This is the blog of Acres Of Lions guitarist/keyboardist Tyson Yerex.
What's the point? Well...nothing really...except that the band thought it might be a cool way for fans to get to know each individual band member in a forum that allows us to talk about things that didn't necessarily have to be about the band. I hope that my blog will give you a little insight into what I'm about and hopefully occasionally make you laugh (with me or at me - either works).
Since childhood I've always had a keen interest in learning about nerdy things: especially in the realms of science and technology. Stuff like using the properties of sunlight to melt bugs with magnifying glasses; observing magnetic fields by placing strong magnets beside computer monitors; placing canned food in a campfire to examine pressure and boiling point, etc etc.
These days I often find myself involved in less hands on experimentation, opting for more safety conscious activities like reading books and articles about all types of geeky subjects.
One of my favorite books of the past few years is a popular book called "The Tipping Point". I bought it in an airport in Phoenix on my way back from SXSW, because you can only drink so many beers in the airport lounge by yourself before you get a little bored. It's a very interesting book describing the idea that epidemics don't only apply to diseases, and how those same principles can be applied to the way all sorts of products and ideas grow in popularity. It explains a lot about misconceptions of how you might think ideas spread, and re-examines lots of interesting ideas like the "six degrees of separation" experiment. I definitely recommend reading it if you haven't already.
I often find myself most intrigued by articles that in some way involve how technology is changing the way the world works, so after reading The Tipping Point I stumbled upon another book along similar lines called "The Long Tail". Written by Chris Anderson, editor-in-chief of Wired Magazine, it's not quite as easy of a read as The Tipping Point, but it touches upon some economic ideas that are very interesting to me from a band management perspective. The book is centered around the fact that the internet has provided an easy way to achieve super low distribution costs, and because of that fact, products originally considered to be unprofitable can now actually make money. For instance, the genre of "death metal polka" music. There might only be 100 people (or less!) in the entire world who like that type of music, so it wouldn't make sense for record retailers to keep copies of those types of albums in on store shelves. However, thanks to the low distribution costs of the internet, it is now potentially possible to service albums to those 100 fans and have the album turn a profit (assuming you recorded it in your bedroom). This is a very cool idea that applies in some way to almost every possible industry, hobby, activity you can imagine.
Chris also writes fairly regularly in his blog, and recently he turned me onto a neat concept that touches on the untapped manpower potential of regular folks like you and me. It's about the power of volunteer-ism that build wikipedia into the best encyclopedia in the world, and has the potential to do a whole lot more.
Ok, enough nerd speak. I'll try to make my next post more fun.
It's been a few years since I've seen a band rock so hard that I'd use the term "they blew the roof off the place!". The last time was probably when I saw Rage Against The Machine play for nearly 100,000 people at the Coachella Music Festival a couple summers ago. Needless to say, it was a crazy sea of drunk/stoned party goers screaming the "F**K YOU! WON'T DO WHAT YOU TELL ME!" at the top of their lungs - and Rage Against The Machine absolutely nailed it.
As you can imagine it's not easy to top an epic show like that, especially living in a smaller town like Victoria where huge headliners don't often venture, but I'm happy to report that my long wait finally ended when Australia's newest export - Airbourne - landed in the Queen City last week.
Haven't heard of them yet? I recommend watching their promo video because it will do them far more justice than my words.
The show was on a Monday night playing for a half full bar; but that seemed to have zero effect on the boys from Melbourne. From the minute these guys hit the stage it was balls out rock n roll, never stopping for a breath even in between songs. The only breaks these guys ever took were a couple seconds as distorted marshall amps were ringing out to take a pull off the bottle of Jack Daniels or shotgun a beer. The singer had his shirt off from the get go and never spoke in his normal voice - only screamed to the crowd in his amazingly high falsetto. Mid way through the set the singer scaled up the 30 foot tall speaker stacks to lay down an epic solo and later on he made his way through the crowd and stood on the bar at the back of the room to shred another solo. Never missed a note. If you want to know more about Airbourne check out their myspace... www.myspace.com/airbourne
The classic Moneyshot song "Blades Of Steel" is in competition to become the new theme song for Hockey Night In Canada on the CBC. It would be amazing if you could help us out by voting for the song!!
American novelist Paul William Gallico described hockey as ”a fast body-contact game played by men with clubs in their hands and knives laced to their feet.”
I sure learned that one the hard way at my beer league last night when I got a puck in the face after a freak bounce off the glass.
Don't worry folks. A couple hours in a waiting room at the Royal Jubilee Hospital and about 2 minutes worth of stitching and I'm all patched up.
Around the age of six I started playing music. The violin was my first instrument, then in high school I made the transition to guitar and played in a number of bands whose names you've never heard and whose cassette demo tapes I have (thankfully) long since lost. I've also always had an interest in computers and technology (probably because my dad has been a computer programmer since I was a kid); so in 2001 I got a degree in Computer Science from the University Of Victoria. Since then most of my time is spent on projects that involve both music and/or computers. Currently I play guitar/keyboard in a power pop band called ACRES OF LIONS (www.acresoflions.com). We recently signed a record deal with the Fierce Panda label and our debut album is due out in early 2009. I've also been playing bass guitar in a rock band called MONEYSHOT (www.moneyshot.ca) for almost a decade; and for fun I started a punk cover band last year with some close friends called THE RULEBOOK. My day job is working for Mackie Designs in the research and development department (www.mackie.com). I also maintain websites for a bunch of awesome artists: Liam Lynch, 5440, Tegan and Sara, Buck 65, The Trews and more.
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