Blog Sinch Archive

We’ve been a band 12 some-odd years now. Well, actually, 12 all-odd years. Over that time we’ve played hundreds (if not thousands) (or millions) of shows, yet we’ve never owned an official Sinch Tour Van ™. For a long time we used a minivan that I inherited from my parents but I wouldn’t exactly call it a “tour” van. As far as I know, rock and roll tour vans are prohibited from having wood paneling on the side (unless its a conversion van, in which case the presence of a TV and PS2 overrides any such rules). We’ve also rented, borrowed and otherwise acquired transportation to shows and for longer tours. For whatever reason, we’ve just never made the leap of faith into band van ownership.

Well, I think the time has come. Up for auction at this very moment is a one-of-a-kind van that I don’t think we can afford to pass up:

From the auction desctiption:

1986 SPY GHOST HUNTING SURVEILLANCE PARAPSYCHOLOGY VAN

One of a Kind. Originally used on Miami Vice and Nash Bridges TV shows. Purchased by the American Institute of Parapsychology for investigations of allegedly haunted locations! I purchased it a few years ago and have only driven it a few hundred miles. Diesel Van has less than 60K miles. Comes with working pan/tilt mounted on roof (camera removed), deep cycle battery bank-(all hold full charge), a 250gig 4 channel DVR which also records 4 channel audio and acts as a quad.You could record audio and video remotely for a month. Huge power inverter to run everything you need on 120v AC. Like new Samsung 17″ Flat Screen monitor. 2 smaller swivel LCD Monitors. Pan Tilt Controller, dash mount flip out LCD monitor and rear mount infrared camera for backing up easily. I also have the 20 watt low frequency tx/rx set which is like new,used with the van and already mounted antenna. You can recieve and record clear audio and video for many miles with this setup. Integrated sound system in the back along with a video effects board. All equipment works very well. Four swing out chairs and a practical work area in the back. Even has a huge xray flourescent light table viewer mounted to wall. Windows are mirror tinted. Has a very solid tow bar section for towing another vehicle(see pic). Van has been in everything from childrens books on ghosts to above mentioned tv shows.

Now, I don’t know how much ghost hunting we’d be doing, but it would be nice to have the option. Regardless, this thing is just begging to turned into the Ocular Noise Machine ON WHEELS. Roof mounted camera! Read-mounted infrared camera! Integrated sound system with video effects board! 250GB DVR! Sold tow bar (for our trailer)!

Just add a couple laptops, some more cameras, maybe an external video screen (so we can have video running on the outside of the van 24/7, and a viditar or two and we’d be off to the goddamn races. I guess they’d be some kind of video van races (which might not exist yet), but races nonetheless would be gone off to… by us.

The bidding currently stands at $3,000, but the reserve hasn’t been met yet so who knows what they actually want for this thing. We’ll gladly accept any donations, and in return everyone who donates will have their name and likeness featured on the outboard video screen at least once a day for all to see, for the rest of time (which might not actually be that long, but I think it’s still worth it.
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Over the years we’ve gotten a ton of requests for guitar tabs of our songs, but seeing as I’ve never really written or read a tab in my life, sadly the requests went unanswered…until now.

This will be the first in a series of tabs I’m going to post here. Keep in mind that this is in no way EXACTLY representative of what I play. It’s really only meant to give you an idea of what’s going on so you can figure it out yourself.

Oh yeah, and I aint’ no YNGWIE MALMSTEEN, or any of these guys below in the video (the guy in red kicks all the other guys asses, btw). ENJOY!!!!

THE POWER OF SUGGESTION - © SINCH 2005

Intro
D__0__0_0_0_0_0_0_0__0_0_0_0_0_0__8___8__8__8__10__10_10_10__
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Verse - Variation 1
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Verse - Variation 2
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Verse - Variation 3
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Chorus
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Bridge - Variation 1
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Bridge - Variation 2
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Bridge - Variation 3
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Longtime fans and visitors to this site will recall the promise of something called “Sinch TV” that was said to be “coming soon” about a year and a half ago. This is actually pretty typical for us. We say something is happening soon and then it either takes years or it just never happens. We do have good intentions. We just can’t keep up with what the voices in our heads are telling us to do.

So, anyway, we finally decided rather than wait until we can build SinchTV how we actually want to, with tons of cool features and a slick Flash interface, better to get in on this “new” video sharing thing while the shit’s still hot. This is a work in progress. More will be added…. uhh, soon. In the meantime, enjoy what we’ve posted so far, and let us know what you think.

Here it is, your SinchTV.

As you may have noticed, I rearranged the sidebar a little bit and added a new section called “Linktown.” It’s basically just a list of links. Pretty simple.

On a daily basis I come across a ton of stuff that I think is worth sharing with everyone, but I never seem to get around to posting it. This makes that process a lot easier. Instead of the sporadic blog posts with a list of random links (that are usually weeks old by the time I get around to posting them), I can throw something up right away with not a whole lot of effort.

My other thought was that if I can’t use random links as an excuse for a blog post, I’ll be forced to actually come up with some real content. I’ve had ideas for what that content could be for a long time. I just haven’t made the time to sit down and write it.

Mostly I was thinking that with all the experiences we’ve had over the past 12 years, we can help other bands avoid some of the mistakes we’ve made as well as share the things that worked. And I’m sure there are people out there who’d had similar experiences and can teach us a thing or two. Whether or not they read this blog remains to be seen (at this point, probably not).

We’re certainly not music industry experts, but we have been through a lot over the years and what we’ve learned might be useful to you if you’re in a band, thinking about starting one or even just trying to get into the industry in some other way (management, promotion, etc.)

I also thought some people might be interested in getting a more “day-to-day” look at what we’ve been doing for the last few years. Sometimes I’m not really sure what it is exactly that we’re doing, but we can certainly take a shot at explaining it here and see if you find it interesting.

If there’s anything in particular you’d like to see us talk about or otherwise “get into”, feel free to comment.

P.S. - Shh. Don’t tell anyone.

Looks like we didn’t get our first choice for time slots for the show tonight. We’ll be going on at 7:00pm. We were hoping for a later slot, but what can you do? Well, apparently sell more tickets. But that’s besides the point. You can vote all night, whether you get there before or after our set, and we still need your votes!

If there’s anything we can do to help you get there earlier — murder your boss, invent teleportation, give out free helicopters — let us know. We actually can’t do any of those things. They were just examples of things that would probably work. We’ll consider any ideas though and let you know if we can help.

The site is now up and running (as you can see) on the new servers. Everything seems to be OK except for the music store. So if you are trying to purchase any of our mp3 downloads, they will not work right now. Please bear with us as we get this worked out.

We’ll post another update when the store is working again.

Thanks!

Speaking of Battles of the Bands: We’re playing in one on October 23!

And believe it or not, you can buy tickets for it right here on the site! Seriously. They’ll be mailed right to your house! And then you can come to the show and vote for us and it’ll be the greatest show that ever happened.

The site will be undergoing some maintenance today and will possibly be down for 20-30 minutes. When it comes back up certain services may not be working properly, including the forums, blog and music download store.

We’re expecting a few problems here and there so don’t worry if something isn’t working. Everything should be back to normal shortly.

Whatever problems we encounter (if any) will definitely be worth it. We’re migrating the site to Media Temple’s new Grid Server platform, which is a huge upgrade and gives us (among other things) a lot more space (100GB) and bandwidth (1TB) to work with. Many of you don’t know what that means, but trust me it’s pretty sweet. Or at least I expect it to be. I guess it’s a little premature to be raving about a service we haven’t even really used yet, but it sounds pretty sweet. We’ll see how it goes after the upgrade is complete.

The next round in the Bodog Battle of the Bands has been confirmed!

We will be playing on Monday, October 23 at the Trocadero Theater in Philadelphia, PA.

BUY TICKETS NOW!

Just like last time, our actual set time will depend on how many tickets we sell, but we’re shooting for the 8-10pm area.

Once again, WE NEED YOUR HELP! We’re competing against all the winners from the last round (a lot of these bands can actually sell tickets!), so we really need everyone to buy tickets and come out to this show and show your support!

If you came with 5 people last time, this time bring 10! Bring your little brother or sister and all their friends! It’s an all ages show, so everyone can get in. The more people we bring, the more votes we have and the better chance we have of getting to the citywide FINALS.

We just posted some new photos from the Bodog Battle of the Bands Round 2 show at the North Star Bar in Philadelphia.

View this photoset »

All Photos by Steve Williams