Groggie.com

Just got my new electric guitar today that will complete my setup for quite a long time. I got an Agile AL-2000 with a Floyd Rose bridge from Rondo Music. That’s where I got my other electric as well. Eventually I’ll be putting a custom raised pickguard on it to complete the look of it. Another thing that I’ll upgrade down the road are the pickups; I’m thinking about an EMG 85 at the bridge, but I’m not sure what I’m going to do yet. For now it’ll stay stock.

Here’s a couple pictures:

This is a potential album cover for the Musician’s Lounge compilation where song lengths are all 30 seconds max. I thought this was a neat concept for that idea.

http://groggie.deviantart.com/art/Short-Music-for-People-w-ADD-89487270

I just bought what will hopefully be the last acoustic guitar I buy for a very long time. It’s a Tacoma Roadking that I got used. It’s in fantastic shape and plays like a dream! It’s got a solid sitka top and solid mahogany body which is one of the things that turned me on to it because I’ve been stuck in a composite/laminate rut for some reason. I should have some recordings of it up soon (if I can pull myself away from playing it for long enough to set up some microphones).

Today I finally got my actual diploma in the mail. Turns out my 3.66 GPA from last semester pushed my cumulative into the Cum Laude range. It sucks because I should have walked the stage with a gold tassel along with my red and white ones. Oh well, that’s how it goes sometimes.

http://groggie.deviantart.com/art/Hoover-Dam-Panorama-89018010

http://groggie.deviantart.com/art/Bellagio-Waterfront-89018302

http://www.flickr.com/photos/groggie/2589522698/in/photostream/

I just finished migrating all of the posts from my music blog directly into the main website. This way I don’t need to post everything twice. Groggie.com/music now redirects to the music/audio category on this blog. All of the previous songs are here so nothing has changed, and any future songs will be posted right on the main site now.

The category list on the right sidebar can be used to navigate through the different types of music and sort by each category. As always, the search bar at the top can be used to find a specific song or any other post on the website.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/groggie/sets/72157605650389142/

Today we’re getting ready to leave Las Vegas and head back home, but before we do that we took a tour bus to the Hoover Dam. It was a lot cooler to see in person than all of the pictures I’ve seen of it. I took all sorts of photos while we were there; a few are really big panoramas. The water level was their third lowest ever since the dam was built, so I got some nice shots of the lower parts of the intakes. It was 110 degrees outside at the dam, but it was nice and cool (around 65 degrees) down below.

Hoover Dam Photos: http://www.groggie.com/blog/?p=520

Tonight we went to see The Amazing Jonathan at the Harmon Theater. He did many of the same tricks that he did during his Comedy Central special, but it’s always funny to see the interaction with him and the audience participant. There were a few different things as well as a lot of little improvised parts. He was much more dirty in-person which makes sense because he would have had to clean up his act a bit for Comedy Central. Pat bought one of his books after the show, which he autographed before we left. It has a ton of funny practical jokes to pull on people.

This afternoon my family and I went to see the Mac King magic/comedy show at the Harrah. He did some awesome illusions and had some really funny jokes. His audience-acquired participants kept messing up (like writing their name on the back of the card, or realizing their watch had been stolen), but he recovered from them by calling attention to it and making some hilarious remarks about it. After the show we bought a picture and had him sign it as well as my own ticket.

Tonight, we saw Penn & Teller live at the Rio. They did a lot of their older stuff and mixed in some new things too. They ended with their famous “Magic Bullets” routine which was really cool to see live. After the show I met both of them and got their autographs. Teller talks when he isn’t on stage and was very humble to everyone and thanked them for coming to the show. Penn wasn’t as humble, but it was to be expected. He sort of dealt with the autographs in a similar fashion as an assembly line worker. Overall it was an awesome show and I’m glad we went!

This morning we left for Hancock Airport in Syracuse at 5am! We were all packed and ready to go and got there in time to see some F-16s take off. We flew to Philadelphia and connected onto a Las Vegas flight there. Five hours later (or, including time zones, two hours later) we touched down in Las Vegas. From above, it just looked like a little spot in the desert, but when we arrived at The Strip, it was very much larger than life.

On our first day there, we took a blitzkrieg tour of the casinos on The Strip. We just checked out what each one had to offer. We were going to watch the fountains at the Bellagio and the Sirens show at Treasure Island, but they were both canceled due to high wind (read: slight breeze). While walking around the Venitian, we saw world famous poker player Phil Ivey playing craps. His personality was completely different than when he is playing poker- he was cheering and hollering at the die as he threw them ten feet in the air (most of the time at least one of the die bounced onto the floor). It was really cool to see someone that we were so used to seeing on television.

I recorded the acoustic guitar part last semester in Oswego, and Katie and I finally put some vocals on top of it. It turned out pretty well I think. It was fun doing the harmonizations and everything.

1.) Jesus Christ [Brand New Cover] / 5:09 / 5.9mb

I’ve sort of reached a niche for my recent design style- not sure if that’s a good or bad thing, but I think most artists have periods where their design traits have similarities. I am glad that I found a style that I really like, so I guess it is a good thing. Let’s see where it takes me.

http://groggie.deviantart.com/art/Bubble-City-87539325

My two images of Barack Obama (here and here) are featured in this exhibition at the Oswego State Downtown Store on West First Street this summer. There’s a reception for the exhibition on June 11th at noon with a speaker from the communications department at SUNY Oswego. The exhibition goes throughout the summer until August 17th.

Here’s an article on the SUNY Oswego website about it: Pondering Propaganda

http://groggie.deviantart.com/art/Indie-Poster-Design-87466317

(7/1/2008) Update: This poster was selected to be licensed for sale at PostersForHumans.com. I’ll link to my poster’s page once it’s up.

I thought I’d make a simple poster design for my band. This is a little banner with the band name tangled with some vines.

http://Groggie.deviantart.com/art/Our-11th-Hour-87293413

A darkness as black as… Oh, I don’t know… Oil?

http://groggie.deviantart.com/art/A-Darkness-87230052

5 Million.

This is one of our favorite songs. It’s our closer and it is more on the metal side of the spectrum. Josh is still working on lyrics, so this is just and instrumental. Tom shreds out a pretty awesome solo at the end too!

1.) 11th Hour [Part II] (Instrumental) / 6:00 / 6.9mb