Tonight between 8 and 9 p.m. Pacific time (that’s 11 and 12 Eastern), 98.7 FM will be playing a Shaimus song on Ozolocal, a show hosted by the band Ozomatli.

If you’re not in SoCal, you can easily listen by tuning in at www.987fm.com.

After you hear our song, give ‘em a call and tell them you just can’t get enough Shaimus, and that we were quite possibly the best band they’ve ever played!

Their phone numbers:
800-STAR-987 (request line)
866-987-8789 (comment line)
818-503-3310 (comment line)

For all the Shaimus fans, Dave stalkers, haters and appreciators, its time to get to know me on a personal level. I feel it’s important for you to have insight into my personal life so you can see that even big rock stars like me have feelings just like everyone else (only I turn those feelings into mega-hit records). The best way for you to see who I really am is to learn what I call my “guilty pleasures”. To me, these guilty pleasures are things that I enjoy on a deeply intimate level, but am afraid to become vulnerable and admit that I like them as much as I do.

The first and foremost of my guilty pleasures is the band Creed. Hate on them all you want, but their edgy, drop-D riffs, coupled with positive messages and honest lyricism is just what I want to hear after a long day of feeling my feelings.

Secondly, I have a secret playlist on my itunes for nights when only the sensitive sounds of the female songstress can soothe my woes. On this list, which is labeled untitled playlist 2, you’ll find songs like “Landslide” and “Silver Springs” by Fleetwood Mac, “Oxygen” by Colbie Caillat, and “Fields of Gold” by Eva Cassidy.

The most embarrassing for me to admit, I have saved for last. I have always been a black coffee, hot sauce, beer only type guy. I never eat tofu, drink mixed drinks, or indulge in anything cuisine I might feel is too girlish. However, by pure happenstance I once imbibed a caramel latte. Its pure deliciousness and caffeine-sugar rush soon sent me into a dizzying identity crisis, not knowing if I could be myself and admit that I really enjoyed the beverage.

Now that you all know me better, what about you? Shaimus has always been and will always be a quid-pro-quo operation, so please let down your guard and let some skeletons out of your closet.

Thought I’d post a few more photos of our trip to Atlanta. Enjoy.

The view from my hotel window. Lots of non-palm trees in Georgia!

We arrive at our place of work for the day.

A modest selection of guitars.

Dave gets set up for his instructional part for “All Of This.”

Dave hits a rock note. OK, I told him to do that, but it still makes for a good picture.

Dave and I just came back on Sunday from a completely non-romantic weekend in Atlanta. OK, it was at least a little romantic, because the weather was warm and scenery was nice. We were recording instructional videos for the website iVideosongs.com. In these videos, we show you how to play three of our songs (”All Of This,” “Like a Fool,” “Tie You Down”) note-for-note, completely broken down for each guitar part and slowed down for your complete instructional pleasure. Then you can cover our songs and impress all your friends, not to mention be up to your neck in horny girls.

While we were there, we met some great people who were friendly and fun to work with. They made us feel at home, gave us all sorts of nice guitars to play, and fed us Mexican food and BBQ ribs. They also asked us questions about our inspiration for playing guitar, the band name, and why we pick our noses so much. Wait, they never asked us about the band name.

They’re doing a really cool thing with iVideosongs. The site is still very new, but they’ve gotten some great artists to come in and show you EXACTLY how to play the songs you love. Oh, and our songs, too. Also, they are a crack team of non-crackhead musicians who transcribe even more of your favorite songs very accurately and show you how to play them via high-quality video download. They’re off to a great start, and I think the site is going to become almost as popular as that other high-quality video site that you currently visit on a daily basis when nobody’s looking (sometimes even twice daily). Unfortunately, we are fully clothed throughout our videos.

The videos should be ready for eager public consumption by the fall, so it should serve as a handy promo tool for the upcoming album. I think I’ll post a few more pictures over the coming days.

Today is August 6th, 2008 which would have been the 39th birthday of the late Elliott Smith. For those who don’t know Elliott Smith, he was a musician, song-writer/composer, phenomenal arranger, and an inspiration to a lot of people. Including me.
Elliott had a way of capturing the essence of the Beatles without sounding like a clone or a copy-cat. I suppose it was his musical choices and the sound of his voice that really made him stand out from the rest of the music at the time, which in the 90s was primarily the growing grunge trend. You can tell by listening. He was a smart guy, and a pretty deep thinker. Probably a pretty tortured soul as well, at least as his lyrics and death would portray.
When I first heard Elliott Smith, I played his records on repeat until my girl at the time got jealous of all the listening I was doing to him instead of her. My respect for his music grew profound when I tried to play it.
I was really sad and confused when he died in 2003. I truly felt like I was supposed to see him live, but that chance was taken from me, like he wasn’t done contributing. Regardless of the tragedy, he left us with some great music, and the knowledge that creativity lives on through bravery and sacrifice.
I hope you get a chance to listen to Elliott Smith at some point. My favorite albums include Either/Or and Figure 8. Below I perform one of his songs entitled “Everything Means Nothing to Me” that has ironically been very meaningful to me.

Happy Birthday Elliott Smith.
You are missed.