Pick up your way

Is it possible to know what is better for you? It is you. It is your own life. You know that every action will have a result. But how to choose one way? You can choose a way but it might be wrong. Or not. For example, some man want to be a great musician. What has he do to reach it? He has to work hard all of the time or he just has to have a talent? And that's all the thing...
The only way to decide is to try everything. You have to try working hard, doing nothing, watching the professionals or someting else. Everything that you can imagine.
I don't know which way is better for me. I don't know if I have to wake up tomorrow in 5 a.m. and sing, sing, sing. Or I have to sleep till evening and then I will create the best song ever. But I think if I will do something as well as sing or dance or... it will be better than nothing. Right?

Fun or money?

Well, we are still talking about music. Is it hobby or job? Do we do it for fun or for money? A lot of people (including half of our relatives) think that we're just doing nothing. "What is this - music? You just sing all the time?" - they ask. The answer is no. Playing music is not just singing. It is a lot of practice, exercises. But the thing is that we love to do it. We are spending time with smiles on our faces.
Then the big question became. Do we want music to be a job? Sometimes when music become a job musicians    loses their aspiration. Because it is not the same when you playing music for yourself or when you wake up every morning and learning, learning, learning. As for me I would like music to be my profession. It is awesome when your job is the best thing in your life. To be a musician means that you don't have to go in the office every day, you don't have to do paper work, you don't have to talk with people who don't understand you. The only thing you have to do is to bring yourself and your instrument to the stage.
Well half of our band is thinking that we are not ready for earning money with music. It is not a big deal. We have time. We have to play for our pleasure right now. And when everybody in the band will be ready we'll crush the stage. Or we always can earn money separate ways but we can play together for fun.

How to turn music into the meaning of life?

We're having a big conversation about life and music. What are we going to do to enjoy the music? It's like a cornerstone for musicians. When you picked up your profession already. You have to learn a lot of stuff, you have to create new things and you should enjoy this. Because if you won't like it, if you will do this with anger and impatience you will destroy everything.
Sometimes it is hard enough to be brave because everybody tells you that you are doing a bunch of crap. Everybody wants you to do some common things. They want you to work on the factory or in the office, to do regular job, to make your world grey.

The only way to fight with it is to find hidden forces in your soul. You should be strong in your solutions. You should train your willpower. You have to understand that you really need it, you want it and you can't live without it. It's like in the childhood when a little girl decides to be a princess. She doesn't care that she can't be a princess. She doesn't care that she hasn't a castle. She's taking all her stuff and turns it to the fairy-tale. All of us have this little girl inside. The only thing you need is to release her and let her do everything.

Das wilde Leben

Well we'd been in a quite time of living. Two of us (Zoe and Alex) have to pass their exams in the university. So they have to study all the time. It is not good feeling when you HAVE TO do something you don't even need to. It is a kind of obligation in front of your parents, your spent time and money, your teachers... You are doing a lot of work thinking that you want to do something else. But you are not doing it because you're still thinking about your obligations. It is a kind of a circle. And you want to break this circle. To fight. To live with your dream. To be free. To live like Uschi Obermaier for example. "Das wilde Leben" is a film we watched yesterday. Wild life. Uschi was a German model who escaped from her parents house to live in the Kommune 1, to party with Rolling Stones, to see the whole world.
We watched this great movie because of the Rolling Stones at first place. But we were surprised that it is a cool rebel movie. (And you know between us girls actress in this film has an exellent breast. The most incredible part is that she shows it a lot of times)))))

VIP-concert

Well it's been a long time since we've posted something. =) There are a lot of things happened in our life. We took the second place in the "Subways competition". That gave us 6 tickets in the VIP-lodge. We brought our friends Ann and Boris with us. The way to Ekaterinburg took about 2 hours of fun and listening a lot of different music. The concert place looked like a warehouse from the outside. Inside was better but there's no space for the large groups of people. There were like 100-150 people.
The concert was great. Fun, punk and rock'n'roll. We've got a lot of experience. Somewhere in our souls we finally realised that we want to be on stage, not on the floor. We want to rock all the places.


Here some photos from the event)))

 

The easiest way to live

What is the most popular question ever? - How to become a happy person? Unfortunately more than 80% of population don't do anything to reach it. The answer is that you have to just do. Like "Yes Man" you just have to say "OK" and do it. It is easier than it looks. Why do I keep talking about it? Because that is the main thing I realised from the last week. It was like: "Oh my, I did it for myself and it tooks only one week?" Before the last week I thought that it would take a month. And then the one big thought appeared in my mind. What if I will do the same things with the same speed for the whole time? I'll can do everything I want. And, you know, it is the great feeling. Like a fly or swimming.
     In case of this wave I went to the university (finally))) and passed the exam with the B-mark. I was so frightened about it. But I DID it and everything went good.
     If every single person would do everything they need right at time there will be a lot of Bill Gates everywhere. I checked that I can do much more. The only thing I needed is not to think but do. If only I would remember about it all the time))) Maybe it is a right time to do an experiment? I'll try to DO for the whole next week. Next monday I'll check my progress. 

Competition

For the last two days we did a great job. We finally recorded the Rock'n'Roll video. It was so cool and cold. We were recording the first part in the appartment. But there were no place for jumping and dancing. So we had to hold the camera in turn. Then we took all our stuff to the street. Right on the snow. It was really cold but fun. It was pretty strange to party on the cold street without the music. =))) Thanks God nobody got cold. Well today we will ask all our friends to put "I like" under the video. Also we posted it on YouTube. So everyone can watch it. Hope you like it.

One more news but not so important is that we were on the party yesterday. We had a lot of fun. Smoking a hookah, drinking, playing games and singing. Alex was lucky enough to stay there for the whole night.

http://vk.com/videos-33712956?z=video-33712956_162156286%2Fclub33712956

Pub Audition

Well yesterday we had an audition in James Butler Pub. We were waiting for 4 hours to play because there were no customers at 3 p.m. So we played 6 songs. Then manager told us that we have to learn more songs (more english pop songs and some russian songs). After that we will come to the second audition and then they "will be glad to cooperate" with us.

Today we were listening a lot of songs and finally picked up 24 foreign songs and 8 russian songs. It was so hard to pick up russian songs that all of us will like. I hope that we will learn them as soon as possible and will pass the second audition. I saw that they liked us but we are too "raw" for playing in the bar.

Anyway it was a big step toward our dream. We were playing in the bar in downtown and they liked us. I think we can do it.

Rock'n'Roll Queen

The big news for today is our rehearsal. There were cables everywhere. A LOT of cables. =))) And we are finally recorded the audio for the Rock'n'Roll Queen. It is almost done. Last thing to do is to record a guitar solo. So we are able to make a video. Hope we will make it on thursday.






And... we are going to play in James Butler Pub on wednesday at 3 p.m. We'll appreciate everybody to come and support us.

How I "bought" a laptop

Well. Mickey asked me to make our posts more informative. I have no idea how to  do this. Actually Mickey thinks that some abstract music information in our blog will make it more specific. Like: "Metallica's songs are using for tortures in Guantanamo" or "In 1982 when Ozzy Osbourne bit off bat's head he didn't know that it was a real bat. He thought that it was a toy". I don't know if it is appropriate to use such information in the blog which has to tell about The Muzzle of Bees. Probably we can make some kind of quiz: Do you want to read any facts about music life in a blog? Impartial witness can help us deside.

Anyway today we were cleaning up after the party. Then I went to Mike's job and had a photo with him because making a photo with customer is a part of his job. But all his customers disbanded before he asked them. So I pretended to be an owner of a new laptop. =)

And we had every week meeting. We were talking a lot. About everything. We invented video-clip for the Rock'n'Roll Queen. Tomorrow we will record the audio. For the rest of the week we will have a complete video-clip.

Poker-Party

We've had a great poker party tonight. The party started at 4 p.m. Two of our old school friends came in time. We've got a lot of Martini and juice. During the first round of poker Zoe went out first. After the second game there were 4 champions: Mickey, Zoe, Pavel and Ivan. But Mickey finally has won. Nobody doubted about this. Then we played "Mafia". That game also was fun. Everytime mafia-team was eliminated :).

This evening we were drinking, singing, playing and having a lot of fun. Right now we are trying to spread all the sleepwear we own among our guests.

Why didn't we have parties like that all the time? It is cool. =)))

Baby You Can Drive My Car

It was very quiet in appartment number 3 at 23:20. Corridor was buried in the dark. The only sound was a frige buzz. There was a cold wind in every single room because windows were closed not tightly. The boy with the curly hair was sitting in front of the bright screen of the computer. His name was Mickey. He was trying to write something. At that time good-looking girl was sitting in the kitchen in front of her laptop. Time was running so fast. Different sounds were penetrating through the window. Dog's barking. Screeching of tires in the snow. Sounds of night...

Suddenly the loud knock striked the front door. The boy turned his head aside the door. In a while the knock appeared again. The boy stood up and went to the door very cautiously. He stretched out his hand to the door handle and turned it... It was dark behind the door. All of a sudden the big hand grabbed the door and pulled it. Then tall man went in the corridor. He was wearing the yellow coat, tall black hat and misted glasses.The name of the night visitor was Mike. He wanted to have lodging for the night. He greeted Mickey and went to the kitchen. The girl looked up at him. They knew each other.

Mike asked the girl: "What are you doing?". She answered: "I'm trying to write the post to our blog. "

P.S. Well that's a kind of story I made instead of post. In fact we were practising all day. And we had a rehearsal for the new song "Baby you can drive my car".

P.P.S. Probably we will have a concert in the James Butler Pub on thursday.

Girl's Side of Life

"One day - one view" or "Zoe also has something to say".

Today it was extremely difficult to wake up. Mickey and I went to his mother's house because the plumber had to come between 9 and 12 a.m. to fix the hot water pressure. The alarm-clock was timed to go off at 7:30. Then we fell asleep again as usual. That is why we are always missing a lot of things just because of waking up too late. So, we fell asleep as I said. I woke up unexpectedly in 8:45. It was really hard to wake up Mickey. He is sleeping like a bear. =) We packed in turmoil. As you can guess we were late already. So we just made 2 cups of tea and lied on a couch to watch my favourite series of "Friends" - "The One Where They're up all night". And... we fell asleep again. I think that's a kind of sleepy day today.

Well then at noon my best friend Anna (her name appeared in the previous posts) came and we went at our place. We bought beef ribs for the pea soup. At home Anna and me went to the kitchen – because girls are not only good singers but good cooks too! So we made a salad and a soup (pretty tasty by the way). I hope that soon I can make some cheese pancake or cake or casserole or ragout or...or...or... Oh, I’m slightly going mad)))

One more news for today is that Mickey's mom accepted me to have practical training in her department in a big company. I will be an assistant in a HR-department. That means that I will have to do a lot of work for free. But it will give me good experience and some benefits in my diploma project.

I think it is all for today. I wish our day was more fascinating. I hope tomorrow will be more intense and eventful. At least I try to make it so.

P.S. I bought new socks. Red ones.

P.P.S. The soup was really damn good. =)))

Bad Rehearsal

Let's start with the bad news. Today The Muzzle Of Bees' guitarist (we'll not mention his name because he doesn’t want do it) flew off the handle and upset all MOBs people. Three guys had a row and then our rehearsal continued but there was no any enthusiasm. Mickey suggested to play Johnny Cash and Roy Orbison (because they are new in our set-list) and The Subways (Mike recalled that we have to make a video) and then asked to end the rehearsal. So we did. And everybody parted in anger. But as we had only one room Mike started to edit the rehearsal video, Alex stared at the laptop with the suppressed anger on his face, Mickey went to the kitchen to play the guitar and Zoe started to cook rice for dinner.

And, an interesting fact, movement "Sign of the horns" for a long time was a magic sign of protection from the evil eye and evil spirits. Ronnie James Dio (Rainbow and Black Sabbath's soloist) was the first one who showed this movement on a rock concert. The fans adopted it and now "Sigh of the horns" are very popular among the rock and metal audience.

By the way, Mike had a talk with the guy who is studying in Chelyabinsk State Academy of Culture and Arts about the video of the “Rock'n'Roll Queen”. That guy said that he can make a video at least in a month. That doesn’t suit us. Also Mike proposed not to record new video at all. Just to restrict any recording of this song. Anyway we have to talk with this filmmaker about video clip for Muzzle Of Bees. The band should be progressing every single day no matter what the team is feeling right now.

Mike took out the online channel http://www.livestream.com/muzzleofbeestv on the main window of the blog. Now you can watch the broadcast from here. The picture is good enough but the sound is awful. We are still working on that problem. Soon we'll fix it, I hope.

Well, to the point, question for the followers: How to motivate people to do what they like?

Stream Video

Opening of the blog takes a big responsibility. It is well-known fact that almost 90% of online blogs are not active. So to make a popular blog you have to write more often. Mike as he is a drummer chose a fast speed of writing - one post per day. So now we should post something every single day (Zoe has to do this because she knows English better then others). But at the same time quality shouldn't suffer from the quantity, otherwise our blog will turn into the everyday bunch of garbage.

So, interesting fact: In 1984 the drummer of hard rock band Def Leppard Rick Allen was in a car accident and lost his left arm. But this disaster didn't crash his music career. He started to train on the drum kit specially designed for him. There were recorded samples of hits that he had done with his left hand and he played it moved with his left foot. Since then, Rick Allen was involved in the record of many successful albums of Def Leppard, as well as several of his own projects.

Well, let's go back to us. After Mike's morning jog to the shop he helped Mickey to fix the problem with the computer. Because when you are trying to turn it off,  it just turns back on again. The first thought was that some kind of an artificial intelligence possesses our computer (and, hopefully, it will help us to make platinum albums). But unfortunately we found out that the problem was with the sound card. The power supply is not enough powerful as needed. So now in order to solve it, we will have to turn off the surge protector every time we want to turn off the computer. Yippee!

Mike and Alex visited a music store and bought cables in order to record sound without background noise. Also they bought picks for a thumb for Mickey to play fingerstyle in acoustics. Mickey is so glad and almost said “thank you” to them.

Also Mike set up a Stream Video when the sound comes from the sound card and a video comes from the web-cam. Now he won't spend so many time to edit video and sound. Those 6 hours he spent on the mounting and converting had no purpose. He created hour and a half of the dark screen and almost no sound.


And we are proud to present our new online channel http://www.livestream.com/muzzleofbeestv

Be always faithful to your idols! We wish you chicks and money!

Tech Support

On Saturday’s band meeting we decided to think over some ideas for video of “Rock'n'Roll Queen” on Monday. Well... Monday is over and I can announce that nothing has happened at all. Nobody even remembered about this. So probably now we have to choose some kind of a meeting secretary. That's how we will remember about our decisions and tasks and keep them organized.

In general Monday was quite successful for us:
 1) We had a rehearsal, played all the set-list and even tried to play Johnny Cash - Cry, Cry, Cry. This song was new for us so we didn't play it right. The silver line is that our set-list is growing day by day!
 2) We plugged in the sound card which Mickey brought from home. Right now drums and vocals are recorded through the mixing console in the line input, guitar and bass are recorded through the microphone-console-line input. The sound is so much better than from the HD-camera;
 3) The whole day Mickey, Mike and Alex were playing and exercising with their instruments. In the evening Mike started to edit sound and video recorded from the web-cam. That took a lot of time. At first he downloaded and installed trial versions of Adobe Audition and Premiere. He was trying to cut all background noises appeared. Then he combined video and audio. According to my calculations, it took about 6 hours, and the video is still converting;
 4) In the evening we went for a walk and then watched the film “Source Code”.

As a result, Monday was very productive for the band, and all of us went to bed happy. Well I'm going to sleep now because computer is making a very loud noise in the quite dark room.

P.S. Turned off computer but it turned on again... That's weird. I think I should pull out the power cord.

Bye-bye, The Job!

 

Saturday's night. We had an every week conversation about everything. A lot of new things happened this week. Mike put the poster frame on the wall, but without the poster for right now. He is working on it. It will be a big poster with the Muzzle Of Bees on it. One thing to do is to prepare it. =)

Today Mike was working for 5 hours in the cloth shop named O'Stinе. After 5 hours he told the manager: "I really don't want to work here. Bye-bye!" Isn't that great?)))

On the agenda there is a video for The Subways. Tomorrow we'll have a brainstorming. Everybody will suggest the ideas for the video. Hope we'll find one common conception.

By the way, Mickey told us about an autobiography of Keith Richards which is called "Life". Inspiriting book. Unfortunately there is no translation in russian so we'll try to find an English version. Hope that some web-stores have it on sale.

Also Mike and Alex did a great job cleaning the kitchen and bathroom. There was pretty dirty. Tomorrow will be Zoe and Mickey’s turn to clean up the living-room. That is really dull but necessary.

I think that's all. Nothing else happened this week. I guess that new week will be more successful for us in a music way. Everything is changing. I see that everybody in a band is trying to bring something new in our life. That makes me feel damn good. =))) We are a team already and the only one thing is important right now - to live with music. For all of us...

The Subways' Concert

Yesterday our friend @EgorStrogy told us about The Subways concert in Ekaterinburg. TeleClub presenting a competition - http://tele-club.ru/event/1383. Everyone may win 4 tickets in the VIP-section on a concert. Everything you should do is to record a video about the song "Rock'n'Roll Queen". That's a cool song and we're playing it for a half of the year. The only thing we have to do right now is to find HD video cam and presents ourselves.
Pray for us. We really want to visit The Subways in Ekaterinburg.

Mike's Vintage Pedals

It's silent here today, in the MOB's flat. Alex went home to help his mother as he always do every weekend. He just disappears for whole day.. Sometimes even for 2 days. Zoe and Mickey are at parents' flat too. They decided not come back until tomorrow, that's how they explained it "If there is no rehearsal we won't come".

It looks like nothing happens in our band, just time is passing through. Mike found somewhere three vintage pedals for Alex. Two of them are from Poland, the third one is somewhere from Asia made by unknown company. They work so we plan to try then really soon. Thanks to him, Zoe will now be able to play keyboards. It will diversifies our music, will make it more specific. At least we have it in our plans. Hope so...
Today Mike is alone in MOB's flat!

Tomorrow there will be another meeting again. He isn't looking for a job. The job finds him. He should get up early, look tide and finally get a a job so he can buy new drums. Music is life. Life is music.

See you tomorrow...

Time to drink vodka

Nothing is going on here. Cold again. Spent a lot of the time sleeping and doing nothing.
Mike thinks that justin.tv is not a good option without customized sound. We'll try to record video for youtube. Hope that will improve the situation.
Mickey and Zoe having fun with their friend Ann. She is a kind of informal manager of the band. Special thanks to her)))

P.S. It is so cold outside. Time to drink vodka)))