Who am I kidding?

I'm never going to update this thing. My life is busy and my mind is far too scattered to post regularly. I'm simply too unorganized, and besides, who still uses these things? Seems the entire world uses tumblr or wordpress these days. So, with that being said, here are links to a couple of the endeavors I spend most of my time on for those who wish to stay up-to-date with what I'm doing with my life:

setyourgoalsband.com

ethosclothing.tumblr.com

2012 is all about being realistic for me, and I gotta be honest...as much as I enjoy it, I see this as a time-consuming chore! hahahaha

So I guess this is goodbye. It's been real, blogspot.

Thanks for reading,

Matt
XXX

Life Update

Well, we finally finished the ABR tour alive. I think we left White River on day four and drove some insane amount of time to pick up with the tour again at the Calgary date. Luckily the rest of the tour went swimmingly and all the shows on the way home were great. Got to hang with a ton of great friends as well: Jon from Grave Maker, Marshall from The Warriors, Greg from Amber Pacific...even super scene-celeb Timm from Trial/Wait In Vain/Panic Records came and hung out, ate some Po Dogs, and showed us around Panic HQ before the show in Seattle!

For the past three weeks we've all been hangin' at home and getting ready for our new record, "Burning at Both Ends" to drop. Scheduling press, photo shoots, and a video shoot for the first single which will be filmed in LA next week. If you're in the area, submit an email and come be a part of it! Here are the details:

Hey everyone, SYG is making a new video and we're asking YOU to come be a part of it! Here are the requirements of what we'll need for extras:

-Please have your own transportation to/from shoot (it will be in the LA area) on Wednesday, May 4th.

-Come dressed in "prom" attire: tux/suit or dress with alternate options, 80's looking clothes & accessories would be good to bring as well if you have them

-Send a picture of you in costume to sygcast@gmail.com. This will be how the director decides who he needs for the video and will also be how you receive info for the shoot.

-Please state whether you have any dancing skills or experience.

For example: "I am a skilled breakdancer and have performed in these videos/movies..." or "I am trained in salsa dancing. I took a class once." Any way for the director to learn more would be a huge help so please include a link to your portfolio or youtube video of you showing off said dance skills if possible. NOTE: dancing skills are NOT required, so don't feel like you need to do this if you don't have any! :)

-This will be an all day shoot so please plan on being available all day. Again, that's Wednesday, May 4th (subject to change)

...That's it, we'll see you there!

So that's what I've been up to. Dan, Jordan, Mikey and I leave Monday night to drive down to LA for the video, a photo shoot, and practice before we leave for our UK headliner with A Loss For Words & This Time Next Year, and a number of fests. Dates & tickets are available on our facebook page HERE (it takes a minute to load so please be patient!)

We so excited. We, we, we so excited.

Over and out.

XXX

August Burns Red Tour Update

Here's the situation:

Van broke down again = stuck in the middle of nowhere = more free time = blog update!

Unfortunately, this equation also applies:

Van broke down again = everyone loses $ = we're bummed we don't get to play = people are bummed they don't get to see us play

Cost of repairs on this tour alone (before this one): >$2,000

One tank of diesel: $150+

Placing the responsibility and cost on someone else's shoulders: Priceless.

...Yep, looks like getting rid of our vehicle and just renting from now on would be the smart thing to do. All we want to do now is finish this tour and get home.

But first, let's start from where we last left off...

Sudbury show was a lot of fun. Hottest show of the tour and the power kept cutting out on one side of the stage for every band, but the crowd was great and everyone had a blast.

Yesterday we had a day off to make the 20 hr. drive to Winnipeg. About halfway through the drive, Justin was driving and felt some strange rumbling. No sooner had he announced it to the rest of us when the back tire flew off and went rolling down the highway! At first glance, this seemed like the worst possible conditions to have road troubles. We're in a snowy mountain pass on a two-way road with very few cars on it. Our luck quickly turned around when, within minutes, a Greyhound bus passed by and pulled over to offer us a ride into the nearest town...which just happened to be White River, Ontario, hometown of Winnie-the-Pooh and self-proclaimed "Coldest Spot in Canada."

So we've been stuck here since yesterday afternoon surfing the internet in the hotel and eating snacks from the gas station and the overpriced diner next door. I just paid $19 for subpar fettuccine alfredo because it was the only place open past 9 PM. This town is TINY. Even during the day, the only other dining options are A&W and the donut shop across the street. It started snowing about ten minutes after the wheel fell off yesterday and hasn't stopped since.

Get me out of here, I am losing my mind! :(

XXX

August Burns Red Canadian Tour

Nothing too exciting to report here. Tonight is the 4th show on our tour with August Burns Red and Texas In July, which runs mostly through Canada. Born of Osiris was supposed to be on the tour too but they didn't get across the Canadian border so they cancelled their dates entirely.

The drive out to the first show was insane. We left California the 25th. Four days, one van repair, and one massive trailer repair later, we arrived at the first show of the tour, having missed both headlining shows we'd booked on the drive out :(
The tour kicked off for us in Williamsport, PA at a venue called The Hive. We'd never played The Hive (or Williamsport for that matter) before, but the show was great.
We had a day off the next day so we drove, ate some Angelo's pizza at the Russin house with the Title Fight boys, then drove some more.

We'd never been to Quebec City before so that was interesting. Before the show Mikey and I walked around town and shopped and found some good food.

Hung out with our buddy Pat Moore yesterday in London and he took us to a sweet poutine place called Smoke's that serves veggie poutine and we met a very drunk guy who decided to strike up a conversation with Justin and Jr. the entire time we ate haha.

Now we're in Ottawa. Last time we were here was years ago on the No Trigger, Daggermouth, Hostage Life tour, so I'm gonna go walk around and check out the city.

Peace!

XXX

Parkway Drive Tour - Part 2

Well, I'm finally finding time to update this thing. Things have been super busy for the past couple weeks. On top of the usual band happenings, we've got a ton of stuff going on with the record coming out in June. PLUS I found out right before I came home that all my roomies are jumping ship by the end of March, so I had to plan an unexpected move and find a place to keep all of my things until I find a new residence (I didn't) in the ten days I had at home...fun stuff.

Anyway, here are some highlights from the rest of the Parkway tour. My phone erased everything about 30 times on this tour so a bunch of pictures I took of sweet stuff are now gone forever. I may be upgrading to a new phone soon, my BlackBerry isn't cutting it.

First things first – here's the video of Mikey and our ex-guitarist and expert handyman Dave Yoha building our new tour vehicle that I promised last time. I still don't know what to call this thing. It's not quite a van or a bus...it's like a mini bus!

Not much to report about the middle of the tour, other than almost dying driving through the snow and rain every night. The most memorable part was probably in Montreal when members of the tour all pitched in to pay Marshall of The Warriors $200 to play two full songs in a G-String. Here's the video of "Transistor." Watch it...if you dare.

Here's a pic of a fort I made with Anthony after we'd lost our minds driving through the night at some ungodly hour:

Here are a couple tour updates Vans had Mikey make for the tour...enjoy!

The East Coast was amazing as usual, but Richmond, VA was probably the best show of the tour.

Surprisingly, the next night in Charlotte, NC was the worst show of the tour for us. It's strange because they're only four hours from each other. Now, I don't condone fighting and try to avoid it at all costs, but at the Charlotte show there were a couple guys front and center for our set who did not enjoy our band to say the least. They were taunting us with insults and even threw a can of beer at us before instigating a fight with some of our dudes after the set. They lost. To add insult to injury, they were kicked out and missed the band they came to see. My guess is next time they'll think twice before sitting through an entire band they dont like's set just to insult/pick fights with them. So remember kids, just because a band's music isn't tough doesn't mean they can't kick your ass ;)

Anyway, the next night in Atlanta was great. Our friend Chris from Jimmy John's brought us all sandwiches and the set was a blast. Our friend Corey Emond was out with Ice Cube and our tours crossed so he came and hung out and bought us all pizza after the show (that's him on the right):

Here's another pic of the Fellini's pizza crew:

Unfortunately the road beast had an oil line issue and we had to leave it (and Justin) in Atlanta while we drove a one-way rental van through a hurricane to get to the TX shows in time. Glad we did because the shows ruled and we priceline'ed the sweetest room ever at the Omni in Austin and made a beeline for the hot tub as soon as we got there. Here's a pic of the hot tub crew:

While we were in Texas, Corey hit me up and told me that he'd gotten Ice Cube's son, O'Shea Jackson Jr. AKA California Heir, to wear one of our crewnecks onstage at one of the shows. Pretty sweet. California love!

Justin met back up with us before we headed out to El Paso to pick up our buddy (and former TM) Juan and join the rest of the tour party for "tour paintball" on our day off. We were too busy blasting at each other all day to take any decent photos or videos, but here's one pic of the SYG paintball crew, minus yours truly:

The Phoenix show was at some awful venue we'd never played before called The Nile, but it didn't seem to matter because our set was a blast. We couldn't wait to get to CA so we went swimming at a friend's then drove straight through the night.

The Hollywood show was a headache because not only was it the last day of the tour but the show was two tours combined (the other being another metal tour w/Whitechapel & The Acacia Strain), which only added to the stress of having what seemed like a million people we know at the show to hang out/talk business with; label people, friends, etc. Before our set, Kelly Paiste (yeah, like the cymbal co.) took us and John Robinson out to dinner at Asia de Cuba next door to the venue. It was probably the best dinner I've had so far this year. If you're ever near one and have a ton of money to spend I highly recommend it. They were both very cool people and very nice. Thanks Kelly!

I think that about wraps it up. Such a fun tour and I hope we get the chance to tour with the Parkway Drive guys again soon, great dudes and crew. I'm home now and it's been raining all week but luckily I found a 30 minute window of sunshine yesterday between the intermittent showers to move some of my things into storage without them getting ruined, hooray! We leave tomorrow morning to head out East for the August Burns Red Canadian tour. Another metalcore tour...I'll be sure to let you all know how it goes!

Peace out.

XXX

I'm still alive!

DISCLAIMER: I can't make the text on this entry larger for whatever reason because Google is stupid. Sorry for the eyesore.

Greetings, ppl of teh internetz. We're a little over a week into our U.S. Tour with Parkway Drive, The Ghost Inside, and The Warriors at the moment and I had the sudden urge to resurrect my blog from the dead and distant past. I'm going to try to keep the updates as regular as possible on this one (though I make no guarantees!) ...Video clips coming soon, enjoy!

Mikey had been working on the van with our old guitarist Dave for over a month (video update coming soon) while the rest of us finished up the new record in the studio (check out a montage of us at the height of our studio insanity here). He and I drove it down from the Bay Area to put the finishing touches on the interior with Junior before the tour started...but not before I discovered this little gem tucked away in the Ambrose family kitchen hahaha

This tour has been a lot of fun for everyone thus far. The first week we had the pleasure of hanging with our good friends in Gravemaker, as they were opening the tour. We weren't sure what to expect from the crowds on this tour because we sound pretty different from the rest of the bands on the bill but it's gone well for the most part. The first show was at Soma in San Diego. My dad came out and we got Thai food before the show, which I then went on to puke up right before our set, but other than that it went over great. Here's a pic from backstage:

The next day was Glasshouse in Pomona. Before the show we went to Native Foods with my friends Tom & Cathy. Tom's got a pretty impressive gun rack in his house.

We drove straight through the night from Pomona to "Da Bay" which was nice because I got a little sleep in my own bed, ate some Taqueria Cancun, and our buddy Doug hooked it up with some gear from the upcoming Rebel 8 Spring 2011 line. Stoked, thanks Doug!

...I could show you what's behind this door, but then I'd have to kill you.

All of the CA shows were great. The SF show was at the DNA Lounge, a venue I've been to a number of times but we've never played. The show was incredible and it was great to see so many friends and family come out and hang. We were all bummed to leave our home state, but we were excited for the next city; Vegas!

For whatever reason, the rest of the bands on the tour had a show with Retaliate that day, but we had the day off. So, in true SYG fashion, we headed to Vegas early to get our gamble on! We booked a couple rooms at the Flamingo hotel and they weren't able to add beds to our rooms to accommodate everyone, so they just moved us to a King-sized suite on the 26th floor for free instead! We definitely didn't mind.

We happened to be there on the same weekend as Magic, a fashion/clothing convention held in Las Vegas, so we had a lot of friends in town. We got dinner at P.F. Chang's with our friends Rob and Lisa, then Mikey and I lost our usual $200 on the casino floor while everyone else who gambled made money.

The House of Blues show was better than usual for us...no fights! Our good friend Jon Gula moved out to Vegas this past year and we got to see him for a bit. Jon is the ex-vocalist for one of our all-time favorite metalcore bands and past tourmates, Turmoil. Jon also did guest vocals on "Gaia Bleeds." After the show we went out with Doug, Josh, and Ricky from the Rebel 8 crew to a Famous Stars & Straps party and hung out for a bit before we had to start the drive to Salt Lake City.

The show in SLC was another good one, and yet another rarity for us with no fights :D There was a massive snowstorm and the transformer outside blew up, causing the power to go out during The Warriors' set; which was kind of crazy for a second because the entire venue was standing in darkness for about a minute straight. It didn't fully come back until about halfway through TGI's set, so the security guards had to illuminate the pit with flashlights so that people wouldn't get broken noses. Outside, it snowed about 6 inches throughout the course of the show, which made for an interesting drive to Denver afterwards. Before we left we ate at this place called The Pie Pizzeria which was incredible. If you ever find yourself in SLC, do yourself a favor and check it out!

Luckily Denver was a bit warmer, which made up for an otherwise uneventful show for us.

Kansas City was a little better. We went to our favorite local sandwich spot, Mr. Goodcents. My total was $6.66

We got to hang out with our buddies Tissue and Jason Shrout and the show that night was fun.

The next night was St. Louis at Pop's. The venue owner also owns the strip club next door so we all got free admission, which was convenient because it's the only place within miles to find food, so we all headed there for lunch before the show.

After the show we drove through the night to Cleveland (which is where we are now) so we could eat a delicious lunch at Melt: home to the best grilled cheese sandwiches I've ever had.

Gotta go, time to gig!

XXX

"AP Fall Ball" Tour Journal - Part 2

Hello world!

I am writing to let you all know that I am still alive. I have been many places since I last wrote in this thing and hopefully I'll get around to posting the interesting stuff in here at some point because while I'm pretty sure no one cares enough to read about how we loaded in and soundchecked and ate food every day for like 2 months straight, there is some really cool stuff that happens on tour that I'd like to share with the rest of the world. The problem is that by the time I end up getting internet access or time to sit down and write on the road, a week or so has gone by and when I get home from tour it's usually months later and I get too overwhelmed to tackle such a tedious task. Plus I can barely remember what we did by then anyway. Soooo in order to prevent my blog from getting any more screwed up I think I'm going to get with the times and maybe turn this into a video blog. Now, keep in mind I've still got plenty of past tour diaries/pictures to post on here before I make the shift over to a completely video-based blog, so the metamorphosis will be a gradual one, but I figured why not go the way of the "now" and start putting my YouTube channel to use? I apologize for the random and scattered nature of my posting and I'm sure nobody knows or cares what I'm talking about and just skims through to the pictures anyway which is part of the reason switching to video seems like a such a splendid concept hahaha. I'm probably just rambling here but my point is that this should (fingers crossed), in time, improve the overall quality and timeliness of my entries in this blog. What are everyone's thoughts on this?? Let me know in the "Comments" section at the bottom, please!! Think it over while reading over my damaged memory's sorry attempt at recollecting the 2nd half of the "AP Fall Ball" Tour.

Sorry it took me so long, guys.

We returned to the Orlando House Of Blues the very next night to play there. I don't remember what we did after the show but I'm sure it involved food and probably wasn't too interesting.

The next day we played in Atlanta at the Masquerade and there was this crazy haunted house next door so a bunch of us headed over there with Luis from TSH and some friends. How do you know when a haunted house is good? When they card you at the door and make you sign a waiver releasing them of any responsibility in the event that you should incur any sort of bodily harm! This thing was definitely something out of a shock horror film and VERY realistic looking! It looked like a slaughterhouse and the actors/actresses, makeup, and special effects were superb. I won't get into the gruesome details but some of the rooms involved slicing off X-Rated body parts, the actors asking us to remove other body parts from theirs (at which point they'd spray blood everywhere), and they would even pee on us as we ran by screaming! We all agreed it was the best haunted house we'd ever been to.

The next day was Rocketown in Nashville. There were a ton of kids at this show. I want to say it was sold out but I don't know for sure. To our surprise this was the best show of the tour for us. During our set kids were going so crazy that they actually pushed the barrier forward about three feet... something I'd never seen before at any show!

In Charlotte we drove for what seemed like an hour out of the way to find this place Mikey found on urbanspoon.com called Crepe Cellar before the show. This place was incredibly good. I highly recommend checking it out if you're ever in the area. To read more about our experience at Crepe Cellar, check out Dan's entry in his tour food blog, roadnoms.com. The show itself wasn't bad for North Carolina but It felt like we were too far from the crowd because of the barrier. Our friend Fubu flew out to hang with us and some huge security guard kicked him out for moshing or something so that kind of put a damper on things as well. Oh well. The next night definitely picked our spirits back up.

Halloween '09 was spent in Norfolk, VA at the Norva. We got our costumes at Spencer Gifts and $300 later we were decked out in Juggalo gear and ready to perform as wicked clowns! We decorated the stage with jack-o-lanterns and put ICP banners over our cabs. We threw candy, silly string, and a ton of Faygo soda all over the crowd. Here are a couple costume pics:

I wish I had more pics of the madness that ensued but since I can't find any right now and will most certainly be too lazy to post them up later, you can check out the video Mikey made of our entire evening here. Enjoy! If my memory serves me correctly, YMAS all had random costumes, TSH didn't dress up, Mayday were The Village People, and TAI had skeleton faces. After the show we went to a party with YMAS and it was lame so we left fairly soon after arriving but not before waking up the entire neighborhood with an M-80 we threw into a jack-o-lantern. We placed the pumpkin in the middle of the street and began walking away. Just then a car drove up and stopped. The M-80 went off, vaporizing the jack-o-lantern right as the driver was about to get out of the car to move it... I don't think he was too stoked hahaha

November 1st we played the 9:30 Club in D.C. They made us these cute little cupcakes and put them in our dressing room:

The show was a lot of fun and the next day we had a day off so I stayed with my homie Anton Rough and hung out in Baltimore the next day.

Philly was cool but there's so much good food and so many cool shops that I always feel like there's not enough time to do everything I want to do when we play there. Got to see John Bowes and some other good friends and eat veggie cheesesteak though. Always a plus.

Albany was a good show for us and I immediately noticed this addition to the dressing room-I most certainly approve!

Boston was (and always is) a blast. Saw a lot of good friends and our set was killer.

The next night we played Toad's Place in CT and I ran into these two girls who'd asked Jordan and myself for our signatures last time we came through on Gig Life. To our surprise, these girls had gotten them tattooed on their legs! ...Don't believe me? I was so shocked I took a picture, check this out! Definitely a first for me:

The show was sold out so the promoter brought down champagne for all the bands. I guess he did this on Gig Life too but I didn't notice. Not that I had any reason to. Wooo, champagne. Big whoop. Now if he were to bring us all Shirley Temples or Martinelli's or something... THEN I'd be interested!

I don't remember anything too exciting happening at our show at the Starland Ballroom. The dressing room was super hot and I spent most of the night getting movies and TV shows from my friend Kurt's hard drive. A trip to Wawa was the highlight of the night for me.

The next day we played the Crazy Donkey in Long Island and went to the driving range next door. Ruled. The Crazy Donkey had changed a few things around since we'd last played there with I Am The Avalanche over a year ago. The merch was to be sold in a new area outside (regardless of potential rain and no lighting) and the dressing room had been relocated from the basement... to this.

...A huge step down considering the musty smell of the basement was just as present in this retired ice cream truck/trailor. There was even a bed in the back, complete with love stains. Gross.

We spent the day off in NYC and met up with our friend from home Zed and he took us to check out ground zero. Then we saw "This Is It," the Michael Jackson movie, with some of the other guys on the tour and our friend and fellow road dog, Anthony Amor. When Juan returned to the hotel he had a long phone convo with his girlfriend. It seemed to me like the entire tour, he was always in a bad mood after a conversation with her, but I didn't expect it to be this bad. He announced that he was going home and would not be doing the remaining six dates of the tour. We said OK because if our TM didn't want to be there we didn't really see it going too smoothly if he stayed. Things ended up working out because as I mentioned, Anthony was already in NYC so he met up with us and replaced Juan, who went to the airport.

Our friend Jon Gula came out to the show at Croc Rock the next night. For those who don't know, Jon used to sing in an incredible metallic hardcore band called Turmoil. Jon brought with him a super cool gift: a couple test presses of their record, "The Process Of," a favorite of everyone in the SYG camp and a definite classic.

NYC was a headache as always but the show was a lot of fun. Our dressing room was like a Nor Cal reunion. Noah, Ben, Duncan and Leo all came to hang out... all friends from back home who moved to New York!

Buffalo was kind of a weird show but ran into Andy from Every Time I Die and got some great food down the street with my buddy Dan so that was cool.

We were stopped at a random checkpoint in Arizona earlier in the tour and some of our dudes got in a little bit of trouble with John Law for having some illegal plants on them, so we were unsure as to whether or not we'd be able to cross into Canada. Somehow we made it though! We got some crappy hotel and got to chill with all our Toronto friends that night. But onto the really fun stuff...

The second to last day of the tour was in Cleveland, home of the Alternative Press Headquarters. Before the show I went to the crappy mall down the street and found this sign in the men's room, thought it was pretty funny. Only men would need to be reminded of this hahaha:

I also found this in front of a business in the same mall, maybe you recognize it from a certain Tooth & Nail band. Who is ripping off who here? That's what I wanna know!

The show was great. During Mayday's set a bunch of us ran out onstage with guitars and pretended to rock out as an end of tour prank. Afterwards everyone from the tour was invited to some secret party with an open bar upstairs where a bunch of rich people in nice clothes, the AP staff, and of course a bunch of random girls who somehow found their way in, were waiting. Everyone actually had a lot of fun as you can see by this picture i took of the tab at the end of the night (complete with boner doodle). Alt. Press sure does know how to party!

The pranks continued on last night of the tour in Pittsburgh, PA at the Altar Bar. During YMAS some of the Mayday guys got on the PA and heckled them from the front of house. During our set a bunch of guys from the other bands ran out and danced around onstage shirtless during our intro. I think "It's Raining Men" was supposed to be playing in place of our intro music but something went wrong. Still a good prank nonetheless. Other than that, I can't remember anything too eventful from the last show but I do remember the Cleveland show was the last big party night and felt more like the big farewell of the tour anyway.

In closing, I leave you with a picture of a mighty neard, as pictured on the portrait of this slave owner that we found on the wall of a Cracker Barrel. Enjoy!

XXX