Morrownow

May-June 2010 Update...

2010-07-04T02:17:00.000-07:00

First off, we've been playing gigs for the past two months! Every show's been great with a good turnout for each. We TRULY appreciate our fans and friends for coming out and supporting us! Thanks again everyone.

Second, WE RELEASED our EP Album "Ourself"! We also have some nicely printed hard copies for you folks that want a CD!

Aren't they purty?

Here's a music video we made using bits and pieces of video footage compiled from the past year of progress to go along with the EP Album. The song used for the video is "Siren" and it's track #3 on the album!:

Morrownow's "ourself" EP Music Video from Morrownow on Vimeo.

Video credits: Brent

Our recent shows:

We played a small show at the Neon Venus Art Theatre on May 15th. The place is an acting and performing arts studio by day, and music venue by night. It's also run by the band Neon Venus. Great little spot to play, but let's just say Brent felt the need to pass around a jar of free earplugs for everyone. Special shout out and thanks to Jose L. and Cristina P. for coming out!

Some pictures from the show:

Group picture with friends and fans. Several people are missing, but this is our favorite picture to date!

On June 4th, we played at a cool bar called Whisperz out in La Crescenta. The place was crowded and we rocked it. Everyone liked our sound, and that's always nice to see. It's confirmation. There were two dudes really digging out music standing right in front of the stage and near the end of our set list, they broke out into a fight. The police came and picked them up a bit later. Needless to say... It's PRETTY AWESOME that our music inspired a bit of moshing!

Waiting on pictures...

On June 14th, we played at Howl At The Moon Bar at the Universal Studios Citywalk. It used to be the B.B. King's music venue. It was Monday rock night and it was a great show.

Danielle, a friend and photographer took a few photos. You can check out her work here. Her shots of us:

On June 18th, we played at "The Cat Club". Our best venue to date. We played to a full house and gave away about 25 free CDs. Yep, FREE. If you want free stuff, you've gotta show up! We were hyped about playing here. It's a great venue, great stage, and most important, they had a great sound system. Bryan's dad came in from Louisiana to support him and a song dedication went out to him and Bryan's sisters. It was a great show.

Here are some video clips of our performance. WARNING, the volume was not adjusted before upload so it's REALLY LOUD. Turn down the volume almost all the way after you press PLAY! We'll fix it soon:

Song: "DIVIGARI"

Divagari LIVE from Morrownow on Vimeo.

Song: "IMPAIRED"

Impaired LIVE from Morrownow on Vimeo.

We're forever part of The Cat Club's wall now:

Other than that, we're in the midst of constructing our new website. This blog will be only part of the "blog" section on the site. Merchandise like t-shirts are in the works, and hard copies of our album will be up on our new website soon too.

Old Town Pub in Pasadena...

2010-05-11T17:42:00.000-07:00

Over the weekend we played our first venue gig and rocked the place out! There was another band that played before us that was pretty awesome, they're called "Hey You." They're a bit of pop-punk with a female vocalist, reminiscent of the band No Doubt. We should've played our set at around 11pm right after Hey You performed when the crowd was at it's peak, but the promoter had to change the schedule around because of a singer/rapper performer that threatened to leave if she wasn't put on stage next. What a crybaby. It was a "fusion" music night with all different kinds of music genre performers. Her set didn't finish until 11:45 and so we didn't get on stage until midnight. No matter though, the crowd was still strong and neck-breaking head bobbing started once we started playing. It was a good show, and an even better first show. Brent's cutting up the video footage now, so keep a look out for that, but in the meantime here are some photos!

More photos HERE.

our first gigs...

2010-05-03T00:56:00.000-07:00

So exciting news!

We're scheduled to play our very first music venue gigs soon! In fact, we're playing one in a week from now on May 8th at the Old Town Pub in Pasadena, CA. Our first venue gig as a band and that's always a cool occasion. Check out the event on our facebook.

The venue had some fliers made and it came out pretty good. And apparently, we were the only band that sent the promoter an actual band logo graphic:

So even though we're the #2 band, it sort of makes us look like the main attraction which is totally fine with us!

We've also got 2 more gigs lined up. On May 15th, we'll be playing at a cool warehouse venue called "The Cozy Castle".

Then for June 11th, we'll be playing at The Cat Club on Sunset Blvd. It's a famous venue so it's great to have gotten a spot to play there. We're slowly and steadily getting things done so keep a look out for updates and events.

post-relay for life...

2010-05-03T00:36:00.000-07:00

Long, overdue update...

Sorry everyone. But here's what's been happening as of late:

That Relay for Life benefit event show we did on the 17th of April, 2010...? It was awesome! The sun was setting as we played on a stage in the quad of Cal State Northridge University's campus. A huge amount of students were camping out in tents all over the quad for the event so we played for a ton of people. We played a 6-song set and did a pretty good job. We were honored to have played our "first" show for such an event. Afterward, several people approached us wanting more information, such as websites/myspaces and music. That's always nice. Here are a few pictures:

(Because of the way the stage coordinator set up the electronics, Josh(black t-shirt) couldn't hook up his pedals in the center of the stage, which is why he's on the left. Noticeable only because he's the lead vocalist.)

(From left to right: Josh, Bryan, Tom, Jason)

The band with some friends.

relay for life...

2010-04-08T15:19:00.001-07:00

So that fundraising event we talked about before is Relay for Life. It's a volunteer-driven event by the American Cancer Society. We're proud to say that playing in this event will be our very first live performance ever as a band. It's a great event, and one that strikes close to home for some of us in our personal lives.

Our set is on the California State University of Northridge's main campus at 6pm on April 17th. We're part of the scheduled entertainment that goes on that night. The stage will be in front of the library and outdoors right as the sun sets, so we're excited to play for the crowd. It should be a nice test for our music with people around our age on the campus also. We've consistently practiced for the past few weeks and it's been sounding awesome.

This past practice we played at Tom's house.

Some pictures:

At the moment, we're just focusing on staying an active band and playing shows. Stay tuned, we'll film our show at Relay for Life.

march madness...

2010-03-15T03:03:00.001-07:00

Hey all.

I think we're all due for an update on the band. Everyone's been pretty busy especially after we recorded our EP entitled, "Our Self". With that sense of accomplishment, we took a small break. We're beginning to practice again regularly, and we have a performance scheduled for a closed charity event in April. More details about that show will come in soon, but for now, let's just say it's for a well known cause. Hopefully we'll have a photographer accompany us at the event.

We're very proud of our EP. Brent made a music video for our EP using the song "Siren" and video footage compiled over the past several months of our progress. There's clips in there from the very beginning. It's a good video. Take a look:

Morrownow's "ourself" EP Album Music Video from Morrownow on Vimeo.

Ourself EP and Lyrics...

2010-02-17T15:03:00.000-08:00

Hey all,

Brent here. So the guys have decided to call their first recording and EP as a band, "Ourself". We're waiting a bit to get some money together to send the EP off for CD production. In the meantime, we're trying to figure out what we want as an album cover. Nothing's for sure yet, but the prime idea circulating at the moment is an image of some puzzle pieces strewn across a table.

Personally for me, no matter how spoken-word some vocals are in some of the music I listen to, I rarely understand more than half of the lyrics. Reading them and seeing what's actually said always makes me like the songs better because I find something in the lyrics that's relatable.

Ourself EP LYRICS:

No One I Know

still it stings where once you were
and until not I'll burn
less and less each day
becoming what you made me
until you are a stone
until you are a bang
until your face is gone

you cannot be her
she was pure
who are you?

every lover takes a piece
the holes are who we are
the parts we couldn't bare to lose
when gone become ourselves
until we are a void
until we are a shell
until we are evolved
until we are a world

you cannot be her
she was pure
you cannot be her
she was sane
who are you?

you cannot be her
she was pure
you cannot be her
she was sane
who are you?

Our Gravity

we like to think we're meant to be
so we play pretend after our teens
to make ourselves believe again
that we're not broken children

but the colors don't seem to be
of the origin of our species
moving pieces desperately
hanging on to gravity, our gravity

forgetting is a way of fixing
things we can't assimilate
we find a complimentary shape
to make ourselves feel whole again

look for a hole we fit inside
call it a home a place to hide
or give a hole to someone else
and for a time you'll feel alive

but the colors don't seem to be
from the gods that we devised
moving pieces desperately
hanging on to gravity

we look for ourselves in other eyes
but our I's won't let us see
the I blinds the eye
the I blinds the eye
the I blinds the eye

but the colors don't seem to be
of the world that our I's see
moving pieces desperately
hanging on to our gravity
living in our gravity
dying in to gravity, our gravity

Siren

siren
given to
back and forth
fickle as the tide
arise a different woman
than the one I knew last night

how can you trust
her ocean with your heart
as her compass spins out of control
rocks are hiding in the dark
while Siren sings come come

perfect pendulum
given to
her impulse
her amnesia
her heart follows the wind
weather's changing all the time

how can you trust
her ocean with your heart
as her compass spins out of control
rocks are hiding in the dark
while Siren sings come come

have you heard the siren sing?
ooh ooh ooh
ooh ooh ooh
ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh

have you heard the siren sing?
ooh ooh ooh
have you heard the siren sing?
ooh ooh ooh
have you heard the siren singing?
ooh ooh ooh
have you heard the siren singing?

finally our first... EP!

2010-02-12T05:53:00.000-08:00

First thing's first. LISTEN TO OUR MUSIC! It's in the little widget player on the right side of this blog.

Wow. It's been a long two weeks. As planned, Chris @ Command Studios delivered a cut of the music last Friday, on the 5th. It was awesome hearing our music put together, but there were a few changes we wanted to make. Since then, every three days, we've received a total of 3 studio edits. Third time's a charm. It's a funny thing getting back what we all worked so hard for during the past several months. Playing music together is fun, and we're hanging out with good, lifelong friends in the process, but it's still a lot of hard work. This EP, is our end product, in line of hopefully many more end-products to come! We enjoyed playing these specific three songs the most, and it shows a good balance of what kind of music we play. A good representation.

Here's some inside information on some of the edits we went through. Now mind you that all of us are working full time jobs, and a couple of us are in school too. Everyone was able to get together for each edit and listen together. What can I say? We want our music to be good.

Studio cut #1 (2-5-10) - Drums needed to be boosted for all songs. The snare drum was a bit light and the treble needed to be boosted. It sounded more like a weak thud instead of a "crack!" like it should be. Some guitar effects and vocal arrangements were changed for the songs too.

Studio cut #2 (2-8-10) - Drums came back nicely. We did however notice now that one of the drum's (floor tom) volume needed to be raised. We noticed what we thought was "clipping" but found it to actually be the sonic quality of the EQ which Chris at Command Studios picked up on and had that adjusted also.

Studio cut #3 (2-11-10) - "No One I Know" and "Our Gravity" were good as can be. Chris this time around made a slight change on "Siren" that was a matter of taste which after a lot of consideration we ultimately reversed.

FINAL CUT (2-12-10 11pm) - Finally. Final cut of the EP. Tah-DAH!

We hope you all enjoy the music, and we'd appreciate some honest feedback. We've all worked very hard the past several months, and grew as a band. It's been a great time, and there's more to come for sure! But this is a nice, big step forward for us as a band. We're going to get our music out there, and see where it takes us.

Brent is currently working on making a music video with one of the songs from the EP with all the footage he took from the past few months. Be sure to be on a lookout for that in the next week or so.

THANK YOU ALL and stay tuned!
-MORROWNOW:
-Josh M.
-Bryan D.
-Tom P.
-Jason T.
-Brent K.

our time at the recording studio!

2010-02-02T06:51:00.000-08:00

Hey all!

It's been a busy weekend for Morrownow. Saturday and Sunday, we put in a solid 8-9 hours of recording each day. It was a great time. GOOD NEWS, we'll get a hard copy of our finished music, a 3-song EP, from the studio by FRIDAY! That means we'll have new music up on our myspace, facebook, here - Morrownow.com, and on CDs soon! Brent's planning to cut the video footage he shot at the recording studio into a music video with the music from the EP. Keep a look out for that next week.

Brent, our personal friend and manager now has his opportunity to really get our name out there. Next week, as soon as we have copies of our music, he'll look into getting us some gigs at local venues. He now has a demo to give them! We are especially looking into The Dragonfly. It's a bar and music venue in Hollywood, our hometown. He's also planning to get in touch with college radio stations around LA to get some radio playtime. We'll see what happens with all of that. Right now, we are extremely happy to have our music recorded. It's just one first step on a list of things we'd like to accomplish as a band.

FOR NOW, here's a short sneak peek at our time from 2 days in the Recording Studio! Enjoy!

Sneak Peek at Morrownow in the Recording Studio from Morrownow on Vimeo.

recording our first EP!

2010-01-30T05:00:00.000-08:00

So guess what we're doing today and tomorrow? We're going to be at Command Recording Studios out in Valencia, CA recording our first 3-song EP! A "demo" if you will. And what's the next step in the plan after that? Finding our first show to play! February is the month where we're really going to accomplish things, find our ways into people's ears, and hopefully build an initial, local, fan base. The whole band is pretty excited to get things started. Things are definitely taking shape, and we hope you all appreciate the videos we're putting up. We in turn, appreciate you watching them and keeping up with our happenings in general! We think it gives a better inside look to what we're about, who we are as people, and as a band making music we believe in. Brent our manager is going to be at the studio with us recording on video as we make our first record as a band. He's also going to be putting up individual band member interviews over the next week too. That way you all out there on the interwebnet can see a bit of our different perspectives and personalities. Anyways, please stay tuned and check back for the recording studio video and interviews! If you are a new comer, check out our introduction post and catch up a bit on things, and become a fan on facebook and myspace!

Here's a video of us in our one last practice before recording this weekend. It's from Thursday the 28th, and we're playing one of the three songs that's going to be on the demo. It's called "Siren". The sound quality's a bit rough because it was recorded on video camera and inside of a tiny studio practice room. You can still make out our sweet melodies and tunes though! Give a look and listen and tell us what you think! Feel free to be perfectly honest of course. Enjoy.

1/28/10 Practice before Demo Recording from Morrownow on Vimeo.

Have a great weekend all,
-Morrownow

photoshoot #1 with ryan guzdzial...

2010-01-17T05:50:00.000-08:00

Hey everyone,

Photoshoot #1
Hope you guys like our new blog title picture! It's one of the many great photos taken by our friend Ryan Guzdzial (RyanGuzdzialPhotography.com). I think we made an awesome addition to his portfolio. We had our very first photoshoot as Morrownow with him in the beginning of December 2009. The shoot was about 2 hours long, and luckily the location was provided for free by some loving people on craigslist! I made a little video with some behind-the-scenes footage from the photoshoot with some resulting photos included. There are a couple hilarious moments included too. Some of our favorite shots are below. Take a look and tell us what you think. We want to know!

BIG Plans
So we're scheduled to record our first EP album at the end of this month on the 30th and 31st. After we record, it'll take about a week of turnaround for the music to get cut and produced. Once we get it back, it's going straight to the CD production line! Make sure you ask us for a copy! I (Brent) will be in the studio with Morrownow, filming and recording... while they themselves record. That video will be cut and made too. Things are going to progress very quickly in February and it's probably going to be one of the most exciting months of our prospective careers! This might very well be... the beginning of big things to come! Right as February begins, we'll be on the search to play our very first show as Morrownow. In tow will be our first printed promotional material and some more photos. We had two photoshoots remember? The photos from our second one aren't completed yet, but we're anticipating those the most at the moment. Be sure to check back for the release of those including a video for that shoot in the next couple weeks.

Here are the video and photos. Enjoy and tell us what you think!

Photoshoot with Ryan Guzdzial 12.1.09 from Morrownow on Vimeo.

josh

tom

bryan

jason

january 2010 agenda...

2010-01-07T21:10:00.000-08:00

A brand new year! A fresh beginning, and the start of things to come... Sorry about the lack of updates. The holidays came around, so the members of the band were with their respective loved ones celebrating. We're starting things up again now and Hope you all had a Happy Holiday season.

Here are a few things on the Morrownow agenda:
1. Record our 3 song demo at the end of this month.
2. Band member video interviews. Each member will be interviewed so you all can get to know them, and what makes them tick!
3. The release of our photos from our photo shoots! Also with video footage.
4. Rent our own lock-out practice room.
5. Gig!

As you can see, we've got a big list of progress to go through, so stay tuned and keep up with our progression! The band interviews should be up here one by one.

Happy New Year!

december - the 3 point plan

2009-12-01T15:01:00.000-08:00

Wow, December already? Well, it just means that there's snow in the local mountains to ride... And some new, major, exciting, progress for Morrownow.

Here's guitarist Jason laying down Morrownow's 3-Point Plan:

December 2009 Update from Morrownow on Vimeo.

The 3-Point Plan:
1. Record a Demo
2. Band Photos
3. Book a Show

This week in fact, is our scheduled band photo shoot. Things are moving quickly and we catch ourselves getting caught up in it a bit, but we constantly remind ourselves to take a step back and assess what we're doing. When we do, we realize we have tons of time for everything. The most important thing is to do things right and not too quickly. For example, we found a perfect location to have the photo shoot, but it fell through for this week. The whole past week, the location has been set in our minds like, "That's the one. It's perfect" mentally, it pretty much left no other options for us to fall back on. Everything else seemed terrible to us. The location won't be available until next week sometime, but there's underlying pressure from a photographer we have lined up. We'll see how it plays out, and that's when we realized we needed to take a step back -- take a look from outside of the box, and see that it's simply OKAY. No worries. No biggie. It's just a location, and there's BA-JILLIONS of those out there. Needless to say, we've found a couple already, and I myself(Brent) am going to take a look at them in the next hour actually. I'm really thankful for Craigslist by the way.

Here's a picture of the place we really wanted, but couldn't(at least for this week):

The idea for the photo was to have a few guitar amps in the room, a couple mic stands, and a few guitars on stands. The guys would stand and pose amongst them. The lighting equipment would light up the room, and we'd avoid the sun. Like vampires. Did I forget to mention that Morrownow was a vampire-band? Pfttt. Just kidding.

So anyway, the demo is planned to be recorded this month also. Most likely mid-December if everyone can get their schedules down. Then, I will start looking for their first premiere gig. We all want to gig so badly to perform, but again -- we stepped back and thought, "Gig just to gig? OR make it special, with demos/fliers/material, all of our friends, and a big, PREMIERE show?" We chose the latter. I predict we'll make that happen by mid-January, or possibly even early-January. This blog will definitely keep you posted though.

In the wise words of the rapper T.I., "Big things Poppin'" this month.

november 2009 progress + DADGBD

2009-11-25T06:09:00.000-08:00

Hey all, it's Brent -- acting manager of the band and also the main writer of this blog. And of course the guys are going to be dropping by once in a while to post themselves, but for the majority, it'll be me. It's been a busy and productive time for the band and myself, which I love because I haven't had much to do as of late. The band's consistently practicing every week, we're filming almost all the time, and major things are getting underway.

We have some goals for the upcoming month of December. They're pretty simple, and will propel us on our way to bringing live music to the fans and to stages around Hollywood and Los Angeles by January. It'll be an awesome way to kick off the new year too. It's a pretty exciting time at the moment, and it makes me tingle all over. Just some things on the to-do list: press kit photos, demo studio recording, and the preparation of our first show. And all of that is planned for the month of December. That's a lot of work! And If you've read the personal biographies in the Intro post, everyone in Morrownow collectively has years of experience performing on stage. It's just a unique and exciting situation now that all "the guys"(and my personal best friends) have gotten back together to play music together once again.

Here's some behind-the-scenes video of joshcary and Jason from Morrownow working on some new songs during this November. And who knows? Maybe we'll see fully developed versions of these songs down the line:

New Songs in Progress - November 2009 from Morrownow on Vimeo.

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introduction

2009-11-15T18:25:00.000-08:00

Hey all,

We're Morrownow, a new band from Hollywood, CA and we play rock music. Our sound is unique and it's hard to put into any certain genre though we likely fall under the very broad "alternative" label. We're made up of four very close friends, two of whom have known each other since the sandbox. joshcary (vocals/guitar), Bryan Ducre (drums) and Jason Tapia (vocals/guitar) have played together in various projects on and off since high school, Morrownow being their latest endeavor. Tom Pharo (vocals/bass) joined us shortly after the band's inception in the fall of '09 and has turned out to be a perfect fit as the final piece of Morrownow.

Morrownow was initially conceived simply as a banner for joshcary's Courting a Fall, a relationship album which he recorded at home over the course of a year and subsequently published on Sept 9th, 2009. Through joshcary's talks with Jason, Bryan and Kent Ross (Bass), the four decided to bring the music of Courting A Fall to the stage and the "Morrownow" name stuck. It was after Kent's early departure that the three approached Tom to complete the group. Since this formation, the guys have begun writing and rehearsing original material in anticipation of a full length release and stage shows in and around Hollywood.

Here is our premiere video, Introduction to Morrownow.

Introduction to Morrownow from Morrownow on Vimeo.

Here's a little personal bio info on each band member:

joshcary, 23, was born and raised in Los Angeles, CA. He found his passion for the guitar at the age of 17 when he was transferred from Palisades High to Fairfax High. He fell in love with setting his poetry to music. One of his musical accomplishments to date is the self-production of Courting a Fall, a relationship album comprised of works composed while in high school. joshcary enjoys philosophy and quantum physics. Some of joshcary's musical influences are: The Smashing Pumpkins, Silverchair, Pearl Jam, Alice In Chains, Tori Amos, Pink Floyd, Rage Against the Machine, Sparta, Tool and A Perfect Circle.

Bryan, 23, born and raised in Los Angeles, CA, has been playing the drums since age 14. He enjoys all kinds of music, but is heavily influenced by punk rock -- both old school, and new. His first performance in front of an audience was actually a Fairfax High School talent show, in which he and joshcary(also first performance) performed the song, "7 Nation Army" by The White Stripes. Besides music, Bryan enjoys spending time with friends. He describes himself as a very positive and optimistic individual who believes life teaches us who we are. Some of Bryan's musical influences are: Alkaline Trio, Misfits, Sex Pistols, Social D, Fall of Troy, Thrice, he loves it all.

Jason, 22, born and raised in Hollywood, CA, took up the guitar when he was 13 and became intensely involved with the instrument immediately. Completely self-taught, he has been a member of several bands of varying genres. Now working with Morrownow he is being pushed to new levels as a player and songwriter. He is also a close and personal friend of both joshcary and Bryan. In fact, he also performed for the first time in front of an audience in the very same high school talent show joshcary and Bryan did, performing "Free Bird" by Lynyrd Skynyrd(nailed the guitar solo too). Currently he is in school studying Political Science with a possible future in Law. He is also writing a novel. Some of his influences are: Lynyrd Skynyrd, Soundgarden, Pearl Jam, REM, The Allman Brothers Band, Quicksilver Messenger Service, Pink Floyd, Melvins.

Tom, 30, hailing from New Jersey, has been playing the guitar for the past 15 years. He now plays bass guitar for Morrownow. After spending the first 25 years of his life in New Jersey he moved to Los Angeles five years ago and vows to "Never go back to Jersey" again. Being a friend of joshcary's, he joined Morrownow in the fall of 2009. Tom is a vegetarian and a humanist. He enjoys reading about biology, philosophy and Richard Dawkins. Tom is heavily influenced by progressive, unique and "new" music. Some of these unique and "new" bands of their time that influenced him were: Guns n' Roses, Nirvana, Weezer and Hum.

Currently we are preparing to play gigs in the next month or so. We're going to record a 3-song demo in the next month also. So things are progressing very quickly and are taking shape... and that shape, seems to be forming something potentially very sexy and successful. This very blog will definitely be an interesting look into the behind-the-scenes and the progression of Morrownow as a band. Big things poppin' soon so stay tuned.

Thanks,
-Morrownow

We are on several sites on which we consistently network, so check it out, and support us!

Facebook
Myspace
Twitter
Youtube

Note: The primary writers of this blog are joshcary and Brent(but mostly Brent), another close friend of everyone in the band. He is also Morrownow's manager and contact. You'll see him around.