equiliberation.com: News

Typing this message, it occurred to Fred that the entry title could have a double meaning. Not only could it refer to the annual sense of possibility engendered by the start of a new year, but it could also refer to Equiliberation's single "Hope" -- a song the band has yet to promote. Although many unseen things lie ahead, one thing Fred hopes to find the time to do in 2012 is promote "Hope" and see if it generates any interest in the online music world. All three of us feel that getting the song out and heard will help us find an audience. Perhaps you, who are reading this, heard "Hope" and found your way here to equiliberation.com. If so, perhaps you would like to download the song for free from CDBaby (see the link on our Homepage). . . . Or maybe you are interested enough to pay $4.99 to download our CD from CDBaby or $5.99 to download it from iTunes.

2011 was a year of activity for Equiliberation: we finally released our debut CD, and we played two shows at a new venue in Houston, Texas. 2012 should be the year we strive to get our music heard by people who don't know us -- the year we make the effort to discover how viable we are as a musical entity. Of course, the three of us continue to live in different cities and states, and we continue to deal with relentless demands on our time, so our hopes may still be awaiting action twelve months from now. Nevertheless, this is -- as we observed at the start of this entry -- a traditional time of hope. So, let us hope for good things to happen to/for Equiliberation in 2012!

We thoroughly re-equiliberated Super Happy Fun Land in Houston, Texas, last night. Playing our longest set in many years, we brought the accessive rock for 90 minutes and wore ourselves out in the process! Elliott remarked that we would have to start playing "Some Wounds" last because when we finished it, he felt drained. . . and "Hope" and "Equiliberation" still remained to be played!

All in all, it was a ragged rock-and-roll extravaganza punctuated by several Equiliberation firsts. For one, we played two new songs, "Complicated Man" (a bit of a jammy, multiple-meter tune partially inspired by Lynyrd Skynyrd's "Simple Man") and "Propulsion" (for the most part, a musical enactment of the song's title). For another, we played the song "Waiting," which is on our CD, but which we have never before played live. Third, for the first time ever (as in never even rehearsed), Fred played the drums while Elliott played guitar and sang with Ryan a humorous tribute to their uncle, Jim Bowie (he of Alamo and knife fame). So, it was an interesting and atypical performance for us -- and that is without even mentioning the anarchist puppet show that preceded the evening's musical offerings (see the recollection on our calendar for further details).

So, Equiliberation's return to Super Happy Fun Land was quite the memorable show. Plus, Chris Hayes, a long-time friend of Fred's family (Fred's youngest brother born of different parents, as it were) came to the show with a friend and provided raucous appreciation in the wake of every song (Thanks, Chris! Fred really enjoyed your enthusiasm)!

At this point, we don't know when Equiliberation will rock live again, but 2011 played host to two shows after we played one show in 2010. Maybe we'll keep adding a show a year and play three in 2012! Fred would really like to bring the accessive rock to San Antonio one day, so maybe we'll finally add an SA date to the calendar in 2012. Anyone know where we can get a gig?

Great news! Equiliberation has been booked for a return engagement at Super Happy Fun Land in Houston, Texas! We are scheduled to return to the stage of said fine establishment at 8:00 pm on Thursday, December 29, 2011. It will be the band's second performance of the year, making 2011 our busiest performance year since 2007 (admittedly, two performances in a year isn't much to crow about, but it's pretty exciting when compared with years of NO performances).

So, if you happen to be in Houston during the week after Christmas and you are looking for something to do, why not experience Equiliberation? We'll be bringing enough accessive rock to pulverize any year-end blues you might entertain. Guaranteed.

Check the calendar for more show specifics!

Happy birthday to Equiliberation.com. We've made it to half a decade online. Maybe, one day, someone will actually visit our site and read this self-congratulatory journal entry. . . . What a novel idea! Perhaps we should live it up today so that those future Internet archeologists will, at least, have evidence that we had a good time!

Although there is no new Equiliberation information to impart at this time, there is some Equiliberation-related news to share. Tthe above is a video of Fred and his fellow high school faculty members performing Chicago's classic song "25 or 6 to 4" at halftime of this past Friday's varsity football game. Fred had a blast playing with the other teachers, particularly the brass section composed of the school's band directors and mariachi instructor. Of particular note (from Fred's perspective, at least) is the extended guitar solo - most of which Fred improvised on the spot - and the fact that the performance was at San Antonio's venerable Alamo Stadium in front of roughly 2000 spectators. At certain points, the lack of vocal monitors is apparent in the vocals, but, overall, Fred is quite pleased with the performance. He hopes you enjoy it!

Playing to our largest crowd ever (including a fan in a rocking gorilla costume!), Equiliberation brought the accessive rock to Super Happy Fun Land last night! With only three rehearsals to knock off a year's worth of rust (since our last reunion show), we, nevertheless, put on an entirely respectable performance. While not perfect, it was tremdendously fun, and it left Ryan, Elliott, and Fred considering the possibility of performing during the weeks of Thanksgiving and/or Christmas. Fred hopes to post some video of the performance in the coming weeks, so check back here for a peek at what went down.

Super Happy Fun Land was a cool venue, and the guys there were kind enough to invite us to come back whenever we want to play again. So, perhaps we will rock their spacious stage again for our next live performance.

The performance also served as Equiliberation's official release show for our debut CD, Equiliberation, which became available for download from CDBaby on the day of the show. Within the next few days, the disc will become available on iTunes, Amazon, Napster, Rhapsody, and Spotify, among others. We are enormously proud of Equiliberation, and we hope all of our fans purchase it and find it as musically satisfying as we do.

For posterity's sake, our set list for the show was (1) "Jazz Gone Wrong," (2) "Oxymorons," (3) "Anywhere," (4) "Some Wounds," (5) "Pulverize," (6) "Hope," and (7) "Equiliberation."

One week from today, on the auspiciously odd date of 7/9/11, Equiliberation will play its 2nd annual summer reunion show. This year, we are Equiliberating Houston. We are second on a bill at Super Happy Fun Land, following The Fly Trap and preceding Squirt Gun Warriors.

Super Happy Fun Land's address is 3801 Polk Street, Houston, Texas 77003. The club's web address is www.superhappyfunland.com.

The Fly Trap starts the evening's music offerings at 8:00 pm. We follow at 9:00 pm. Since Squirt Gun Warriors follow at 10:00, we will be playing a 45-minute show. So, if you plan to come out to experience Equiliberation - to get your annual dose of live accessive rock - don't be late!

Fred, Ryan, and Elliott are all excited about playing our first show ever in Houston. We hope to see you there!

Today is Equiliberation.com's fourth birthday. Happy birthday to us! We're still around and vital enough to warrant the monthly expenditure for a spot in cyberspace! Yea! Speech, Equiliberation.com! Speech!

What can we say about our first show in three years? It was fun! We rocked! We discovered we could put on a halfway-decent performance with only two rehearsals!

Yes, things were far from perfect... Ryan's bass was blasting so loudly in the stage monitors that Elliott and Fred could hardly hear themselves... Fred's multi-effects guitar pedal was possessed by gremlins seemingly bent on sabotaging the show at every turn (even managing to turn the thing off in the middle of a song, rendering Fred's guitar mute)... Fred momentarily forgot the pre-chorus chords to "Oxymorons".... Yet, despite all of the little mishaps and mistakes, we simply had a blast being together on stage again. Truly, reunification rocked!

Before we recall the set list for posterity and thank our audience members, we first need to send out a huge "thank you!" to Mike Boudreaux for booking us at Red Eyed Fly. Thank you so much, Mike! We really had a great time! We also have to thank Chuck, the house sound engineer. Thanks, man! The folks who came out to see us said you made us sound great!

So, what did we play for our first live show in three years? Well, the set list was "Jazz Gone Wrong," "Oxmorons," "Anywhere," "Some Wounds," "Pulverize," "Hope," and "Equiliberation." Happily, we got through all of them in 45 minutes! None of them were 100% perfect, but they ALL rocked!

Now, we must thank our audience members for coming and sharing in the fun (actually, we should say, "we must thank our audience members for coming and making the fun possible," since playing for no one is NO fun). So, from the bottom of our accessively rocking hearts, thank you Rick, Taylor, Paige, Morgan, Liz, Tim, and Ed!

Taylor Ash deserves even more thanks because he filmed the whole show for us! So, thank you, again, Taylor! Fred is already working on getting some of the video online so that those of you who could not make it to Austin will have a chance to experience Equiliberation, too!

When the night was over, Fred, Elliott, and Ryan agreed that the most significant truth we gleaned from the show was that we could pull off a 45-minute set with only two rehearsals after a three year hiatus. We also agreed that our ability to perform with so little rehearsal meant we should start planning to play shows whenever we are all in Texas. Therefore, Equiliberation's next performance might be at Thanksgiving or Christmas instead of a year from now. So, start checking this website more frequently, because your next chance to experience Equiliberation might be sooner than you'd think!

At 10:30 a.m. yesterday morning in Houston, the members of Equiliberation convened for our first real rehearsal in almost three years. Fred, Ryan, and Elliott were a bit nervous about how much corrosion we might have to blast through before our gig on the 28th, but, happily, we played though our tentative set list with relatively few problems. Frankly, it was delightful to discover that there is a real possibility we will be able to put on a good reunion show at Red Eyed Fly.

Not being afraid to put our musical selves on the line, we packed up after our rehearsal, drove across town to a high-school-graduation party, unpacked our equipment, and played a four-song set for the members of our extended family. Again, we didn't perform perfectly, but we didn't embarrass ourselves, either. In fact, we held our own pretty convincingly!

So, if you are out there reading this, and you are wondering whether or not it will be worth it to see us three weeks from today, our answer is... it just might be a show worthy of a three-year wait! We certainly hope it will be!

What can we say? We were beginning to fear the gods of scheduling were going to foil our performance plans yet again. However, this time, we have triumphed! Thanks to our buddy Mike, the booking agent at Red Eyed Fly in Austin, Equiliberation will be bringing the rock live this summer!!!

So, ladies and gentlemen, mark your calendars now. Monday, June 28th, at 8:00 p.m., Equilibrium returns to the stage at Red Eyed Fly for a 40-minute reunion performance!

Fred, Ryan, and Elliott are all looking forward to equiliberating Austin, and we hope you will join us to share in the glory of "accessive" rock!

Yes, you read correctly! Fred, Elliott, and Ryan have begun planning for some Equiliberation reunion shows this summer! We hope to secure gigs in Houston, Austin, and San Antonio so that all of our friends, family, and fans have an opportunity to see us on stage again.

It has been nearly three years since we last played live, so we know we are going to have to rehearse a number of times to get back into passable playing condition. However, to expedite the process as much as possible, we have already devised a set list, and we have committed to practicing individually until we are able to get together as a band.

All three of us are really excited at the prospect of bringing the rock live, again, so we will be sure to keep you posted as we line up performance dates and venues. Check back often for more information on when and where you will be able to experience Equiliberation!

As anyone can see from the date of this entry, the year 2010 commenced today. After spending almost all of 2009 in limbo awaiting the perfect alignment of the stars to overcome endless studio scheduling difficulties, we are finally seeing signs that the mixing of Equiliberation will soon be completed. With these promising portents in mind, we feel confident in making the following pronouncement (despite last year's sadly-erroneous prediction that 2009 would be the Year of Equiliberation):

2010 marks the beginning of The Decade of Equiliberation!

Yes, it may seem rather overconfident to lay claim to an entire decade, but we figure that - surely - our debut CD will become available for public consumption some time prior to 2020! We are hopeful that 2010 will see its release, but we've learned to hedge our bets. So, we are hereby commandeering the next ten years! Here's to a decade equiliberated from musical torpor!

Today is Equiliberation.com's third birthday! Everybody sing:
Happy birthday to us!
Happy birthday to us!
Happy birthday dear equiliberation.com
Happy birthday to us!
Wow, that was fun! Wasn't it?
It was.

Well, we are still waiting for the opportunity to finish mixing Equiliberation. Our engineer has gotten a full-time job as an engineer for a radio show, so he has not been able to find the time to meet with Fred for a final session. Whenever he manages to find the time, the disc will probably only need eight hours or so of work to complete. So, we are hoping the session will be scheduled and conducted soon!

Once mixing is completed, mastering and replication await. So, the CD is still both frustratingly near and frustratingly far from completion.

On Saturday, May 9th, Fred, Ryan, and Elliott got together in Houston and played through the songs on Equiliberation. It was the first time in ages that we had played through the songs. Some songs were surprisingly recognizable, but most of our renditions were corroded with rust! Ryan and Elliott spoke of hoping to play some shows in the latter half of the summer, but we would have to practice A LOT to prepare for any performances. We will be sure to put the word out, though, if any gigs materialize. We can hope, can't we?

The epic recording ordeal that is Equiliberation continues. The end is tantalizingly close but, simultaneously, maddeningly elusive. Prolonging our journey, our engineer/co-producer has cancelled our last two mixing sessions, including an eight-hour session scheduled for today. Granted, he had good reasons to cancel -- he was in a car accident this morning that sent him to the hospital -- but the upshot is that we are still in the air circling the runway. We can see the airport of completion, but we just can't get the plane on the ground!

Well, despite the seemingly-endless bad luck that has surrounded this project, we are still thrilled with the music. We're telling ourselves we are burning through our bad luck now, and we will have nothing but good luck when the CD is finally done. So... that must mean world-wide acclaim and spectacular riches await us!

45 minutes to midnight is the current time -- though it sounds like a song title. This countdown is a little more significant than the usual nightly march to midnight, however, since tomorrow is the first day of 2009. Thus, these few minutes are all that remain in our countdown to the year of Equiliberation! We are excited about bringing our music to the world in 2009, and we hope you will be equally excited to hear it and help us spread it far and wide!

Please visit us again soon here at equiliberation.com and follow along as we unveil Equiliberation and send it out into the real world and cyber space!

Happy New Year!

Well, it has been four months since our last substantial posting, and, unfortunately, we have not made as much progress recording Equiliberation as we had hoped we would when we wrote in July. Months have slipped away from us as we dealt with non-music-related demands on our time, studio scheduling difficulties, and a frustratingly long search for session musicians to perform a semi- "orchestral" piece. Happily, a majority of our obstacles now lie behind us, so completion suddenly seems like a real possibility.

Despite being tantalizingly close to fruition, there is no way Equiliberation will be out and ready for public consumption before the end of 2008. So, at this time, we are officially pushing our CD release date back to the first quarter of 2009. From our vantage point here on the Cusp of Change, the new year appears to be a serendipitously appropriate time to unveil our debut CD. We will be bringing new music for a new era in 2009. Equiliberation for the Obama Nation! Or, on the other hand, as Elliott has observed, "Equiliberation 2009" could refer to an ominous science fiction phenomenon. So, what are we? Cultural vanguards or mysterious futurists? Take your pick!

This is just a brief note to commemorate the second anniversary of our website. Equiliberation.com went live as jazzgonewrong.com on November 17, 2006, and we have been online ever since! Coincidentally, today is also Fred's birthday. Like equiliberation.com, he is also two years older than he was in 2006.

This is an exciting day! After a full year of periodic trips to 5th Street Studios, we have five songs -- "Hope," "Equiliberation," "All The Time," "Waiting," and "Have A Good One" -- that we feel are ready for public scrutiny. These songs are currently in the final mixing stage, so, barring possible minor adjustments, they are ready for mastering.

Take a listen to the works we have been laboring over for so long. As you might have noticed already, they are helpfully located in a chart on the Equiliberation page. To hear them, simply select a song and click on "Hi-Fi" (for those with broadband connections) or "Lo-Fi" (for those with modem connections) next to the title of your choice. If you've got the time, listen to all five! We think you'll find they sound as professional and polished as anything on the radio (or they will, at least, once they've been mastered)!

You can also find the new songs on the Music page, where clicking on individual song titles provides access to the lyrics and -- for some songs -- tidbits of information about the song's origins, lyrics, recording, etc. Check it out, and learn more about your new favorite Equiliberation compositions!

We certainly hope you enjoy the new songs. We plan to post more as we finish mixing them in the coming weeks. In the meantime, leave comments for us on our Guestbook page and let us know what you think of our efforts!

We've all heard the saying "Good things come to those who wait" (and those of us who are Jason and the Scorchers fans have sung the line more than a few times), but if the cliche reflects even a smattering of truth, Equiliberaton's debut, Equiliberation, is going to be spectacular... stupendous... splendiferous... (insert your own favorite 'S' superlative here). No, it's not Chinese Democracy, but due to various studio scheduling difficulties, it is taking a long time to finish the recording. In fact, in eight days (on July 13th), the project will mark its one year anniversary. Happily, except for a couple of tracking details on three or four songs (anyone know a tuba player in the Austin area?), we have made it to the mixing stage. That means the end is somewhere just over the horizon (we would say the end is in sight, but we've learned it's not wise to tempt fate). Let's see... mixing, final mixing, mastering, finishing the CD packaging design, securing the bar code, securing copyrights, pressing... hmm, we'll definitely have it in hand by Christmas... or maybe Thanksgiving... or maybe Halloween... or maybe Labor Day.... You can see why we're saying the end is just over the horizon!

In previous posts, we not only speculated about a summer CD release date, but about a summer reunion as well. Unfortunately, due to various school, internship, and vacation conflicts, we have not been able to find adequate rehearsal time to get back into performance shape. We are all disappointed that we won't be getting on stage again this summer, especially as July 10th approaches and we mark the one year anniversary of Equiliberation's last live performance. However, since we're family, we take solace in the thought that a reunion performance will eventually take place.

So, keep watching this space for updates as we creep toward completion of our CD... and take comfort in the promise that Equiliberation is going to be sensational !!!

Thanks to Spring Break vacations, the whole band was together in the studio again this past Sunday. Ryan and Elliott did some recording, and Fred finished almost all of his lead vocals, so the session was quite productive. Unfortunately (for us, at least), the studio has become increasingly popular over the past nine months, so studio time is becoming more and more difficult to schedule. As a result, Ryan and Fred won't be getting back into the booth until the latter part of April.

The good news is our recording sessions are still yielding fantastic results. Since we decided to make our debut a double CD release, the track count has risen to seventeen songs, and now includes an "Equiliberated" version of Fred's Standard Deviation song "Firewalker."

This past Tuesday, the band gathered in Houston for a jam session, and Fred, Elliott, and Ryan had a good time knocking the rust off of about ten original Equiliberation songs, including "Jazz Gone Wrong," "Oxymorons," "All The Time," "Cyberworld," "Anywhere," "Have A Good One," "Into The Breach," "Hope," and "Equiliberation." While we enjoyed ourselves, the state of our performances made it clear we would need a couple of weeks of intense rehearsal before playing live again.

Playing live again in support of our new CD remains our goal for the coming summer, so we'll continue to post updates about our progress. Be sure to check back here periodically for the latest Equiliberation news!

Welcome to 2008!

Equiliberation is looking forward to the new year with high hopes! Although we are still working on our debut CD, we remain optimistic about a late-Spring release date. The three of us sincerely believe we are creating something special, and as we polish it more and more, our enthusiasm about it grows ever greater. We can hardly wait for the day when you will be able to hear the finished product!

Since we will be releasing our CD this year, we are hoping to play a number of shows during the summer to support it. In fact, a small-scale summer tour might be a possibility. So, make a mental note now to check this site frequently for updates, and plan to come experience Equiliberation when we return to the stage this summer! We promise we'll bring the rock!

For the past year, we have been encouraging you to "experience equiliberation." Well, now that we are working on our debut CD, we have decided we should experience equiliberation ourselves to the fullest extent possible. So, we have changed our band name from Equilibrium to Equiliberation!

To celebrate our new name, we have changed our web address to equiliberation.com and unveiled a new slogan and logo:


We feel both the slogan and name encapsulate our aims as a musical entity. Furthermore, we believe having a unique name will save us from potential disputes with other bands. While no one has ever complained about our use of the name Equilibrium, prior to our changing it, we discovered there were at least three other groups using it. Not wishing to release a CD under a name we knew was already taken, we decided the time was right to make a change.

After a year of web presence at jazzgonewrong.com, we have developed a degree of fondness for the address. Not only is it the name of one of our definitive songs, but it is also a phrase that describes our musical style. So, we are happy to report we are maintaining the address. Now, entering either equiliberation.com or jazzgonewrong.com in your browser will provide access to this site.

Recording at 5th Street studios in Austin is still going well, albeit sporadically. The songs are really sounding good, and we are looking forward to the day we get them finished and out to you. At this point, though, it looks like a Spring 2008 release date is most likely. Until then, continue to check equiliberation.com for periodic updates... and remember to encourage your friends to experience Equiliberation!

Well, folks, here's the latest Equilibrium news.... We've been recording periodically at 5th Street Studios in Austin since July 11th. The drums and bass have all been recorded, and Fred just finished recording the distorted/overdriven guitar parts today. Some of the clean guitar parts are done, but it'll probably take eight or ten more hours to finish the remaining guitar tracks. Then, it'll be time to record vocals, handle sundry recording items, mix the songs, and master the CD.... We're hoping to accomplish it all before Christmas, but that goal might be a bit too ambitious to attain.... Anyway, thus far, the songs are sounding great, so we are happy about the progress we are making!

Be sure to check back for future news about our progress as Equilibrium's Jazz Gone Wrong slowly becomes a reality!