Nashville, TN home of the Titans

The last two shows in Columbia, SC and Nashville, TN were amazing. The crowd really made it memorable, bringing their game faces and Christmas cheer. I've had some recent issues arise which I would like to share; the first was pretty much my fault, the second wasn't and the third was a bit of both. Aparently bad things happen in threes.
The first:
I'm going to get right to it, I smashed my face with as much force as humanly possible (for me) into the rim of Tim's brand new bass drum. Luckily the drum was alright. I was facing the drums on stage rght with my left foot perched on the drum riser giving me the all too familiar comfort of the power stance. I had been getting agitated by one of my cables cutting in and out, in an attempt to release some of the bitterness I jumped back a bit not noticing Trev standing next to me. I bumped into him, not too hard, but enough to lose my balance. In an effort to regain equilibrium I went for the all to familiar stance with my foot on the drum riser again, except this time I was much closer to the drums and put my foot on his drum rug. I went to shift all of my my weight to my left foot (on the drum riser) and climb up staying on the beat with a casual head-bang. The head-bang, which has treated me so well over the years was my downfall, the same way Santanio Holmes' hands were the downfall of the Jets on Sunday but I'll get to that later. As my body climbed to the same altitude as Tim's nest his rug slipped on me and I laid one of the most serious head-bangs of my life straight into the rim of Tim's decadent new kick drum. I crumbled much like Sonny Liston did in the first minute of the first round in 1965 against Mohamed Ali. Luckily I didn't knock myself out. After the freight train of hurt was laid on my face I caught myself and continued playing...shows gotta go on of course. I was super out of it finishing up "Across The Ocean" and "Escape" and I think the blood gave me a little more character. I would now like to take this time to apologize for bleeding all over Skate High's (VA) stage..................now back to business. I got some ice and had my lovely little tour manager Mr. Don Henson run out and grab me butterfly bandages, liquid bandage, and super glue. I didn't end up making it to the super glue but the the other two saved me. Its been about three days and the cut on the bridge of my nose is nicely scabbing, the laceration at the bottom of my right eyebrow is sealed and ready to turn into a minor scar, the area around my eyes is now a shade of greenish-yellow flowing abstractly with a few shades of purple dabbled in here and there. Guess I'll always remember that one.
The second:
I've had some bad luck with my head recently. It'll stop working sometimes while I'm playing or even just turning it on and the green light will start to change between green and a red. I suppose it is Christmas time and this is the Twelve Days of Christmas Tour and its festive but still, come on! It crapped out on me mid set in North Carolina, the day after I landed a hay-maker of epic proportions with my head on a drum set. Luckily im on tour with my good friend Lucas from Oh Sleeper and he had my back.
The Third:
Mr Henson let me know that bad things come in threes so I should watch out, naturally I just start thinking about what could go wrong. Then I look down at my phone which is running my favorite fantasy football app and think to myself, wow, I could probably lose my playoff game which I am currently winning by 17 if Joe Flacco does work against a lack-luster Texans pass defense and Adrian Peterson decides to put up a rare but possible dismal game. Well as you can imagine, it happened. I'm sure most of you couldn't care less but if you do then you know how much fun, pride, and respect is on the line in fantasy football with your friends. Which leads me back to Santonio Holmes. Ahh yes MR HOLMES, I love the guy, he catches three game winning touchdowns in as many weeks, he looks great out there in a strictly platonic way, hes amazing....until Sunday. If he had caught a wide open ball in the end zone for a 17 yard touchdown I would have beaten a formidable foe by around 8 points. Instead I'm out. Routed by 4 points and left for dead in a match up determining 5th and 6th place. Woof. There are definitely more situational outcomes that could have happened but I like to dwell on the one that is the most "ARE YOU KIDDING ME!" So I will blame that drop, straight through his arms and landing on the turf like someones glass-made dream being dropped from a 4 story window onto frozen white pavement. I am still a little bitter...but I love fantasy football and thinking about waiting another year for it to start again is certainly not the bees knees.

Yours Truly,
Woody

Rockin out on the twelve days of xmas tour

So we've been traversing through winter-wonderlands day-in and day-out. We've only really been fearful for our lives when we lose traction and have tractor trailers passing us going the other way on a two lane highway. Other than that its just the nostril hair freezing temperature that blows and makes you wear two socks, shorts under your pants and three jackets. We are from NH so its sort of like second nature at this point but it certainly doesn't mean we like it.
I've been working on a tour update that I'm hoping to have up on YouTube soon as well as an "Across The Ocean" video from two shows over the pond in England. I loaded it the other day but the quality is horseshit so I need to upload it in HD, if ya know what I mean ;)
I was told recently to make a Tumblr and start doing my little updates through that, I think its a great idea and will be making one relatively shortly but don't worry I'll let you know when I do, fa sho.
Back to the subject of this tour with Haste The Day, Oh Sleeper and Conditions, I just have to say it is a breath of fresh air to tour with bands that play actual music and combine that with genuine charisma both on and off stage. The combo of great people and great friends is very homey feeling, which is very fitting for this tour because it is the Twelve Days Of Christmas Tour. We're heading down to Maryland tomorrow, then Delaware and eventually South Carolina, cant wait. They don't get snow down there right? Alright well Haste The Day is playing "American Love" so I'm going to go bask in my freshman year of college as well as our old Drifters days. "Promise me, you'll stay with me forever, forever...."

Never Felt So Good

So Prague ended up being one of my favorite places on the tour. The buildings were wild, almost Alice and Wonderland-esqe, we walked around a castle, saw where archers used to make it rain from, went into a bad ass Cathedral, saw two wild clocks, found an absinthe bar, needless to say we made the rounds. On top of seeing all this cool stuff the show was one of my favorites of the year. The kids made it amazing and it was an awesome experience having kids come out to represent your band when your over 3,000 miles from home.
So after Prague we went to Austria, Germany for three days, and Italy for two to finish it up. Italy was good but we didn't have anytime to see anything cool besides the gloomy landscapes off the highway and we weren't in any awesome areas so we just hung out at the venues. Matt and I utilized our time wisely and won the FAA Cup in FIFA as Chelsea, it only took us about ten different times of starting the tournament to win and did we ever, the final game was a 6-0 beating of Fulham, count it. We are now better men.
The language barrier was in full effect when we were in Italy, luckily we had our good friend Matteo there to translate and teach us unforgivable phrases. However, I did manage to communicate how I wanted my haircut to an Italian-only speaking woman, and she nailed it! We ate a ton of pizza in Italy, it was in the festive spirit, and it was awesome.
We said farewell to our friend Tom who drove our asses around for the past month at around 6am in Milan, Italy. We will miss the frequent "FUCK ALL!" and "BLOODY WANKA!" from the front seat, as well as the FIFA coaching and overall football expertise. Hopefully one day we'll have the honor of showing him our country and how awesome American football is.
The plane ride home was rough. I've never been so happy to be in NYC than I was once we landed. We were coming in on the runway to land and we were dropping quicker than a blouse in a brothel, this was after 8 and a half hours of random gut wrenching drops shakes and shifts at 33,000 feet above the Atlantic...woof. Then our second plane, to Beantown, got canceled so after much confusion and no help from American Airlines we hopped in cabs en-route to La Guardia from JFK. Made the flight and quickly realized that I as going to accomplish flying in the smallest plane I've ever flown in, right after flying in the biggest plane I've ever been in. After much delay and weather warnings (that just caused the palms of our hands to become more sweaty and give us more time to contemplate our lives) we took off and actually had a decently smooth flight.

Finally, I can watch football again. Half mast just thinking about it.

Yours Truly,
Woody

From Prague With Love

I'm sitting downstairs at our hotel bar in Prague and Id have to say this city is quite amazing. We're gunna head out exploring tomorrow because the receptionist said that there was nothing worth seeing within an hour walk from our hotel. Its nice to be in a place where people are around. Last night we were in Lichtenstein (Germany aka Deustchland) and we played a Halloween show in a town that was the definition of "out there". We did have a solid football match or should I say soccer game against our friends in the band Hopes Die Last (Italy). I was able to land two headers off the foot of my friend Tom and then bask in the moment. Maybe I should have played in high school..haha oh well. The show was, well, lets just say an experience. The German language is intimidating on its own, now imagine goblins, witches, the doll from saw, and jack sparrow all hanging out at a teen center getting absolutely hammered and yelling in German...yea, thats how it was. Apparently that was the hang out of the town and the kids go there every evening to hang out and drink Becks. Becks is their favorite in Lichtenstein and they will let you know it.
Communication has been rough the past 4 days. Everyone I talked to said that Europe was hooked up when it came to WIFI and this was true, in the UK. Since we've been to mainland Europe we've ran into a bunch of connections that say they are working but do not, some venues which simply don't have any internet what-so-ever, and a place in Belgium that had three different internet connections but they refused to give us their password because they had funds that were accessible somehow through their connections. So sorry about the lack of posts the past couple of days.
Since my last post our first day in Germany...Trier to be exact, we have been to Paris, the Netherlands, Belgium, and twice more to Germany. The shows have been surprisingly good. Its very humbling to see kids know your lyrics and music when you are thousands of miles away from home.
Paris was awesome. Small venue but it was on a boat so that's understandable. Had the best croissant of my life and got to go to the Eiffel Tower at night and see it lit up as well as going light crazy at around !am..look at my facebook videos to know exactly what I'm talking about. Eindhoven was awesome...didnt make it to Amsterdam unfortunately but we got a good tast of Holland. Germany has been treating us very well as far as beer, food and crowd interaction goes, and Belgium was amazing (referring to the kids at the show). Im very much looking forward to getting home...the trip has been great and I have learned a lot but its getting to be about that time.
Yours Truly,
Woody

Welcome to Doichland (phoenetically correct)

So we finished up our UK tour last night with The Ghost Of A Thousand and We Are The Ocean. The tour was a great experience, we learned a lot and got to see how kids react to bands out here. We will miss The Ghost Of A Thousand a lot and we will see We Are The Ocean in a couple days in Paris, on a boat, yep the venue is on a boat in Paris, count it. We've been getting "cultured" aka getting into the swing of things over here buying food at supermarkets, eating McDonald's frequently, and trying candy bars and other junk food we've never heard of. They don't have sour patch kids here, they have gummies called Maynards, Quavers rule (they're like bigger puffed cheetos with more of a light cheese flavor), and millions are small chewy strawberry things the size of nerds. On other interesting notes they don't call periods used for punctuation periods, they call them full-stops. They don't call sidewalks sidewalks they refer to them as pavement, which is kind of amusing because the sidewalk and the road are made of the same material, so one could justify walking in the middle of the road by saying that it is the pavement as well. If there are zig-zag lines in defining the lanes of a road then its fair game to hit pedestrians because if the line is zig-zagged then they shouldnt be crossing there and it is their fault if they get hit. That's a good summation of our new cultured knowledge. More to come definitely because we just got to Germany, Paris tomorrow, the Netherlands after that, then continuing to make the rounds for another week and a half.
Yours truly,
Woody

PS: In England the last letter of the alphabet is not pronounced "Z" but in fact it is pronounced "Zed". Weird I know, apparently some parents who don't know who Jay-Z is call him Jay-Zed. Woof.

PPS: I'm sitting at the venue in Trier, Germany. Its a teen center type of deal with kids of all ages hanging out playing soccer, cards, and other games. Seems kind of like a day camp for kids while their parents are at work, most of the kids we're pretty young though. Its a little bit eerie walking around and knowing that 60-70 years ago it was a place used to raise Hitler's youth in training.

Manchvegas baby

Im hangin out in Manchvegas, but this one's a little more foreign to me. I'm having a great time, the show was awesome, kids rule over here and they thoroughly enjoy freaking their shit. Yesterday was quite wild. We played two shows within 2 hours of one another one block away. Cant say we've ever played a show (which was sold out)as a support band then packed up and walked down a block to play a headlining show. The second show was awesome, we had about 30 kids get wild and know pretty much every word. I think Tim put it best when it said, "It was truly a humbling experience when kids this far away know words to your songs." It was also Tim's 22nd birthday so if you havn't given him birthday wishes its never too late.
On another note, we went to a castle called Dunnottar Castle on our day off and I believe it is one of the more famous castles in Scotland with its resume including visits from William Wallace (Braveheart), Mary Queen of Scots, the Marquis of Montrose and the future King Charles II. "Most famously though, it was at Dunnottar Castle that a small garrison held out against the might of Cromwell’s army for eight months and saved the Scottish Crown Jewels, the ‘Honours of Scotland’, from destruction." (dunnottarcastle.co.uk) It was wild check out my facebook pics.

The trips been great Im excited to get to mainland Europe but still enjoying our time in the UK.

Yours truly,
Woody

"She Punched Him In The Face!"

So I'm sitting with Trev at a McDonald's in Amberdeen, Scotland, realizing we are not in New Hampshire anymore. The accents here remind me of a bit of a chatty leprechaun meeting one of the Boondock Saints. Apparently McDonald's is the hangout spot here. I've never seen bouncers at a mickey D's before but here they have three regulating the doors and keeping the underage loitering to a minimum. There is a mass of kids forming outside and all i can think of is Green Street Hooligans Scotland edition. Some girl just walked in screaming that her friend "Hit him in the face!" and paced around until she was asked to leave. She got to the doorway and got a swift kick from one of the bouncers. It is eye opening to see how big a deal McDonald's is here and in England...Americanization all over the place.

The shows in the UK have been phenomenal, the sound at all the venues is awesome, the kids dig it and if they don't know you they are still respectfully attentive. We had a circle pit between songs in Leeds when we weren't playing, so we tastefully came in with Across The Ocean and surprisingly they continued well past the lullaby-esque intro. I'm digging the foreign environment with the comfort of doing what we do best every night.

The shows have been great, and the sleeping arrangements have been rough. Everthing is much smaller and much less comfortable. We are getting a nice lesson of appreciation when it comes to having a comfortable van to sleep in. That will be a perk for the next tour at home with Alesana. Regardless, we are enjoying this new world and look forward to the remaining shows in the UK including Manchester and London as well as the second half of the tour in mainland Europe. I'll do my best to keep you updated on any good stories or places we go.
Yours truly,
Woody

PS: Fish and chips is pretty good, chips are fries here, English breakfasts rule and driving on the other side of the road screws with your head.

Got our warped tour cherry popped today, felt great. Im excited for the rest of the dates. Got to see some old friends and have much needed bro time. Kinda bumming though on account of being told we had the last week of warped and then being told that we are casually not playing San Diego. We're just stoked in general to be on the tour at all its tough to stay super positive when your mislead like that. I guess we've been mislead a lot lately so its just sticking with the trend. But hey, success often emerges from adversity.

Well we made it through the wet steamy humidity of Florida. We had one of the best shows we've had in a while in Jacksonville. We love getting down there, everyone always reps for us showing us love. Then four thousand dollars got jacked from us and gave us quite a bitter taste in our mouths. We wont let it get to us because dwelling upon things like this can make people resent each other and play the blame game. We did the best we could with the situation and learned from it. Quite an expensive lesson to learn but regardless we learned. We don't exactly make a living doing what we're doing so for someone to snag that much money from a touring band is quite disrespectful but karma is a bitch so we can only hope for the best for whomever robbed us. We wont let this take away from how much we love playing in Jacksonville but we will however take necessary measures next time we come through.

Texas was fun, it was nice to be in 104 degree dry heat compared to 104 degree humidity in FLA. We had some fun in Texas especially with our friends Tanya and Paul who threw Colin a birthday party with multiple rut tables (By rut I mean beirut, often confused with beer pong for those who have never actually played beer pong which consists of two large mugs on each corner of a ping pong table and two teams of two each with ping pong paddles, please ask if you need me to go into anymore detail.)

We're all flying at half mast to meet up with warped tour and play the final week. We've never been on it before and I cannot wait for the experience, I'm sure it will be one.

The past two shows in Springfield, VA and Atlanta have been fun. The crowds certainly haven't been large by any means but the kids who were there were super stoked, making our set completely worth while. I will always perform my best even if there is one person in the audience who is passionate about music and/or our band. Not to mention it gives me the "release" I need on a day-to-day basis when on tour. The stage and performance generate a freeing feeling and anything troubling you becomes obsolete. It is this freeing feeling that allows me to realize why I do what I do and why I've chosen to extensively tour in a band with a group of my best friends. This feeling also gives me tremendous respect for anyone who tours and does not have the figurative release of playing and performing every night. I don't know how they do it but I am certainly glad they do and am certainly happy to surround myself with people like that, people who on a regular basis maintain positive attitudes and appear to be constantly happy.

Tonight we had an awesome couple come out to the show who were visiting the U.S. from Israel. They flew over two weeks ago and have another 3 weeks left before them embark home. They came here to attend shows and see the bands they would never get to see otherwise. I thought it was amazing that a couple would take the time to plan and finance a trip to that degree in order to see their favorite bands play live. Upon socializing with them we quickly learned that bands never make trips to Israel. We assumed the main reason was for safety and the other for location concerning countries on the surrounding border. We were informed that they play CD's (like our own) in our genre of music at the clubs out there in Tel Aviv and mosh, Since they don't have the opportunity to see the bands live in concert they must take out their inner mosh in other ways. Hearing this was quite an eye opening experience to say the least. These kinds of thing make give me a deeper appreciation for what I am doing with my life and how what I do impacts others on the other side of the world.

Luckily we made it to Baltimore. As sweet as it would be to see a tornado im pretty glad we pulled off the highway to get gas when we did because there just so happened to be one burying itself deep in Wilmington, DE (or so the weather said) which was 11 miles south of where we were. We had mixed feelings as to whether or not we should continue our journey into the storm, we decided to gently remove our tampons and tackle it head on. The tornado must have pulled out because I fell asleep to the therapeutic sound of rain hitting our windshield and the next thing I knew we were in Baltimore loading into Sonar. Apparently the storm canceled an outdoor hippie fest and it got moved into the big room at Sonar. There were hundreds upon hundreds of happy, genuinely nice, and smelly hippies all the way up and down the block. In the spirit of giving Trevor decided to become the Pringle Man in the White Van. The hippies were lining the sidewalk right next to our van and Trev had a brand new can of pizza pringles. He started quickly opening the vent like window of our van, catching many hippies off guard and making them jump, and then yelling "Getchya Pringles Here!" He would then lightly slide a pringle out the vent-like window and see if the hippies would take it. Surprisingly 95% of the hippies took the pringles and ate them with a smile on their face. This continued for about 45 minutes until the line and the pringles were gone.

What can we learn from this?

Hippies are very trustworthy when it comes to strangers with Pringles in white vans

We had a fun couple of shows back in the northeast. It was great to be home for a brief period of time. It was a bit like the tip game, except instead of hating it (no one likes just the tip) it was quite pleasurable.

July 19th - We saw inception on our day off and it blew my mind. I loved the whole thing. Never have I seen a movie that pushes the limits of the subconscious mind as this movie does. I loved the concept of planting an idea at its very basic level deep within one's subconscious so that the idea can grow into inspiration and result in a decision through inspired action. I found this relevant to a book I recently read titled "The Traveler's Gift" about seven decisions for personal success. I would highly recommend the book as it is a personal favorite and a positive life changer. The underlying theme was that we make decisions that govern our future and by choosing to be a person of action, choosing today to be the day that you are happy because happiness is a choice, and choosing to seek wisdom; we provide the framework for a desired future. We can do nothing about the past besides accept responsibility for it and realize that keys to the future exist in the decisions of the present.

July 15th - We were having a conversation in the van today about management companies and judgment via association. We wondered if being on tours with bands who are relatively new and who have gained recent and quick stardom is good for us. Sure its awesome for the growth of our fan base as well as our finances to be playing packed shows every night, but I wonder if those shows are the "right" shows for us to build and maintain sustainability as a band over time. What I mean by "right" shows are ones where kids are there for the music, the experience, and the performance not because it is the cool thing to do. Our Last Night is not a trendy band. Its not the way we're designed. I question whether the tours we are getting are setting us up to be a band with longevity or a band with with a relatively short life-span. I wonder if it would be more beneficial to surround ourselves with those who have achieved the success we seek. We feel as though we would have a better chance and longer life-span as a band if we were to tour and become associated with bands who are established and have been for some time. In a conversation I recently had with my father, who is a very wise man, he told me that in order to better achieve our goals we should associate and surround ourselves with those who have achieved the success which we seek. This made me think of touring and being in a band because if you associate and surround yourselves with bands who have been established and continue to be successful then you have a very good chance of becoming the same way through association. This might not always happen, bands do make it big for different reasons and through different methods but friends certainly take other friends on tour so it couldn't hurt.

July 14th - The Buff Chick tour began today! Unofficially because the first show fell through but we're back in the van together and on the road so its tour. I'm quite happy to be back in the van with the boys. We're down a guitar tech Alex Kendrick Perkins (who is dearly missed) but we are ecstatic to announce the recent acquisation of our boy Ian (who already feels like family). Ian fences, yes, he can wield a blade and he will make you pay for thinking otherwise. He will be excepting duels for the rest of the "Buff Chick" tour so come out and challenge him. However, if he is busy you will be fencing me. I do not know how to fence but I had a quickie run down with Ian in which he taught me everything he knows. I can't wait to officially kick this tour off. It was supposed to happen in Pittsburg but the promoter for the show cancelled last minute because he didn't think anyone would come, total facial right? I mean have some damn faith or something, don't shamelessly degrade us the day before the show. Anyways, we're cruising to pick up our merch at the venue in Pittsburg then driving to see our infamous friend Shmeric from D town for some festivities and great times. The tour will now start in Michigan on the 15th and it couldn't come sooner. We played Detroit a little over a month ago and it was nothing short of a wet dream (a.k.a. exhilaratingly good time).

-Our day was spent driving to multiple FedEx locations in attempts to piece together our merch order. We seem to be slowly and painfully etching the phrase, "if you want it done right do it yourself" into our minds. Spending an afternoon in bed with traffic would make anyone weary of the reason they're there, especially when your that deep under the sheets. Its frustrating when you feel like you must hold someone's hand to walk them through something in order for that something to be done right. There is only so much hand holding that should ever be necessary. Look at it this way, no matter how badly you ever have to hold someone's hand to guide them, at some point your going to have to go to the bathroom. In which case you should not have to guide them through wiping or shaking after they've done their business. My point is that no matter what there is going to be a time when you have to trust that things will be done right and taken care of, you shouldn't have to hold ones hand when wiping or shaking, that is private time. Oh and guys need to shake but remember "No matter how much you wiggle and dance, the last few drops always end up in your pants."

July 13th - Its been a while for me but Im going to try and make this a regular thing on this tour, to keep whoever is interested updated on tour, life, recent conversations and recent thoughts we've been having. Its been quite awhile since I've wrote daily in a journal or kept a blog so bare with me. And just a side note, my mind is always in the gutter so if i say something that could be regarded as sexually risky thats just me being comfortable and honest with you, so don't think twice if you have to re-read anything in order to get a nice firm handful of my mind.

I recently decided to read more on tour, I figure I'll feel smarter, be better equipped in conversational awareness, learn more about myself and life, and above all get my mind off of sex. You'd think it would be easy to forget about sex being a heterosexual male in a van with seven other dudes but I think it just makes it harder, yes much harder. We simply have no private time, if you know what I mean. ;)

Positioning, Self and Other

At this point you might be asking, what exactly is the other? What is the self? How do they relate? For the purpose of relating this to my life, the other is everyone around me which allows me to be my 'self'. We are positioned and framed in various ways everyday throughout our lives by others. We need the other for us to create the self. What I mean is that I cannot be a performer without the audience, I cannot be a member of Our Last Night without Matt, Trev, Colin and Tim, we cannot be signed artists without Epitaph records. My identity relies upon others, for I cannot create meaning, aka music, without them. Sure I could play the bass solo but if I stood up in front of a crowd and played an Our Last Night song by myself the result would be confusion and not many would pick up on the song I was playing. I cannot create the song without them. The song is a metaphor for meaning in a conversation and represents our dependency upon others to create our sense of self. We need others in our lives to create the definition of our selves. The labels which we are given are directly related and dependent on others allowing us to be positioned that way. To bring it down a notch we can look at how we are framed in certain ways everyday. In school kids sit in a classroom and are 'taught' by teachers, they are positioned as traditional students where the teacher is seen as all knowing and the students as pods waiting for instruction as to the knowledge they will absorb. The teacher is not a teacher without the student, the teacher cannot teach without students. Therefore, by being in a classroom taking on the traditional western view of the student as calm, attentive, and seated we allow the teacher to become one. Why does it have to be this way? Couldn't it be true that different forms of 'teaching' might be beneficial depending on the student? If everyone of us is different then wouldn't it make sense to appeal to the different ways in which we all learn?
Relating back to my experience, when a fan asks a band member for a picture or an autograph the band member is positioned as a person of interest. I have often wondered what a kid's reaction would be if instead of getting an autograph from a person of interest they were asked by the person of interest for their own autograph. The person of interest would be framing the fan as a person of importance and breaking the traditional mold of fans asking for signatures. I look forward to experimenting with this next time I am put in the position as someone of importance.

"We carry the capacity to live in multiple worlds...One might say, then, that we are multi-beings, capable of being many persons." (Gergen, 112-113)

This quote from Kenneth Gergen's An Invitation to Social Construction reflects a previous point I made in choosing who we are and how we act in the world in each situation. Although some positions do not reflect positioning in conversation, such as becoming a parent through the birth of a child, they still reflect our relationship with the other. Knowing this we can now move on to understand that there are multiple realities and thus multiple roles in the world. For instance, I am a brother, a son, a bass player, a friend, a college student, a performer, and many more. Throughout our lives we take on many roles, so many roles that to consider us a single entity is naive in the ways in which we know the world. Our roles are ever changing and I feel that we leave behind some while moving on to embrace others. In high school I was a baseball player, a basketball player, a band member and a student. Some of those roles have been more prominent in my life to date (i.e. band member and student). For example I am no longer technically a baseball player because I no longer play the sport. I am not considered one through our society's understanding of a baseball player. However, I will always consider myself a baseball player through my relationships with those whom I played the game. My relationships with my fellow baseball players will always exist in my past experiences making up who I am. Just because I no longer engage in the activity which is baseball does not mean I don't carry past relationships with the sport and others as my personal experience. These experiences are my own, they are part of my social construction. They exist in my inner dialogue and through my personal narration of them. I feel as though in my mind I will always be a baseball player, a basketball player, a student and a band member because my relationships with others in the specific contexts will always be found in my personal construction of the self.

I am looking forward to my next post which will talk about the social construction of my performance in Our Last Night.

Importance of Language

"The limits of my language are the limits of my mind. All I know is what I have words for. " -Ludwig Wittgenstein (20th Century Philosopher)


I would like to start this post by providing insight from a book I recently read written by a fellow bass player named Victor Wooten (bass player of the Grammy Award winning group, Bela Fleck and the Flecktones). The book is entitled "The Music Lesson: A Spiritual Search for Growth Through Music." In this book Mr. Wooten provides a unique insight as to the co-relation between music and language. He points out that individual notes are much like individual words. When speaking one does not think of each individual word as it is spoken, instead we focus on the meaning we are attempting to convey. This directly relates to music improvisation where the artist does not think of each individual note as it is being played, instead the focus is on the meaning that is generated from the grouping of notes making up a phrase. (Wooten) Much like music improvisation, we engage in communication everyday. We don't know what we are always going to say or do but we know that we have the ability to communicate with one another and thus improvise. This is a vital point to embrace when moving forward to grasp the concepts in this manual because it provides example as to the need for the other, like the need for notes to be embedded amongst other notes in order to create a meaningful phrase.

Moving forward, lets apply the metaphor of an individual to individual notes played on the guitar. We do not use one note when playing music, music is made by grouping notes together to create phrases. Playing a single note would be meaningless. The meaning of one note depends upon the positioning of notes around it. Now think of ourselves in a traditional western view of ourselves as self-contained individuals. Edward Sampson's description of the individual as self-contained provides insight into our traditional view of the individual.

"(a) Containers have an inside and an outside; what is not inside must clearly be outside, and vice-versa. In other words, there is a rather clear-cut in-out distinction. (b) Containers have boundaries that separate their inside from the outside, and offer a kind of protective shield...when I describe our current conception of the person as the self-contained individual, I am referring to this container whose boundaries lie at the edge of the skin within which is housed the essence possessed by the person." (Sampson; 36)

We are not as simple as a container which contains knowledge and experience inside. Things are much more complex than simply being black and white or right and wrong (which I will talk more about in my next post) This self-contained view separates us as individuals, it steers us away from the importance of the other in creating ourselves. Wouldn't it would be more beneficial to tear down the walls of our so called 'containers' and notice that we create who we are in and through our relationships with others?

We need the other to create ourselves in the conversation, without the other we would be left with our inner dialogue of past relations to know who we are and what is meaningful in our lives. We need the other to create meaning, just like notes need other notes to create a meaningful phrase. Our society stresses the value of the individual, however we do not exist in the world alone, we exist in the world with others and who we are is dependent upon our interactions with those others. Whether it is in a common day-to-day interaction or on a bigger scale like the relationship of an artist with a crowd.

Words alone mean little besides the associations that have been negotiated in our relationships. For instance, we agree that guitars have strings, drums have heads, and chords are made up of notes. But our language of these things only makes sense in the context of music. If someone where to language of drum heads and bass strings in a doctors office no one would understand what they were talking about. Language is contextually dependent. We have different ways of speaking in different fields. For instance, the language used in a football game would make no sense during a basketball game. If the Celtics called a timeout and Doc Rivers told Kevin Garnet to run a slant route and look for the ball from the quarter back at mid-field it wouldn't make any sense. He would be using a language 'foreign' to the game being played and the result would be chaotic. Wittgenstein's use of the metaphor of language as a game has helped me understand how language is contextually dependent and led me to question how our society views professionals and experts.

Would it be safe to say that to become a professional, in lets say music, one must master the language of the subject?

What I am saying is that we have different ways of languaging which make sense in some fields and not others, our western view of expertise is dependent upon the mastering of language in that given field. We often think doctors are all knowing and we tend to take what they tell us for granted without asking questions. This could be because we feel that we aren't familiar with medical language and when we enter into the doctor's domain we feel positioned as the patient, being told what is wrong with us and what treatment methods we should use. What must be noted is that yes, doctor's have gone through extraneous study and do probably know more about medicine and treatment methods than we do but to say that doctor's know our bodies better than we do is naive in all aspects of the phrase. Everyone is different and different things work for different people. Who's to say one method of treatment is universal? One method might work well for one person and have no effect on another. We are experts of our own bodies, don't you think it would be beneficial to create a shared understanding between two experts (ourselves with our bodies and doctors with medicine) concerning how we are treated in a medical setting?

We should ask more questions, not just at the doctor's office, but in life as well. The right questions can cause great self-reflection in both ourselves and others, they can led us to learn things, like possible treatment options in a medical setting, which we never would have known otherwise. Questions, when used properly, can take a conversation into a much more meaningful light. Sometimes simply listening genuinely to the other is enough to cause a meaningful shift in a conversation. It seems as though western society is used to reloading and defending positions trying to convince others that our way is the best way. Why does it have to be this way? Can't we hold our own while understanding where the other is coming from and how it is possible for the position of another to make sense to them while differing from our perspective? It means we don't need to focus on persuading others to 'see it our way,' it just means that it is possible to hold differing opinions while still creating a meaningful conversation where we can learn new ways of being and understanding.

In my next post I will talk about the importance of dialogue in better understanding our worlds as well as performing as a product of relationships with the other.

Thanks again to anyone who has taken the time out of their day to read this, it means a lot and I appreciate your comments.

-Woody

Introduction

Welcome to my blog. I am going to be using this blog to have a conversation with everyone who reads it. While it wont be a face-to-face conversation we are having, it will be one that, I hope, can lead anyone who enjoys music and the performance of music to a realm of new possibility and understanding as to our everyday interactions. For the next few days I will be posting frequently regarding the concepts I have been learning in my final semester at the University of New Hampshire, relating them to music and my experiences.

For the past four months I have had the privilege of working with a professor and friend of mine in the communication department at the University of New Hampshire. Her name is Sheila McNamee and she is a distinguished professor in the field of communication. With her help I have embraced new ways of thinking and being in the world. These new ways of thinking are relationally based and stress the importance of the other in creation of ourselves and how we view the world. One thing that I have found through my studies is the importance of co-relating in terms of learning new ideas and applying them to something of interest in your life. So I am going to relate the concepts I have been learning to my personal experiences performing in Our Last Night (myspace.com/ourlastnight) in hopes of finding common ground with those who enjoy music and its performance.

What is social construction and why is it important?

There are many different ways of thinking and being in the world, social construction is one which offers new ways of understanding ourselves, others, and the world we live in. Social construction is important because it allows us to view situations outside of our traditional western view of ourselves as self-contained individuals obtaining knowledge inside our bodies and step into a relational understanding of how we create what is meaningful in our lives everyday. What is knowledge besides a relationship through language? We cant grab knowledge and squeeze it in our hands, it is simply a concept, like reality, that exists in the moment of interaction. Nothing is more important than the moment of interaction. If we treat every moment as one where we are genuinely interested and listening to the other then we can understand that it is possible to maintain our own positions while letting the other happen to us. If we take this approach to every conversation we have then it becomes possible to reach new levels of understanding. Everyone has a story and no one can tell you your story is wrong, it is your lived experience and although someone could disagree they can never tell you your experience isn't how you've experienced it. We all have our own experiences that lead us down different roads, who is to say that any road is the right one? Take bands for example, no band is exactly the same but every band has a story as to how they got to where they are and why they do the things they do. In no way are their traditions wrong because they are not the same as another band. Everyone is different and every band is different. Don't you think it would be more beneficial to understand how band's stories as to how they've got where they are than trying to prove that one way is better. This example reflects our western view of democracy being the best way of being and if a people or culture do not believe the same then we should instill our ways of being on them to make them better. Couldn't it be possible that there are multiple ways of being in the world? Who is to say one way is better than another?

Do you ever notice how you feel different in different situations?

Has someone such as a teacher, coach or colleague ever positioned you in a way that made you feel uncomfortable? I have found it eye-opening to note that we chose (knowing and unknowingly) to feel a certain way in every situation and because we make a choice we can always chose to feel differently. This may seem far fetched I know but next time someone makes you feel uncomfortable ask yourself why your feeling that way and how you have come to associate that feeling with the situation. Then think of a time you felt great, where you were comfortable and your desired self was present. Now bring those feelings into the situation that is making you feel uncomfortable. If this happens you would be choosing to feel different and thus acting differently in the situation. Take stage-fright for example. What if instead of thinking that there are people you don't know staring at you making you feel nervous and uncomfortable you took a different approach and pretended that each person in the crowd was a friend or family member. Would you act more comfortable in front of them?

We are constantly creating meaning through our interactions. Much like an improvisational artist creates music with other artists. The improvisational artist must listen to what the other artists are playing in order to communicate with them and generate a meaningful whole, coherent music. Just like listening to others in conversations it is important to listen to what others say while maintaining your own position. If we find that someone is trying to change our opinion and framing us in a way that makes us uncomfortable think of the example where we were our desired selves. We can then maintain our desired self in the conversation and then ask questions as to why the other believes what they do. I feel that more often than not the other will share experiences in their life that have led them to believe what they do. Instead of knowing that our own views are contained inside of us we can look into the experiences in our lives that have gotten us to where we are. If we understand that we don't need to persuade or be persuaded but instead look to further understand the other and how they've come to believe what they believe then we can engage in much more meaningful conversations where both parties feel heard and deeper understandings of ourselves, others and our world can occur. I will talk more about this in a later post.

My next post will look into the importance of language and its relation to music. I appreciate you taking the time to read this and encourage any feedback or questions you may have...thank you.

-Woody