New… and… Improved?
Well, it’s been quite a long time since I last posted anything on my blog. I think the reason, more than just being busy, is because I have been trying to decide on what I really want my blog to focus. I’ve basically just been writing about the band exploits and our progress on finishing the album. And speaking of the album, it’s in the artwork stage right now. We are hoping to release it in August. So, back to the subject at hand; the blog. What do I do about the blog? Well, I thought about gearing it to worship leading, playing guitar or both or maybe using it to give gear and tech tips to those who are into that stuff and then the thought of song writing came to mind as well. Honestly, I just don’t feel qualified. I don’t consider myself a great guitar player to blog “How To” stuff and I’m no Kari Jobe or Marty Sampson when it comes to worship leading either. I do have aspirations of being that guy, though. You know, the guy other people visit online for tips on song writing, guitar licks and technique or even worship leading or leadership advice. Maybe that’s arrogant. If it is, it’s not intentional. It’s just an aspiration of mine. So, as unqualified as I feel I am, I’ve decided to focus my blog on things of that nature. From this point forward my blog will offer what wisdom and advice I have to experienced and aspiring worship leaders, help guitarists become more confident and effective in their playing technique and lend my knowledge and experience in writing music and maybe even on the occasional effects pedal too. There is a phrase from a latin poem by Horace that says, Carpe diem quam minime credula postero – “Seize the day, trusting as little as possible in the future”. I’ve learned that putting things off and saying, “some day” doesn’t get you anywhere. If you have a dream, don’t put it off; there’s no guarantee of tomorrow. Go after it today, whatever that means. If it means going to school or going back to school or doing what you can to achieve it sooner, do it! I am.
It is Finished!
It’s been a few weeks since my last blog but I’m just now getting the chance to reflect on what’s been going on in my world. I have great news!! I just finished up recalls this past weekend. Which means I went to the studio, sat with the producer and made sure I was happy with the final mix on all of our songs that we recorded. We tweaked some things and made a few adjustments that were needed and it seriously sounds great! Standing in the studio listening to the music and how everything sounded and how this whole project came together; from Eric and Hector moving to my wife allowing me the time and money to put toward this project and what all of it really means. This is special. I don’t know how to explain it, but standing there listening to the music with all of those thoughts going through my mind I couldn’t help but think that this is really special to me because of the price. Not a monetary price necessarily but the price of things we’ve gone through over the past year for this to come about. Not just me and my family but Eric and Hector too. This hasn’t been easy and it hasn’t been taken lightly either. I’m really excited and scared all at the same time because now is where the real work begins. I need everyone’s prayers for wisdom, guidance and creative ideas. To everyone who supported and encouraged us to go after this dream, I say Thank You. Our families have been supportive through this past year, our friends, our pastor and everyone on staff here at Enid First Assembly both presently and the guys who have gone to pursue other endeavors recently too. I want to thank my wife, Constance, for being supportive and understanding even though she gets nervous and apprehensive about the future and what it holds; don’t worry babe, you’re not alone, I do too. Finally, I have to thank God for giving me the songs and the musical ability and guts to go after this and providing the means to do so. You are an awesome, unfailing, all powerful, ever loving, all consuming God that I love with all my heart; Thank you!
Decibel Level Meter?
I thought I’d share a funny anecdote with you about our last local gig. So, the other day we went to Oklahoma Bible Academy in Enid, OK to lead worship for their chapel service and as we are setting up a teacher asked me, “How loud do you think you will be?” “Do you think you will be able to keep it between 95 and 99 decibals?” I have to admit I was annoyed and humored at the same time. I told him that I wasn’t sure how loud it would be since we were still setting up and hadn’t sound checked yet. His response was, to say the least, intriguing. He said, “Well, most people we have come in to play have their own decibal meter.” I don’t know if I missed the class on “the benefits of carrying a decibal level meter” or didn’t get the memo from the musician’s union about “mandatory decibal level checks” but I was intrigued by this statement. Who carries their own decibal level meter with them? Especially a rock band. Now we aren’t a normal rock and roll group but our music leans more toward that style than anything else. Also, who would want to bring in a group that plays a more aggressive style to have a decibal level meter? So, I’m taking a poll. Should the Sean Gallagher Band purchase a decibal level meter and use it before every gig? Click on the link below and let us know what you think we should do. We would love to hear from you! So leave a comment and participate in the poll! Help us decide!!!
Take The PollOk, it’s been a while since I posted anything but I’ve been extremely busy. This past weekend I tweeted that I had committed a felony and was let off with only a warning. That was a long but fun day. The Sean Gallagher Band took pictures on a cold, rainy day in Enid this past weekend. We had a lot of fun and froze our “you-know-what’s” off! We got some good pictures though, so it was worth it in the end. Ok, back to the felony. We decided it would be cool to take pictures at the local train yard. So we were there for about twenty minutes and the Enid police drove up and asked us what we were doing in the train yard. We told him that we were taking pictures for the band and he proceeded to explain to us that being in the train yard or even within ten feet of the railroad tracks was a felony. I have to say that I was honestly surprised that it was considered a felony even though I knew it was trespassing. I figured if anyone had an issue with us taking pictures there that they would kindly ask us to leave. In this case, however, the officer asked all of us for our driver’s licenses, sat in his car and I’m assuming he had them checked for outstanding warrants. Happy to say that no one was taken into custody because of unpaid tickets or anything of that nature. I was a little worried about Hector, our drummer. He would be the one to get busted for something like that cause he just has bad luck with the cops when it comes to speeding tickets or violations of that nature. Anyway, after he checked us out he took our licenses and left all of us in the train yard to go ask the railroad police (yes, the railroad actually has their own police) if they wanted to press charges. Ten minutes later and about a ten degree drop in body temperature he came back and said they weren’t going to press charges but we can never take pictures in the train yard again. So, like I said, you know it’s a good day when you committ a felony and you get off with only a warning. We finished off the day at DaVinci’s, a local coffee shop in Enid. It was a long day but we made it through and got some great pictures and an even better story. Until next time….
So, this is the first blog of the year 2010! I hope you’re as excited as I am. I should have done this a couple of weeks ago but there wasn’t a whole lot to blog about…until now! In early December we (the Sean Gallagher Band) were asked to play at a youth event, which turned out to be a battle of the bands at the National Guard Armory in Enid, Oklahoma. Keep in mind that the Sean Gallagher Band is the house band for the Saturday Night Service at Enid First Assembly of God. Our Competition was a local band, Refuge, fronted by Jared McClellan, who leads worship at Emmanuel Baptist Church, one of the largest churches in Enid. We accepted and almost immediately after agreeing to perform at this event, it was postponed until January 15th. That was a relief! Was I scared? No, but I wanted to make sure we were prepared for this event. We selected excerpts of Sweet Child O Mine (Guns N Roses), Beat It (Michael Jackson/Fall Out Boy) and then a full cover of I Don’t Wanna Be (Gavin Degraw) along with a couple of worship tunes. The purpose of the event was to draw the youth to the battle of the bands and then give them the opportunity to hear about Christ Jesus. The day of the event we loaded up our equipment and headed over to the armory where Refuge was already set up and ready to go. When we got to the armory we were told to come up with a silly name that we would use during the battle so that we didn’t have to pit a Baptist church against an Assembly of God church. Refuge chose “Mustaches and Tattoos” as their name during the event. What was our name? Well, as it turns out, Raquel Carlson, our bass player, came up with our name. She saw a banner hanging inside the armory that said, “Prairie Thunder” so that became our name for the night. She did a good job picking the name actually. We asked Hector, our drummer, and he came up with “Apple Bottoms!” Why, you ask? I haven’t a clue. He’s a peculiar fellow. Anyway, we set up our equipment and did our sound check, then waited. Finally at 7 the lights came down and the crowd gathered in front of the roped off area and we kicked it off with a little Guns N Roses. The Refuge band answered with Skynard’s, Sweet Home Alabama and we replied with Beat It, al a Fall Out Boy. They came back with Crazy Train and then we moved on to the next round; the full cover. We played our version of I Don’t Wanna Be and they played How Far Is Heaven. The crowd loved it and we had a great time! After the message was given we went into a time of worship and everyone really responded to God’s presence. That was the best thing about the whole night; God’s presence. We wrapped it up at the end and as everyone was leaving I began playing, impromptu, Sweet Home Alabama and both bands began playing together. It was awesome; two drummers, four electric guitars and two bass players! It was pretty incredible. As I said before, we had a great time that night. Unfortunately there wasn’t a winner declared, which was for the best, but we did make the front page of the Enid News & Eagle which was good publicity for both bands and the event that we played. It was a great night and a great cause too. I want to say thanks to Jared and Emmanuel Baptist Church for providing the sound and lighting for the event. Everything sounded great! It was a great way to kick off 2010 and stir up some excitement for what God has in store for us this year.
I finally have a few pictures from a few sessions we did previously in the studio. I hope you enjoy browsing the photos courtesy of Cody Jensen of Cody Jensen Photography and Design I actually went back to the studio this past Friday. Eight straight hours playing my guitar. I loved every minute of it! I had a lot of fun, even though it was tiring and my fingers were tender at the end of the day. I was laying down the lead parts and a few more rhythm parts too. I should be able to go back in the studio in a few weeks and lay down the vocals and background vocals and the rest is up to Chris, our co-producer at The Music Group. I get excited when I think about finishing this project. It has been a long time coming and I just want to first, thank God; His hand has been on this from the beginning. I have to thank my beautiful wife for putting up with me and allowing me to pursue my dreams at such a significant cost; thanks babe, you’re awesome and I love you! I also want to thank Hector and Eric for believing in me enough to move 550 miles from their home to be a part of the vision God has given me to fulfill. I’m very grateful and humbled looking back on this past year as it comes to an end. Things haven’t gone the way I envisioned or expected them to go but all in all God has been faithful and now I just have to trust Him that as I enter the next phase of this project He is still in control of everything. To everyone who encouraged us to produce this album, thank you and please keep us in your prayers as we end the recording phase and begin the production phase in January. I’ll write soon!
So, I’m at Starbucks in OKC and we are waiting to get our coffee; actually in my case a peppermint hot chocolate. Two ladies come up to me said, “has anyone ever told you that you look like Gary Allan?” I said, “yes, actually.” Eric Castillo, my guitar player was there and was laughing because in New Mexico, he and a few others got together and put a picture of him on my office desktop. I do have to admit that he looks a lot like me or rather I look a lot like him. In either case, she ended up pulling her phone out and showing me pictures of Mr. Allan. I like his music and I think this might be an advantage for me in the long run. I could probably be his stand in if I ever needed a job. I could play everything he does on the guitar and lip-sync his songs like Brittany or Ashley at their concerts. No big deal. Well, I wanted to give an update about the recording and the process we are experiencing. I’m writing this blog while Eric lays down some rhythm tracks. He is trying to get his guitar and amp to stop buzzing. He’s getting a 60 cycle hum from the lights or something. It’s annoying but fixable. Hector, our drummer is sitting next to me, critiquing everything Eric is playing, of course. His critique shouldn’t really bother Eric cause he’s just tired. He didn’t get a lot of sleep last night cause he drove an hour and thirty minutes to OKC from Enid the night before to see the midnight showing, of all movies, New Moon. Needless to say, when the movie was over he didn’t get home until 4:30 am and we left this morning at 7:30 am. What the crap!! “Why,” you ask? I don’t know. Chalk it up to quirkiness, I guess. I think he’s caught up in the continuing saga of Bella, Edward and now Jacob. Enough of that. The song we are working on at this very moment is Change Me. I’m really liking the way it’s coming together. The groove is really tight. I can’t wait for our fans and everyone else to hear the finished product. I think it’s gonna be really good.
They say that imitation is the greatest form of flattery. I never really experienced that until tonight, October 31st, Halloween night. You know, when all the crazy people get the chance to flaunt their insanity as if they’ve been penned up waiting all year for this one night. Every Halloween our church hosts a community outreach called trunk or treat. Hundreds of kids and parents from the glenwood community come out and enjoy the decorated car trunks, costumes, games and free candy. During this event our church also adds a little incentive to those decorating their vehicles with a trunk decorating contest. First prize; a gift card to Chili’s. Well, this year a few of our college students, armed with a brilliant idea, teamed up to create the greatest decorated trunk in the history of trunk or treat! These three girls became the Sean Gallagher Band. It was brilliant! They made t-shirts, set up drums and guitars inside a trailer, played our music through loud speakers they rigged and each one of them dressed like us too with wigs that matched each one of our hair styles! It was hilarious! Oh, and they won first place too. Not only did they pull that off but somehow they attained our business cards and handed them out in addition to the candy to all the kids and parents during the event. I couldn’t have paid for better advertising. It was really cool! I even got to keep one of the t-shirts they made. I want to say thank you to Brittny, Lyndsay and Susan- the girls who became the Sean Gallagher Band. They did an awesome job and I loved it! Check out the slide show and enjoy!
The other day the staff at Enid First Assembly had an impromptu discussion about how many christians aren’t very honest and the fact that we have trained people to think of the altar as the place you go if there are problems in your life. People don’t want to respond to an altar call at the end of a service because of the stigma that’s attached. The “church” in the past has beaten people into submission thinking that we have to be done with all our problems or issues, not giving any leeway for continued growth as a follower of Christ. I have been video taping “life change” videos for our church and I have found that people really are not comfortable being who they are with the issues they face everyday. It seems that when people get in front of a camera, knowing that the video will be played in front of the congregation they become religiously censored. Not by me or anyone in the room but by their training in the church. We’ve learned to pretend really well. I say this not to gripe or complain about the church, because we are trying to change that stigma here at Enid First Assembly. So what does this have to do with rock band? I’m glad you asked! I was thinking about all of this while a bunch of the college students were playing rock band in my living room. Understand, I’m a guitar player, so I’m not keen on playing a fake instrument when I could just go play the real thing. All of this triggered a thought. What if Jesus was a musician, a guitar player, mind you. Would he like rock band? The reason I pose this question is, Jesus told the pharisees that they looked good on the outside but were dead on the inside. He said they weren’t real, they had no substance. I believe we have become experts at rock band in the church. What I mean by that is we are great at faking a lot of things, going through the motions and pretending we are musicians when really we are only good at following things we see from others and doing what we are told to do instead of taking the time to develop the discipline of learning the real thing and becoming a real artist who shows uniqueness and creativity in the way they play. We, as followers of Christ, need to live the way God told us to live. Search the scriptures, be honest about who we are and what God has truly asked of us. We need to quit following what everyone and everything around us is saying we should live. We are ultimately accountable to God, not to brother and sister so & so. I know this is a bit of a stretch, and no I’m not against playing rock band, it was a quick thought that I wanted to write out. Let me know what you think about this quick analogy. By the way, I’m not against playing rock band. However, I will admit that I’m not very good at any video games but rock band doesn’t appeal to my sense of wanting to play the real thing.
So Busy!
Well, like the title says, I have been really busy! I think that technically I have the responsibilities of three full-time employees at church; worship pastor, college pastor and now media coordinator. Now that in itself keeps me busy but then on top of that, for the last three weeks or so, I’ve been clearing the forrest that was on my property. I am on my eighth trailer load and will be nine by the end of tomorrow. My yard is starting to shape up finally but it’s definitely taken hard physical labor to get it done. I say all of this because between forrest annihilation and my new responsibilities at work I feel like I haven’t been able to really focus on writing music. I really need to get into the studio to finish recording the last 4 songs. I have three that are written and one that continues to elude me. It’s as if I’m captain Ahab and this song is my Moby Dick, although I don’t think this song will bite off my leg. Still, I’m trying to get this song done but it’s tough to find the time. Hopefully I will finish this before October so I can get in the studio soon. It’s getting a little ridiculous; just ask my band. So if you’re someone that follows my blog and actually would like for me to get this cd out please pray that I would have a burst of creativity, more time and maybe some inspiration too. I do want to say that I had a nice time at the CRAM Night for 24Seven youth group. Jason Warnock, the youth pastor, brought in a couple, Chris and Kelly, that had led worship for him in the past and they needed a guitar player so they asked if I would play. They didn’t know me really but Jason, being the trusting, naive person he is, gave me rave reviews (thanks btw). Well, the night came, they showed up with their band and I did the ever-so-awkward pleasantries. Anyway, we rehearsed for about an hour and I was unsure of what they wanted from me and whether or not they would like my style. I ended up having the most fun I have had in a worship set in a long time. I didn’t have to sing or lead worship. I didn’t have to do anything but play my guitar, which I don’t get to do very often. You know, if I could change one thing about worship in the church it would be this; more instrumentals. I think it’s funny when people can sit and listen to music being played instrumentally when it’s a secular song but when it comes to worship people freak out and seem to think that it’s “of the flesh”! What a bunch of CRAP!!! Sorry for the soap box (I may do a blog specifically about that topic). Anyway, as I was saying, things went well during the worship set and I had a great time! Afterwards, Chris paid me a high compliment, and I want to say thank you again to him and his wife, Kelly and his band; he said, “You sounded awesome! It’s rare to find a guitar player that you’ve only rehearsed with for an hour be able to play everything and fit in as well as you did.” That felt good and I was excited that they enjoyed the experience as much as I did. I was really happy to be able to meet them and play with them and not have to lead worship or carry everything by myself. It was a great experience! Well, I don’t want to bore you anymore by my lame stories and whining about my schedule so I will do that again next week! Talk at ya later!!
