DIARY
OF A
ROCKSTAR

The last few weeks I’ve been working on a completely new design and structure to the Birds of Wales website. Most of the time, I HATE designing for myself or something that is close to me, mainly becuase I just find it difficult to design anything that is so close to me. Like I have such a control over if it succeeds or not. And this is a perfect example of that situation. I hated desining this site, for all of the same reasons.

So a little background info:
The site will be using Wordpress 2.0, taking advantage of a few plugins I’ve found over the last few weeks that will help automate tasks, and make the site more uniform throughout. One plugin i’m using is Andrew Ferguson’s Countdown Timer which I have found to be the easiest and most customizeable countdown timer plugin available. Its letting me keep a log of our show dates, and show them dynamically on the sidebar, (which saves me from going in and editing the code every time a show date is added *sigh*).
I’m also considering implimenting a flickr plugin that I have found that allows you to update an online flickr gallery to automatically update a flash photo gallery on your site. There is also some talk about having each band member with their own flickr gallery on their personal Bio Pages, which I think personally could be really cool.

Finally after (almost a full) 5 years have past, Its time for me to re evaluate my 5 year plan. Basically when I finished highschool, my goals were pretty simple (but at the time seemed gigantic):

1. Finish school for Graphic Design *check*
2. Become a Graphic Designer to the point I can support myself *check*
3. Join a band *check*
4. Move to Toronto *check
5. Become a Designer by day, Musician by night *check*

The recent success (thus far) of Birds of Wales is no accident in my opinion. We’re all very talented musicians, and songwriters, as well as very driven to our goal. So, keeping with my current “life momentum” I am now declaring a new 5 year plan (up for revision):

1. Record a full length album with a band
2. Record an Ep of music written by myself
3. Tour for at least a month with a band
4. Travel to Europe
5. Establish myself as a experienced Designer
6. Begin to plan for a future business

Any comments or criticism’s on my current plan? Its still in development, but… well, thats life.

Wow, the last few days have been quite the pisser.. My Mac has been on the fritz, I swear, it went crazy one day last week. For some reason the clock had disappeared and my spotlight icon did as well. I was a little worried. I wasted an hour trying to do disc updates, running utilities and stuff to try and figure it out, with no luck. Finally this morning, I decided that it must have had something to do with the Mac 10.4.4 update that came out last week. Needless to say a little searching and a reinstall of the update for the computer fixed my problems this morning.. Things seem to be working like normal again. *sigh of relief* You never know how much you use something (like the title bar clock) until its gone!

The kind fellow’s over at Spinglobe have done a great job with our music video for “Fall of the 49″. You can really tell that they put a lot of work into the video and we are incredibly grateful for all their help and support. You can see the video by clicking here.

Also, one more heads up, we’re going to be going down to London, Ontario to play at Call the office this Saturday night. It should be a good time. If anyone has any suggestions as to something to do for a post show party, let us know!!

Last night we sold out the Drake. Put on a great show. The Sound was awesome, the croud was awesome. It was awesome. I cant really speak, it was so great. So heres some photos:

Tomorrow night is our big show at The Drake Hotel in Toronto. Its gonna be huge. We’re expecting to sell out. Capacity is 200 and we’re expecting about 100-150 visitors alone. Not to mention whomever the other band brings, as well as walk in’s from the street. It should be grand.

We’ve got a photographer set up, a videographer, we’re going to have the show’s sound recorded and we’ve all managed to scrounge up some extra christmas cash to upgrade our gear so we look/sound a little more professional. Why did we do all this? Read on…

We’re expecting some big names there. BIG names. Big names who have influence in the industry, and hopefully will like what we do and help us along the way. We’re in the process of a 8 month plan right now which includes touring, recording, releasing a CD, and possibly more… Maybe even the ultimate, getting signed.

Wish us luck! And come out if you can! We hit the stage @ 11pm!!