8/31/08

the KPIG show!

so did you hear me on the radio today? i was on KIPG 94.9 for about a half hour around 10:45! i got to do a little talking and play some songs, it was a lot of fun, way easier and less terrifying than i thought it'd be. the crew was great and the d.j. was funny and they even got me a cd recording of the show right after we finished!

in case you missed it and you're interested in hearing it, i decided to put my segment of the show online! check it out :) (left click to listen, right click>save as to download)

well that's all i've got for now, i need to rest after that six hour round trip!

thanks a lot for listening, i'll see you this tuesday at the clubhouse (sept 2nd 6:30 - 9:30 with rachel sedacca and local artists)! be there or be....well, somewhere else i guess. your call.

-loren

 

8/26/08

the full story, with pictures!

SO.

one more time, here's the deal. there is an organization called the westcoast songwriter's association, they have divisions all over the place, one in SLO, one in Hollywood, a few in the Bay Area, etcetera. each division has a monthly competition. i won the local monthly competition twice, once for homesick and once for san francisco.

every twelve months, the winners from the past year get together and have a playoff. against my expectations i ended up winning that one too. the prize for winning the yearly competition is a "song of the year" award from westcoast songwriter's association, as well as a chance to compete in berkeley at the freight and salvage co against the other division's winners.

there were eight of us total , and all of us received the "song of the year" award. there were also three open spots up for grabs at the westcoast songwriter's conference in los altos hills in september. the three winners of this competition got to go on to that as well.

i ended up winning this competition too. along with joshua and karen, from berkeley and hollywood respectively, i'll be playing in los altos for the songwriter's conference!

so, that's great news, and that's the story.

now it's time for pictures!

(all but one or two of these are courtesy of my lovely girlfriend courtney, thanks for taking pictures honey when it would have been so much easier to just sit and watch!)

here's the building

kind of non-descript, is it more than meets the eye?

here's the entryway once you're past the front door. nice but still not exactly awe inspiring.

holy cow, that's a huge room! even if only half the seats had filled it'd have been the biggest crowd i've ever played for, and it got to about 3/4 full at the peak! that's the sound board and the awesome sound guy, max. the room was so great, the sound was amazing, ugh, exceeded all my expectations!

view from the stage

ian crombie, director of the westcoast songwriter's association announcing the event!

thanks ian!

here's greg lamboy, mc for the evening, announcing me!

great job greg!

here's me doing the best i can

people seemed to like my set

here's joshua eden, a local to berkeley, another of the three winners, and one of the nicest guys you'll ever meet

congrats joshua!

this is chris hanson, last year's winner, also a very nice guy.

at the end of the night ian awarded all 8 of us with our regional "song of the year" awards.

the night was so amazingly fun, but it had to come to an end at some point. the room started to empty out pretty quick after the winners were announced.

i'm still a little bit in shock that i won, it's a really great honor and a wonderful confidence booster too. what i really like though is that everyone seemed to enjoy my set, and all the other artists were so nice. everyone in the room seemed to have something encouraging to say.

lastly, a few people made the exceptionally long drive to come out and support me, and i'd really like to mention them here. my dad drove all the way to fresno to pick up my grandma and come see me play, and then back the same night. that's almost 9 hours of driving in one day. for two songs. i was so glad to have members of my family there supporting me, i love you very much, thank you! my beautiful and supportive girlfriend courtney came with me, she had to sit in the crowd for hours before i went up, and wait with me for hours for the judges to announce the winners. we drove back that night and she didn't get to bed until 5:00 am, when she had to be to work just after 9 that morning! steve key, local booking agent and talented musician (www.stevekey.com), has been helping me recently with bookings, publicity, and networking. he also managed the local copmetitions that i won, so without him letting me know about the local competitions, i wouldn't have even been able to come to the berkeley show! he and his girlfriend bonnie made the long arduous drive up to support me, and steve gave me a couple tips that helped calm me down and i'm sure improved my performance.

i've said it to all of them already, but i honestly believe that i wouldn't have won if all the right pieces hadn't been there, if any one of you hadn't come i doubt it would have worked out like it did. so thank you!

and thanks to all of my friends who sent the encouraging texts, getting those was a huge huge help, it was only minutes before i went on and i was shaking in my boots (almost literally). you were a huge part of helping keep me calm and remember to just have fun, thank you!

so that's it, sorry it was so long, and thanks a lot for reading. talk to you soon!

-loren

 

8/25/08

well what a wonderful surprise

you may have heard a little bit of talk recently about a competition i was headed to in berkeley? the 8 "song of the year" winners got together for a big old concert in berkeley for a playoff. the prize was a spot at an even bigger concert in los altos on september 13th, and three people out of the eight were selected. well, we had performers from as far south as hollywood and i think a little further north than san francisco, so these were the best of the best that almost all of california has to offer as far as independent singer/songwriters goes. the judges had some very impressive resumes (each one had at least a handful of hit songs to their name) and the one i got to see perform (steve seskin) was very talented and a really nice guy.

alright, well i'm gonna do a whole 'photo-blog' style re-cap later today, but i'll just sum up the night for you here. i won. or rather, i was one of the top three performers, meaning that i have been awarded a spot at the september 13th conference in los altos. i was stunned, and honestly still kind of am. the other two winners made perfect sense to me, they were both amazingly talented, but i was pretty sure that i hadn't performed well enough to beat out the other five.

there was so much talent in that room, it was an honor just to share the stage. needless to say, it was a huge confidence boost and a wonderful experience to be chosen to go on, and i'm just so glad it all worked out! like i said, a full debriefing will be up later today or tomorrow, i just wanted to give you the basics right now, and especially to say thanks for everyone who offered encouragement and offered emotional support and thought encouraging thoughts, i definitely felt it and i think it's a big part of why i was able to calm down and give it my best!

thanks, talk to you soon!

-loren

p.s. don't forget, the CD should be here in just ten short days!

 

 

8/21/08

too much good stuff

seriously, there's too much good stuff to tell you all about right now. bear with me!

ok, so first off, we mailed the master disc and artwork to oasis (www.oasiscd.com) so they can start work making our cd! we shipped everything out last friday and approved the art proofs yesterday, and by my calculations we should be receiving the discs (all one thousand of them!) by september 3rd! it's simultaneously thrilling and terrifying to know that everything's in the works now, it's all out of our hands. i just really really hope that we did everything we needed to and that the end product reflects all the hard work everyone put into this. mostly i hope you guys like it! the cd has nine tracks you've most likely heard on this website before, but they've all been re-recorded, re-mastered, and in some cases even slightly re-written. the other three tracks are brand spankin new songs you've most certainly never heard before. i can't wait to get these out to you guys!

ok, in other news, i'm playing in berkley this sunday! i won a regional annual songwriter's competition, and the prize was a spot with the seven other regional winners at this august 24th show in berkley. i guess the hall seats 250 and it almost always sells out. this event is a concert and a competition, the top three performers get to go on to an even bigger stage in september! the details are in our shows section, but i'll give you the basics here. it's at the freight and salvage coffee house on 1111 addison street in berkley, doors open at 7:30 and the show starts at 8:00pm, tickets are 18.50 (get them in advance at www.thefreight.org). i know it's kind of a long drive, but think encouraging thoughts for me even if you can't make it out, i could use all the help i can get.

that's about it for now, don't forget, we're taking down the free downloads page as soon as we start selling our cd, so get the free tracks while you can!

thanks for reading, i'll talk to you later

-loren

 

8/11/08

a story with pictures

so some of you may not know this, but i had a show at downtown brew last saturday.

it was kind of a big deal

i was only an opening act (one of three) and i was pretty scared.

anyway, there were a good forty-ish people in the room when i went up to play, and it was so so cool. the sound system and sound guy were great, and the audience was so attentive and responsive, it felt really cool. i was scared stiff but i really feel ok about my performance. i played a new cover and four originals and it went really well. here's some pics from my time backstage and the other artists!

this is my view from the stage (this is a half hour before the show, it filled out a bit before i went on)

backstage in the same green room sean lennon hung out in before his concert last year. kind of intimidating.

free water, soda, and beer. can you guess what i chose?

doug groshart (pronounced gross heart) went on right after me. we chatted a bit before and after our sets, he's a really great guy. an incredible piano player and vocalist, and a really good songwriter. he was very complimentary and it was even more meaningful after i realized how talented he was.

here's the man of the hour, joe koenig. this was easily the best local show i've ever been to and the fact that joe put together such a great lineup and got so many friends and supporters to come by is a testament to his talent, his taste, and what a great guy he is in general. i felt really honored to be involved. also, andy is playing his grandma's tambourine.

joe's friend matt and his wife pheobe (hidden behind the pole) play a mean guit and fiddle. matt had his own set before joe went on and half the audience was singing along with his songs. him and his wife are both increible musicians and were also really great to me.

joe's buddy (jeff?) playing some awesome lead (acoustic and electric) guitar. also, wearing an awesome pirate shirt.

last song of the night, joe and friends played a cover of joe cocker's version of "with a little help from my friends". joe invited the audience up on stage and the response was overwhelming, as you can see. great show you guys.

well, that's about it, just wanted to tell y'all about that. hope you don't mind a little storytelling!

thanks for reading,

-loren

 

8/6/08

good times, noodle salad

hey there

so for those of you who haven't heard, i won the annual local songwriter's competition on sunday August 3rd. they hold a monthly competition, which i've won twice, and this last sunday all of the winners from the previous year had a playoff. i was so shocked! it was really fun though, and very encouraging too. the prize is a spot in a big concert up in berkley on Sunday August 24th. so i'll be going to that i guess, which is awesome :)

also, i'm playing at farmer's tomorrow night! that's thursday the 7th of August on Chorro Street in SLO from 6:30 to 8:30. CD's for sale and a few new songs up my sleeve, it should be a fun night! i hope to see you there!

anyway, other than that, there's tons of new videos from recent shows going up on our youtube account like this one! a lot more will be coming up in just a few days, so be sure to check back.

the cd is going really really well. the last backing guitar part just got added, and i'm trying to decide about adding one last vocal line to a song. several are in the later stages of mixing and the album art is all but final! only a few days left for us to work on it, and then just a few short weeks before we get them printed and shipped back! i cannot wait, i hope you guys like how it turns out!

thanks for reading!

-loren

p.s.