Updates

Allen is coming over this Thursday (the 1st of '09) to record violin parts for one of our side albums. It is an instrumental only album about 15 minutes long, with piano, violin and possibly cello. That all depends on if I'm able to get a cellist. The current working title for the album is Among the Aspen Groves. This is just going to be another minor release to fill in the time before our major release.

Speaking of minor releases.... The Grand Guignol Soundtrack will be sent to We7.com today, and it should be available this week at their site (under the band name Buzzhead Republic of course).

Now for the major release updates:

Four songs have been completely reworked and finished. Everyone who has gotten to hear them loves the sound. I hope you think as highly of them as well when you get to hear them (whoever 'you' are....or is that 'is'?.... *cue music* Is you is or is you ain't my baby?....um, sorry)

yes, well, my allergies have been bothering me so my allergy medicine is making me a little loopy. I am not responsible!

Mastering Mastering

I have been making huge leaps forward in production. Our music production is just about on par with the likes of The Prodigy and Nine Inch Nails! No joke. I can hardly wait to show it to everyone. It may be a long time though. I have only completely finished two songs. I will probably finish a third song today, and I have about seven others in the middle of production.

Other updates....

The soundtrack to Grand Guignol will eventually be available on We7.com just as soon as I get the album artwork sent to me (which should have been done almost two months ago....*angry shout* ...NATE!)

Successfully Mastering But Not Mastering Success

I have had one of the greatest two weeks of my life, musically speaking. I realized at the beginning of those two weeks that I had too much stuff. For various reasons, none necessary enough to mention, I have moved my bedroom into my studio. Wanting to keep the feel of my studio without the distractions of a bedroom ensemble, I decided to make a fake wall out of my media (some movies, some books, but mostly a whole lot of music, i.e. cds, records, tapes, music videos, etc.) I did not think I had enough to fill my shelves and in so doing create the fake wall. Boy was I wrong! My fake wall is 12 feet long by 7 feet high and is double sided, and completely filled with my media. There is something wrong with that. Why should I have so much when there are people out there with so little?

Besides that, I started thinking about how attached I was to all of it. I believe that my primary focus in life should be on God and what He wants me to do in this world while I am here. I want to change the world in a positive way maybe through my music (I'll get back to that) or in another way. But how effectively can I do that if I am weighed down by things that I will never be able to take with me when I die anyway? I had to ask myself if my focus had become more about my music than God. Thankfully, after some serious thought, I realized that my focus was on God.

God didn't ask me to unload all of my worldly possessions, but I have started thinking that it would be better to travel light in case one day God tells me to pack up and move to Australia, or Mars for that matter. This is actually something I went through when I was 16 also. At that time, when I was done with my life priority overhaul, all I had were my clothes, my car, my guitar, my bible, and my music (my collection was small enough to carry with me still). Now things are a little different, but not in ways that matter. Now I have a business that has tools, like my studio. You can't exactly make that smaller or move it at a moments notice. But this is where my attitude has changed. If God asked me to drop it all and move, I would. God can provide more than enough for me to completely start over as many times as He needs me to. It's only stuff. I have to leave it when I go to heaven anyway,  so I've got to be willing to leave it in Colorado or wherever I am if I need to. That's a good place to be in!

This aside, I know God still wants me to enjoy life and things like media, as long as it doesn't become my primary focus. So I started to make what I can portable in case I have to go somewhere else. All my studio work is backed up on hard drives so that one's easy. My media is a little bit harder to backup. Many books (if they are classics can be found for free in e-text or even audio book form at gutenberg.org. My cds I can copy onto my hard drive. Records and tapes will have to come later when I have all the converters.

As I have been doing this (only books so far) I have been giving them away. I also gave away some clothing. If I sold something, I used the money to give to a church or a person who needed it. I have even been giving my food to a couple of my roommates who are currently out of jobs with no money. Out of doing this I have discovered for myself a strange quandary about God. You cannot out give Him. The more I have been giving, the more I have been getting. I gave away a bunch of books and now have more than I know what to do with (other than giving again). I gave away clothes and now have a new wardrobe, so now I'm giving away more clothes! Even food is being given to me, which I am in turn giving to my roommates. I even have more money, and I can't explain that one. My paychecks are still the same and I'm not making a profit with music, but still my money seems to be going fsrther than it ever has before! This is all in the past two weeks. This will probably keep growing till I am just passing along the blessings to everyone I meet!

Now my frustration. I want to change the world with my music. Yeah, it's not normal music, but the fact that it's different should be compelling enough to get people to share it and spread it around. I have resorted to giving it away because I believe that it can do a lot and will hold a lot of meaning for a lot of people. Maybe just because of its being different. I don't know. But I do know I have gotten very little response. A couple of die hard fans. Okay, more than a couple. Three. I have three die hard fans (you know who you are, God bless you!). Other than them, I don't think any one has truly listened to my music, because I guarantee there is something to it that makes you want to listen again and again, and share it with others. I can say that confidently because every musician has written music that they are embarrassed by, that doesn't live up to their current work. I also don't know of any musicians who want to hear their own music, and who don't get tired of hearing their own songs after a while.  I am past all my bad works. I only published those out of posterity, and as a sort of audio log of where I was, of a moment in time or a period piece of Buzzhead Republic history. But all my albums from Reaver Doves on are so down to earth and so from the heart that even I have to listen to them. I composed them so in tune to the human soul that they speak to me as if I didn't write them, like they were always there, somewhere, just waiting for someone like me to bring them into the light.

After writing all this though, I don't feel so frustrated. After all, my focus is on God. None of this really matters. It just matters to me.




...please buy something though. At least my music can pay for itself then.

Recording Today

Our violinist (Allen) is coming over to lay down some tracks today for the new soundtrack for Theatre 'd Art. We (myself and Rob) have already recorded the detuned piano and accordion. The sound requested of the theater group is a late 1800s french/ brothel/ horror, old world sound. It has been a little more difficult than previous soundtracks, but all in all really hasn't been too challenging. ...We'll see after this evenings recording session.

Reaver Doves (artwork)

battery (artwork)

This was part of a much larger oil painting that I did. This section as well as the section from the Reaver Doves album came from the same painting.

Vocalized & Scrutinized (artwork)

Dreamed & Screamed (artwork)

The Cyberpunk Diaries (artwork)

The Agora Point Sessions I & II (artwork)

"Rising Son" music video

By Request: "Riding the Blunder Bus" Lyrics (tracks 1-6)

1. Niner Even Further - did have lyrics but lyrical version was not released

2. Day Job (Hard Labor) - did have lyrics but lyrical version was not released

3. Square Peg In A Round World - no lyrics

4. Mirrorshades - also had alternative lyrics that were not part of this release. I'm not sure what this song is about. Partly, it's about the "Machine" and how we can't live with it but we can't live without it either. Also, I was reading a lot of cyberpunk literature at the time. The name is taken from a cyberpunk short story collection of the same name.

MIRRORSHADES

A thousand networks keep you here
A thousand more keep you in fear
Mirrorshades and micro chords
Plug you in and watch you grow
Any seen my
Any seen my
Any seen my baby been?
Any seen my
Any seen my
Any seen my baby been?
Your my medicine
Your my metascene
Hold you up and keep you clean
Your my medicine

God is in the atmosphere
Hold Him close the end is near
Warm welcomes to the fold
Keep you sacred from the cold
Any seen my
Any seen my
Any seen my baby been?
Any seen my
Any seen my
Any seen my baby been?
Your my medicine
Your my metascene
Hold you up and keep you clean
Your my medicine
Any seen my
Any seen my
Any seen my baby been?
Any seen my
Any seen my
Any seen my baby been?
Your my medicine
Your my metascene
Hold you up and keep you clean
Your my medicine

5. At Least - was written when I was about to move out of my house, but it looked like I would have no way to get into another one. (This was about a year before the housing crash). Colorado Springs was and is heavily developed. It's a bloated housing market here really. This song is about a drive I would take with one of my friends out to the new suburbs, where there were thousands of new houses with no one who could afford to live in them (because wages are way lower than they should be, making Colorado Springs' cost of living roughly six times that of other comparable cities). Well, God is good! About a couple of months after I wrote this, I was in my new house and I realized that it was one of the houses that was out of mine and my roommates price range! It was a good song so I put it in the album although it doesn't have the same meaning for me anymore.

AT Least

I've walked alone but I'm not lonely
I feel like I could be somewhere
I've got some snow that keeps me plowing
God knows I feel that I can take care

At least my lungs are still burning
At least my heart is still pumping
At least my legs are still kicking
At least that's what I keep thinking

I feel no pressure no cage or prison
I can see the bars but they mean nothing
Can't lock me up 'cause I know freedom
The pain of life and death and living

I've driven through the empty suburbs
Seen all the cars and empty houses
Why can't we live here they're all empty
How long must I keep driving?

At least my brains keep on working
At least my legs keep on walking
At least my soul keeps on yearning
At least that's what I keep thinking

6. Peace - no lyrics

"Run Lola Run" Lyrics

My Favorite song is Run Lola Run, track 3 off of my album 10 In 7 Days. It's about several women I've known in my life who were trying to but couldn't ever truly fix there situation. It's also about my empathy towards their pain, and my advice for them to leave the past behind. So it's about running away from the problems you can't fix, and really about running to God, though I never come out and say it.

Run Lola Run

Everything is dumb and wrong
But I feel it too
Everything's done wrong
But I feel it too
And how about you?
Yeah how about you?
Do you see me too?
I see it too

Run Lola run
Run Lola run
Run far away
Get far away

Everything is dumb and wrong
Everything is dumb and wrong

Do you feel it too?
Do you feel it too?
Like I feel you,
Do you feel it too?

Run Lola run
Run Lola run
Run away from here
Run far away
Run Lola run
Run Lola run
Run Lola run
Run Lola run

Riding the Blunder Bus available on ITUNES

The latest album released at the beginning of this year is now available worldwide at

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

COLORADO ARTIST RELEASES TEN ALBUMS ON BRAND NEW MUSIC SITE

Buzzhead Republic, a solo music endevour founded by Mr. Matthew Shaffer three years

ago will be officially releasing it’s entire ten album discography on new music website,

We7.com. The official release is set for February 23^rd, 2008, and all albums will be

available exclusively online via digital download . This release coincides with the

completion of Buzzhead Republic’s tenth album, Riding the Blunder Bus as well as the

launch of their new website.

We7’s business model enables independent musicians, such as Buzzhead Republic, to get

paid by attaching a short ad to their songs, while allowing for free legal downloads.

Paying a dollar per song removes this ad from the song. For more information on

Buzzhead Republic visit their website, www.BuzzheadRepublic.com or check out their We7.com spot at the following: Buzzhead Republic's We7 Discography

Buzzhead Republic - The Early Years, Part I

The story of how I came to do Buzzhead Republic begins in 1991 in the small cities of Woodland Park and Divide, Colorado. I lived on the outskirts of Divide in a run down 50s vacation resort turned suburb called Sherwood Forest Estates, but was a student at Woodland Park Middle School (when it was still in the same building as the high school) in Woodland Park. My 6th grade English teacher would constantly play Nirvana's Nevermind, Motley Crue's....whatever, and Red Hot Chili Pepper's Blood Sugar Sex Magik. But it was in Nirvana that I found a kindred spirit writing exactly how I felt about living in the middle of nowhere with no friends, and going to school in a crime riddled, drug filled town that on the surface looked like an ordinary American city, but you could never shake the feeling that just under that facade was something horrible. I found a lot of parallels between my life in Woodland Park and Divide and Curt's in Aberdeen, WA. Like him, I was an outcast and never considered (except by my parents) to be someone who would amount to anything.

My interest in music increased greatly for the next several years. Living in the middle of nowhere next to a national forest with no friends, save a dog, helped shape my affinity for the organic and solitude within music. I spent a lot of my free time running around the woods and exploring the deeper parts of the neighboring national forest with my dog and little brother, the whole time listening on my Walkman to all the earthy, organic grunge and alternative rock I could find or had taped off the indie radio station 92X (no longer in existence). (This was also the beginning of my now legendary record collection.)

By Christmas of 1995 my parents had figured out that I wanted a guitar and bought me one. But it was a bass guitar. Not what I wanted but I slowly learned to play it anyway. I am completely self taught so early on I couldn't even put two notes together, until one day something clicked and I "heard" two notes that fit together. Eventually I found four notes that fit together in sequence, and started doing the punk thing. I played those four notes four times each, in sequence four times through, and then found four more notes until I wrote a verse, chorus, verse, chorus song. I practiced like this for hours at a time every day, all the while adding to my music collection for the next few years. I never out right learned to play another band's songs. I had always wanted to be able to play my own music. Instead I listened to what they were doing and tried to do the same thing my own way, and as my taste in music broadened so did my playing style.

To go forward with this story, I have to go back to the 1993/1994 school year. Those years were explosive for alternative rock. The success of Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Alice In Chains, Soundgarden, etc. of 1991 and 1992 caused a frenzy among the record companies. They quickly signed everyone they could find that had a similar sound. So by 1993 the floodgates of the underground had been opened to me and I found even more music that I could identify with. Also in this school year I had finally started to make friends with the skaters and grungers who also came from a similar background as me, but were starting to find a way out through drugs and alcohol, rather than music. At the end of the school year something in me (probably God) said that I shouldn't go to Woodland Park High School next year. (In retrospect many of the people I was starting to make friends with probably ended up in prison or dead from an overdose.)

A brand new private school opened up in Woodland Park that year and my mom got me and my brother enrolled and landed a job in their office. It was short lived though. After three or four months, at the beginning of 1995, the school was forced to shut down from lack of funds, but, the school was not useless for me. They quickly found out that I was smart enough to be in college, and was soon testing out of classes and was passed all the way to the 11th grade level. Having my intelligence displayed and showing an interest in "cool" music helped me to start coming out of the shell that I had crawled into as a result of going to public school. I soon started making good friends, and decided that I wanted to play guitar. That Christmas my parents bought me a bass and my brother a keyboard, and in the week back from vacation the school was shut down, so I spent the remainder of the year alone again in the middle of nowhere with nothing to do but play my guitar.

The next year another private school opened up in Divide and I enrolled at the 11th grade level in the 1995/1996 school year. Here I came completely out of my shell and found other musicians who liked the same music as me. I completed an entire year at this school before they also had to close their doors.

So I went back to the Woodland Park School District, or actually I tried to go back. The school wouldn't accept any of my credits even though I had proven myself academically. This is the same school district that I went to during middle school. They gave me a placement test when I was in the 6th grade and found out that I belonged in college but did nothing to help me get there. To add insult to injury they now wanted me to start high school over again from the 9th grade level.
At this point I had had enough and got my high school equivalency. I didn't even study for the test. I knew I had proven I was intelligent, and sure enough, I passed the test with a perfect score. So few people do this that they award scholarships to go to college. Given that I was left with no choice but to get my high school equivalency, there weren't many options for college. It took me a few months to decide on a community college that had a music program. In the process of enrolling I found out that the state had taken away my scholarship and given it to someone else because I didn't use it fast enough. But I enrolled anyway.

During the next few weeks while I was waiting for classes to start I kept having a nagging feeling that I wasn't supposed to be in college, at least not at that moment in my life. This feeling kept getting stronger the closer I came to the start of the semester. I started weighing the pros and cons and concluded that the music instructor barely knew more than me, and definitely didn't know what I wanted to learn. Even at this early stage in my career, I knew that I wanted to do music professionally, and I wanted to be able to do everything that comes along with it, i.e. writing, recording, mixing, mastering, live performance, music videos. I also felt deep down that the only way I was going to learn how to do this, really learn how to do this, was to immerse myself in the industry. I did this the only way I knew how. By playing with various musicians over the next year I eventually came to form a band (with a couple of people I had met through a youth group I was going to at the time) that I named White Trash Heroes. I named the band after a song by The Archers of Loaf that came out a little before we started the band.