Zen Again by Joellen Cabot

Well, after our hiatus, last week we had our first band rehearsal and it was very productive! Amazingly, it was as though we had never taken time off.  I guess that's the sign of a band that's in tune with one another (no pun intended).  It was so good to see the faces I hadn't seen in a while, they have become my extended family, to be sure.  The guys in this band are wonderfully talented and it is a pleasure to make music with them.

It is our goal this year to really focus on getting our music in front of as many listeners as possible.  Along the way we will be sending out newsletters including new and old releases for you to listen to, with hopes that you will provide us with your feedback.  For those of you that have seen us live, there are some cool changes in store for our show, we will be adding a few "interesting" interpretations of cover songs along with a couple of acoustic variations of our songs.  We also intend to play a few venues that provide for a more intimate setting, where we will get to perform our music "unplugged".

So many people have asked when our next show will be, we will be sending out updates to our calender soon, or you can always go to the website http://temptingzen.com for more information.  If you want to stay up to date with Tempting Zen, please join our mailing list below and of course visit us on Facebook as well.

Until next time.

Joellen w/ Tempting Zen

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Tempting-Zen/79996539087


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Until next time.

Joellen w/Tempting Zen

No Niche Rock (by Joellen Cabot)

"No Niche Rock" is a term/name we created in an effort to describe our music.  We believe that an artist/band should not be limited to writing and performing just one specific sub-category of music.  Tempting Zen is a "Rock" band.  Rock music is at the root of everything we write.  However, within that vain, there are many different flavors and feelings that we wish to convey to our listeners through our songs.  Whether the writing mood is Latin, Country, Blues, Fusion, Pop, we believe an artist/band should simply "write what they feel".

Recently there have been numerous articles circulating around the web, in various music blogs, suggesting that  that in order to grow a fanbase and be a successful artist, one must concentrate their writing efforts and musical performances to fit into one specific area of a genre, for example, "Goth-Rock" or "Acid Punk" or "Math Rock", (well, you get the picture).  The reasoning behind this is that if you appeal to a certain demographic and specific sub-genre, you will create a niche, or fall into one that has already been created, and from there, your listeners will always know "who you are and what you are selling".  It's really just niche marketing.  On its face, it sounds like it should work, and to some extent it does, until every song an artists catalogue starts to sound alike or stale, and their fans lose interest.  Maybe it's old school, but some of the greatest Rock bands in history, i.e. Led Zeppelin, The Beatles, The Who, Eagles (and the list goes on) certainly did not write in an uber-specific sub category of Rock and they did not cater to only one demographic of people.  An artist or band should be recognized by their unique "sound" not some streamlined sub-category of a genre that they may be coached to fit into.   If  you do fall into a sub-genre, great, as long as it happens naturally and isn't contrived, and doesn't limit your creativity.

So, to summarize, our philosophy is to let creativity reign, write what you feel and let the chips fall where they may.  If you are a Rock band, play Rock music and don't be afraid to experiment.  Have fun and be creative with whatever style of music you write!  Keep it interesting.  Hence, we coin the term No Niche Rock.

Talk to ya soon.

I Still Like You (Joellen Cabot)

If you've been to our website or any of our social networking sites lately, I'm sure you've noticed that we are offering a free download of our song "I Still Like You".  We hope you will download it and add it to your player!  I have been asked quite a few times about how we came up with the idea for the song, so I thought I would give you an inside look as to how it came together.

One night at band rehearsal we were noodling around with some ideas for a new song and Doug presented an idea he had been working on. We were looking for something a little heavier than the last few songs we had written and the riff he was playing was perfect.  After jamming on it for a while and coming up with the "bones" of the song, we decided to lay down a rough track so Stephan and I could have something solid to work vocal ideas off of.  This song, like many of our songs, had some weird parts and changing time signatures, so we knew it would be a challenge to put a memorable vocal line and hook to it.  Anyway, just as we were wrapping up rehearsal and breaking down our gear for the night, we started talking about the song and how weird some of the parts were, when someone said, "yeah, it's so weird, but I still like it".  Well, Stephan got a big smile on his face and said, "I got an idea for the vocal theme!  Let me work on it."  So, he took the song home, changed up the line to "you're so weird, but I still like you" and penned the lyrics and melody almost overnight.  Pretty cool, huh?  You just never know where a song idea will come from!  

Oh, one more tidbit for your mental file.  During the studio recording and mix-down of the song, we were searching through the track to check levels and such, and happened to stop on the line "I could get used to it"  Well, actually, we landed on the last part of the line "to it".  Steve Avedis, who engineered and helped produce our latest album, came up with the idea of taking the two words "to it", which sound like "do it" and starting the song with them (brilliant, Steve).  So, a little cut and paste and voila, a song is born! So there you have it, the story behind the song.

By the way, the song is about a girl and a hot "nerd".  (Does anyone even use that word anymore?)

C ya soon.

Joellen

New Song! - Time 4 U 2 Go

New Release from Tempting Zen! Yay!  Just a party free political op-ed.

http://www.reverbnation.com/play_now/song_5399668