Reunion and Goal Setting

Last night was the first time all six of UY's band members were together in about a year. Aaron (trumpet and backing vox) has been in Provo working on his masters degree in Art for the past year. We've really not been the same without him and have tried our best to keep playing shows with him gone, but it just hasn't been the same. Practice last night made that very clear. The additional horn and vocal harmony just adds so much to our live sound. Without it we're just like any other normal group. Each person is necessary and vital to create the vibe that always makes UY the great band that it is. Each person brings their own energy that they give off and each person plays off the bands energy differently. It was awesome to see the horns have some new life pumped into them last night. We haven't had a practice like this in over a year.

We were able to finally discuss some important issues last night like, are we going to go on another mainland tour, are we going to be able to finish this record we're working on, and if we don't do these things then what are we going to do. For me personally, the fact that I had a really important job interview this week helped me make a lot of decisions. Hopefully I'm going to be able to stay in Hawaii for awhile with a great job and keep playing music. I have one more semester to go and I'll finish my masters degree from UH in political science and this new job will keep me and my growing family alive. So that means for the first time in about 3 years Upstanding Youth will be in Hawaii for a whole summer! Usually someone is gone to the mainland (usually me trying to make a dollar and getting screwed trying to do so) and UY can't play shows. Our goals are now to finish a new record before August and try to play shows as often as possible whether they're paid or not. We've limited ourselves to paid gigs only trying to pay for a new record and tour this summer, but that has only hurt us in a few ways. We need to play more shows and inject ourselves into the scene again since we kind of feel like we've become detached. I suggested we shoot for shows every weekend, but that was ambitious - I know. We also decided that touring the mainland isn't going to be possible for a number of reasons. Instead, we're going to try and hit the outter islands like Maui and the Big Island as many times as we can during the summer.

So that was the big first time practice/meeting for the summer. Things should start picking up for UY and have some great results. With everyone on the island and a new record just waiting to be done I'm super excited to see what kind of things we throw down and are able to present to the world. We have some amazing songs already written and recorded and we're just waiting to show them to our fans. I can't wait to see what we come up with in the next few months.