Moving on

I'm moving everything over to Wordpress, so go read The Lamar Daily Double!

More thanks and props to Vater Percussion

Thanks and props to Vater Percussion

A little over a year ago I put a video up on my YouTube channel that I shot when the band I was in at the time, The Rust, was still trying out bass players.
While we were practicing that day, I broke a brand new pair of Vater XD-5B sticks about 20 minutes into practice, so I talked about in the video. About a month ago I got a message from Vater saying they had seen my video and wanted to apologize for what was surely a fluke pair of sticks, and asking if I would try them again if they sent me some new sticks. I agreed.
This week I got a package in the mail from one of my new favorite people, Chad Brandolini at Vater.
He sent me not just one pair of replacements, but two. He also sent me a pair of XD-Rock, a pair of plain 2Bs and signature sticks from both Chris McHugh and Chris Pennie.
As if 6 new pair of sticks wasn't enough, he also sent two pages of Vater decals, two Mike Johnston speed charts and a few pages of information about new models for 2011. The last item in the box was a copy of the Vater full color catalog, which is actually more like a "who's who" yearbook full of badass drummers.
After playing music for 27 years, this is definitely the coolest I've ever been treated by any company. I almost feel like a sponsored musician.
Many thanks to Chad Brandolini and everyone else at Vater Percussion.

A little nostalgia

The Jiffy Deli Band after performing at the '97 county fair.

I've spent the majority of this evening transferring audio from old VHS tapes to a digital format. It's been a fun trip back to 1996-1998.
Most of the tapes were from my band from those years. I wish someone had recorded anything from those Florida trips. Or rather, I wish someone hadn't conveniently "lost" the footage we shot during our two weeks in Panama City.
Just like all the other recordings I've been going through, we weren't as good I remembered us being, but we were way better than than I expected us to be. I really didn't know what to expect today as I cracked open boxes that had been in storage for years. The result is better than I was originally predicting though. Another plus is that while searching for some of these tapes, I found some old CDs and books I thought I'd lost.
At the moment I'm writing this entry as my old friend Kevin Napier, via our "Endless Texas" documentary, recites a ridiculously story about David Hasselhoff — borrowing pretty liberally from "The Wizard of Oz" — as an Isuzu Rodeo crammed for of 4 guys, 4 bikes and tons of camping equipment makes its way from Tyler State Park to Cedar Hill.
I miss the shit out of those times ... sometimes.

I quit ... at least for right now

I was finally being productive and going through all my old hard drives and CDRs. I was making progress. The plan was to upload my entire musical catalog from 1997 through present day on my website. Most of this hasn't been released before, but after listening to hours of old recordings, I've concluded that whatever reason I had at the time for locking these tapes away was retarded. These should have been put out for a while now.
It's not the best ever. It's not the worst. But what it is, is 13 years of music I've enjoyed playing and mixing.
This all came to a screeching halt in the middle of a live record from 2004 when my web host informed me that I wasn't signed up for the baller — flood the internet with audio files — version of their service. So for the moment you can see all the album covers, but you'll still have to wait to get your hands on about half of what I was trying to upload. When it's done, just consider this the box set I've been joking about for years.
For now, I'm logging off, taking melatonin & kava extract, finding the premier of No Reservations on my Tivo and drifting off.

I have a blog ... who knew

I'm sure it would seem ridiculous to any onlookers for someone as self-absorbed as myself to ever forget something that has anything to do with the greatness that is Adam Lamar. I mean come on, I've even got a Google alert set to let me know when anything new about me appears online. Although lately it's all been about some baseball player in Alabama. To steal ... er ... uhm ... borrow, a line or two from Kubrick: My name is Adam Lamar, there are many like me on the internet, but this one is the real one.
The point is, I completely forgot that this blog existed.
I started this back in 2007 when I was taking a photojournalism class and needed a place to post pictures online. After the class I quit posting. Then every so often I would make an attempt to revive the feed, but it was always short lived.
I was only reminded of this page's existence because it's tied to my Google account and even though Google + was making me enter a bunch of other information that it already knew about me, it did already have stored a vaguely familiar title of something I almost remembered writing.
Long story short: I've connected this blog to my Google + profile AND adamlamar.com in hopes that I'll post a bit more frequently giving all the people who aren't subscribed to my RSS feed something else to not read.
Until next time (which hopefully won't be a year from now),