Josh's E-Journal for the week of 10/01/03

I’m going to get ahead of myself because I totally dropped the ball on keeping up with dates as they occurred, but this thing was just too much fun. Hopefully Matty will get a photo on the site to accompany this, because it certainly was ridiculous and cool. Nils Fredland once played trombone for Johnny Socko. When we would tour the East Coast, Nils’s parents would very kindly put us up at their place. (Side note: one of the greatest food moments in the history of Johnny Socko was when Nils’s mom bought us a crate of steamed crabs and we ate until we were heavenly miserable). Anyhoo, Nils’s sister, Inga, was getting married and the Fredland’s wanted us to play the reception. No problem and it sounds like fun. Did you know that Nantucket Island is an island (duh) about 25 miles from shore? We get pretty bad mileage on a highway, never mind driving over the Atlantic. So we decided to take a ferry. Because we had to of course. Who knew that riding on a huge boat, big enough to hold the Socko truck AND a couple semis would be so much FUN! Beautiful view of the coast, the ocean, Hyannis Port, Nantucket, holy smokes. And to make matters worse, they sold beer at the snack bar. Plaque at the snack bar: “No booze until we cruise.” We played the wedding, great party, everyone and everything was fantastic. And the next morning we started our long trip from Nantucket to Indianapolis at about 5 AM. No problem, right? Apparently our gas tank/fuel injector was leaking and for some reason, people out east think it’s a bad thing to have a vehicle with a leaking gas tank on a boat. Sheesh, throw some kitty litter on it people, you’re surrounded by water, what could possibly go wrong? We were spread out all over the boat and the loud speakers blasted “Will the owners of the white box truck with Indiana plates return to the loading area IMMEDIATELY!” Oops. They sure did kick us off. One phone call, two tightened screws and $60 later, we were on the freight ferry. Now don’t laugh when I say ferry, because the name of the boat was the “Gay Head” (See East Coast photos.).

I swear I’m not making this up. Add the words “Gay Head” into the vocabulary of five sleep deprived musicians and that’s at least twenty minutes of really immature jokes. The funny jokes really started up once we read in the passenger cabin that the original name of the ship was the “Golden Mist”. I swear to you I’m not making this up. Turned out the Gay Head was even better than the S.S. Whatever-it-was-called. The Gay Head was a bare bones freightliner and we were its only freight. We were incredibly close to the ocean and it was mesmerizing watching the waves zip by as the sun rose over the Atlantic Ocean. I pledge allegiance to the Gay Head. Forever and ever. What a trip.
Half-mate Silbert out

Josh's E-Journal for the week of 9/30/03

HOWDY HO! Avast yea scallywagin’ lovers of Socko! Shiver me timbers as me computer was eaten by pirates (or a virus) and me bought a new hard drive and now me can get back to writing yea ship’s logs for yea web site. That and it was summer, and sunny and really nice outside. Tomatoes don’t can themselves you know. So many fun things, where to start… We went to the East coast, we’re writing a new album (or two) we’re meeting VIP’s in the music biz, we’re getting played on XM radio, we (finally) came up with a Halloween show idea, and we’ve played some crazy awesome fun shows all over the place. I’ll get into details in no time, but I just wanted to let whoever cares, I’m gonna try to keep up with this web site thing. I hear this Internet thing might just take off and I want to be there on the ground floor when it does. Talk at you soon!
xoxoxo
Joshy

Dylan's E-Journal for the week of 8/30/03

Greetings from Socko land. It's been a cool month, with a couple of great showcases in Atlanta and Indianapolis. We played the Atlantis Music Frestival in Atlanta earlier in the month, and were thrilled to have "Bitch Stole My Hat" selected to be the first song of the first disc on the two-disc festival compilation. Hell yeah! It's a collector's item now. We've all been working like mad on material for the follow-up to the self-titled disc, and everyone is pumped about the new material. It's been really cool working through the old material as well - everything just gets more and more rockin' as we go. I like to think it's because of the new 19" hi hat cymbals I've added to my drumset, but the rest of the guys may feel differently. They keep bothering me to add a cowbell, Tommy Lee-style. Thanks to everyone who's been emailing us (I sort through the mountains of spam to read them) - we're hoping to make it out to the West Coast sometime soon, and we're of course headed out to the East Coast next month (see the tour dates page for the update). Rock out always!
Dylan

Chris' E-Journal for the week of 7/24/03

I was watching Carlos Zambrano pitching for the Cubs one evening when I was reminded of one of the unwritten rules of the game. He had a no-hitter going into the 8th inning. No-hitters occur only a couple times a year throughout all of Major League Baseball, and a Cub might get one?! Did you know how important it is to NEVER say the words "no-hitter" to a pitcher who is throwing one? With all the pressure, it is the quickest way to get thrown out of a dugout! In fact, a lot of the announcers will talk around the issue without saying, "no-hitter". It's a rare and magical moment filled with superstition.

How does this pertain to Socko? Well, luckily many of our recent performances have shown a return to form. Or better put, the form has been thrown out the window! My absolute favorite moments of being in this band occur on stage when we, as a unit, take an excursion beyond the song. But we can't force it and we never discuss it. It can be triggered by something as simple as Demian playing a Doors melody during a solo. Before you know it, the whole band moves towards a psychedelic Jim Morrison/Oliver Stone tangent. Typically we can bring it all home...but if we don't, well we had fun destroying the moment! People often ask me if we planned on inserting "From This Moment" , "Whole Lotta Love", and "The Bunny Hop" in the middle of a song. Uh, no! It just happens sometimes! In fact, we as a band never talk about it afterwards. During these shows, in my opinion, is when Socko has its best stuff. The fastball, the curveball, the splitter. But don't bring it up!
Chris

Josh's E-Journal for the week of 6/20/03

A few weeks ago, and for whatever reason, I was thinking about the old Saturday morning cartoon, Superfriends. Maybe it was called Justice League, I can't remember (Chris has a new song he recently demo-ed for Socko called "Superfriends"; maybe it was that that triggered the nostalgia). I was curious about what the other members of Socko thought of the ol' Justice League and whether Casey Kasem voicing Robin (same Hanna Barbara voice as "Shaggy" from the wretched Scooby Doo cartoon) caused any latent psychological damage.

Suppose you were to ask the members of Johnny Socko, "If you could be any member of the Justice League, who would you be?" Surprisingly, some of the members of the band had problems with the question. I tried to turn the question into a multiple-choice question and then resorted to a true/false inquiry. I handed out crayons. Eventually I gave up. Here's what they said:

Demian: Green Lantern
Me (Joshy Boy): Batman
Chris: Wonderwoman. He continues, "Two words, Invisible Airplane!"

And then the MENSA members of the band:

Matt: Bugs Bunny
Dylan: Wonderman

Luckily, I, Batman, have some anti-dumbass powder in my utility belt.

To the Man-cave!

B.M.

E-Journal for the week of 5/8/03

And what a St. Patrick's Day it was!

Socko's first show back after a few months off and we came out swingin'. The infamous Vogue night club, of Indianapolis, IN, decided to have an evening of fine music to celebrate the always well behaved antics of the Irish, the wanna-be Irish and the ubiquitous "I'll drink to that" crowd.

First up, Loretta. Ken Lewis has been working with these guys for a while, so I was very curious to hear what they were sounding like. These guys are damn good. They have moments of severe pop-ism, where you're bopping you're head, wondering why this isn't on all of radio stations in town and then they'll throw a sharp left turn at you and blammo, you're face down, having a Radiohead thing all by your lonesome. How many guitarists do they have playing up there, five? Six? Damn brother, this is the kind of music you don't mind when you're ears are ringing the next day. If you're going to hit a wall, hit a wall of sound.

Next at bat: The Pieces. Two weeks before their CD release party and these guys are playing like the playoffs are around the corner. What a wonderful amount of music coming from just three people. I'm completely biased because D and I were lucky enough to play on their new album and I think that the album, start to finish, is a fine piece of work. Vess (guitar and vocals) crafts these crazy tunes into songs into etude-like pop gems, Heidi (bass, vocals, keyboards, whatever else) make your goose bumps get goose bumps and trust me, if you want a drummer to lay it down, Devon Ashley will lay it down proper.

And then the ol' Socko St. Patrick's Day fiasco. Fiasco? Nah, severe rockin'? Hell yeah! I kept thinking I was nervous. Chris kept telling me I was anxious. Whatever it was, it felt good. It felt as though someone installed a trampoline into the floor of the stage. We played a new song. Rocked. Finished with a Motley Crue song. Rocked. Ate Lucky Charms with Guinness. Rocked. Hometown crowd? Rocked. What a night, so much fun to be had.

Special props to Yat's for providing post show grub.

Here's some musician math for you: Indianapolis + good food - no money = Yat's!

There is no spoon. There is only Yat's.

Go to Hell yeah!

Over and out.

E-Journal for the week of 4/21/03

Not to talk about television on this web site but...

I have a question to any music fan that happened to watch the Grammys the other night: What on earth does Bruce Springsteen have to do with the Clash that he was included in the tribute to the late Joe Strummer? (Never mind Little Steven, who is an additional step removed from my query.)

No one can give me a better answer than "They probably played golf together".

Elvis Costello made perfect sense. Dave Grohl made perfect sense. They both embodied the spirit of Strummer, whether it is the style of song craftsmanship or representing the lineage of punk rock. I didn't get Springsteen. I know it's sacrilegious to say anything negative about The Boss, but he would win huge points in my book if someone were to tell me that he was the biggest Clash fan on the planet. Maybe in a perfect world, Springsteen's idea of a good time was to drink a few pints and listen to all six sides of Sandinista!, while avoiding Clarence Clemmons via caller I.D.

A couple of people claimed that "maybe Bruce was the only other person at the Grammys who knew how to play guitar". In that case, I would have much preferred an all-star romp with Christina Aguilera and Brittany Spears lip-synching such things as "Uh, who's Joe Strummer?" or "I was born in 1983, I didn't graduate from high school then, like, duh."

I'm not dissing the Boss, I was just scratching my head in bewilderment. Any help would be appreciated.

-Joshyboy, the biggest Clash fan in Socko

E-Journal entry for the week of 3/25/03
An anthropological perspective on Johnny (F**kin') Socko

Any time a number of people spend a substantial portion of time together in close quarters, the group will usually develop an intricate system of communication. This interaction is a highly specialized combination of physical gestures, vocal intonation and interpretive aptitude. Unless of course, you're in Johnny Socko.

Maybe it's the late nights or marker huffing, but we here at Johnny Socko have a majestic non-musical talent, and that is the butchering of cliches (or sometimes just arriving at brilliance via stupidity). The best part is that it's never intentional. I think it started with Brent Olds, bass player circa Bovaquarium. We were in Chicago, driving towards the infamous Spa Motel, heading north on Lincoln Avenue. Brent asked, at the jog of the street, if this was where the street juxtaposed. Perhaps one needs an understanding of this part of the Windy City to appreciate where Lincoln avenue juxtaposes, but as Brent once said "Language is not his capacity". He also stated that "When in Roman, do as the Romes". So we did. It took me years to realize that I was not making sense (or making less sense than I could have) when I would (frequently) say, "Hindsight is fifty-fifty".

Gigs sometime devolve into madness. That is when we "burn that bridge when we cross it". Other popular statements, even when things are looking up are "I want out of this chicken-sh** outfit", "whatever, it's your band" and the eloquent (and Chris's personal favorite) "Man, you don't know sh** about di**". We once witnessed another band's screaming argument over a missed breakfast meal. We adopted their witty barbs for our own diatribe. So even when all is well, one might say "Oh yeah?! We'll you're a f***ing pri**." The proper response to this is to say "Well you're a f***ing freak," whatever that means.

Certain industry people we have worked with have unintentionally influenced Socko-speak with inane business phrases. It is common to color a normal conversation by saying, "without question, in closing, the answer is clear" or to say "if possible," especially when it is not.

Eric Lenington, trombone and bass player circa Quatro, would attempt to express delight by quoting lines the "Theme from Shaft". Isaac Hayes, in a sultry baritone, sings "Can you dig it?" This has devolved into "That's what Shaft is talking about," or "That's what I'm talking about, Shaft." When said in a cliché nasal white boy voice, it is the best way to describe the happiness one feels on the road when we get a free cheese pizza. Try it next time you order Domino's. It does the body good. If you were Demian, making fun of Dylan (who would be salivating over said pizza) you would begin rubbing your belly, chanting "hungry, hungry" a la Homer Simpson.

For some reason, Matt and Dylan call football scoreball. A road break down might include a game of Frisbee or sometimes we just play with our football bat. (Note: scoreball does not utilize a football bat).

My specialty statement, regardless of opinion, is to dryly say "hmmm, interesting".

I hope you have found this lexicographical study of etymological Socko speak hmmm, interesting. With bettering band communication, I always say "Better is better than never".

Without question, in closing, the answer is clear,
Professor Silbert

E-Journal entry for the week of 2/12/03
An incident in Kentucky to that weird mosquito sound that D made. (Or, the Evolution of the Song "Bitch Stole My Hat".

Years ago, after the conclusion of a show in Lexington, KY, a magical hat was stolen. There were many hats that the band would wear in those days; some more special than others, but this hat was one of the band's prized possessions. The hat was a red and yellow jesters cap and whoever wore that hat was sure to attract the attention of many a pretty girl.

One such girl took a keen interest in the red and yellow cap, and from the moment she saw it, she immediately asked if she could wear it. We said no, as people sometimes steal other people's things. She persisted and we maintained our stance. She flirted and we stood strong. She tried to nab it right from our heads, and we held on tight.

That show ended like so many other shows that year, a foolhardy inebriated mess of a wrestling match on stage. While we were entangled, the evil temptress snuck up to the stage, and while no one was looking, she stole the magical jester's cap.

We searched for her but to no avail, she was gone, and with her, the hat. We were forlorn and angry. We had been cajoled. Somewhere it was raining on kittens. I said aloud, "That *&^*&% bitch just stole our hat!"

That same year, the band Praxis released their first album Transmutation (Mutatis Mutandis). The CD rarely left my stereo. One day, while about my apartment, the second song "Interface/Stimulation Loop" played. From somewhere, I said along with the Praxis song "Bitch stole my hat, stole my hat, stole my hat". It fit perfectly; a nifty coincidence.

I was enrolled in the infamous I.U. School of Music at the time, and as most college students do with their free time, I was messing around with a diminished-whole-tone scale on a guitar. I kept playing the scale, and then I repeated the first couple of notes and mumbled "Bitch stole my hat, stole my hat, stole hat". It sounded neat to me, so I figured I'd try to write a song around the idea. The Beastie Boys were everybody's favorite band at the time, so why not try a rap song in Socko? Dylan always thought that I got the idea from "Funky Boss" from Ill Communication. The chorus works with both Praxis and the b-boys just fine.

Another CD that rarely left my stereo was Djam Leelii by Mansour Seck and Baaba Maal, a beautiful collection of African ballads. One song in particular grabbed my fancy, "Macina Tooro". I decided to steal it, change it and cram it into this new song I was writing. It took about five minutes in rehearsal to realize that the African riff didn't fit at all.

We rehearsed it, jammed it, and it rocked. We started playing it and the crowds always seemed to love it. It seemed to encapsulate the craziness of Socko.

Fast-forward a few years and some sore bones. Ken Lewis saw Socko at the Patio (in Indianapolis, IN) for the first time and loved us. He decided to take us under his wing as he was going to record our next record. He wanted the album to be a strong as possible, as millions of people will be purchasing it, so he decided that we would re-record "Bitch". I was happy that we got to record the song again, because I never felt that the older version captured the energy that it had live. We kicked butt in the studio and Ken took the album home to mess with it on the molecular level.

The craziest part of it all (in my opinion) was when Demian and I were doing overdubs in New Jersey. We were lucky enough to hear the almost completed record thus far. When Ken played us "Bitch", there was this insane buzzing noise during the chorus. D and I inquired what it was, as neither of us remembered recording anything that sounded like that. Ken said that it was D's trumpet. He had taken the waveform and put it through an auto-tune program with a computerized vibrato. He maxed out the vibrato and the trumpet sounded like a twisted kazoo that had been put into an evil blender. It was insane, but worked wonderfully.

Who knew that a kleptomaniac from Kentucky could have inspired so many odd pleasures?

E-Journal entry for the week of 1/28/03:

Were you one of the 67-gazillion people that watched the Super Bowl? Probably. Were you one of the 12 people that watched the Bon Jovi post-game award ceremony? Probably not, because chances are, you're not a Buccaneer cheerleader.

I felt sorrier for Bon Jovi after the super bowl than I did for the Raiders. It was the "Who Cares" moment of the evening and Mr. Jovi was center stage. I would express sympathy, but alas, Johnny Socko hasn't played a super bowl (yet).

It reminded me of when Socko played the Indianapolis 500 racetrack for "Family Fun Day". Sure, there were some genuine Socko fans there, and we had loads of fun, but for the most part, we weresurrounded by people more concerned with what grade of motor oil the Penske drivers were going to try out that day than our rock and roll show. Gigs like these are pretty weird to do. I would assume Mr. Jovi got paid what we got paid, just with a few more zeros.

I can't say there are too many reasons to feel sorry for Bon Jovi. He's the hunkiest rock star this side of Rick Springfield, he's sold a zillion records and he's in a band with someone named Tico, which is almost like being in a band with someone named taco, and that, my friends, would be really cool. I'm in a band with someone named Dylan. Dylan's a fine chap, but he's no Taco. On a semi-related tangent, in the town where Dylan and I grew up, there was a cheap Mexican restaurant called Taco Tico. I ate there about once a week; I do not know if Dylan also frequented said establishment with any regularity. [Dylan notes: Who can forget Taco Tuesday, two tacos for a buck. If there's one thing I can't resist, it's free or cheap food. A cheap plug for anyone who happens to meet us out there on the road...]

Anyhow, hire Socko for next years' halftime show and we'll deliver the goods. The faces on the guys in No Doubt said it all. "Not only are we playing a kick ass Police song, but we're Sting'sbacking band!" We might have to pick something from "Ghost in the Machine" if Sting comes back next year; more of those songs have a horn section on it. Egads, could you imagine Socko backing "From This Moment" with Shania Twain? Now that would be entertainment. Hoo hah.

Joshy-boy out.