the looking glass has been pretty busy lately. we recently got offered to shoot a music video by our drummer’s friend, who was a sound engineer at MTV europe for a while. pretty exciting! this will be the first time any of us will ever shoot a professionally directed video so it should be interesting, haha. we even went to a wardrobe fitting last week so they could put these green screen suits on us.
i think this was probably the first time any of our necks have been measured
the only problem was that with a professionally directed music video, we needed a studio-produced recording of one of our songs. i don’t know how, but we somehow managed to secure some time with an awesome studio producer by the name of jungle. you may have seen him as the lead role in jay chou’s 陽光宅男 video. you can youtube it if you want!! anyway, it was the first time we had ever been to an actual studio before so i was super excited.
with jungle
THE GLASS!
we decided our video would be of our song 不可能 (bu ke neng). we recorded it in just under 2 hours and i think it sounds pretty good! we were supposed to start filming over the last weekend but due to all the damn typhoons running around, we had to postpone. we’re supposedly shooting in mid-november so hopefully the video will be out my christmas!!
has it really been 5 years since our first video? for those of you who don’t know, my good buddy, matt dinh, and i used to be known for our incredibly craptacular yellowcard cover videos. today, as i was prepping my guitar for a studio recording session with The Looking Glass (more on that later), i decided that i would cruise on over to our old youtube channel and relive the past a little bit. besides, if it weren’t for these videos, i probably wouldn’t be doing what i’m doing now.
a brief history:
for those who have seen us perform before, this story is probably nothing new…but since a lot of you didn’t go to college with us, i’ll tell this story again!
when i was accepted to uc riverside, i was convinced that i could try to change my personal image. back in high school, i was always known as that band geek with a bowl cut who could play sad songs on his acoustic guitar and do a few tricks on a skateboard. i wanted to leave that image behind start a new. i worked at tapioca express, drove a rice rocket and hell, even spiked my hair up real high for good measure. i put away my guitar, started listening to a bunch of kpop (i know, what the hell) and did nothing but play counter-strike (haha).
everything was going as planned until i found myself in loni’s dorm room, just hanging out and eating her food, as usual. on one particular day, i found an acoustic guitar just sitting on the side of her desk. i hadn’t played guitar in quite a while so i asked if i could play around with it. i started playing some nsync or something when this random guy named matt walks by and goes “DUDE, DO YOU KNOW HOW TO PLAY YELLOWCARD?!” i was like “UH, YA I DO ACTUALLY.” he then ran off down the hall and in about .02 seconds, came back with his violin. we played a song called “cigarette” and the rest is history.
we played at some talent show during our first year, took a break in the summer and then finally moved out of the dorms into our first apartments. matt and i didn’t live together, but i would go over to his place pretty often to crank out some yellowcard covers just for fun. i guess matt had gotten a pretty nifty little webcam for christmas 2003 or something so we decided to test it out. it started as “hey, wouldn’t it be funny if we made a video of ourselves playing covers” to strategically planned videos to be released to fans of yellowcard around the world. we recorded a song called “avondale” with a special guest, alex. he would just pop in every so often, singing a lyric or two.
we posted it on some yellowcard fan website and within a couple of weeks, it found its way to the front page of the official yellowcard website! keep in mind that this was all before youtube, vimeo or any other video sharing website were available. it came to a point where people on campus would recognize us…we were sort of internet celebrities for a while — and it was pretty damn cool.
so we made video after video, trying hard to get more stuff posted on their website. even though every attempt was basically a failure, we slowly started gaining a little fan base. people would request songs to be done and we would do them. once youtube started, we literally started filming EVERYTHING. we eventually got another video posted up on their site. it was a cover of their classic “cigarette” and was filmed while matt and i were down in new orleans.
after this video, we decided to up our musical value a little more and add an extra guitarist in the mix. we met this guy named tom after he heard us practicing in the dorms one day and decided to give him a call to do a song or two. we filmed “gifts and curses” and “october nights” in his garage. “gifts and curses” is probably one of my favorite videos, only because it took SO LONG to get it right.
after tom, enter won. i had known him since high school but never really got to know him until he came to riverside. i had always known that he was an amazing guitar player and singer. we had jammed with him way way back in time for an unreleased video of “one year, six months” but with all of us being so busy with “studying,” we never really got a chance to really play together. we decided to play a little show for our “fans” at won’s dorm. surprisingly enough, a good amount of people showed up. here’s a clip:
we got to a point to where we could basically learn and play a new song together whenever we wanted. it was pretty cool. we decided to try and tackle another challenging yellowcard bside called “firewater.” we always tried one upping the entertainment value in every video so we thought of the best way to up the value: bring back alex. this is by far my favorite video by us. not only was it fun to watch, but it was twice as fun to film.
as time went on, yellowcard’s popularity slowly started dying and we started running out of material to cover. they were releasing a new album at the time so we decided to cover one more song and call it quits. we recorded and released a video for “how i go” on the day of the album’s release. it’s the only video to feature a piano!
when we thought we were done as a group, matt’s club was doing a culture show that revolved around musical performances and acting. we decided to do one last show with a melody of 3 songs. we were supposed to have an HD recorded version of this performance but the camera guy’s computer exploded or something and all the data was lost so all we got was this version. this would be the last video that the 3 of us would record together.
well, this was definitely one of the posts that i had a hard time writing. there were so many things that we did together that i couldn’t even imagine writing without writing a novel. i just like to remember it as one of the most influential and fun times of my life. we’re all doing our own separate things now but this is one thing we’ll always have! who knows, we may even do another video in a couple years. if this was the first time you’d ever heard of these videos, just go to youtube and search “jon hom matt dinh yellowcard” and you’ll find all of our videos. gah, i don’t even know how to end it so i’ll end it with this:
“i only need one more day, just one more chance to say, that matt and i really aren’t that gay.”
when we first got here, annie bought a new toy camera called the digital harinezumi. it’s basically like a little lomo in digital form. it’s only like 2 megapixels but the pictures come out looking pretty unique and vintage, if you’re into that. well, she sorta stopped using the camera so i did what any good boyfriend would do and i stole it. with that being said, i’ll probably start doing posts that revolve around the little guy.
the thing is so small that it comfortably fits in my shirt pocket.
the day i started “using” it was when bing came over
i’m still learning how to use it…it’s got all these little options yet it only has 2 buttons so it’s like a video game, i have to press the buttons in a certain order to get access to the different options. it’s pretty cool.
and of course, whenever someone sees the camera, they’re always like WHOA WTH IS THAT, and they want to play
i love her new purse
bird cages outside the fire station
nice sunday lunch here
pumpkin!
that be me
later today we’re going to a wardrobe fitting….that’s right, wardrobe fitting. more on that later
sorry for the lack of updates. i seem to always do a lot of consecutive postings, then stop for a while, do a random one again and then do another giant group. oh well, hopefully ya’ll are still with me! anyway, here are some tasty foods:
at our stinky tofu stand, almost getting hit by cars. the fear of dying always makes it taste better
the garlic was amazing
pizza time
it was surprisingly good
it even came with all these sides! (fried shrimp, onion rings, buffalo wings and TOTS!)
indian burritos at shi lin
curry chicken burrito was so good (no seriously, come to taiwan for the indian burritos)
a hakka restaurant just opened across the street from our place…it’s literally RIGHT there. i could open our window and yell my order in if i wanted, haha. not very many places over here where we can get an awesome family style dinner, so we’re there quite often
some beef and intestines
god i love fried shrimp
i love these 2 haha
also got some potential exciting things happening for The Looking Glass but i’ll fill everyone in on the details when they’re more final! just know that we’re making some progress
finally got to meet up with katherine’s brother, robert and his friend erick! the first night we all met, we did a tuesday night run at 人間 and a good old late night food run but i don’t have any pictures from that night. so i’ll post up some pictures of us on thursday night.
wes, annie and i met up with erick to grab some food at a $100/dish place which was amazing. for all you back home, it’s almost like going to indian or native, but 10x better and 10x cheaper!
that’s erick
i think we may have overdone ourselves
since robert was at a basketball game, we all decided to walk down the street to another darts bar
yay another darts bar!
she was the best player out of all of us
teaching this guy how to throw a dart was fun haha
some big beers
francesca comes and we also meet erick’s friend, iris
ya that’s us!
some nice pics from wes
i like this pic hahah
then rob FINALLY shows up and we make him catch up to us..he looks so scared haha
throughout the whole night, we kept making wagers on our games of darts. it was usually that the person with the highest score at the end of the game had to take a shot of tequila. our last game, i decided to make the wager higher by saying “IF YOU’RE NOT FIRST, YOU’RE LAST.” well, i ended up winning but our friend, maggie (the bartender) gave us all shots. so yep, even if you’re first, you’re last -_-
and i’ll end it with this..a picture that basically describes the night as a whole
i am sad that rob is leaving taiwan to go back to the states. katherine, if you’re reading this, you have to convince him to come back and stay!!!! actually, you must come back and stay as well
let’s see, went out with them tuesday night, thursday night and friday night. my liver is beat.
i promised pictures of the new members and our new practice space so here are some:
we have a pretty awesome view of 西們 from our window!
the sound maker
you can see our first fan looking through our studio door. he stayed there THE WHOLE TIME, watching and listening to us. super cool dude with a pretty good band as well!
we need to get a new synth stand because that one’s designed for midgets
our new bass player iki, and our new drummer greg
these studios are seriously one of the coolest things ever…EVER
we’ll probably get around to taking some photo’s of just us next week. i just wanted to show everyone where the band is now!! AHH so the excitement!
mid autumn festival was last saturday and like any other public holiday we’re used to in the states, we celebrated by barbecuing a gross amount of awesome foods at phoebe’s house.
my school gave us free 月餅 which was pretty nice
annie and i have started eating these every night
cute
at their house
i love their place
felt like home
mmm
so stuffed
mm dessert
i don’t think i had ever been so stuffed in my life, haha.
anyway, it looks like the typhoon won’t be ripping through here any more but we’re still getting a lot of crappy weather -_- it’s ok because we have band practice tomorrow! hopefully i can snap a few shots so ya’ll back home can see more of what we’re doing out here!
it’s dinner time and i’m hungry, think i’m gonna go get some 便當
so i guess a typhoon might roll through here in the next few days. even if it doesn’t come, the rain and the wind that comes with it is already here -_-
taken outside our apartment window…doesn’t really look THAT bad:
it’s not the sort of rain that falls down really hard and is a little more easy to “manage” with an umbrella. recently, the rain has been that really light spray type of rain, you know, the kind that just sorta floats around and doesn’t really fall too fast. the kind of rain that makes umbrellas totally useless. not like an umbrella would make a huge difference because the wind destroys them anyway, haha.
also, we had a 6.1 earthquake hit at around 1am on saturday night. annie and i were just hanging out here when we both heard a rumble and our apartment shook for a good 10~15 seconds. it’s weird, you would think since we all grew up in california that earthquakes should be no big deal but they still scare the shit out of me every. single. time.
hello everyone, sorry for the lack of updates lately!! i’ll be sure to post some stuff up this weekend but i just wanted to share some exciting news to all of you — the looking glass is now a 4 piece band!!
a few weeks ago, we were introduced to a local dj here named baer, who introduced us to a local drummer named greg. we talked through facebook/msn for a while and finally got the chance to meet up on wednesday. while phoebe was in the US, her friend who plays bass, iki, expressed interest in playing with us so come wednesday, and all of us finally get a chance to play together for the first time!
the playing studio — the one thing that can keep me living in taiwan forever. for $10/hr, we can rent out a studio space that includes all the equipment any band could ever need. all we needed to bring were our guitars, synth and a pair of drumsticks. we could play as loud as we wanted without having to worry about neighbors next door. coolest thing of all was that we got an awesome view of ximen from our window.
we grinded out 3 songs off our demo which was awesome. playing with a real drummer and bassist really makes a huge difference! we also noticed a few people standing outside our door, trying to sneak a listen and a little peek of what we were doing. i don’t have any pictures of the studio space or the new guys, but i’ll have some by next wednesday! we now practice every wednesday, and it sounds weird, but wednesday is now my favorite day of the week.
so welcome greg and iki to the band, they’re both amazing players and hopefully we’ll be able to play a few shows in the near future
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