Eyes Sewn Shut

[Nomad]

Here are a couple promo photos we took today. They really won't ever be used, since there are two members missing (Juan (vocals), and Jarret (bass)), but the final photos we take should be similar.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v82/digital_nomad/ess/promo2.png
TJ (Guitars), Zach (Guitars), and CJ (Me, drums)

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v82/digital_nomad/ess/promo1.png

Let me know what you think! My girlfriend took the photos, but I edited them.

[Danimetal]

Zach´s gesture doesn´t look quite convincing to me but hey, that´s my taste... Another taste thing is that images seem quite bright and I would have liked them more dark. Other than that the concept is cool and I like your footwear a lot :).

[She-wolf]

The guy in the middle looks bored. That's just what I think with him having his arms folded in both photos, and his face in the second one there.

Hey I never really thought of this before but I'm reminded of a Testament song of the same name as your band, it's on The Gathering album.

[Nomad]

Zach´s gesture doesn´t look quite convincing to me but hey, that´s my taste...

The guy in the middle looks bored. That's just what I think with him having his arms folded in both photos, and his face in the second one there.

Yeah, I know. One of the things we really need to work on, if anyone's supposed to take us seriously as a death metal band, is our presentation. I've gotten all sorts of time being a complete geek and posing in front of mirrors, so I've got it down pretty well. ;D

They all need to work on their performing as well. Right now, aside from a small amount of headbanging, they are they type that kind of stands around and stuff.

Another taste thing is that images seem quite bright and I would have liked them more dark. Other than that the concept is cool and I like your footwear a lot

Thanks for the input, dani. I'll keep that in mind for the final photos, once we get everyone together.

As for the footwear? Zach and I are just wearing Converse Chuck Taylor All-Stars. It's not that fantastic. Oddly enough, though, TJ was the only person who came to our practice who wasn't wearing Chuck T's. Even my girlfriend, and Zach's girlfriend were. :D

Hey I never really thought of this before but I'm reminded of a Testament song of the same name as your band, it's on The Gathering album.

I'm not sure where they got the name. None of them have really heard Testament, which I have to fix very soon. :D

[She-wolf]

Well I guess look at other death metal bands that you like. See how they present themselves and what things make them stand out. Okay so that runs the risk of ripping somebody off but it'll get some ideas going. I mean for most death metal bands there isn't really any sort of particular look is there? Thing I hate personally is a lot of gurning and face pulling. Yeah a little looks fine in a few shots but see Meshuggah, I hate their last photos. Every picture I've seen of them seems to have them pulling some totally weird faces. Now sure that's them but I'll admit I was even more put off listening to them because I found the shots to be a little childis and stupid, besides the fact that I'm not terribly attracted to their music in the first place.

[Nomad]

Had our first gig last night. Well, my first gig.

I want to find that motherfucker "Murphy," and kill him and his goddamn law. Anything that could have gone wrong, did. Well, for me, anyway. This was my first live performance, so I was nervous as all hell. At first, I had put my ride and crash cymbals on the wrong stands (that wasn't really my fault, though. A friend was trying to help, and I just wasn't paying attention). My double-bass pedals had some mechanical difficulties and the left pedal kept uncoupling for the first couple songs. I finally got it to stay, and the left pedal kept migrating about.

I finally got everything fixed after about the third song, but, I guess no one could really hear the drums anyway, so I guess it didn't matter anyway... Oh fucking well.

It's wasn't too bad, I guess. We could have used a better sound check, but we got there kind of late, so by the time we had everything set up, everyone was expecting a show. I did as best I could with my pedals fucking up for the first few songs. With a better sound check, everyone would have heard how crappy I was playing, so I guess I feel a little bit better. Oh well.

It was a short show. Hardly 25 minutes. It was just us playing, but we really should have had more songs ready. I doubt we could have, though. I've only been in the band for two weeks. I know a lot of people were disappointed, because they were hearing so much about the bands great new drummer, and I blew ass.

Our show on the 17th this next month will be better, I hope.

[Nomad]

Had another gig on Friday night. It went much better. We only ended up with two new songs, but there were two other bands there, so we didn't have to worry much about length.

I ended up forgetting a cymbal stand, and my throne, but luckily one of the other bands let me borrow each respectively... Thank goodness.

We played pretty well. I fucked up royally on one of the new songs, but we kicked ass on the others. The turnout wasn't too bad, especially for the weather--there were probably around 100 people total that showed up (many just sort of coming through; coming and leaving for certain bands, etc.). That's pretty good, considering we had about half a foot of snow on the ground, and it was about -4°F out. We scored about $90 for the band, which we're putting toward new equipment and stuff. Mostly another cymbal stand for me, and some stickers to sell at the next show. Unfortunately, though, our next show probably won't be until some time in February. But that's OK. That gives us some time to work on some new stuff to wow the crowds with ;D

[Nomad]

Just thought I'd make a small update here. We're still trucking along. I took a small haitus from the band back in January and February, but I'm back and in full force.

We've got two gigs this weekend, back to back. Well, one on Friday night and one on Saturday night. They're both going to be pretty big. Friday is another local band's CD release show. We won't really fit in all that well, though, since we're more of a death metal group and most the other bands that were invited to play are more emo or hardcore (including Bernadette, the band releasing the CD). Friday is just going to be a metalfest, though; us, a Megadeth-esque band called Maximum Voltage, and a band out of Ft. Collins are going to rock Cheyenne like there's no tomorrow.

Plus we got invited to headline a show for one of our buddies in yet another local band, for their first show (the band's first show, but they're all from other local bands, so it won't really be a crapfest like most other bands' first shows around here).

And shows keep piling up. It's getting pretty sick. I love it.

But that's not all for me--a friend and I are starting two, count 'em, two side projects together. One, is going to be a power metal extravaganza, with keyboards and wailing guitars the whole nine yards, in which I'm going to be the drummer (naturally). The other, is going to be a black/death/thrash gorefest, and I'm going to be rocking the vokills. We've got a fucking SICK drummer from one of the other local bands that is extremely excited to play for us, so it's going to be a BLAST.

Man things are going to start getting crazy in Cheyenne.

[rustyslacker]

Sounds pretty sweet, man. My band's off to a pretty slow start, unfortunately. Our bassist won't practice, our drummer's nonexistent, and our vocalist (me) needs work.

[Nomad]

I spilled blood in the pit tonight, and it wasn't my own. And we played the most brutal show ever too. The best part of it all, is we get to do another one tomorrow night. It's like Groundhog Day, only with more pain and suffering.

Man this is sick.

I think mine and Travis' power metal venture is going to go on the backburner for a while, and we're going to focus on our blackthrash group. We've recruited another guitarist, so I can focus solely on vocals. We are going to be FUCKING. BRUTAL. I plan on giving one hell of a show, even shedding a little blood of my own blood with a knife on stage as a sacrifice to the metal gods.

I fucking LOVE metal.

[Danimetal]

Record video. Upload video :).

[Nomad]

We will tonight so long as I remember to bring the camcorder.

[Nomad]

We did get a recording on Saturday, but it was a terrible night. I'd rather not go into it.

We have another show on the 26th, though. We'll be competing in a Battle of the Bands. Top prize is $1000 worth of recording time at a local studio! Second prize is $500 worth. I hope we win so we can get some recording!!!

[+Acyclitor+]

you should talk to Nick Superchi (http://www.myspace.com/OldNick). him and his brother Jake run Dark Forest Productions. they've done bands from across the country before, i think (claim based on Minnisota's Manetheren), so i don't think distance is a problem.

their deffinitively up your alley though, signing mostly black and death bands. my friends' band just signed with them, in fact.

and i just had a listen to you guys on myspace, sounds very good!

[Nomad]

That's a bad recording. We recorded it only after my second practice. That's why were hoping to win this Battle next friday.

[rustyslacker]

Hey Nomad, what kind of vocals do you do? Screamy type vocals like Alexi or growly and yell-y vocals like Anders Friden from the early albums (Black Ash Inheritance/The Jester Race, Colony, etc.)?

[Nomad]

Hey Nomad, what kind of vocals do you do? Screamy type vocals like Alexi or growly and yell-y vocals like Anders Friden from the early albums (Black Ash Inheritance/The Jester Race, Colony, etc.)?

Never noticed this post. Sorry. I try to sort of do a mix of everything I like in vocals. Screams like Alexi, gutter growels like Chris Barnes (ex-Cannibal Corpse, Six Feet Under), some yells like old Max Cavelera (ex-Sepultura). And smooth black metal style vocals like Shagrath, Dead, Maniac, Galder, and just about every other good black metal group's vocalists.

Tonight. Tonight was fucking gay.

We played the Battle of the Bands tonight, which ended up being more of a Massacre than a battle. But we got fucking assraped.

We played a fucking SICK set, and had everyone moshing (even had a kid beat the shit out of another--fucking metal!). Awesome performance, awesome crowd, just all around awesome. Probably our best performance, even though we fucked up a little, and had some technical difficulties (I had problems with my pedals again, and our guitarist Zach broke a string--both during the last song, though, at least).

We were supposed to get first place, but the fucking judges decided that we were too good, so we apparantly didn't need their help, so they gave us "honorary third place". So in other words, we got fucking robbed.

We wouldn't have fucking participated if we didn't need the recording time. Only one person in the band has a job, and he barely has enough money for fucking gas, let alone recording time.

I believe this is on the same level as fucking Jethro Tull stealing the first "metal" Grammy out from under Metallica's nose.

Why can't metal ever get any fucking respect?

[Danimetal]

I wish I had a valid response for that Nomad, but that´s the way things go... I´m not into Metal that much lately (I´ve been playing more laidback stuff, if playing) but I´ve experienced that same kind of problems with respect and understanding and, you know, it sucks.

[Nomad]

I kind of said the "metal don't get no respect" stuff half-heartedly. Trying to make light of the situation.

The fact is that the judges were being a bit unprofessional. In a boxing match, if one guy totally beats the shit out of the other guy, they don't give the trophy to the loser because he just wasn't as good. No fucking different. We didn't play that show to prove anything. We played the show because we needed that recording time.

But oh well. Just goes to show that nothing in life is fair.

[rustyslacker]

Sorry Nomad. That really sucketh...I hope my band's not as good as yours so if we enter contests we can win.

[Nomad]

Hehe. No shit. :P

[Nomad]

Good news!

A friend of the band (Chris W. of Bernadette (http://www.myspace.com/bernadetterock)) is going to be recording us for free! We were going to start yesterday, but he needs to order a couple condensing mics to record my cymbals. Hopefully we'll get started by next weekend.

I am SO fucking stoked. I can't wait to finally have some good recordings to showcase our talent. I know we're not the best, but damnit we deserve some recording justice!

[Nomad]

Oh yeah. Harry's post about his band recording reminded me that we finished recording our demo. You can find the new songs on our MySpace Page (http://www.myspace.com/eyessewnshutmusic). The vocalist sucks, and I'm quitting. Just so everyone knows.

[rustyslacker]

Oh yeah. Harry's post about his band recording reminded me that we finished recording our demo. You can find the new songs on our MySpace Page. The vocalist sucks, and I'm quitting. Just so everyone knows.
Just because the vocalist sucks? That's kinda...stupid.

But the vocalist does suck. :D

[Nomad]

Well, although I am mostly leaving because I hate the vocalist, they're kicking him out anyway--I'm just coincidentially still leaving.

[Harry]

My damn pc won't play the myspace music player :'(