August 20th

After the elimination show we had a party/banquet around the pool and got some cell phones from Verizon. We saw v-cast videos of our performances this week. Dave Navarro showed up and told us we all needed to have an original song ready for noon the following day. I had a few songs ready so I wasn't stressed. Deanna came in and asked us to help her with her song. Later, Jordis came in and needed help developing her song so we went and sat around the hot tub and figured out a pre-chorus, chorus, and bridge. I really dig all the songs we created this evening. It was a successful creative day. I passed out early from pure exhaustion.

The following morning I rearranged my original song "Trees," and then helped Suzie with some guitar parts on her song. Then we found out the song list was up for the next show. Seven total songs. Five covers and two originals. Suzie decided we should choose out of a hat to see who does the originals because we all wanted to. Deanna and MiG got their names picked. I was kinda bummed I didn't get to do mine. I chose the song "I Alone" by Live and really would have been happy with any of the songs this week.

Woke-up and ran around the basketball courts for an hour and tried to work out the kinks in my delivery of "I Alone." I rehearsed with the band and it felt ok. I need to figure out a way to make my song stand out in the midst of all these great songs like "Start Me Up" by the Stones and "Dream On" by Aerosmith . I really love the Live tune because I grew-up with that song and it defined a whole summer of my life in the mid 90's. I wanna get the crowd moshing.

I had a vocal lesson with Roger Love, a vocal coach, and he gave me some good pointers about singing this song. Sometimes I incorporate advice and sometimes I don't. Everything changes when you hit the stage, you forget everything and operate on autopilot. You just do your thing and hope it works out.