I Work the Corner of University & 1st North

Those who have known me over the past several years have usually known me to be intensely focused on one musical project at a time, tunnel-visioned to the rest of my world. These same people have often been the victims of my countless plugs and promotional efforts for said musical projects. Sure, I would occasionally dabble in, at the most, playing in a side project. But for the most part, I'd spend so much time practicing, recording, and performing with my main band that any additional musical projects were kept to a minimum.

That all changed, however, over the past couple months. I recently became a self-proclaimed local band whore.

By joining these ranks, I become part of a legacy of Provo musicians, a list of whom would stretch the length of the downtown gallery stroll route. Among these are some of my closest friends, many of whom I currently play in a band or two with.

It all started earlier this spring, when my buddy Donnie invited me to come play guitar for his newly formed group, Donnie Bonnelli & The Kites. I had some free time and wanted to expand my musical horizons, and it has turned out to be really fun. Like myself, the other Kites are all also involved in other bands.

Then, over the summer, I had offered my musical services to a good friend and gifted songwriter, Nate Pyfer, who's band, Code Hero, had recently lost some members. Nate has also dabbled in band whoring, as he spent most of this summer playing keyboards for Joshua James & The James Brothers on their U.S. tour. When he returned home to Utah last month, he got the ball rolling on re-forming Code Hero. I'll be playing keyboards with them at Velour next Wednesday.

But nothing quite captures the spirit of band whoring like my new project, Chance Lewis. Chance Lewis is a self-proclaimed solo project/franchise whose live band is a constantly revolving "who's who" of local musicians. I suppose one could say that in this band, I employ a slew of band whores for a string of one-night-stands, which I guess makes me a band pimp.

Incidentally, the songs you may have not-so-deliberately heard upon arrival to this blog are some of my new tunes I've recorded for this project. Oh yeah, and these tunes were funded on studio time I earned this summer working part-time as a sound guy at Muse Music, so the mostly-metaphorical title of this blog is also somewhat literal.

On top of all of this, Dan Leach and I are still doing the (very) occasional Abby Normal show. We were recently joking that the only people who should be allowed to ask us "When's the next A.N. show?" should be those who have actually attended one of our shows in the past 12 months, thus eliminating 90% of the people who ask us out of obligatory small talk.

But out of nowhere, we got asked to participate in a college football montage/music video using our song "Poor Us". Despite the subtle contradiction between the song's lyrics and the video's content, the video turned out well. You can check it out here.

P.S. Leach is coming out with some music right now that is gonna blow your minds. When looking for local band whores to contribute to his recordings, he didn't have to look far.

Monogamy may be the way to go in some areas of life, but the older I get, the more I love the freedom and variety allowed by dabbling in several musical projects at a time. Come to think of it, though, until I start making more money through my musical exploits, "whore" might have been a little too generous of a word choice.