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12.06.05

Hello everyone and welcome to Marking Twain’s journal. My name is Scott Salmon and I’ll be your host tonight as Jesse Feister has the night off.  So where shall I begin... I say the beginning.

On Friday Jesse and I woke up and began to pack clothes, toiletries, and accessories (oh, and Jessie has his own signature line of lingerie he likes to pack on long trips). We are on a “don’t ask don’t tell basis” on that issue. But I digress…

We were under the incorrect assumption that our CD entitled “The Identity Slip” would arrive in duplication via UPS before we departed to Notre Dame for the show with better than Ezra. This was upon request of course.  Well Brown let us down. Those commercials with “The Big Brown Truck”  driving through snow to fulfill their Alaskan customer’s expectations are great don’t get me wrong, but hey, there was no snow, no ice on the roads, in fact there was nothing on the roads that would stop a big brown bastard from rolling down it. I don’t want to seem angry but when your quite a few thousand dollars in debt, and the plan to sell CD’s at a show where more than 2000 people will attend fails because THERE ARE NO CD’s- well let’s just say it stirs the blood.

So the time came for us to pack up equipment into the trailer and head off on the extremely exciting scenic journey to South Bend, Indiana. I wish I could insert cool band stuff that happens in a Buick Roadmaster on the way to a show, but Prince on the iPod was as exciting as it got.

We arrived at The Stepan Center around five in the evening. There was a fair amount of snow falling down, and with that snow came more inspiration to write better music to pursue the dream of rock-stardom outside of the igloo favoring weather. We met with Chris who was the program director for the show at ND and he filled us in on the details which included loading the equipment in and waiting… waiting until Better than Ezra finished their sound check. All of Marking Twain thought this to be impossible, as the members of BTE hadn’t arrived yet. In fact, in the contract for signing up to be a rock star there is a clause that must go something like this: Write good songs, perform them live, and remember to not show up any earlier than two hours after the expected time of arrival. It wasn’t a setback however as the technological world services bands such as BTE with in-ear monitors. A beautiful luxury we hope to once indulge ourselves with.  

After our sound check we realized the place would sound like a cave unless people showed up(The acoustics were not the best, but the venue/stage/lights/hospitality etc. were very impressive.). Well luckily people did show up. As we imbibed in the green apples and water that we requested on our first ever “rider”, we realized that the life of an established band would not be one to far off from the one we would like to live. The food they provided consisted of salads, pasta, a meat salad, some breadsticks, and cake. There was more but we felt guilty eating it.

Then 8:30 p.m. rolled around and we were ready to go. The lights went out, the cheers went up, the stage was set for an all out rock show. They announced us to go on and the crowd was overly accepting of this Marking Twain which they had more than likely never heard of. So everything sounds perfect right? Well, close to perfect. It turned out that Drew’s power was out. Nothing was working. No keyboard and no guitars. This is when the ND fans took it upon themselves to construct the coveted “slow clap”. It took a couple of minutes of down time, but a stage hand was there to amend this minor mishap.  As they say… and I’ll use this cliché completely aware of it… the show must go on.

And it did go on, rather well. We got to play some songs off the record and new songs which we are extremely excited about. We played extremely well and besides a second mishap with Jesse’s snare drum, the show ended in great euphoria- “Goodnight Notre Dame, we’re Marking Twain and we’ll see you soon. Better than Ezra is up next!” The crowd apparently enjoyed themselves and the feeling was mutual.

Oh and by the way, the guys in Better than Ezra are incredibly nice guys and they put on an awesome show. Jesse's brother Scott, who is in fact a student at ND, took some great shots. Here are some pictures of the stage and the show:

backstage: "the dressing room"

a sweaty post-show discussion (those are the best)

scott feister though it was funny that, backstage, the notes from the chemistry
exam he took the week prior were on display

"the luxurious hotel lifestyle that we live"

Saturday night we played at Soupie’s. This is always a good time and we played well. We were able to hang out with some friends after the show, talk to some new fans, and sell some CD’s( Big Brown was an hour late on Friday, so we went back to Oxford Saturday afternoon and got “The Identity Slip”). The response was good. Keep an eye out for Eric Brengle, our good friend and an incredible musician, who will soon make a splash into the pool that is music. He put on an intimate yet exciting show.  Also, Steve Raszka put on a fun show and was able to get the crowd to sing-along to a bodacious medley of popular songs circa late 90’s. This show was fun and we will be back to Xavier in January to play again with Mr. Eric Brengle. Keep your eyes peeled.

So this journal may be a bit long and more extensive than usual, but being the writer in the band I find it to be another practical was to display my “talent”. With Christmas coming up and New Years, we hope you will find time to check us out on the 16th of December down at the Rhythm and Blues Café on Main street in Cincinnati.  Until then, more members of the band will surrender their virginity to the journal of Marking Twain as I figure it may be getting tired of the same weekly love from Jesse. It isn’t bad love, but variety is the spice of life. Until then, give your snowmen a good carrot and keep in mind CD’s are great stocking stuffers….

Scott

11.25.05

Well its been too long since this journal has been updated. Lots has happened. I have no excuses for this lack of updating.

Lets start by talking about how the album is FINISHED and is now being pressed. This is incredible, and we're stoked. Its been a love/hate relationship with this album. It really is almost like being in a serious relationship. Let me explain... At the beginning, we were really excited. We were happy to have met this idea of the album, and we were hoping things would turn out for the best. "Maybe this album could be different." we thought. "Maybe it could be what we had been holding out for." (okay so we hadn't exactly been holding out, but maybe this could be what we needed) Things were going great for a while - we were having fun and things were gelling great. Sooner or later, though, we started to get overwhelmed. Things got really serious really quickly. "How did we get so deep into this mess?" we asked ourselves. We started to get agitaged and irritable, and we dreaded the long, drawn out tracking sessions. We had serious talks about what direction we were headed, and a few of us even started to eye other bands' music... (just eyeing it...nothing more, nothing less) To top it all off, the album kept sucking money out of us and we knew if we were going to keep it happy, we would have to keep giving it money.

Luckilly we stuck it out and finally finished this sucker. I guess that means we're married or something. Don't ask me what it means when we start cheating on this album with album 2 (we already are). But yes, "The Identity Slip" is finished, and EVERYONE needs to buy a copy. It is well worth the cost.

In other awesome news, we'll be headed to South Bend a week from today to play a little show at Notre Dame with a band named Better Than Ezra. This should be excellent. Notre Dame is close to my heart; I have a little brother who is majoring in physics there. I think its kind of funny that part of my parent's tuition money for ND is coming back to us so we can rock. I told you this whole band thing would work out mom and dad! haha....

Allright i'm out - we'll be taking a bunch of pictures of this weekend coming up. From Oxford to South Bend to Cincinnati. I'll try to post soon.

jesse

10.27.05

Today is Chris Hellmann's birthday, and he's 21. Yes, 21. Tonight and tomorrow night, we are going to celebrate this great rite of passage in American culture. Absolute ly awesome. I just wanted to begin this journal entry with that spectacular news.

Once again, it has been a busy week. On Saturday, we played at Soupies, a bar in Cincinnati near Xavier University. Soupies is always fun, and it was cool to play for friends and fans who haven't had a chance to see us yet. Our buddies in Soundscape shared the bill with us. Soundscape is awesome. They're kind of a blend of jazz and hip-hop (true it was an odd combinations of genres for us to play after them) and they blew our minds. For all of you Miamians reading this, Soundscape plays every Tuesday night at Balcony. Go and see them ASAP. They are an absolutely killer band.

Our portion of the show went pretty well. We had some family and some old friends come out, and we seemed to be getting a good reaction from everyone else. Fun stuff. Hopefully we'll start to build some kind of a following at Soupies. We play there again in December.

This week the album mixing process continued. We are soooo close to finishing this record, probably one day from having all the mixing finished. After a full year of working on this project, all of us are really ready to feel that sweet texture of plastic jewel case in our hands. Soo close. And you know I'll keep you updated.

Allright well I must go. REMEMBER to vote for us to open for Hanson and Pat McGee Band. It would be very cool if we got the chance to play with them.

- jesse

10.14.05

And after a long weekend and a longer week, we finally get around to updating this journal. Here's kind of what went down. OK so we had a pretty crazy weekend. On thursday, we played an acoustic set at 45East in Oxford. This was not a typically easy acoustic set. To make a long story short, after three trips back to "RockNroll Central" (currently ground zero for Marking Twain), 25 minutes of cable un-tying, and the help of a knowledgeable audio good samaritan, we got the show going.

Our buddy Eric "Easy E" Spore played at 45East with us. He's awesome. He covered Postal Service AND Sergeant Pepper's era Beatles. Keep an eye out for Easy. He's the man.

So the night went well. Here's kind of a checklist to cap off the interesting things that went down.

1) Torrential rain forced people to stay in the bar and watch us, which was good.
2) There was a Rolls Royce (seriously the real deal) parked outside of the club.
3) We met some self described "acoustic rock" fans (not pop or rock or specific bands, just "acoustic rock") who ended up watching all night. That was cool.

Friday morning was a struggle, but somehow I made it to my 9AM. The rest of friday was spent sleeping and mentally preparing for the Ingram Hill show (I watched Zoolander). At about 6 we ran through some of the newer songs and packed everything up. Absolutely nothing went as planned once we got to the bar, but sheer willpower and the grace of an angel (in the form of a large 25 year old man/audio engineer named Mike) allowed the show to actually happen. Thanks to Mike and his friend Nate for dropping everything to come make it happen. We probably would not have played if it wasn't for them.

The show went very well. There were a ton of devoted Ingram Hill fans who seemed to enjoy us, and a lot of our own friends/fans came out. I'll cap off the interesting things about Friday with another list:

1) Acclaimed rapper "Twista" & Marking Twain/Ingram Hill were the two entertainment options in Oxford.
2) Scott and I were wearing the exact same pair of boxer shorts (totally weird and unplanned).
3) Scott and I were sorely and embarrassingly rejected the promised "free drinks" at the bar after we played.
4) We left $3500 worth of guitars in the back alley after the show. (we are idiots - luckily a bartender found them later that night and brought them in....yeah idiots)

Saturday we played yet again, this time at the Blue Note on the west side of Cincinnati. Originally we were supposed to play this gig on Friday, but when we scored the Ingram Hill slot, the festival organizers were generous enough to move our spot back a day. This was a part of
"Roots & Rock Fest" a mixtape of different bands from all over this part of the country. We played about 40 minutes. Good stuff. Here are some pictures from the show:

awesome. well thats all i've got. check back soooon.

- jesse

10.02.05

Ah so the site has finally arrived. It seems ridiculous, but somehow we managed to put off building our website for this long. Anyway this journal page is going to act something like a blog/informal way for the band to let everyone in cyberspace whats going on. Here's a little catch up. Basically in October of last year, Chris, Scott and myself decided we wanted to record an album. Since we all knew a little about the process, we figured we should concentrate on writing, demoing, and recording before we tried to start playing live shows. We knew we wouldn't have enough time to do both very well. The album took a little bit longer than we expected. Over the course of the next few months, our old friend and bass player Ben Kubicki decided to move to our area from Colorodo and we met our guitarist/keyboard player/text messaging expert Drew Butcher. One year and about 5,000 hours of work later, we now having something to show. We're still not done - the finishing touches of this whole record are now being put on, but it is definitely time to get stuff rolling. We played our first show a few weeks ago and now we have a bunch more lined up over the next few months. Its about time. So yeah this is the website and journal page - hopefully we can think of something more interesting to put here in our next entry.

Oh yeah. Tell your friends about us and download away from this site for free MP3s.

- jesse