they won.

Congratulations, Guys!!

1. Asbury’s music scene is likely somewhere the size of a lake in the whole ‘big fish-small pond; little-fish big pond(i.e. ocean)’ kind of metaphor, so Chemtrail seems to be growing quickly in this lake. I suppose lakes come in many different sizes, too, so I shall try to quantify this. The announcer at the awards ceremony claims that Asbury is an internationally known music scene and I’d agree with that. Not known, necessarily to the average Joe, but to anyone who’s done his/her homework on the American music scenes (esp. independent music), Asbury is likely known. Even I, who had no real knowledge of music scenes had heard of this place in New Jersey where Bruce Spingsteen got his start: a place called The Stone Pony. That’s where the Music Awards were held.

This hit close to home.
Home Economics from the Indexed blog

No, my friends, not about fish. The other bass. The musical one.

J’s gone and joined a band out here, which we both are pretty excited about. I know how much his music means to him and he was getting into such a great place there in Chicago before we high-tailed it out here. I guess the ‘T‘ in both of us told us to come to New Jersey and still tells us it was the right choice, while other parts of our personalities would love to see what would become of his continued work in music.
While this band, Chemtrail, is quite different from his past bands in style, it still has a wonderful (in my opinion) sound that.. well, it’s hard to describe, but for me, it makes my heart feel very light and warm… so there ya go. A rare ‘feeling’ moment you’ll hear out of me (see ‘T’ above for explanation). So far he’s just been to the tryout and initial practice, but has another practice tomorrow night and will be heading down on average a couple of times a week. Please visit Chemtrail’s MySpace page for a sampling of their music.

iTunes is currently playing Face Me by Chemtrail

That’s right, my friends, THE question has been popped so we’re officially engaged! The best part is the where and when of it… I can’t remember if I ever mentioned this out loud, but if I did, I know I didn’t say it to him, because I wouldn’t want to put any expectations there. But I’d always thought it would be so cool to get a proposal at a U2 concert because the GA of St.Louis on the Elevation tour was absolutely amazing and (here comes the sappy romantic stuff)… to have a song playing live in the background while your focus is drawn to the one you love…
Well, that’s it- At the Philly GA this past Monday, the concert was amazing. Even the reviews online are starting to claim it was the concert of the year. The crowd was amazing and the boys were absolutely electric… but then I got a little distracted from it all when, after Bono’s schpeal about the One Campaign, they picked the first notes of “One” and I was drawn into an embrace with a ring at the center. *sigh*
OK, so there’s my sappy story of the matter and here’s the photo to go with it. Since I’m not much for writing reviews, I’ll soon add the link to my flickr account which will have photos from this and the MSG concert, and to my Fanatic page which will aslo have the photos.