I’ve been rehearsing like hell with all the acoustic material I have collected getting ready to begin my acoustic gig career. One thing that has become very apparent in my practicing is how strong my voice has become over the past few years. I used to smoke a pack a day quite about two years ago now. There is an extra clarity and strength behind my voice, and I have much more control over it a friendlier volumes, which also means more dynamic performances. Another thing I noticed is that I need about another 15 songs. That could be difficult, but I’m trying. And I think I have a solution.

For a while myself and former Sledge band mate Ian were going to do a duo. I’m thinking again that it may be an idea. He is the more of a showman (showoff?) than myself, and he would not argue that I am the better singer (technically - and these days even more so) and the better guitarist. But the two of us together make a great duo. And not just musically, but also personally. He tends to be a bit more flighty than I am, where I always somehow keep things together. I also know that he is really keen again to start playing.

So I had a thought that may be interesting. Instead of just a duo, we have a type of alliance. We work together at gigs but also solo. Open with a set of both of us, a solo set each, then another duo set. This would really mix up the sets for the audience and also make it a bit less work on each of us. If we are ever busy and have two bookings on a night we could also do one gig each as solo’s. It would be advertised as Ian or Chris from Watson/Belcher (or whatever we call ourselves, I’m really over band names). A shared website for the duo with the typical gig listings and whatnot, a MySpace Music page for the duo as well as MySpace personal pages for each of us (which I already have anyway). It’s like building brand recognition.

The other idea that goes with this and feeds back and forth from the website is song requests. People at every gig ask for song they want to hear. So if they ask, let’s learn it for the next time we are at that venue. It’s also a great way to add songs that people want to hear. Get people requesting via the website, we see what is popular, they see when we are playing and more likely to make an effort and come as we will play their request. Personal ownership of the performer/audience relationship begins to appear in the audience favour, even as we mine them for song selection and have direct marketing to them on a personal level. I think it would work great.

Later on down the track we could “hire” a drummer and bassist and do band gigs under our own name as well. The possibilities are endless. I’m going to see what else I can come up with. I’m liking this idea so much.

I am a huge Nine Inch Nails fan, and have been since Pretty Hate Machine, so the news of a new album blew me away. But moreso is the fact that is much more than just a new album… a whole concept is in place involving merchendise, web, music, planned “leaks” and other cool stuff. The album is set in a future world where the appears to be drugged by the government.

http://www.ninwiki.com/

There is a lot going on regarding the events surrounding Year Zero and the current future world, where Year Zero takes place. This is to inform new and old users alike of everything going on. According to Trent, Year Zero takes place about 15 years in the future, which would be 2022. There is also a Year Zero Timeline being compiled.

A series of highlighted letters have been found on a Nine Inch Nails tour shirt which spell out the words “I am trying to believe,” leading users to iamtryingtobelieve.com. This site details numerous things going on in this time line, such as the Parepin drug and The Presence. Using the track list to the album, people discovered numerous related websites.

The first of these additional websites, anotherversionofthetruth.com, displays what looks to be a propaganda poster. Clicking and dragging portions of the image reveals it “tears away” into a much more negative image, linking to a message board in which users have been discussing various aspects of society, including handing out links to various audio files and links to other related websites.

More websites have popped up through context, giving more information as to what is happening in the universe and specifying more details, opening up more puzzles, and inspiring the community to dig deeper to explore more of this world.

On February 14th, 2007, “My Violent Heart”, track eight of Year Zero, was “leaked” to the Internet. On February 15th, the first single, Survivalism, was played on KROQ radio and then other radio stations throughout the day, marking its official air date, over a week ahead of schedule. A full-quality rip soon ended up on the Internet.

The Year Zero Research Page is being constantly updated to track recent developments, theories, and essentially organize the Year Zero events into a cohesive storyline.

I love this bit though… one of the key ideas of the concept is a thing called “The Presence” which appears to be a hand reaching down from the clouds (aliens, mass hysteria…. we don’t know yet)

, and images of it show up in the related websites and IN THE MUSIC - literally. One of the leaked tracks had a static signal at the end and when the static was run through an oscilloscope it made an image

I am amazed at how well thought out this entire concept it. It doesn’t feel like you typical viral marketing, but more of just an extension of the album’s concept.

Considering how busy I have been I figured it was time to post a bunch of links for cool new guitar stuff.

Electric Guitar Review has some great stuff up on the Gibson limited edition guitars that come out each week. So far they have covered:

• SG Supreme AAA Maple Bass
• Les Paul Antique
• SG Standard Silverburst
• Explorer Pro Vintage Sunburst

Guitar Stuff also has a very good article up on the Digital Gibson guitar that had me perplexed a while back.

Apart from that it doesn’t look like I have missed much. Fell free to tell me otherwise.

I’ve just spent three days in the beautiful Port Stephens region of NSW. It was a great three days and I wish it wasn’t over. I’ve been out in the port itself with dolphins, on the sand dunes where they filmed parts of the newer Star Wars movies. I’ll throw some pictures up later once I have finished grabbing them off the camera.

The other big news is that I am now engaged. I proposed to my beautiful girlfriend Faith at the end of a wonderful Valentine’s Day and lucky for me she said yes. This is the start of what I believe will be the greatest experience of my life.

I have done a lot of things in my life, but nothing, and I mean nothing has been so nerve wracking than asking her to marry me. It’s the opportunity of ultimate rejections if the answer is no. And even though I knew she would say yes, the waves of fear that swept my body as I was there on one knee were uncontrollable. My hands were shaking as I attempted to open the box containing the very, VERY expensive ring. At one point I was going to propose while we were on our sunset dolphin cruise, but the paranoia began to build. What if I drop the ring overboard? what if she does? What if she says no? I decided it was not worth it that level of fear on top of what I was already feeling.

In the end I proposed once we got back to the bungalow. Her response was pretty much the physical embodiment of what I had been going through all day exploding in about 30 seconds. It was a truly great reaction and one that I will never forget. I don’t believe there is anything that can be done to make me happier than I am right now, so I’m just going to soak it up for a while. Well at least until the future mother-in-law comes around tonight so we can tell her the news.

Now what was I saying about fear??

Well the site is finally back up. I’m going to streamline things a bit soon so no real updates just now. I’ll be doing a lot of work on here tomorrow so check back then.