Life Stage Blog

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The New Website Is Here!

Ok fans, the new website is now officially up and running over at LifeStageMusic.com, and it’s waiting for you to check it out! We’re extremely excited about this, and we need you all to head over there now, and hit us back with your feedback on the site.

Obviously, this thing is not perfect (no website is), but we’re stoked to have an official homepage. One of the coolest features of this site is the sweet toolbar at the bottom of the page. This toolbar allows you to check out our videos, pictures (when we get some!), and share everything immediately with your friends on ANY social network – we highly encourage you to do this! Not only are we excited about that, but you can also chat it up with other fans on any network via that same toolbar. Perty cool huh? Give it a look while you there, and as always, let us know what you think.

So that’s it! New website is up and running! Go check it out now, bookmark it, and respond to this post to let us know what you think. There will be more updates soon, so keep an eye out.

Until Nextime,

Life Stage


Progress Report!

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


So Long

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


A Million Words

1 Million words. That’s a mouthful! But, if the old adage is true, and a picture really IS worth 1000 words, then 1 million words is exactly what we have after this weekend’s photo shoot! That’s right for those of you who can count, 1000 pics of Life Stage were taken just this past Saturday afternoon! Can you believe it? We almost can’t either. But believe it or not, we actually fell SHORT of our goal by ONLY taking 1000 pictures this weekend – by over 50%! Yeah, we really needed to take around 2400 photos, but due to memory card mixup, we didn’t have enough space to continue. awwww… :(

BUT, we’ll make due…

So, you ask then, WTF with all the pictures??? Well, we say, that’s a great question, and we’re glad you asked!!! So glad in fact, that we’re ACTUALLY going to tell you why we need so many freakin photos, and here it is:

- We’re making a music video!

“Oh a music video?! Oh wow coool totally awsome!” (done in best eric cartman voice)

But WAIT. What does making a music video have to do with all those damn pictures?

WELLLL, again, we’re glad you asked. (and for those of you who already know the answer, please don’t shout it out. you’ll ruin it for the others…) Basically, what we’re gonna try to do (even with far less photos than we hoped for) is create like a really old-timy, 8fps camera recreation effect, the cheap way – by just creating a really quick slide-show of sorts with all the pictures we took, matched up with our music! I know, cool right? Well, we think so. And anyways, we’re not completely 100% sure all this is going to work out just yet, but we’re hopin! So keep your eyes peeled for that to roll in sometime soon!

And other than that, we really just thought we owed you all an explanation of why we didn’t blog this weekend, and that’s it. After 1000 photos, we needed a recoup day… or two.

Finally, we’ll be posting some of the shots from this weekend intermittantly (if that’s how you spell that), so look for those, and give us as close to 1000 words as you can… or 100… or 10… ok 5!… but they better be good! :) Looking forward to hearing from you!

Life Stage


Tonight

Tonight we’ll be having our 3rd offical jam session of the week, and we couldn’t be more excited. Having really over 7 new songs already in the making, we’re coming into tonight with amitions to get each of them on a rough recording so we can listen back to them, make adjustments, and really tune in to each tune! This is especially significant because it marks the first time we’ve had new material (significant new material anyways) in over a year. So all in all, what this really means, is that shortly, as we put the finishing polish on some of these new gems, you’ll be able to hear new material from Life Stage! That’s right, just a few short months after the release of our first studio EP – Stage 1, we’ll be throwing BRAND NEW material at you, so look out! Of course we can’t say EXACTLY when all of this “new material” will start to surface, but that’s for you to find out in the coming weeks! Which means you’ve gotta pay attention… You don’t think we’re gonna pre-release new material to just anyone do you? Not a chance. So stay tuned, and be the first to hear new songs from Life Stage! OK, gotta go…


Under the Influence

Alright, so for those of you thinking that today was going to be the post where we introduce the band members and all that, well, you’re wrong! haha We’ve decided instead to go straight on to talking about each of our musical interests, and how they influence us in our music! We’ll elaborate on this topic more as we go, but today we just want to give you the 5 musical influences that have impacted each of us the most, and how we go about writing our own brand of music based on those things that interest us. Sound cool? (and don’t worry, we’ll introduce ourselves formally with a video post here in a couple of weeks! so stay tuned for that..)  Ok, well let’s get to it!  Starting with our top 5 musical influences:

Ross:
- Dream Theater
- Metallica
- Rush
- Eric Johnson
- Progressive music from the ’60s til now (from Yes & Pink Floyd to Tool and Porcupine Tree!)

Andy:
- The Beatles
- The Police
- Steve Smith
- Brannen Temple
- Gregg Bissonette

Chris:
- Led Zeppelin
- Rush
- Dream Theater
- Cliff Burton
- Megadeth

So those are our influences in a nutshell (again we’ll elaborate on those later), but the real question is how we USE these influences creatively, without sounding like a copycat band, or like some confused conglomeration of all of the above, with no voice of our own; two categories that probably 90% of all bands fall into!  Well, our answer to that is simple: WE PLAY WHAT WE LIKE TO HEAR!  That’s it. If we only liked to listen to say, Metallica, then we’d just strictly be a Metallica cover band! Or the Police, or Beatles, or etc., etc., etc… and you get the idea.

When we get in the music room however, our main objective is to bring in ideas that we all like individually, and come out with one idea that we all like collectively.  So with each indivdual writing his own riffs, lyrics, concepts, etc. that he likes, he is bringing in his own set of influences. But when we all get together to hash out parts that we’ve all brought to the table, what we strive to come out with is something unique and personal to Life Stage; something that couldn’t be represented by all or even just one of the above. And of course, when we do, we hope that all of you guys enjoy it just as much as we do, and can appreciate the time we’ve put into it!

All that being said, you now know why we’ve chosen this topic today – we want to let you guys in and take a look at what we do on a personal level, in hopes that you’ll return the favor with some feedback, and your own personal influences that make you who you are! So let us hear it! What are you under the influence of?


What's to Come…

So yesterday we covered the all important topic of “Hi.” Now that that’s out of the way, we can get on to the REAL business of prefacing our real.. business.. Uh yeah.

So anyway, what I wanted to do today is give you guys a glimpse at what’s to come with Life Stage, and what our plans are for the year 2010! Nothing major, just a highlight reel into the future, to give you all something to knaw on while we get ready. So, get ready! Here’s our plan…in bullet form:

-Launch web blog (check)
-Begin posting daily on web blog (check)
-Begin posting weekly VIDEO blog
-Start a series of LIVE, interactive concerts from our garage, posted LIVE via Ustream.tv
-Get some REAL photos of ourselves
-Keep better in touch with our fans through Facebook, MySpace, Twitter and others
-Launch another massive CD giveaway, promotional campaign
-Finish another album’s worth of songs, 7 of which are in the process as we speak
-Preview these songs as we finish them to our fans, that’ll be fun!
-Try and do a couple of shows each month, at least until summertime
and ultimately (pending funding)…
-Get in the studio
-Record another album
-Go on a tour!

And that’s 2010 in a nutshell for Life Stage! Again, though we’d love to share ALL of our detailed plans with you right now, this is only an outline, and we all learned in English class not to put too many details in your outline… Thanks for that Ms. Newman!

Questions? Weird remarks? Light it up! (our message board, that is…) Can’t wait to hear from you! Talk to you soon.

Ross


What's Going On?

Hey guys and girls, this is Ross here writing in for Life Stage, and I’m here today to sound off the first of what will be many, many daily blogs to come, each geared at answering the all important question, “What’s going on?” in the world of Life Stage music.  That’s right, this new blog space here at http://lifestagemusic.com will now be the official home page for all of the news, videos, announcements, and stuff you could ever want from a tiny little band like ourselves! We’ll be connecting to you through Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, and more, but ultimately our blog here will be your ONE TRUE SOURCE for genuine Life Stage facts, and other stuff as well. So without further ado, I hereby launch the official Life Stage music blog!  (yeah it felt good to say it! haha)

Be sure and write in with your questions, comments, concerns, complaints, or “where do I mail this check for $50,000 to?” questions, and let US know “What’s going on?” with you. Talk to you soon!

Ross


Hello world!

Stage 1


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