Jack the Vain

Check check..

2008-01-21T14:29:00.001-08:00

Okay, give us a few minutes and we're good to go.

Pictures by Euna Kim

2007-07-14T00:43:00.001-07:00

Here are pictures from Euna's camera..

Roxy show

Keep sending 'em in!!!

All the songs, all the songs

2007-07-09T15:41:00.000-07:00

With the final Jack show it's time for the entire cast to come out and take a bow. All the songs are now available on the Music page (linky above) for streaming and free download (mp3).

Enjoy, and please feel free to share. Just mind the CCL (at the bottom of the Music page).

After the Roxy show...

2007-07-08T12:46:00.000-07:00

I think.. that was our best show. How about that room, eh? Everyone was super friendly, which is critical for me.. there are so many bitter sound guys in Hollywood (just quit, mate..) and last night, Franky was awesome. I heard the house mix was great too.

Setlist:

Together Apart

Talk About You

Misery Need Company

Beautifully Strange

Break

Far From Home

In Spite of it All

Yes, it was bitter sweet, our last show. But honestly, more sweet than bitter. The four of us will certainly continue to work together, outside of the close community we're all a part of already. We're having a Ken Chan Cookout (have you been?) in a few weeks.. anyways.

I did see a lot of cameras out there, so thank you for taking pictures for us. Please email them to isawyouattheroxyon777@jackthevain.com or you can also upload them to your favorite intertubes site to share. Just let us know where it's been posted. And soon I'll share them back with everyone else.

It was great hanging with you last night.

How far we've come

2007-07-06T12:25:00.000-07:00

The Orange Room, June 28, 2007

The very first time I ever went on a stage to sing my own songs (Ofivina, 2001), I had Shane and Ken there with me. Looking back then with what I know now, I see so much more what good friends they had been, encouraging and supporting me like that. It often is not very gratifying to back some amateur, who has no prior experience, wholeheartedly as they did. They were water to a small seed in my heart.

Gosh how far we've come since then. They saw me through my first EP as well as my last. Ken and I recorded an acoustic duo album in my livingroom. And the many many gigs throughout (with their stories). The hours at Norm's on Pico. And that's just the music-related stuff. I sang at Ken's wedding, and some day I'm sure Don will ask me to sing at his wedding too. :) Shane never liked my singing, so we'll see about when he gets married.

Don joined early last year, and after a small warm-up gig at Molly Malone's we were off to Chicago to play Northwestern U. I think the first night Ken, Don and I wandered Evanston until 5 in the morning. Needless to say we got to know each other pretty well. It's strange how our lives thin and fatten, and when two thin threads coincide they seem more susceptible to stick. I guess we all need one another.

But man, stick 4 guys in a studio to create some songs they all can put their names behind, and you REALLY get to know each other. Ken threw a drum at Shane. I kicked a dent in Shane's car. Don spit at me. Shane got angry. None of that really happened, but we certainly challenged one another, and as such I think we all grew.

Which brings us to our last show. We are ready, are you ready? We've been working on a set that will send off Jack in proper form. Over the past week or so, I've been posting, in our blog, stories behind each of the six songs we will perform tomorrow night. So get to know them - take a good listen as you read each story.

Have your tickets? Know how you're gonna get there? Got an exit strategy? Just get yourself in. We'll take care of the rest.

Saturday July 7th 8:00pm @ The Roxy
9009 W. Sunset Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90069
All ages, tickets $10

[TICKETS] [MAP]

Thank you for the memories,
Steven

Far From Home

2007-07-04T01:11:00.001-07:00

Far From Home was written earlier this year, around April. Ken had written a series of chord progressions as an exercise in voice leading. We got together, ate some food and sat to write the melody for it. Some of it survived to the final version, but as usual the band tore it apart and reassembled it to be what we recorded.

Live a life
Chasing the wind
Building castles that house
A heartache

Live or die
It all feels the same
In the end you will find
All was in vain

Truths and lies
Speak to me
What they find
Teach a memory
Of a life
Far from home

It never dies
The need or the shame
All these treasures you hold
In dust they remain

Truths and lies
Speak to me
What they find
Teach a memory
Of a life
Far from home

God and man are calling out to me
Calling out to reach a part of me
So in need of peace and love
God and man are calling out to me

Free
But they tell me to be
Be all I can be
Make all that I can make
Build all that I can build tall

That God and man call to me
As to reach, reach a part of me
In need to see
Truths and lies
Teach a memory of life
Far from home

Truths and lies
Teach a memory
Of a life that's
Far from home

I wrote the lyrics soon after, after some heavy thinking I'd been working through. It was basically a meaning of life question, to which I found the bulk of my answers in the book of Ecclesiastes. This guy, Solomon, a king, decides to expend the resources he has toward this same question. After having entertained everything a man could possibly desire:

- a harem, check.
- built vineyards and castles, check.
- wealthier than anyone in history, check.

..and came to this conclusion: it's all meaningless. And whatever you accomplish, gets erased and wasted and trumped eventually anyway. Which got me thinking. Are we here to accomplish anything? Does God need us to carry out his work? Who are we to say we offer our endeavors to God? So I came to my version of this conclusion, which is we're here to grow. Learn, become better people, through our successes and despite our failures. And in the end the purpose of this growth is to understand God better. We are not here living our lives for this life; it is for the next. That is the jist of the chorus ("Truth and Lies..")

The bridge ("God and man...") along with the following verse ("Free..") is my criticism of the church today. Its emphasis on ministry (doing something for God) seems dangerously contorted without the right foundation. The message that we must accomplish for God seems to put right back on us a weight that was lifted by Christ. It's a root cause, I believe, of the lack of long-term success in the church today.

...

The song was originally written in 6/8 time, and we tried many variations on the feel. A radiohead version, a rock ballad version, even a Tony Bennett version. The song at one point switched back and forth between 4/4 and 6/8 as it moved from verse to chorus and back. Eventually, we felt that once the song launches it shouldn't return (a formula used in many Jack songs) and settled on the recorded arrangement.

This song sets me free. I hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoyed being a part of creating this song.

Together Apart

2007-07-03T02:56:00.000-07:00

Together Apart was another song originally from the Acoustic Sessions album. The song was written in 2002, and it's been performed in various forms at past Steven Kim Band concerts. To tell you the truth, I don't remember what the song is about.

Courage for the future
To find ourselves
What keeps us together
What tears us apart
To share in oppression
To love is to gain
What keeps us together
Won't tear us apart

Ran into the future
Running from the past
Into her arms I fell
Forty times I knelt
Begging her to please
Give it to someone else

Throwing condemnation
Kicking the fallen
Who will keep us together
When you tear us apart
Looking through a plank
The speck in her eye
He keeps us together
But we tear it apart

Ran into the future
Running from the past
Into her arms I fell
Forty times I knelt
Begging her to please
Give it to someone else

Love will come
On that final day
And make us one
Sun to sun
We're prepared for
What we'll become
And we're dying for
Nothing more
Than empty wars
It's a crown of thorns

Ran into the future
Running from the past
Into her arms I fell
Forty times I knelt
Begging her to please
Give it to someone else

The two recorded versions are very different, and in both versions my favorite parts are the bridge. In Acoustic Sessions, Ken and I took a very western, almost Spanish approach to the song, which is especially pronounced in the bridge. When Ken was gonna lay down the solo, I described to him a moment where the character, having long run away from his demons, decides to turn around and face them. It's a final charge in slow motion. I think he dies.

The VAIN version was decidedly more rock. We added a bridge section (well, lyrics and a lead-out). We simply took to fun with this song and came out with a high energy 80s hard rock homage.

Beautifully Strange

2007-07-01T23:22:00.000-07:00

Ken has released several albums with his Jazz Trio, and Beautifully Strange appears on his second CD. His version and the Jack version share the chorus sections, but the two songs are very different. I had written most of the lyrics down one evening when I ran into his CD on an iTunes playlist, and the cadence of the lyrics just stuck to the chorus section he had recorded. We fleshed out the verse, pre-chorus and other sections together, which we then recorded.

The song is about losing everything, and in it finding a freedom that was there with Creation. Free from self-hype and its balances, free from those expectations which are unsustainable, free from playing the game, whether ours or someone else's. And when tragedy strikes, when you lose everything, perspective comes into town selling valuables in trade of the fake things we cling to.

It's interesting
What trauma brings
To men like me
See it

It breaks a spell
No one can tell
The truths it sells
See it

Careful what you say
Just might let you have your way
Taking it day by day
Keeps the monster at bay

Beautifully strange
With nothing left to cover me
Life without a blame
What you get is what you see
And you breathe so easily
'Cause what you want is what you need

I hate myself
Won't you help
Break the spell
See it

My fingernails
Give away
My last betrayal
See it

Careful what you say
Just might let you have your way
Taking it day by day
Keeps the monster at bay

Careful what you say
Just might let you have your way
Beautifully strange
With nothing left to cover me
Life without a blame
What you get is what you see
You take it day by day
Try to keep the thoughts away
And you breathe so easily
'Cause what you want is what you need
What you need

This song has an alternate version that is very different. Fully written, though we abandoned it for the current version. In the end we liked the spacing in this version much better.

But man, I had such a hard time singing this song. It may not sound like it, but it is a tough song to sing. Breathing right is very tricky in certain sections, and you have to rapidly switch between voices to make the song neither oversung nor undersung. Maybe we'll release a karaoke version some day to prove my point...

Break

2007-06-30T15:51:00.001-07:00

I wrote the initial version of Break while on a trip to Hawaii. I had actually written two songs, the other which was rejected by the band. I was thinking of how too much of my identity had been purchased from markets and people who don't really care about me. Leaders who have disappointed (which is different than failed), and an entire ecosystem of commerce that profits at the expense of America's identity crisis and insecurity.

Whose child am I?
My father left me fending for my life
The man who's holding my hand
Has taken from me everything I am

We're stuck in a time
Where principles are valued more than lives
The sacrifice of every man and child
What's plainly seen is traded for the lies

And you find yourself a slave tonight
Yeah you feel so low, though you're up so high

And all through the land
It's coming down just like it began
We follow men who think they have
God's calling as they carry his command

And you find yourself a slave tonight
Yeah you feel so low, though you're up so high

It's all right, it's all right
We're gonna break it tonight
It's a fight, it's a fight
That can't be won with your might
It's a trial by a fire
That we are meant to survive
It's all right, it's all right
We're gonna break it tonight

When you're down so low
You can see so high
But when you're stuck in the middle
All you see are the lies
And you wonder if you'll ever see
See a hint of your reality

It's all right, it's all right
We're gonna break it tonight
It's all right, it's all right
We're gonna break it tonight
It's all right, it's all right
We're gonna break it tonight
It's all right, it's all right
We're gonna... break

It's all right, it's all right
We're gonna break it tonight

The song was originally written in A minor. The descending chords felt a bit worn and uninteresting with the open strings, so we tried changing it to G minor, which did the trick. Also, the beginning of the chord had a syncopated strum to it, which we changed to the arpeggio in the recording. I didn't know you can play a G minor chord like that close to the neck.

Don's bass solo in the middle came unexpectedly. He and Shane had rehearsed that section with specific hits, which Shane stuck to (we tracked drums first). When came Don's turn, he hit an epiphany that is the spiraling bass solo-ish section that you hear in the recording. In post-production we added a hint of chorus/flange to spiral it a bit more. I think it worked out great. Shane's drum hits almost seem like a drum solo, which Don's off-time bass line weaves in an out of. And weaving is Don's speciality, which makes him the wonderful bassist he is.

Misery Need Company

2007-06-29T02:21:00.000-07:00

Misery Need Company is a monologue by the devil. I was pondering a conversation with my own demon and arrived at a sympathy for it. Like a lover whose world is drowned in jealousy and bitterness, I imagine the devil can't see past the tip of his nose. We would describe such a state as a certain misery to which sympathy may be inappropriate, but nonetheless I played back a dialogue in my head, in writing this song.

Well I got to you, didn't I
The way I moved took you by surprise
The thought of me in your head
The things I said you can't forget
They're lies, all lies

Suddenly
The lights go out and you and I
Are left to fight and struggle 'til the break of dawn and I
Eventually find that you're a part of me
That all along so carefully you've planned this misery
I've become my enemy

It's a strategy for misery
The pruning of adversity in life
You make your own kingdom come
The devil comes collecting tithes
Why fight for lies

Happily
We put it on each other
To do away the other
It's a case of do or die
Oh misery need company
We can't seem to leave it all behind

Misery need company
Tonight, tonight, tonight, tonight
Misery need company
Tonight

Oh happily
We put it on each other
To do away the other
It's a case of do or die
Oh misery need company
We can't seem to leave it all behind

Oh misery
We put it on each other

I had written the song some time in 2004. We've actually performed it in various incarnations, until it landed in its final recorded form. Don's bass line changed 20 times (I have takes of all of them), and I was frankly surprised by how much the entire song shifts from one version to the next. There's a two-step meringue version, parts of which we will re-incorporate for the Roxy show. Listen for it, and step to it if you feel it.

Ken, as often as he does, brought the twist to the song where the song modulates up a whole note. The beat loses the syncopation and starts to drive the guitars which obey with 8th hits. As a whole I love how the song evolves and deteriorates. The devil dances a tragic mood and sings through Ken's solo. You can hate it and feel sorry for it at the same time.

There are some personal notes I won't share publicly, perhaps privately.

Talk About You

2007-06-26T04:47:00.000-07:00

Talk About You was first recorded as a part of an acoustic EP that Ken and I recorded in my living room. It was written in the summer of 2003, when I was trying to figure out the purpose of life. Things, or lack of things, were happening in my life and I was trying to make sense of it all.

You're wrong, I'm not lazy, I'm just waiting
Talk about you all the time, pick up each and every sign
So long you've had me waiting in my corner
Leaves me feeling lost, it does, stretching out my arms because of you

So very easily it’s found, so very pleasingly it sounds
Forget what’s good and what is not, stuff yourself with all you got
The things I should have seen, I say, the things that might have been, they say
Well it’s easy to sit and criticize, when you won’t come down and join the fight

The nights they go on running on
My days are thinning there's growing doubt
That my life is ever to be found
And life sure would be good
If I only understood
Why you're making me a fool
But all they ever do is talk about you
Talk about you

So very easily it’s found, so very pleasingly it sounds
Forget what’s true and what is not, stuff yourself with all you got
The things I should have seen, I say, the things that might have been, they say
Well it’s easy to sit and criticize, when you won’t come down and join the fight

Make me, make me a believer
I'm ready to be a fool
Make me, make a believer
Make me, make a believer in the
Things that might have been
That I should have seen
'Cause my lot it grows
But I still want more
But I still want more
But I still want more
But I still want more
And I still want more

The nights they go on running on
My days are thinning there's growing doubt
That my life is ever to be found
And life sure would be good
If I only understood
The makings of a fool
But all they ever do is talk about you
Talk about you

This song was very much a fuel to get Jack going. Shane, Ken, myself and Randal on bass got together at Amp studios in NoHo and we tried out a few arrangements, and we settled on something that Randal really hit on, a Roadhouse Blues type feeling.

Ken added much salt to the song with the A chord in the chorus, as well as the drop and build section in the middle on C. The rest sort of developed from there, and it was such a good experience that we decided to start Jack on it. The subsequent songs would be tougher, we'd find, but the energy in this song kept us going for a while.

Lyrically, it was a reference to my discovery that the seemingly mundane things, as well as the exciting things, talk about the meaning of life. "You" meaning God, whom I was posing my frustrations to.

We recorded it in the Orange Room, with Don on bass by then.

Our final two songs!!

2007-06-24T23:55:00.000-07:00

We're proud to release the final two songs to the world. "Together Apart" and "Far From Home" are posted for listening and download right now, in the Music section (clicky above). We hope you like it half as much as we do.

Our final show will be Saturday July 7th at the Roxy. Come hear the songs as they're meant to be experienced - blaringly loud in a seedy Hollywood club as some creepy guy tries constantly to get your attention. "You had to be there" moments like none else, I promise ("Sign Me UP!").

Saturday July 7th 8:00pm @ The Roxy
9009 W. Sunset Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90069
All ages, tickets $10

Jack's send off

2007-06-20T23:57:00.000-07:00

So the time has come, this upcoming show will be our last. It's come time to wrap up the Jack the Vain project with our last two songs (out in a few days) and graduate onto what's next.

We're very proud of the short but strong year in which we've written and recorded some of our best work, played some incredible shows, and got to grow in some significant ways. Most of all we're grateful for your friendship and company. It was as much for your companionship as it was for our own narcissism that we were able to work so hard.

Ken will be leaving the band to focus on his career as a session musician. Ken has long graced us with his talents which deserve a better seat than what JTV has been. Don will continue to focus on his schooling, which will be for at least the next 18 years. But then.. he shall descend from the mountains glowing like Moses. Shane and I will continue working together in the industry, though not in any performing form. You'll probably never hear of us again, unless you read the fine print of the CD sleeves.

..Please come out to this last show, and we'll send off Jack in proper form. We sincerely hope each of you will be there.

Steven

..all the flyers

2007-06-05T18:43:00.000-07:00

While we're on the subject of flyers, won't you take a walk down memory lane and peruse all our past flyers - back from when we (or some of us) were 1420, the Steven Kim Band, and of course, Jack the Vain:

Flyers

Roxy flyers

2007-06-04T15:40:00.000-07:00

Coming soon to a cork board near you... What do you think? Collect them all! (no don't, please leave them there. If you want one email us).

Playing the Roxy on 7/7/07

2007-05-26T11:57:00.001-07:00

I forgot to announce the upcoming show! We're playing the Roxy on Saturday, July 7. We're slotted for 8pm alongside bands I'm not familiar with, but Sue (the promoter) is always good about bringing together the right people.

It's an all ages show, which is always cool. Not many all ages events in L.A. because the liquor license is risky. But more than that, these places make their money at the bar; so to the venue, underage folks are worth only the price of admissions and a few cokes. I guess it is a business, still I have wishful thinking about the music scene in L.A. So to say again, underage shows are very cool.

The next two songs...

2007-05-25T19:30:00.000-07:00

We're currently recording the next two songs. Tonight we track drum & bass. This is actually the first time we're tracking the two together, though it is common practice to do so.

See for the past four songs, Don would always rework his bass parts after we had "frozen" the arrangement, which would frustrate Shane to no end, since he played according to what we had rehearsed. But Don, being too much a renaissance man to do so would inevitably settle on something quite different. If you were to hear the vast ideas Don has laid down on tape before mixing down the one we eventually release, you would be.. surprised. Samba, anyone?

The two songs in production are "Far From Home" and "Together Apart". The second song is a rework of an old song that was tracked for "Acoustic Sessions", but was never really fleshed out. It's the first song that really features a repeating guitar riff to lead the song, and it's always useful to have some good old 80s rock tunes laying around.

The second tune is new. It's possibly closest to what our band's "sound" would be. Beatles/Queen with some interesting writing. Ken had written some chord progressions as an exercise in voice leading, then he and I sat down and wrote a first draft. The band then promptly tore it apart and put it back together. In a different time signature (for the first half) and with an incredible bridge/transformation that happens about a minute and a half into the song. I'm rather inspired by this experience.

Anyways, more details later. We should be done with it by show time on July 7. At the Roxy. You'll hear the songs live, if not on our website beforehand.

Surviving pictures from the old website

2007-05-23T18:14:00.000-07:00

Here are some surviving pictures from our old website ..so the blog doesn't look so empty.

Old JTV pictures

Video from the Knit

2007-03-09T18:52:00.000-08:00

THANK YOU for coming out to the show this weekend. It's always a blur (before the real party even begins) with the production these little shows take; though I may not remember how it went, I remember how it felt. And we felt your support and love.

After the show people were asking about a particular song, and I couldn't for the life of me remember the setlist afterward. Well I have it here in front of me:

- Together Apart
- Talk About You
- In Spite of it All
- Beautifully Strange
- Misery Need Company
- Wake
- Break

I found out a few of you ran into mix-ups with will call. If you ran into trouble and had to pay again, please accept our apologies and contact us. We'll make things right.

For those who couldn't join us in person, we've posted video footage to the intertubes. The video footage is of the concert only, not from the after party (and with good reason - you people are wild..)

Part 1/3:

Part 2/3:

Part 3/3:

Do you have any pictures from the night? Email them to us at itookyourpictureattheknittingfactoryonmarch3@jackthevain.com.

Please do us a favor and forward this email to the friends you brought and ask them to join the mail list. As for us now... back to the studio, to write and record. Soon enough we'll come flyering the town for another show. See you again!

What makes Los Angeles beautiful

2007-03-02T18:59:00.000-08:00

Hi, this is Steven. I sing in a local band.

Do you know how a local band finds success? It's people finding us and breathing life into the music through their lives. And by success I don't mean getting picked up by a music label or getting airplay on a nationwide radio network or even making a thousand bucks. Success is art creating avenues of hope where there is dead silence. And art is HOPEful, because art is communication. And communication is hope. It means we haven't given up. My friend Victor said that to me once.

I'll say this once and then never again - there's no money in it for us to play these shows. Which turns out to be convenient because we weren't in it for the money anyway (except Shane). We make something like $50 each on a big night, and that's the only payout we really see for months of devoted hard work. But we believe that what we do is a strike toward feeding impetus in our own lives and in the lives of Angelinos. And, we hope some day, in the lives of many more.

So when we invite you to a show, it's an invitation to share a small part of your lives, with the backdrop of these songs we bring. Not the part making a six figure salary. Not the part dressed to impress. No, we want the part that's drowning in fear. The part that's starkly disappointed in LIFE. The parts our world has rejected. It's what makes Los Angeles beautiful.

We hope you'll join us, please come find us.

Our first music video!

2007-02-06T18:49:00.000-08:00

The Break music video, directed by 2yuk's Gary Chan, is up -

You can also download it to your iPod:

Download m4v file for iPod

4 going on 5

2007-01-19T23:06:00.000-08:00

My daugher, Jessica, went to sleep last night a 4-year-old and woke up a 5-year-old. I know it's really only been 5 years but.. the moment she was born is still so vivid in my mind. And since then, a truly remarkable, most charming, beautiful thing has been in my life. Another person who genuinely likes me, which.. is something I'm not so used to.

Anyhow, happy birthday, princess.

-Daddy

Returning to where it all began

2006-09-22T19:00:00.000-07:00

Our first show, the kick off for us in L.A., was a show at the Joint in May of 2003. I had just started at a job right up Robertson working for some millionaire auctioning off used construction equipment, and one day while walking to my bus stop I noticed the club. I'd never played a club before and didn't know the first thing about booking. So the next day I wrote my contact info on a piece of paper, and along with a demo CD, dropped it down a slot near the front door. I think this was April some time.

Alec Ziegler, who now runs Club Good Hurt, was the booking manager for the Joint at the time, and he called me back immediately, I think the very next day. He loved our music so much (this was the "1420" CD, for those who've stuck around) that he wanted to book us immediately for a Saturday slot in May.

Gigging clubs in L.A. usually works like this, especially if you actually sound like you don't know what the hell you're doing - they book you on a Tuesday night at 11:30pm, and if you prove yourself by drawing enough of a crowd (call your aunts and uncles and their friends), they'll move you over to the more primo slots, like a Saturday one. So Alec was taking a bit of a chance on us, but something in the music had connected. In fact he even pushed the CD on a band he was managing at the time called Jabudah, insisting that they sounded more like us. Which.. I'm sure pissed them off, because to be honest they were way better than us at the time.

Anyways.. so we landed our first real show, and livin' the dream had started.. playing L.A. clubs. I was pretty nervous, even though I had some incredible guys in the band to share the experience with. I wore a puffy leather jacket and a hat and I'm told that throughout the show I looked like I was trying to avoid attention. And worse, from my perspective it felt as bad as I'm told it looked. But in the middle of it, I couldn't figure out how to get out of it, so I did my thing. And we did our thing. I think we have video footage from the evening, which some day shall air on VH1.

I was let go from that job up Robertson some months after all this. It almost feels like I was given that job just to walk by the Joint where the booking manager happened to love our music, to play that show to start things off. And since then we've played pretty much every worthwhile club in town, and we're older and wiser for it.

Through it all, you've supported us and made everything possible so far. So.. we're going back to where it all began. We're playing a show at The Joint on October 24, and it starts at 9pm. Now I don't want to pretend it's 2003 or anything kinky like that. I just haven't been back and I'm curious if the room will treat us any different this time.

I hope you can join us again.

-Steven