Anyway just a quick update. FE has been in writing mode for a while now. We have a fresh batch of songs that we r looking to hit the studio with in November. So we are excited about that.

Also since my last update, my good friend Bryan Dunn is now living with me so stay tuned and see what kind of shenanigans we get ourselves into. We also got a new place and I’m loving it so maybe I’ll take a blog and give u a tour. Could be fun.

Well that’s about it for now. I’ll hopefully hit u back soon!

* LESSONS with Jorge are going pretty well. I can’t put into words how good the man actually is. This is somewhat intimidating, but I’m learning to get over it. I’m not soaking up as much as I should be. Partly because I’m super busy and I don’t put the practice time in that I need to, on my own time. The other thing is that I get frustrated really easy. Like I said in my last blog, I have 10+ years of doing things ‘my’ way and trying to un-train myself to do them a different way is taxing. I am seeing progress as each lesson passes though, and its really exciting. Another issue I’m having is that with myself being busy and Jorge’s schedule being hectic its hard to do lessons very consistent. He travels all over the U.S. and leaves the country quite a bit to play with Gloria still, so he’s a busy dude. I’m gonna keep at it, its such a blessing to have somebody like that to learn from.

* FUNNY STORY of the blog has to be this: My long-time friend Bryan Dunn came down for a visit this last week, and I mean every bit of this when I say… I watched him eat a 7lb ‘paint can’ of Chocolate pudding in less than 3 days. The man is my hero. End of story.

* FUNDAMENTAL ELEMENTS stuff is going really well right now. We got together a couple weeks back and had a ‘writing’ day. We hadn’t written anything new since before the last album. It was fun going through that process again, and to see how much we have all grown in that area. At the end of a day and a half of jamming, we have 3 new songs. “Half A World Away”, “Sometimes”, and “This Moment”, all of which we are very excited about. They are 3 of my favorite songs we have ever written, and we are starting to play them live a little bit to test them out. So far so good, but we are still getting the feel of them and finalizing them. We have a lot of really awesome things happening right now, but nothing I wanna speak on yet. I’ll just say that I’m really excited to be a part of this band and I’m looking forward to the things that are headed our way.

* CAFFEINE is my master. I’ve noticed how badly I am addicted to it, and its a bit frightening. Not helping matters is that I found 2 really great coffee shops in a couple towns around me here in Hillsboro. Coffee Expresso in Litchfield, and Salsa Grill in Carlinville. Both make a killer white mocha, and thats really all this guy needs.

* MUSIC NOTE of the blog: Raphael Saadiq’s newest album “The Way I See It” is one of the best albums I have bought in a long time. It has hardly left my cd player, and has been in constant rotation on my iPod for about 2 months. Raphael is best known for his work in the hip-hop and R&B scene. I actually bought the album because I’ve been a fan of that stuff, and I was shocked at first when I heard this new album. He made and album that is straight up Motown. Its so frickin’ good though. From the sounds, to the hooks, to the artwork, it feels straight out of the 60′s. I actually read somewhere that he went back and researched all the techniques and equipment they used to make some of the classic Beatles albums and he did everything the same way. Its so good, I recommend it to anybody who has 2 ears. Heck, even if you have 1, you should still buy it.

* RANDOM stuff: I did some much needed updating to my Myspace page @ http://www.myspace.com/markdejaynesmusic. I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this on here before, but I joined the Twitter community several months ago, and I’m starting to get addicted. So If we aren’t already following each other on there, well, we should be. Hit me up.

Alright, thats about it for now. I’m gonna get better at this, I swear. But for now your stuck with this… Stay Frosty everybody.

So Here it is:

Sorry for the huge gap there, I got REALLY sick for about 2 weeks, probably the worst I’ve ever felt in my 24 years of life. (side note, I turned 24 since my last blog, yay!) I had a fever of 104 for just shy of 5 days, that wouldn’t break no matter what I took or did, not the recommended way to spend the better part of a week. This was all about 3 weeks ago, maybe more, I lost track of time. I’m still fighting a nasty cough from it, but I’m 10X better than I was. The bummer was, that It got bad enough that I had to go to the doctor finally after 4 days of trying to avoid it. For one, I HATE doctors, they give me the creeps, they make you sit in a tiny room in your underwear, seriously who does that? Secondly, I haven’t had insurance since early 2004, so a doctor visit is usually the last resort. Well, I went, and basically I could have, better yet… I DID diagnose myself as well as he did. He was like “Well, could be a sever sinus infection, or it could be pneumonia”. Thanks genius, enjoy your check… Anyway, enough about that, on to some updates:

* If you haven’t seen it already, Fundamental Elements made the cover of the magazine STL Sound for December. Pretty cool honor. Apparently Nelly was supposed to be the cover story, and pulled out last minute, so naturally they called us. Anyway, If you live in the St. Louis area, there are several locations you can pick up a free copy, Or if you REALLY need one and don’t live around here, email me and I’ll try to get you one.

* I turned 24 on November 28th! It was a really cool birthday, I have to say. I got to go home for Thanksgiving the day before it, and see family which was great. Then the next night, I got to hang out with some really great, old friends, Bryan and Matt. To top the whole deal off, I was reminded that your only as young as you feel. This was proven by the joy on my face when I received a Ninja Turtle birthday cake (Raphael to be exact) from Matt’s mom. For a moment, I thought I had just turned 10, again…

* Tomorrow I will have my FIRST EVER bass lesson. Most people assume that I took lessons all growing up. Well… I only wish I had. I learned everything I know from watching others, or just learning things from cd’s that I would try to play along with. Which, really is great, and I doubt I would do it differently if I really got the chance. However, doing things that way kept me from learning ‘what’ I was doing. Taking lessons is something I have kicked around for years now, and just been too scared to do it, and really didn’t know anybody that I felt would really push me and make me learn the stuff. I know how lazy I can be. Well, the time has finally come. If any of you have our latest album, you are probably familiar with the track “All Burns Down”. We were fortunate enough to have a guy named Jorge Casas co-produce that track, and since has become a great friend to all of us. Well for those of you who don’t know, Jorge is and has been the band leader, arranger, producer, and most importantly bass player for Gloria Estefan and Miami Sound Machine, since the late 80′s. The guy has seen the world to say the least. He has Grammy awards, and Gold/Platinum records out the wazoo! I could go on all day on who he has played with, or produced, or worked with in some capacity, and the list is nothing short of impressive. A few notables would be Gloria Estefan (obviously), Santana, Madonna, John Secada, and on and on and on. I’ll dig up his website some time and try post it so you can see a complete list of his accomplishments. All that to say, for my birthday, Luke and his wife Sheri, and my Mom and Dad all chipped in and got me a series of lessons with Jorge, and I start tomorrow (monday the 22nd). I’m super pumped, yet at the same time very nervous. Lessons are such a foreign thing to me. I just know how much I have been able to fool people with my playing (secrets out! haha). Don’t get me wrong, I know I have the ability to be great, but I feel that my true potential has never really been tapped. So I’m just hoping I can go in there and soak up as much information as possible, and not get discouraged. I mean, I have over 10 years of (probably bad) habits to get passed and learn to do things the right, or at least a different way. So If any of you think about it, you can pray for me, or better yet, pray for Jorge so that he doesn’t rip his hair out when he finds out how much I DONT KNOW. Haha, really though, all that aside, I am really excited. I couldn’t ask for a better teacher, and he’s a blast to hang out with. So Im really looking forward to it! I’ll definitely be writing more blogs on this subject to update you on how its going and what not.

*** My music section for this blog:

My great friend Robbie Mathis (aka robablicious) from a band down in Knoxville TN, called Dishwater Blonde, sent me a little care package that I received while I was sick. It contained a Jamariqui album, live Prince album, and a 4 disc James Brown set. Talk about a bag full of GROOVE! Man, I really can’t go into great detail about the Jamariqui album or the Prince one, because I’ve only heard them like once, because I cannot stop listening to James Brown. The songs may be the simplest things in the world, but MAN! Talk about groove. I would encourage all of you, if you don’t have any, pick up some JB soon. If it doesn’t make you dance, then you need to have yourself checked. Theres something wrong with you. So THANK YOU Robalicious, don’t worry buddy a package is being put together for you my friend, I just don’t think I can top yours! (also, check out his band at dishwaterblonde.net we love this band, and there music isn’t bad either )

As if Robbie didn’t hook me up enough, I have to mention my new friend David Dimmit. David is a guy who I can remember coming to FE shows in the Columbia Missouri area, since the very beginning of FE. We can’t thank him enough for his support over the years. Its so refreshing to see some of the same faces coming out, it means we are doing ‘something’ right anyway. haha. Well, David decided to make a little road trip to our November 29th show (day after my B-day) in St. Louis at the Old Rock House. He greeted me with a smile, and a present!!! How awesome is that? He gave me a disc I had actually had my eye on for some time. It was an album called “Thunder” by S.M.V. (Stanley Clarke, Marcus Miller, and Victor Wooten). Three of the best bass players to ever walk the earth. People have been trying for years to get these 3 together on a project, and it finally happened. Its nothing short of amazing. Granted, anybody who probably doesn’t play bass would think its just noise, but to me, its soooooo good. Anyway, for you bass players out their, I recommend this beast if you wanna hear 3 legends working it out together. Thanks again David!!! That was one of the coolest things that has happened to me in any of my musical journeys.

Well, thats it for now, Once again, I wrote a book but I had to make up for lost time:) I hope you all are doing well, and I wish you all a very MERRY CHRISTMAS!!! I’ll be back soon, I promise this time! (barring another ridiculous sickness).

p.s. (can you p.s. a blog? well, i just did) I’m re-vamping my fight against the ‘man’ and the power bills. I ran my heat for a little over a week (when i was sick) out of the entire billing cycle and only around 65 degrees at the most, and my bill shot up $100. So America, I’m fighting for you, and just to let you know how serious I am, my apartment reached 41 degrees the other night, and its at a healthy 42 right now. If the ‘Power Man’ is wanting to know where he can put his bill this Christmas, then I will leave him a quote by one of my personal heros, Clark W. Griswold Jr….. “Bend over and I’ll show ya!”

So Let me tell you why this seems like a great idea….. Because any idea starts to sound good after the 4th day that you have only had 5 or less hours of sleep. There are these crazy pipes (yes I do believe they have lost their mind) that come out of the floor in my living room of my apartment. And for some reason, at 5:45 every morning, they start to clank together very loudly and also make thud noises that shake the entire floor. This goes on for about an hour or hour and a half, but only happens when its cold out. So I assumed they went to a boiler or something in the basement, so I asked my neighbor about it. He said that they used to have a boiler down there, but he was pretty sure that it hasn’t been in use for years. So either he is lying to me, or I have a ghost….a very noisy one. And before you go saying I just need to go to bed earlier, you should know that I work for my old roommate Cary in one of his movie theatres about 45 minutes away whenever we dont have shows, so I don’t get home until very late most nights. Now before you go making fun of me for working at a movie theatre, let me just say its not your typical movie theatre, and the band is still my primary ‘job’. I’d tell you how that all came about, and why I do it, but thats a whole other blog right there (note to self, blog about Cary’s theatres…..check). Needless to say, I have not had much sleep in several days, because this takes place just as the first speck of blue starts to come over the horizon. So there is no sleep possible by the time they quit making noise. I think I’m going to have a word with my landlord about it, but I’m trying to figure out a way to bring up a ‘mysterious noise’ that only I hear, without sounding like a lunatic. Any suggestions?

Music Notes

For some reason, I have been absolutely LOVING B.B. King lately. He’s always been a musician that I liked and one that I grew up hearing, but for some reason this whole last week I cannot get enough of him. Especially his really really old stuff. I guess what really started it was several days ago I was going through a bunch of old cd’s in my closet and I found one that is a collection of really old B.B. King recordings and I can’t stop listening to them. He is truly the master of saying more with 1 note than most guys try to say with 500. If you dont own any B.B. then I strongly suggest you get some. The two albums I found in my closet are called “How Blue Can You Get?” and “Lucille Talks Back“. Both are great, However if I can only recommend one or two songs for you to sample or download, I would have to go with a newer track that has been stuck in my head all week, and it just puts me in a good mood. Its a song off the “Deuces Wild” album called “Cryin’ Wont Help You Babe“. The second being a song from the album “How Blue Can You Get?” called “B.B. Boogie“. Its very old and B.B. at his finest. Both of these songs are lesser known, and your normal B.B. King fan would have told you to go straight to “Thrill Is Gone” which is a great song, but these are just the ones I’ve been grooving to lately. (click on any of the album names to sample the songs mentioned and more)

Well thats it for now. As you can tell my blogs get lengthy. I basically don’t think about what I’m going to blog about before hand, I just kind of think as I’m typing, and my mind wanders. So I thank you for reading if you do make it all the way through one. Ok, my Tylenol PM says “Its time for bed now, and we’ll keep the pipes from waking you tomorrow morning”……….