Prologue - Making The Band

WARNING: This is a long-ass post.

Sitting at my disheveled desk (Tickets to CMJ Music Marathon 06 - didn't end up going, Ad for "The Kati Roll Company" on 99 Macdougal Street - delicious, Stub From The Who at Madison Square Garden - bleacher seats) located at 33 Washington Square West, its easy to forget my life 1,586 miles away. These days, I'm a student at New York University where I am majoring in (this is not a lie) "The Art of Becoming a Rockstar." NYU is part of a breed of lovely new wave universities that basically let you do whatever you want as long as you pay them enough money. Like Mary Kate & Ashley before me (proud college drop-outs from the Gallatin School of Individualized Study) my days at NYU are numbered. Come may 2nd, I will join the ranks of unemployed bum drop-outs infesting the otherwise beautiful city of Austin, Texas.

You see, I got this crazy idea stuck in my head last June that I could be a bona fide rock star. Sure, I had written some catchy rock songs with my songwriting partner, Marshall Newman. (hereafter referred to Marshall Galactic) True, my monthly improvisational piano gigs at Fort Worth, Texas's upscale Cafe Aspen were mildly lucrative. Nevertheless, I was light years away from playing a double-bill with Radiohead at Madison Square Garden, endorsing the latest Adidas kicks, or flicking off the camera at a Mavs game. I was an inexperienced pianist, an untrained songwriter, and a lousy singer - to some extent I still am. As time went on, however, something happened.

I kept up a charade - claiming to anyone with eager ears that I would be the next big thing in rock'n'roll. And why not? If the Clash can blow up with a bassist who barely knows how to play and Coldplay can rehash the same three chords for each of their increasingly famous hit singles, The Frontier Brothers can surely change the face of indie rock. I relentlessly asserted my status as rock-star-to-be and, strangely enough, people started to buy it.

Fast forward a little bit. Marshall and I recruited his brother, Travis, to play drums. We played a couple shows over the summer and then I left for school - the future of The Frontier Brothers was uncertain. Luckily, there was plenty to keep the band busy during our diaspora. We had recorded four songs in my living room the day before I left for school. I reasoned that a band doesn't really "exist" until they have been recorded. We set up shop at my parent's house and banged out some tracks. During my early months living in New York, I talked to Travis almost daily, as he was in charge of the mixing and mastering process. After nearly three months, we had a finished product. Finally, there was a real reason to put ourselves to work. We had CDs to pimp, one thousand dollars of debt to pay off for the cds, and I was coming home for winter break. The ELECTRONIC PROGRESS Tour ensued.

I feel like you guys should become familiar with the history of The Frontier Brothers before I start to fill you guys in on the future (the main focus of the blog) so I'm planning on finishing our history tomorrow. I would consider the release of our first EP to be our initiation as a "REAL" band so its a good place to stop.

As always, please email me with any feedback or questions.

Moses