Listen to God’s Band Aid playing Mighty to Save

We would like to reiterate that these kids never played together before, and many of them are just learning their instruments, and all of them were just learning the song. Also, Ethan accidentally left his bass tuned in Drop-D before they played. The first minute of the song involves Ethan running onstage to aid in retuning. If you want to comment, please have fun, but don’t be hurtful or disrespectful. We’re mighty proud of them!

Our other fond memory is of Jed sticking his head into our cabin around midnight, and above the howling wind informing us that one of the girls’ cabins no longer had heat. He then humbly asked us to swap cabins. And we did. The girls never would have survived.

More memories: the color green, the hat game, the way Darth Vader snores, Fenguins (fake penguins), pet snowballs, not having 30″ of snow, White Fang (our new favorite book), pork BBQ and cheesy tots.

Though initially called “sign language” in the early 90s during the beta testing of this technology, it never quite caught on with the public due to its ineffectiveness at great distances. Field testing proved disastrous. It was during these tests that the widely used catch-phrase “Crush those turtles!” was coined after a misinterpreted signing led to unspeakable carnage at a nature preserve in the summer of ’92.

With the advent of cellular telephones, scientists understood that the ever-increasing mouth disorders would soon render the cell phone obsolete. However, realizing the potentials of the technology, they quickly utilized their research with the now-suspended Sign Language program and converted it into a new government sanctioned program called “Text Messaging.” Eventually, that technology led to the widespread use of the text message, and alleviated much of the problems associated with the rising inability to talk coherently.

Considered a boon to mankind, texting is a fast and fun way to “talk” to your friends and family (even strangers!), and can be used in a variety of applications. But like many things in this world, you’ve got to learn to protect yourself from the people who would use texting to cause another “Crush those turtles!” incident. These people have been dubbed “Volatile Texters.” Volatile Texters can disrupt your daily life and cause unnecessary problems with only one text, so it’s important to know how to recognize a Volatile Texter, learn how to abate their anger, and then take the necessary steps to avoid future altercations.

Volatile Texters look just like you and me. Some can even hold perfectly normal texting conversations for long periods of time. However, underneath their pleasant text messaging lies a volcano of torrential hostility just waiting to explode. Generally speaking, you can recognize a Volatile Texter if that person is chronically angry or abrasive in person or if they have a history of email and texting abuse. Unfortunately, more often these day you won’t know a Volatile Texter until you receive a text message of angry content from them. When this happens, follow these steps to diffuse the situation.

Step 1: Remain Calm
Do your best to not become angry yourself. Resist the urge to use common phrases like “drop dead” or “bite a squirrel.”  You’ll need to be able to think clearly. This gives you the advantage, since Volatile Texters rarely think.

Step 2: Offer Clear Explanation or Apology (Deserved or Not)
It may pain many of you to do so, but quickly diffuse the situation by explaining what you believe to be the cause of this disagreement and offer an apology. The Volatile Texter will believe they have won, but you will never text them again, so who cares?

Step 3: Use Smiley Faces
Offer a joke or euphemism followed by a smiley face. It will confound the Volatile Texter at first, but persistent good will has an adverse effect on antagonism and will soon loosen tension. But be careful to not use “lol” or “haha” since these pretty much denote insincerity and may incite further outrage. Smiley faces are the surest way to indicate that there are no hard feelings, since the cute little icons that are used to represent them are just too adorable to get angry at.

Step 4: Avoid that Person like the Plague!
After diffusing the situation, make sure you don’t ever bother that person with a text as they have now been identified as a Volatile Texter. This will lead to fewer and fewer altercations in the future. However, in the case that the Volatile Texter is a loved one, take a different course of action – send smiley faces often, and only smiley faces. They’re like flowers that never die.

There you have it! You’re ready to text! Now that you know the proper steps to deal with a Volatile Texter, you can begin texting with renewed confidence. Go congratulate someone for a job well done; wish someone a happy birthday; make a marriage proposal! Texting is a wonderful means of expression! Just as long as you know the right way to keep safe, you can text with as many people as you want! It’s a big world and there’s plenty of people just waiting to text you!

Get out there and show somebody that you know how to communicate and communicate well!

There’s just a few things you’re going to need to do in order to beat the fits of rage that our welkin pilot-light will be dishing out like a disgruntled lunch lady. Ironically, they may be the same things that incite a lunch lady to disgrunt… Use caution.

Clothing
Most of you veteran Summer-goers have already discarded the articles of apparel that carried you through the Winter months by neatly storing them in a nice tree until the latter days of Fall (kudos if you stuffed them in your cheeks first). However, many youngsters these days just can’t seem to find a way to voice their opinions on society with clothing that isn’t excessively overbearing for the staggering temperatures they’ll encounter. This poses a serious problem, since I haven’t seen many revolutionaries “stick it to the man” by getting dropped-kicked by heat stroke. To their credit, these youths seem to appreciate the dangers involved in fighting the power during the day (Thanks, Bruce Wayne), so many of them tend to stay inside during work hours.

Benefits?
To the delight of the fellas, most females who undertake this Ghandi-esque protest usually end up looking like Hayley Williams. For all the single ladies, their male compatriots emerge from their hidey holes sporting a tan 2 shades paler than Robert Pattinson. Just add glitter and eye-liner and you’ve got yourself an Emo Vampire Angst Fest where the dress code features only the best of long-sleeved, anti-everything slogans! No need to get too gussied up. Skip a bath and the soap conglomerates will crumble.

(If your beef lies with certain aspects of popular culture such as glittery vampires and overly emotional, angst ridden teenagers, then skip ahead to the next topic of discussion for a more engaging solution.)

Detractions?
Since many of the youths and young adults won’t venture outdoors, most of their communication with one another is almost exclusively regulated to online network sites and we all know that you can only get so close to a picture before you cut yourself on the pixels. Plus, for anyone who has ever been a teenager or young adult in any town knows that there’s nothing to do at night but sit around like the vultures from “The Jungle Book.”

Solution?
The way to approach this problem is by minimizing clothing-coverage while maximizing on slogans, causes, or bands who have great slogans or causes. Try to restrict your apparel to only a few light-weight items like t-shirts and shorts. This may require you to be especially deliberate about what soap-box you’re going to stand on for the next few days, so it’s ok if it takes a while to decide. Leave scarves, heavy army surplus jackets, and pants that resemble trash bags with more than two zippers on your bedroom floor. If you just can’t part with your long-sleeved shirts for a few more weeks, then cut holes in the fabric to allow for added air-flow. It screams, “I’m skeptical of the government, but sure know how to beat the heat!”

Another approach would be to purchase the new Stereoreel t-shirts that will be available in August. Right in time for the anti-Global Warming/We Still Hate George Bush rallies that are sure to crop up here and there. You can protest like you know what you’re talking about while sporting a fashionable and airy t-shirt with a cute hippo on the front. Hardcore, man. Hardcore.

Go to a Show
Summer brings all the musicians out of the woodwork. They just spent the Fall, Winter, and most of the Spring cooped up inside, digging deep down into the inmost depths of their artistically heightened sensibilities in order to write a song, or several songs, that will not only temporarily allay their emotional turmoil and connect with you (the listener/fan), but also bring them the added comfort of meeting their contractual song quota for the year. After battling writers block, inner-demons, record label execs, and frostbite (if you know musicians, you know they can’t afford heat), they’re ready to present their finely crafted song-poems to the general public for their mass approval.

They usually go about doing this by caging themselves in a tiny automobile during the hottest months of the year, traveling across the country with several other people who are prone to enlarged sweat glands and fits of unapologetic flatulence, and stopping periodically to use the bathroom and play a concert. In all reality it’s a lot like a traveling circus crammed in a Honda Civic. And you’ll swarm to their shows like proverbial bees to proverbial flowers.

And why shouldn’t you? Rock Shows in the Summer have been an American tradition ever since George Washington emerged from a little place called Valley Forge to entertain the troops visiting from Great Britain.

In many cases, however, there may not be a venue near your township or city. This may mean dropping dough on gasoline and food stuffs to get in your car and drive to ANOTHER township or city where there IS a suitable venue for bona fide musicians to play at. But when it costs $40 to purchase a $5 T-Shirt at the show, the trip could easily drop out of your budget range. So, naturally you shove as many willing and warm bodies as you can into your automobile in order to split the cost of the trip and increase your chances of purchasing a T-Shirt. Oh, and you will get to see a cool band… However, it is Summer. Your friends are many and your dollars are few. Not to mention the AC is probably broken in that old clunker your parents bought you for graduation. This puts you in roughly the same boat as the band you are about to see: merrily traveling for hours shoulder to shoulder with all the favorite people you never like to be around. You and the band will all emerge from your respective cars gasping for air while simultaneously dreading the moment you have to sit next to Pete again. Nevertheless, you are at the show!

Benefits?

You are at a Rock concert. You are in the midst of a mass of people who share your same ideologies when it comes to at least one thing in life: the band you just paid to see. You all understand that with the collective power of your presence and your voice, you, as one nation of musical fanatics, can bring the band out to the stage to begin, and you can cheer them on and on until the very end. And then you can cheer even louder and make them magically appear for an encore! You are their lifeblood! The band is counting on you to harmonize with one another, so that your positive energy can rise from below the stage in a giant cloud and fuel the best performance of their professional careers! Everyone coexists for the good of the band. You’re all friends here.

Detractions?

You have just paid to be in the same company as some of the most annoying human beings on God’s green Earth. Oh, and you may never figure out what that smell is.

Solution?

Avoid the unnecessary smells and awkward conversations with certain “overly friendly” people, and spend the extra money for VIP seats or backstage passes. This will give you easy access to the band, and place you far away from those annoying girls who sit on their boyfriends’ shoulders during the concert. One potential pitfall to this particular ploy is that the band in question may take a notable dislike to you and/or one of your tag-alongs. Let’s be honest, you were just in a car for 3 hours with no AC and a guy nicknamed “Sausage Farts.” Fill in the blanks.

After an unintended verbal altercation with most of the group’s members (how did THEY know what his nickname was??), they cease to be your favorite band, though this is not entirely a bad thing. Since everyone comes back from a concert spewing forth an unbridled amount of now meaningless descriptors (i.e. awesome, amazing, awesome, sweet, awesome…), you now hold the upper hand in any conversation when it comes to music. You have an experience. You have a story. You were publicly berated by men whom many men worship. You now have leverage to destroy their reputations among the brethren. Most musical groups are exempt from the deadly label of “the man,” but once they cross the line from entertainer to tyrannical prima donna, then they are the despicable villain – the stuck up snobbish Aritocrats, and you (the honest, working class American) are the unquestionable hero and/or victim. The possible angles that you can play off of this position are nearly endless, and your imagination will let you know which avenue to take. Don’t be shy. You can’t lose!

But to avoid all this tomfoolery, you can just as simply attend a Stereoreel concert during the Summer months. In case you’re wondering, we have one next Friday the 24th at the Blue Ridge Bible Church in Purcellville, VA. BUY A TICKET! Don’t worry about smells or annoying girls on shoulders. And feel free to come up and talk to us before and after we play. We like people! In a purely noncannibalistic way. Your OTHER option is…..

Stay Indoors at ALL COSTS!

It’s CRAZY out there! People talking about vampire movies, soap conglomerates, Jonas Brothers. The world is an uncertain place full of UV rays, El Ninos, and Swine Flu. Take it easy this Summer and don’t leave the house unless absolutely necessary. Most people your age don’t, and most people older than you expect you not to, and you have no desire to argue that point. Not to mention a lack of ambition or gumption when it comes to simple tasks like changing clothes. It’s the perfect plan!

Benefits?

Pool parties, backyard barbecues, drive-ins, water battles, and adventure can all be found in or around an 80′s movie about summer-time fun. If you were meant to have a good time over this 3 month reprieve from chilly weather and plow-truck drivers, then you would have been in one of those movies yourself. But, you’re not. Take this opportunity to break in your new Pikachu slippers you just ordered off of Ebay. When you get sick of movies, see if you can’t get some of your buddies to get online and play Gears of War. Summer just ain’t Summer if you ain’t chainsawin’ Locust. Oh, and check the internet to see if you have a significant other. They may bring you some food.

Detractions?

You may not be in your favorite 80′s movie, but in 20 years you’re guaranteed to be the subject of a special Dateline documentary on promising young adults who are now too fat to leave their houses. If you’re lucky, you’ll be one of those extra chubby models they hire for the weight-loss commercials to make it look like “Steve” really did lose 80 lbs in 2 weeks.

Solution?

You’re going to stay in the house whether I tell you to or not. Since you’re not going anywhere, gear up your master social networking skills and tell the world about the upcoming free music downloads we’re offering soon. That’s right, our entire EP and new single “Lord, Help Me” will soon be available right here for free. You’re always snooping around the internet for deals and dirt. This doesn’t require much snoop and it’s on the level. Plus, it’ll give you something to listen to while you’re mowing down zombies. By the way. Ethan and I are avid fans of “Horde Mode.”

Have a safe Summer and see you next Friday!

Now, Jean was a guitarist. In fact, he had brought his guitar with him to the show in a coffin case. Before he opened up the tiny sarcophagus, I began to wonder what I would do if he opened it up to reveal a cursed Dwarf-Mummy! Sure, he said it was a guitar, but evil masterminds always say their dastardly plans are something other than what they really are! 

How do you kill a mythical woodland creature?? How do you kill a mythical woodland creature who was preserved for centuries with the evil intentions of being reawakened one day to lay waste to the surface of the world and enslave the entire human race???? DON’T OPEN IT, JOHN!! DON’T OPEN IT! IT’S

….A guitar! Awesome!

At first, it didn’t seem completely out of the ordinary. The guitar was a tasteful bright pink that was adorned by simple, yet abstract strands of white electric tape, and was further complimented by a black headstock. Though it didn’t cry out, “GIRL POWER!” it was subtle enough to say, “I may be a girl, but I’m not too proud to have Target color-coordinate my cheerleader shorts.”

Johanne then lowered the boom on us. “It’s a Hello Kitty guitar!”

Noooohoho way!

He went on to describe in detail all of the steps that he took to transform the once purrrfect pre-teen pop performer into the now metal melting masculine meatgrinder. Ethan test drove it. It rocks. 

 The moral of this story? There really isn’t one. Perhaps, if you were looking for a point it would be that there are several variations of the name “John,” and like those unique departures from typical nomenclature, a guitar that is simply signified by the name “Hello Kitty” means absolutely nothing, unless you decide to love it.

Just like God’s love transforms our lives, a man’s love can transform a guitar… and make it useful.

Rachel: ur cd is amazing

Me: Thanks.

Rachel: Yep it is the 3rd best album that I have ever heard

Me: Right behind jonas brothers?

Rachel: How did you know?

Me: Is the other highschool musical?

Rachel: No ewww…no the jonas bros have 2 cds…

So there you have it!  Only the Jonas Brothers are better than Stereoreel.

Yesterday, in an unrelated conversation (though not completely unrelated, now that I think about it; the same Rachel was involved), our manager said that if we ever open for the Jonas Brothers he would resign.  Guess Rachel’s ideal musical evening will never happen.

-Caleb

Sunday night we played at Five Forks Church near Waynesboro, PA. Pumpin’ bass. Yeah. I know we were rockin’ because the lightboard operator broke his faders! Rock on.

Caleb