So, some of you may remember our last “Summer Plans” post (and if not, click here), and how we outlined all these things that would be happening this summer, surely. THEN, of course, we came in with our last post, and announced that all of our previous announcements regarding this summer, were now null and meaningless. BUT, we did assure you that though things had changed, we would in fact figure things out, and come back at you with some NEW summer plans – well, THIS is those summer plans! (..or these are, or this is the summer plan, or, ah crap who cares)
Anyways, as I was saying – These are our new summer plans in light of recent events, and I really think you’ll like what we have going on. We’ll keep it short and sweet, but spare you no meaty details on what we’re thinkin’, hopin’, and expecting will happen this summer, in the next couple of months. So here we go, in bullet form, starting with this week, then going through the rest of the summer:
This week:
- Andy is back in town from a teaching gig last week
- We’ll add more new songs to the 4 we already have for our next album (we have about 7 more to work on, we’ll finish what we can this week)
- Do some more video blogging (we haven’t done that in a while!)
- Record all new songs in garage for demo purposes
- Then Andy leaves out for his music festival in NC!
Rest of the Summer Plans/Goals:
- Complete and launch our website (BIGGIE! Already working on it, and it should be launched by the end of this summer.)
- Complete our next album’s worth of songs (continue writing thru summer, then finish them when Andy returns)
- Continue to network and build connections to our fanbase and friends (the website/mailing list will help a lot with this)
- Continue to put the word out and garner reviews from top notch experts on our first release: Stage 1 (2009 EP)
- Get some actual photos done so we look like a band, not a band in the woods 
(when andy gets back, of course)
- Put together our official Life Stage electronic presskit so that we can play shows come fall and winter!
- Put out consistent video blog posts, just to keep in touch, and let you know what’s goin on
& Finally:
- Fundraise for our next album project so we can record and put out another album – this one being full length and of epic proportions!
And there are so many more little things, but this (or, these or, whatever, gah), is at the heart of what we’re doing this summer, and ULTIMATELY: This summer is a platform! We’ll use this time Andy will be gone to build the infrastructure and tools needed to bring our tiny little band up to the next level of professionalism, and one step closer to realizing our dream of making our music dream, a reality. So thanks so much for backing us in that process, and know that after this summer, we have even MORE huge things planned, that should all be possible depending on what happens in the next 2-3 months.
Those plans will more directly REWARD you (ie lots and lots of shows, new album, etc), but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t get INVOLVED right now. We have a mailing list you should sign up for (you’ll soon see the value in that!), and we’ll REALLY need your help soon as we begin our fundraising efforts later this summer. So please stay involved, and stay in touch! We really appreciate hearing from you, it let’s us know you’re there, and that you’re rooting for us to succeed here. Shoot us an email (info@lifestagemusic.com), or talk to us on Myspace, Facebook, & Twitter, and let us know what YOU think!
Until Nextime,
Life Stage
June 15, 2010 | Categories: Stuff You Should Know About Us | Tags: life stage, life stage band, life stage blog, lifestagemusic, prog metal, prog rock, progressive, progressive metal, progressive rock, stage 1, summer 2010 | 1 Comment »
In light of not having posted anything in a while, let’s do some catching up today, and talk about, what we’re about.
Life Stage is about good music, plain and simple. Our “heros,” if you will, are the bands, musicians, and composers that made music great, and are continuing to make music great to this day. From Mozart to Bethoven, from Tchaikovsky to Debussy, from Dave Bruebeck to John Coltrane, from John Cage to David Lang, from Elvis to The Beatles to Led Zeppelin to Van Halen, from King Crimson to Pink Floyd to Rush to Dream Theater to Porcupine Tree, from Sabbath to Maiden to Metallica to Mastodon and others, ALL of which (and there are PLENTY more we could name) have had HUGE impacts on us both collectively, and individually.
So what comes to mind when hearing these named individuals and bands with regards to their profound impact on music itself? Why were THESE guys so important? Honestly? Who knows. What we do think though, is that these people all did one thing in common – they made music that was true to themselves. Some of these composers and artists were completely obscure, especially for the time they lived in, and yet, they pressed on because they believed in what they were making – history.
Somehow, music today has lost that. That drive, that passion, that innocence. Not ALL music of course, for as you can see we do have some modern bands (and there are many others not listed) that we really respect, and influence us just as much as the rest! But the point is, that by-in-large, music is just not what it used to be. It’s almost as if since the 70′s, when rock was completely revolutionized like the world had never seen, and bands(record companies) began seeing profits like the world had never seen, music took on a whole new meaning – one centered around marketability, profitability, and returns, and less about art, creativity, and individuality.
Now, I know, I’m putting a WHOLE LOT of personal spin and infusing my own opinions on the history and current state of music and all, but I get the feeling that a WHOLE LOT of people out there would agree with me! In fact, I know they would, and DO. This is why you’re seeing (and hopefully you ARE seeing it) a HUGE trend towards independent bands, artists, musicians, etc. who are (finally) doing things their own way! While, yes, we still have to be able to make a living (and some will still do better than others), and yes, profits are great, and no there’s nothing wrong with that, it’s still NOT ok to sell out, and make a passionless record just to make a million bucks. This is the state of music today, and it’s been this way for some time now. The point is, we’re doing something about it. Not just us, but every band, musician and artist out there, who is literally risking it all to do what they love as a career, and not sacrificing their spirit (the same spirit that enabled some of the great artists listed above) and their passion for what they do to get there.
And that’s pretty much the point here today: We, Life Stage, are all about making good music, and creating it with passion, regardless of typecasts and trends. And you can help us in our efforts! When you purchase our album (off iTunes or our store at music.lifestagemusic.com), make a donation, or even just tell your friends about us, you are doing SO MUCH to help us, and it means SO MUCH to us, really. Heck, even just signing up for our mailing list (lifestage.fanbridge.com) and keeping in touch via Myspace, Facebook, Twitter, or your favorite social networking site, gives us a huge boost of moral, and you help us further our career, without succumbing to industry pressure! So thank you in advance for doing all that you can to support us, it does not go unnoticed.
OK, so that’s it for today. That should keep you toasty for a while until we can get back to blogging consistently. Until then, we’ll continue to make the best music we possibly can, and of course we’ll be in touch on every single corner of the web! And yes, we do have a mailing list, so go sign up!
Until Nextime,
Life Stage
April 29, 2010 | Categories: Stuff You Should Know About Us | Tags: good music, life stage, life stage band, life stage music, lifestage, metal, prog metal, prog rock, progressive, progressive rock | Leave A Comment »
Well, it’s April 1st, but this is NO April Fool’s joke! Our second great CD Giveaway is OVER. Yes, I know, sad right? But don’t be sad! Thanks to everyone’s help, this CD giveaway was even more successful than the last one! Which is great news, both for us, and you, so THANKS for helping out, telling your friends, and making this a success once again.
So let’s check out some stats:
Giveaway #2 – From 02/01 – 04/01
- 150 CD’s sent out/passed out/teletransported out (lol) in 2 months
- ALL CD’s localized around the Houston area this time (except for a few)
- ~500 TOTAL CD’S GIVEN OUT THUSFAR B/T GIVEAWAY #1 & #2!!! HUGE!
And that’s it! 2 HUGE CD giveaways have now come and gone, and we’ve GIVEN out approx. 500 since the first one started back in September. 500. Wow.
Thanks so much to all who requested CD’s, and told your friends about us. We know it sounds weird that we’re thanking people who, by the industry’s standards, are basically “stealing” from us, but for us, it’s simply a way to get OUR music into YOUR hands. And what a better, simpler way, than Free? Now granted, we don’t have an endless supply of these physical CD’s to give out, but we’re doing what we can, and we hope that by making an investment in our fans, they’ll make an investment in us for the long haul! So thanks!
Also, if you didn’t get one this time around, feel free to purchase a copy or download the album via our album page @ music.lifestagemusic.com, OR, who knows, we might just be doing this again sometime in the future, and you can grab one then!
Either way, thanks again to everyone for your support. Please, please continue to share us with your friends, family, co-workers, and pets, and help spread the word about Life Stage!
Until Nextime!
-Life Stage-
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April 1, 2010 | Categories: CD Giveaways | Tags: life stage, life stage band, life stage music, lifestagemusic, metal, music, prog, progmetal, progressive, progressive metal, progressive rock, progrock, stage 1 | Leave A Comment »
Ok, so for anyone who might happen to regularly read our blog here, you might already know how we sometimes like to feature the happenings and going on’s of the individuals who make up Life Stage (ie. Chris, Andy, Ross), IF they are particularly interesting enough to care about! Well my friends, this is such a post, and I think it’d be worth sharing a few things that are coming up in my (Ross), and our world. So here goes!
First of all, it’s no secret that I’m a married man. Yes I’m young, yes I’m a musician, but YES I am married! And I am quite happy being “tied up”. But really, that’s only the tip of the iceberg, and just serves as a preface for the next part, which is that I also have 2 kids! Well, make that, I have 1 kid, but after tomorrow, I’ll have 2! That’s right, my wife is scheduled to deliver around noon tomorrow, and thus will bring our new baby girl into the world! I know, crazy right? First there was the one (my son Remington), now it’s about to be two, and pretty soon it’s gonna be a farm around my house! But nevertheless, I’m super excited about it, and I wanted to share with you all this important landmark in my life.
SO. What does that mean for Life Stage? You may ask. Well..
Honestly, what this REALLY means, is that I’m going to work THAT much harder, and dig THAT much deeper in my creative and business endeavors here along with the rest of the band, and we’ll keep doing what we do! A New Life on the Earth – how much more relevent and inspiring can you get?
On a related note, just a week after my duaghter will have entered the world, we will be playing our next show down in Houston at a place called Dean’s Credit Clothing! (very cool place, check it out here: Dean’s Credit Clothing) Now this, unlike my daughter’s soon to be grand entrance, was completely unshceduled until this morning – i.e. we found out about it late last night, and were confirmed early this morning! We still don’t have all the details, but it will be March 26th at the aforementioned place, and we’ll be the middle of 3 bands. We’ll keep you posted on more info, I just wanted to mention it before my weekend just got totally crazy!
And that’s about all as far as news goes in my world! But if you want to know more about me or the band, and what’s going on, just ask here, or get on Facebook, Myspace, or Twitter, and give us a shout! We’d love to hear from you.
Keep in touch!
Ross
Life Stage
March 18, 2010 | Categories: Show Announcements | Tags: lifestagemusic, music, prog, progmetal, progressive, progressivemetal, progressiverock, progrock | Leave A Comment »
OK, here it is! Our first official “progress report” on what’s been going on, but moreso, how far we’ve come since first launching this new era of Life Stage (geared towards blogging, social networking, and better communicating with you). So with that, I’d like to first briefly preface this report in progress with a little background info on how this “new era” actually came about (again, briefly).
Basically, if you want to know how the progression started, we have to go back a little ways to our pre-Life Stage days. Back then, we didn’t really know what we were doing (ok, we probably still don’t, but at least we have a little better idea!), so admittadely, we did A LOT of beating our heads up against the wall. I mean, as far as succeeding in the music business, we thought what I think a lot of bands think, which is quintessentially this statement: “We’re gonna TAKE over the world and MAKE people listen to us and MAKE our own path and BREAK down the barriers! We’re awesome!!” haha how silly.
Fast forward a couple of years (although it didn’t take even that long to realize that ideology was, well, stupid), and we realized two things: a) the “music industry” didn’t give a crap about us, and no matter how “awesome” we thought we were, we were still “nobodies” to them, and b) when you use the “beat down the door” method of finding success, if you do find it, you find it alone – but when you care more about building lasting relationships with the people around you, and you give to them not expecting anything in return, you’ll be more fulfilled in the long run! (Not to mention you are actually building friendships with the very people who will be supporting you in your career anyway!) SO, the moral of this story is that by about the time we changed our name to Life Stage, and got in the studio to record Stage 1, another shift was happening as well, and we knew we had to do more to make real connections with the fans, musicians, and other people that make the music business happen.
So, as we got out of the studio around March of ’09, we decided to take it upon ourselves to find out just exactly HOW we would go about managing ourselves with this new philosophy in mind. And what we came up with was to do a multifaceted approach where we would use social networking tools (Myspace, Facebook, Twitter, etc), which took a while to research and find out the best and worst ones for us, blogging (keeping you “posted” on what’s up daily with us, in an official manner), and promoting selflessly (ie CD giveaways) in order to get the word out about ourselves, but not ask anything in return. We always saw that people were more likely to stick around and support us when they didn’t feel like they had to! And, so it was. That’s where our research led us, and that brings us up to where we are now.
Now, with that amazingly crafted preface in mind, let’s get back to this progress report! (This’ll be the easy reading part!)
OK. So here are a few things that we mentioned we were going to start doing (or already were doing) back in December, when we first got started with this blog. Let’s see where we’re at with those items, and how plans have been adjusted etc., so you can see what we’ve been doing in a broad sense, and see what we’ve got planned! Let’s go!
Here’s a direct excerpt from our blog post “What’s to come…” (The red words are the adjustments we’ve made)
-Launch web blog (check)
-Begin posting daily on web blog (check)
-Begin posting weekly VIDEO blog (check, when we can get together to record)
-Start a series of LIVE, interactive concerts from our garage, posted LIVE via Ustream.tv We’re actually just broadcasting our live shows now at http://ustream.tv/lifestagemusic – catch one when you can’t make it to the actual show!
-Get some REAL photos of ourselves (check! thanks to Sarah Phillips, we now have some “real” photos to share with the world. See our Myspace or Facebook)
-Keep better in touch with our fans through Facebook, MySpace, Twitter and others (Check. Or at least we’re trying! Let us know how we’re doing by messaging us on one of those sites!)
-Launch another massive CD giveaway, promotional campaign (Check – it’s going on right now! Let us know if you want one, we’ll send you one FREE OF CHARGE! you can’t beat that)
-Finish another album’s worth of songs, 7 of which are in the process as we speak Being that this was a long term goal for 2010, I’d say we’re definitely getting there. The album is really shaping up already, and we have enough starter material for almost an entire album as of right now!
-Preview these songs as we finish them to our fans, that’ll be fun! (Check. With one completely new song already being played at our shows, we’ll be releasing more as they come. Keep an eye out!)
-Try and do a couple of shows each month, at least until summertime (so far.. Check! Through March we’ll have done one show/month so far, and more are in the works to come)
and ultimately (pending funding)…
-Get in the studio
-Record another album
-Go on a tour!
Of course, these last three are still on hold, but are still on the agenda. Hopefully one day soon!
In addition to all of that (which I apologize if this has been hard to read, I couldn’t think of a better way to get all of this out there), We are also now making it a goal to get as many official Stage 1 reviews as possible from leaders in the progressive community! This has already begun, and you can read the first review of many to come here: Stage 1 Review
And finally, that’s it for this Life Stage progress report. Sorry if this was long or hard to read, but thanks for hanging in there. I’ll try to post these more frequently in the future, with obviously less to say per post, that way we don’t fry your brain! (or maybe that’s a good thing?) At any rate, thanks so much for sticking in there with us, and the take home message here is that we absolutely value your support, and we want to hear from YOU, how do YOU think our progress is coming?
Let us know anytime: Myspace Facebook Twitter. We’d love to hear from you!
Talk to you soon,
Ross, Life Stage
March 3, 2010 | Categories: Uncategorized | Tags: blog, life stage, music, prog metal, progress, progressive | Leave A Comment »
Hey everyone! Well, after so long being away (1 month), we’re finally back in action with a new blog, a new look, and a new home page! We couldn’t be more excited (well we could, just probably not about blogging), and we want to share that with you, and give you a glimpse into what’s to come with our new blog, as we say “so long” to the old one! Of course, for most of you it wont make much of a difference, but to those of you that care, we want to let you know why we blog, when we could just as easily (well, quite a bit more easily), um, not.
And here’s the simple reason behind that: it helps us better connect with you! Obviously, if you’re here, you share some sort of connection to us already through our music, and that’s great! We know that any connection has to start there, because after all, we are a band, and music is not only what we do, but it’s our passion, and it’s what keeps us alive (mostly metaphorically, but almost literally ). But, we also know that music has an even deeper connection when you can really relate to a band or a performer. It’s the same as when you go to a concert and there’s just an energy coming from the stage, and it radiates through the crowd, and they in turn radiate it back to the perfomer, and pretty soon you aren’t just sharing the music, but that almost inexplicable energy as well, and it grips you and makes it an EXPERIENCE, not just a concert. Yeah sure, you already knew the music was great, but man, it’s just not the same as listening to the CD, is it? There’s a deeper connection there. It’s real. It ties in your emotions, memories, and spirit into the music you already felt some small connection to in the first place. And that’s essentially what we hope to do as a band, is not only connect with you through our music, but on every possible level we can so as to build a lasting relationship with you – and trust us, that means a lot!
So, we know most people aren’t really gonna care. They’ll just enjoy the music, and that’s totally cool! But this isn’t for them. This is for you. You are the reason we exert ourselves daily to keep up with this blog, and all of the other “sites” and sounds on the web, and send out free CD’s, and make sure you know what’s going on! Because even if you are the only person we do this for, to us it’s all worth it!
Thanks for caring! Keep in touch – Myspace Facebook Twitter
Life Stage
February 24, 2010 | Categories: Uncategorized | Tags: blog, life stage, music, prog metal, progressive, stage 1 | Leave A Comment »
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