inspiration... after working a 13 hour shift at the coffee shop, i would've loved nothing more than to hang out with my fiancee... but... she was back in her hometown for the weekend... i decided to text mathew (our merch-dude/ videographer/ egyptian ambassador) not only was he down to hang, he let me know his mom would make me some sauerkraut and sausage... i was definitely game! after eating and talking a bit, mat (merch-mat, youngin', magoo) grabbed his guitar and strummed a few chords... "that reminds me of a song" i began to search for the video of "kiss me" by sixpence none the richer... which led me to their other song "there she goes"... then to "what the water gave me" by florence and the machine... then "somebody to love" and "white rabbit" by jefferson airplane each song reminded me of another that i enjoyed... before our music expedition was over we had watched/listened to songs by... the cranberries r.e.m. third eye blind jack white gary jules adele etc. each song carried a feeling with it... sadness, longing, joy, excitement, hurt, hope, etc. it was inspiring... i encourage every reader of this post to take a few moments and dive into music of all genres, eras, and emotions... you won't regret it... -jon
inspiration
sosaveme/SONS Winter Tour
So it’s definitely been a while since we’ve posted on the blog and for this we all apologize. It’s always a balance between making strides toward keeping the band functioning and growing, living life with our families, and staying connected to all the wonderful people we meet along the way.
For those of you who don’t know, during the month of January we had the extreme pleasure of touring with a band called SONS (http://sonsofficial.com). Over the course of 2 weeks we got to travel, play, and live with the four guys in SONS. All of them have their different perks and characteristics, but all of them share a tremendous depth of heart and character that we felt honored to be sharing the stage and road with them.
This tour was set up to be different from the very beginning. For the first time sosaveme implemented an internship program and, our first intern Corey, met up with us in Fort Wayne, IN to travel, learn, grow, and serve in the life of a touring musician. sosaveme in no way considers ourselves to be masters of the music industry and touring, but we’ve been at this for over 6 years and have an insight into things people who simply haven’t toured might not know.
We feel strongly about passing along any information we’ve gained by experience to those who are willing to learn; especially the younger ones. Of course, our usual Merch Guy named Mathew Pimental went along with us to sell merch but also to create some tour videos for the blog DigitalTourBus.com. Another difference on this tour was Austin had to stay home to work so we had our friend Caleb drive from Virginia to come learn the songs, practice, and tour with sosaveme. So on January 7th all of us loaded into our van with an astounding 320,000 miles on it and faced the open road.
This particular tour had so many great experiences and took us to some really unique and fantastic venues, even venues sosaveme has been trying to play for a long time (to name a few Murray Hill Theater in Florida and The Channel in South Carolina). We got to meet some great people along the way and were once again humbled by all the people who opened their homes to us. It’s amazing that a touring band can travel the U.S. and not stay in a hotel or sleep in their van because so many people are willing to let 6 guys sleep in their house.
While in Nashville we got to tour the headquarters of the Non-Profit Organization Soles4Souls that has distributed over 17 Million pairs of shoes to date (1 pair every 7 seconds) to people in need. It was great to hear from the staff as we toured the facility and hear how each member of the team contributes to meeting the needs of strangers. What particularly struck me was the organization’s methods and ideas of sustainability. They not only give these shoes away to places in need, but through a micro-enterprise development system they teach people how to generate income and distribute shoes on their own. They don’t just give continual hand outs, but equip people to generate income that will benefit their local community and society. Soles4Souls is looking for ways to inform and connect with a demographic of people that bands like sosaveme reach at every show. We were happy to sit down with them and talk about ideas and methods of how we can work together to meet the needs of people who don’t have the simple necessity of shoes.
For more information or to get involved, visit: http://www.soles4souls.org/
sosaveme is looking forward to March/April where we already have another Mid-West follow up tour in the works. We are excited to announce we will be visiting Texas on this tour and possibly Oklahoma and Louisiana. We will be sure to announce the full tour dates with info soon. Part of this tour will include some more shows with SONS and a few other bands to be announced.
If you are interested in seeing some video of this past tour, be sure to check our 3 VLOGs (video blogs) on Digital Tour Bus’ Website.
Update 1 of 3: http://digtb.com/ssmsblog1
Update 2 of 3: http://digtb.com/ssmsblog2
Update 3 of 3: http://digtb.com/ssmsblog3
Here are a few pictures from our journey in January. Enjoy.
Thanks for reading and looking with your eyeballs. More to come soon.
December 2nd – Looking towards 2012
Well today is the second day in December. Here in Michigan the ground is covered in white and the air is cold and dry. We have had a great Thanksgiving with our families and are looking forward to our last show of the year. We met last Sunday to discuss what the next year will look like and all that we aim to accomplish. It was a great meeting and we filled an entire whiteboard with exciting goals and ideas. So December will continue be the month of planning. We have one last show of the year lined up on the 17th in Twin Lake, Michigan. This will be a great end to a great year. Our good friends Mike Mains & The Branches will be playing as well and we are going to do the song Sender/Receiver. For those of you who don’t know, Mikey is the one who does guest vocals on the second verse of that song.
The year 2012 is one in which we hope to be on the road touring as much as possible. We did all we could to get the album recorded and released before the end of the year and we accomplished that. But now is the task of really getting it out there. The feedback from the album so far has been tremendous. The response on our first tour of the album was really encouraging and all of us feel very proud to sing these songs night after night and see people connect to them. So, if you are wanting to see sosaveme live, we really aim to make that happen next year. You can help by posting your state in the comments below and we will take note and put it on our list of states!
Thank you to all who made The Garden possible. Thank you to all the Kickstarter supporters. Thank you to all of you who have become friends over the course of this year, and thank you to all you who’ve we’ve never met but are somehow connected to us. Just because we haven’t met you in person yet doesn’t mean we are any less thankful for you.
We also wanted to share some of the Christmas spirit by offering everyone 25% off on our online merch store. Most people enjoy saving money and we wanted to do what we could to help. So if you get some time, check out the merch store and pick up a cheap CD for a friend. iTunes may be convenient, and we certainly appreciate those of you who have acquired the album that way, but opening a wrapped CD might prove to be nicer than a gift card.. They look bigger than gift cards which makes you look like a better friend. HAHA. Just looking out for you.
- nicholas
(photo credit at top: Kaela Lang)
























