High Fives for Lo-Fi

High Fives for Lo-Fi was made by myself, Jonny Pena, Chris Smith and Nate Noble. Here's the basic run down. Ever since I was 14 years old I have always wanted to record an album of songs that I have written and then give it out to friends and family. This year it happened. I have been writing songs for a while and have collected a fair few. Around November I decided that I wanted to actually record them and make an album to give out for Christmas. My original plan was to record them on my computer through Audacity and ship out a super Lo-Fi recording. However, I soon met Nate and found out that he and his Dad built a legit recording studio in his house. Ka Ching!!! So we set up a plan to record some stuff and see how it turned out.

I went over and threw down 9 guitar tracks in one day, and decided that it would sound better with some drums and base added in. I contacted my jamming buddies JP (Jonny) and Chris and asked them to be a part of it. They were super pumped and started working on some beats off the guitar tracks I gave them. The three of us only jammed together once and I jammed with each of them two or three times individually over the next two weeks. We came, we saw, we recorded. In about two weeks we had the whole thing finished off. It was ridiculously hectic because we had a deadline of December 17th (last day of finals) so that I could mail it off to some friends and family. Each of the guys were amazing and made sacrifices to get it done because we did almost all the recording during finals week. We cut out two songs that were originally recorded because we didn't have time to finish them, but we wrote and recorded the last track on the album in less than 24 hours on a whim. All in all it was a hurricane and I can best describe it as the most hectically fun thing I have ever done. It's not perfect, but we're all pretty proud of it.

Down Date

I wonder why we picked 'up' for the direction in "update." This one is dedicated to down. I know your under appreciated dude. It's aight' I got yo back.

Anyways, I am at Noble; it's going to close soon, and I am SICK!!!! of making dimensioned drawings of engine parts. So I figured I'd tell the tale of "BRO TRIP 2009!!!"

So it all started the morning before Thanksgiving. We were supposed to drive up to U-TA as a family and spend the time with other family members (you know, ones that live in Utah). Well turns out Father dear had to go and get sick that very morn, and so the fam. decided not to go.

However, A-Ron (my younger brother) and I decided that a family road trip could easily be transformed into a "Bro Trip." Done and done.

On the way up Aaron drove first since he had only slept four hours each night for the past two nights. On the way back I was in a similar condition and subsequently drove first. But I am getting ahead of myself. First off we did not tack Melvin of Yoko. Instead we rode up in my Dad's nameless Saturn, but not until I had adorned it with some bling from my truck. We roll deep.

The way up was pretty uneventful but the way back was not.

That's right. We got a flat in the middle of no where with no cell phone service. Time to make memories.

We looked for the wrench to break loose the lug nuts, and were unsuccessful. I had Aaron take a picture of me holding up this sign, then told him to make his own and look pathetic.

We're not that great at scoring sympathy points, but at least we try.

(Funny thing was once we finally got someone to stop I took a look at the jack and realized the handle worked as the wrench. That's when you just play it smooth and thank God that the guy who stopped to help knows nothing about cars. Man card saved.)

Needless to say we made it out. We had to limp along on a undersized spare for over 150 miles, but we finally found a place to get a new tire.

(NO! We are not high. That is just how we look. OK?)

The tire... well, tires usually don't do to well when the side wall blows out. Maybe she'll get to be the bottom of some eco-friendly sandal or something. Here's hoping.

Stay Sweet.