Happy 2009!

We're kicking off the new year by inaugurating this blog site. We attempted to keep a blog on the myspace page for awhile, but it just wasn't happening. We hope to stay in touch with everyone and have more frequent posts through this site...

I know a lot of people are glad to see 2008 behind us....what a year. Still, through all of the difficulties, paths were forged for positive change. Unfortunately, sometimes things need to get very bad before a majority of people will stand up and say, "Hey, we need to do something about this." Living in NYC, I'm often reminded of that scene from the Sidney Lumet film, Network: "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore!" Sometimes when I find myself losing my patience, I make a conscious effort to step back and not let things effect me; other times, I think 'you know, I wish more people would get pissed off and stand up and say something. I'm not going to keep this all inside just so that I don't offend anyone or cause a ruckus.'

Looking back on 2008, what really sticks with me as a person is the same thing that propels me forward - the music that we made as Loop 2.4.3. There was a lot of wonderful feedback from our first record and we developed an album's worth of new material that we'll be recording in early February. I'm looking forward to getting what's in my head onto the tangible form of the compact disc.

As a fun aside - I spent New Year's Eve at a friend's apt. in Brooklyn near the Grand Army Plaza at Prospect Park. At one point we turned on the television to check out the scene at Times Square. What did we see? Hordes of people of course, and lots 'live music'. All of the big name entertainers were on the big stages miming their way through the music the way they always do for network TV. It was FREEZING, so it's understandable that they wouldn't actually play. (Ludacris needs to at least find some people who look like they might be able to play a musical instrument though.) After our quick fix of the Dick Clark classic, we headed out into the cold to check out the scene at Prospect Park. There was a decent crowd at the north end of the park, and I don't know who the band was, but they were actually PLAYING! The drummer didn't stop for a second (maybe because his hands would have fallen off), and the band had people dancing while the fireworks went off overhead. Thanks to the musicians at Prospect Park for keeping it real. Go Brooklyn!