happy halloween! i love halloween! i love things that are scary but not actually dangerous. here’s today’s comment game if you’re bored at work: what is something scary but not dangerous?

let me tell you about my halloween adventures so far

i had a weird dream the other night. i was dressed like michael jackson and all the guys in the band were zombies. i was on a stage with big foot, presenting him with a box of moon pies and a slim jim. then, we broke into “thriller” and big foot started dancing. people were coming up onto the stage dancing and we just kept playing that thriller bass line dum dum dum dum dum, dum dum dum dum dum.
wait maybe that really happened…it DID hapen! if you weren’t at the mad frog friday night, you missed it. this has to go down as one of the most craziest shows we’ve done. we had so much fun. really, that was fun. i mean i always say shows are fun but one third of the time i may or may not be lying. THAT was fun.

wouldn’t be halloween without screaming girls.

the last time we played in cincy it was poorly attended and we did not play well at all. so this felt like redemption. also, in high school i played thriller with some other guys at a halloween show. i think it was T’s first show with me (he played cello on a few songs). but our cover of thriller then was terrible–i mean really bad. people always want to dispute me on this. i’m telling you, i used to be a terrible singer and guitarist and i have been working hard and progressing for years to be better. anyway so this was really redeeming myself for that awful performance too.

guys practicing their undead look. i was the post-zombie transformation version of michael jackson. complete with fedora, sparkly white glove (hot glue gun), white socks…

thanks to dan for the “everything was a weird dream” joke. the all around ridiculousness of the night really did give it a satisfying surrealism. i was dan’s make up artist. this was very enjoyable for me. i went through a short phase as a kid where i thought i was going to grow up to do special effects in movies.

if you’re keeping score, a guy dressed as big foot won the costume contest. he had on stilts under his outfit so he was about 8 feet tall and awesome. i don’t think he was aware that we were having a contest, but when we notified him he won he was delighted to receive a box of moon pies and an extra long slim jim (thanks to sheri mary + nicki!). and even agreed to dance on stage. definitely every show should end with a dancing 8 foot tall big foot.
there were a lot of other great costumes too. my friend and ex drummer sam was the crocodile hunter, complete with a wound in his heart (okay that’s wrong. but so is sam). harriet potter, alice in drunkerland, we had bat girl wonderwoman cats cowgirls ganstas punk cabaret and so on. thanks to everyone who dressed up. it made my fall.

thanks to niles and brittany for taking pictures. and people i stole from on myspace.

* * *

the following night we played in columbus. after arriving and loading-in, a few surprises including the van not starting put me in sort of a cranky mood.

after spending a few hours with the other guys at the bar. as the night wore on we felt better.
before we played, we made a last minute decision to put on our costumes from the previous night. when we took the stage the room felt pretty full. this time, i wore a black robe over my michael costume until the last song (thriller). i guess that was effective. our set was supposed to be 45 but was cut even shorter. we need a lot more time to set up, since we have extra channels a cello, a keyboard, acoustic guitar, and a sequencer. but i think this was a cool venue and everything, and now that i know we have enough people in c-bus to at least fill up the pit, maybe next time we can play an hour or even 1:30.

* * *

thanks so much to everyone for all the support on myspace. because of your enthusiasm for the new song “wake up”, i entered the myspace top artists! in the experimental category (i am listed in three: rock, acoustic, experimental) i am in the top 100. considering myspace has 100 MILLION users, to be the top anything is pretty awesome. please keep playing this song, adding it to your profile, and telling your friends to do the same. i’ve been working it pretty hard.

this weekend we are in cleveland. yay! i am really looking forward to this show. sometimes you just get a good feeling.

again, happy halloween!
mmmm candycorn

just a quick reminder about our annual halloween show/ costume contest this friday night. if you come to one show this year, make this the one. we are awarding a prize to the winner of the costume contest. i won’t tell you what is is (and maybe i don’t even know yet). last year it was a giant cucumber. like a foot and a half long, about 6 inches girth (get your mind out of the gutter it was just an oversized vegetable). if oversized vegetables aren’t your thing, just think about all the fun you’ll have wearing a mask or face paint or whatever it is that you want to do. the whole band is dressing up but i’m not telling you what we’re being.

i’m getting ready to leave for tonight’s acoustic/piano show at coopers on main. i can’t wait to see everyone!

Hello! Ahoy!

i’m back.

i’m back with a vengence. please click around and leave a message on the new boards, and head over to my myspace page www.myspace.com/joehedges to hear “wake up”, the first track from the new album Curvature.

this has been the longest period of no blogging for me since before the word blog existed. six months! It seems like a lot longer. sorry for the sudden disappearance. i just needed some time to get my shit together for the album and be creative. i’m really excited about having all kinds of neat stuff on joehedges.com including this blog and (eventually) a new art gallery. it’s just taken me a longer longer than i had planned to get something up. honestly i have really missed you guys. in real life i have some serious anti-social tendencies; this is an extension of my art and my music, just another means of expression. plus, dan and t miss me taking goofy photos of them at shows.

so what the hell have i been doing? here is the overview.
it’s super. it’s mega. it’s the supermegablog.

we did some shows out east…

playing at the Grape Street Philadelphia

T Miller and i

…and we did some shows at home. here’s some shots from a show on the street in Covington, outside one of our new favorite bars, Clique Lounge.

these two photos and the first one in this post by Niles C. Davis, the f’in man. from a mad frog show in cincinnati. we did some really great shows at the mad frog (and some others that were not so great). one coming up on the 27th which will totally melt your face off. more about that soon.

we played at the cutting room in new york city. now that CBGB’s is closed, we need a new place to call home in new york. cutting room has a great vibe (and is co-owned by christopher noth from HBO’s sex in the city for whatever that’s worth) but unlike cb’s there is no built in crowd and separate cover for every band (weird), which makes it difficult for an out of town band like us. we may come back if they’ll have us, but we may try and look at some other venues.

the actual performances were not our greatest. T had just returned from a month long holiday, they were our first shows with brian on bass, and our first shows using the keyboard and sequencer. so…admittedly they were work in progress sets as we were very rusty. regardless, we had a great time. we visted time square, hung out with old friends, encountered crackheads, ate sushi, ate junkfood, signed autographs. before the show in philadelphia we went to swimming at Neshaminy State Park. this is one great thing about traveling with laptops. have a few hours to kill? google something fun (like public pool), mapquest directions, pile in the van, wah lah:

not many people make me feel tan.

this was the most relaxing moment of the trip.

this is jerry our sound guy. hubba hubba. sorry jerry i have to do this. ladies to my knowledge, he is single. in his late 30’s/early 40’s (but doesn’t look it). this is the classiest sound guy you will ever meet. non-smoker, drinks red wine, listens to bruce springsteen and old motown, great sense of humor, super super nice. he works with bands at night, and during the day when he’s not on the road he’s setting up media for conventions and sporting events for people like ESPN. e-mail me. i will be screening submissions. i’m dead serious here–i’ll put you through to him.

we got a new bassist, brian ives:

he’s fresh in from pittsburgh, likes the steelers, and hates gold star chilli. so…we don’t like him very much. ha! no brian is very nice and talented and we are getting along swimmingly. he is of indian decent, but was adopted by italians. so…yeah. can’t answer questions about hinduism but loves meatballs. i don’t know i’m just making stuff up now.

oh! we have been playing acoustic every other wednesday in Cincinnati at Coopers On Main. it’s a lot of fun. one of the best things to happen to us as a band in a long time.

see look how cozy!

we practice our new material, and have have dug out some really old songs. a lot of old fans are showing up and requesting obscure songs we have forgotten how to play. if you’re a serious fan i would really recommend coming to at least one of these. it’s imtimate, but the mood is really relaxed and light (thanks mostly to a great ambiance and a good selection of beer). the next show is this Wednesday Oct 11th. we’ll play around 10:30.

we are finished recording! okay, there are still some mix issues that blumpy is working out but that’ll be it. blumpy and i have done a ton of work for this album. i really can’t believe what an undertaking it has been. i was crying upon hearing one of the mixes for the first time…it’s very cathartic when you work on something for months or years to finally experience it in its most complete form, in the form you always imagined. so i am of course extremely excited about the whole record finally being pieced together and maybe even released. we are shooting for february but that’s still tentative (of course).

here’s a shot of a recording experiment eric stewart and i conducted for a song on the album. this may be the nerdiest thing you’ve ever heard of. i’m pretty sure it is. we borrowed this thing from eric’s brother kyle stewart: a MIDINES. that’s midi (a means of sending digital music to a computer) and nes (nintendo entertainment system). it’s literally a game cartrige for the old school nintendo with a midi cable coming out of it. you hook the cable up to a keyboard or midi controller, and wah lah–you play the nintendo as an instrument. it makes lots of beeps and blips, but has some really sweet drum sounds in it too. the guy who makes them takes apart old games, and puts in his own microchip and cable. it’s pretty amazing, if you’re in your twenties and have the up up down down Contra code built into your dna. i am asking for one for christmas.

Eric D. Stewart, Genius

so that was a day of fun. but the real bulk of time eric stewart and i have spent together in the last few months was spent making a music video for “Mitral Valve Prolapse” or just “Mitral” or “MVP” or “the song with the whoa’s”. the video is very conceptual, and very awesome. eric stewart is a genius and i am happy to be working with him. he’s been shooting some stuff for MTV lately. we’ve been working together for years. i don’t want to give away screenshots yet, but here are some sketches i did while we were brainstorming:

i’m also working on editing a behind the scenes making of for the video with stuff that Dan and i shot. also we’re talking about possibly shooting one or two more videos with eric, so he could have a pretty major role in the whole album package.AND i edited a second video myself from documentary footage i shot while in michigan.

so very busy with video stuff. this may all end up on a DVD. not sure yet.

other than playing, recording, and the video my life is mostly making stuff. i’ve written some songs, made some websites and logos. producing a track for another artist. for the album art (not quite finished yet) i did a few of these collage-like things on cardboard painted dark blue. using different elements from old astronomy books anatomy and maps, photos, tags, tickets, etc. painting them warm colors and attaching. (you can see some of the result on this journal page). it’s been nice to get my hands painty and do some things that are more real and tangible. i spent so much of time on the computer it’s stupid. when i’m not recording music or doing something music related on the computer i am scraping by as a freelance graphic artist/webdesigner.

i’ve spent a lot of time on myspace. as both an artist and a web designer, i am not crazy about the design or funcionality of myspace (suck-o), but it has become a necessary part of band life. and so to assist with the jh transition, using searches on myspace and google.com i have found every single myspace-using july for kings fan on the internet. you cannot hide from me. i will find you on myspace and add you. and you will like it. myspace.com/joehedges.

i fired my managers. that is sucky to go through. whenever you have a relationship that lasts for years and you sever it, it sucks and is painful. it’s like a divorce i guess. it will probably get even suckier as we bring in the attorneys and they fight for as much of my futuremoney as possible. this is how these things work. FutureMoney is king. hopefully we will find a new manager who brings some fresh promomtional ideas to our creations. so i am starting over in a lot of ways. in most ways. we are looking to assemble a killer team (managers, agent, publicist) to help promote this record. if you think you can help in any capacity please e-mail me joe hedges at joe hedges dot com. that’s my new address please update your address books, thanks!

on a heavy note, our hearts go out to the family and friends of dave s. from new jersey. Dave died last month from some kind of an overdose. he had over 5,000 posts on the message boards and was one of my biggest supporters ever. he was a huge reds fan, a great conversationalist, a little crazy, but full of personality. thanks dave. rest in peace.

thanks so much to everyone who has come out to the shows in the last few months. we never take it for granted. having fun with you:

i think that about brings you up to speed. wow! this concludes the super mega blog.
thanks for reading! i’ll be back soon.
joe