Ribbet! It’s FrAugust!
Hey party people, Kelly’s back in the house (and by house I mean country) and it’s time for the latest edition of the hottest newsletter in the country. That’s right, the Holding Out newsletter has just arrived so strap on your reading glasses and let’s PARTY!!! Coming Right Up: Friday, August 1st @ 9:30pm – Thirsty Lion Pub – (21 and over) Saturday, August 9th @ 2:00pm – Epiphany at the Park – (ALL AGES!) Saturday, August 9th @ 9:30pm – Thirsty Lion Pub – (21 and over) Thursday, August 14th @ 10:30pm – Camp Arrah Wanna Friday, August 15th @ 9:30pm – Thirsty Lion Pub – (21 and over) Thursday, August 21st @ 10:30pm – Camp Arrah Wanna Tuesday, August 26th @ 7:00pm – InFusion Friday, September 5th @ 9:30pm – Thirsty Lion Pub – (21 and over) If you live in the Portland area and are totally bummed that we almost always play at bars and you can’t come cause you’re not old enough, PAY ATTENTION cause we’ve got a show coming up that’s perfect for you! On Saturday, August 9th we’re playing at a music festival in Vancouver, WA (which is unbelievable close to Portland). Here’s the info on the festival: Epiphany in the Park Saturday, August 9th 2pm to 10pm (we play from 2:00-2:50) Esther Short Park 301 W 8th Street, Vancouver, WA “A great day of free music with Tyler Burkum(of Audio Adrenaline and Mat Kearney), Hyper Static Union, Chris Taylor, Above the Golden State, Holding Out, Theory Hazit and Aaron Lamere and the Blackstones. There will be food vendors at the park that day. Choices range from burritos, bbq, pizza, kettlecorn, espresso and much more.” Scott and I just returned from Malibu Club up in Canada and we had an amazing time!!! We met so many cool cats from Washington, Oregon, California, and a bunch of other crazy places all over the country! In fact, I gotta take this opportunity to send a shout out to all of our new fans we met up at Malibu who basically tripled the size of this mailing list, YOU GUYS ROCK!!! Scott and I had some amazing experiences up in Malibu including an impromptu jam session with Brandon Heath! Brandon taught us to play his song, Reaching Out for the kids at Malibu and I hate to brag but he totally was amazed at how quickly Scott and I picked up how to play the song. I guess 5 years of learning and playing cover songs at bars and wedding receptions has actually served a purpose! If you have no idea who Brandon Heath is, check out his website: www.brandonheath.net. Do you want to see Holding Out come and play in your hometown? I’m guessing you probably do so here’s what you need to do. Don’t sit on your buns and wait around, make it happen! Talk to people you know at local venues and hook us up! We would love to visit some new towns that are within driving distance of Portland! If you think we should come play in your town, email us (info@holdingoutband.com) and let us know. We’ll see what we can do to make it happen. So, as many of you know, I like to include a funny story in each newsletter about something that has happened to one or more of the members of Holding Out. Now one of the cool things about Malibu Club is how the campers aren’t supposed to know what’s on the schedule. Part of the coolness of the whole thing is how they are always getting blindsided by awesome stuff. So, I’m about to tell a story that talks about one of these events. If you are planning on being a first time camper at Malibu this summer then DON’T READ THIS STORY!!! It’ll spoil some of your fun, but I don’t believe there are many if any people like that on this mailing list. So, here goes. Every week the campers were asked to dress up in their best 80’s gear. (Which is funny to me because when I was in high school we dressed up in 70’s gear… guess that’s what happens when you get older.) Anyways, after they were all dressed up a few activities took place that culminated in a “Dance Through the Ages” where we basically boogeyed down to music from every generation. We got our groove thing on to tunes like Y.M.C.A, You Give Love a Bad Name, Cotton Eyed Joe, some Will Smith songs, and many more awesome tunes. Scott and I helped lead the dancing up on a stage while everyone mimicked our killer moves. We even learned the dance to N’SYNC’s Bye Bye Bye song. And all of this was done with Scott and I in matching 80’s vests and white short shorts. So anyways, after the dancing is done all the campers get in a super long Tango line and Tango their way off the dance floor at which point usually some of the staff would take over and dance on the floor till the last song was finished. On Scott’s last dance party night, we had just finished all the camper songs and the Work Crew was dancing away on the floor when one of the girls starting pointing at Scott and motioning like she was trying to tell him something. After a few moments of confusion Scott realized that his fly was down and had been down the entire time we were leading the 300 or so high school campers in dance moves. Scott, not one to get too embarrassed about this type of thing, immediately announced into the mic that his fly was down, asked everyone to turn away from the stage as he mended the problem. Ok my friends, it’s been great talking to you again. I really missed writing you last month although I was having the time of my life in Canada and Jen did a fantastic job filling in while we were away. Have a great month and don’t forget to come see us play!!! And if you can’t do that then make sure and visit the website, there’s a lot of new stuff on there! (www.holdingoutband.com) Peace and Love, Kelly **************************************************************************************** It's July! Time to eat some pie! Hello all, Jen here. Since Kelly is gone in Canada with Scott until July 22nd, it’s up to me to get this month’s newsletter to you. Here are some of our upcoming shows (check out more details about each one at www.holdingoutband.com/calendar): July 23rd at 6:30 PM in Clackamas: Cook’s Night Out July 25th at 9:30 PM in Portland: Thirsty Lion July 29th at 7:00 PM in Happy Valley: InFusion August 1st at 9:30 PM in Portland: Thirsty Lion August 2nd at 6:00 PM in Portland: Private wedding August 9th at 2:00 PM in Vancouver, WA: Epiphany in the Park Everyone should go check out the website (www.holdingoutband.com). There have been a lot of new additions to the website recently, including the 2nd Annual Yearly Thing pictures and even a video! In fact, you can now even order merchandise off the website! This includes not only CDs, but shirts, frisbees, and bumper stickers, too! While you’re roaming around out there on the site, make sure you check out the other pages too for even more new stuff. The biggest news this month is about our beloved bass player, Dave. The good news first... Dave got married last month! The wedding was beautiful and the bride and groom couldn’t have been happier. It was a great day. Now the sad news... recall from last month’s newsletter the following: “Come mid-August, Dave and his new bride Ashley will be moving to Pennsylvania where Dave will attend law school. This, sadly, will be the end of Dave’s term in the office of bass player for Holding Out. We’re very sad to see him go but we are glad that he is pursuing his own dreams of becoming a lawyer, a husband, and some day, a father.” As this day is rapidly approaching, we are becoming more and more sad for the loss of one of our family members. But, at the same time, we are enjoying every moment and performance we still get to share with the great Dave Cramer. So, to the point... here are Dave’s last couple of shows with Holding Out (check out more details about them at www.holdingoutband.com/calendar): - If you are 21 or older you can come see Dave’s last Thirsty Lion performance on August 1st at 9:30PM. We’ll be playing the usual 3 hours of ½ originals and ½ cover songs. - Dave’s official last show is at an event called “Epiphany in the Park” which is being held at Esther Short Park in Vancouver, WA. This may seem like it’s a far distance away to some of you, but it’s really not. Especially since it’s Dave’s official last show as a member of Holding Out, no distance should be too far. We are playing at 2:00PM, and we are only playing straight-up Holding Out originals (which is the best kind of show). But here is the clincher, we are only playing for 45 minutes, so you can’t be late or you might miss it! Dave has written a goodbye letter to all of you. Please visit his page on the website (www.holdingoutband.com/dave) to read it. You can also e-mail Dave at dave@holdingoutband.com to send your best wishes or even convince him to stay, you know, if you want. Scott and Kelly have been up in Canada at a high school camp since June 25th. They are of course having a blast! Kelly has sent an update from Canada which you can read below: - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - So, operation Send Scott and Kelly to Malibu is officially underway and your favorite rockers are now doing their rocking in another country known as Canada. Scott and I arrived in this place known as Malibu on a boot called The Malibu Princess and are currently starting Day 9 of our Assignment here at this spectacular Young Life Club. We’ve had many adventures in our first week including putting army face paint on every single camper, a man made snow storm, some beach volleyball Top Gun style, an 80’s dance party ending in a pool jump, helping campers through the ropes course, an incredible concert the likes of which Malibu has never seen before, and so much more. I would love to sit here and type about every one of these things but if I did then I would miss what’s going on right now! ?And I don’t wanna miss a thing!? So here’s a tidbit of the adventures we’ve been going through: On the first day of week 2 Scott and I finished putting the face paint on the campers who were heading through the obstacle course. We were completely decked out in our fatigues and feeling like we wanted to know what was going on in the absolute craziness behind us. So after the last cabin went through we put down our face paint and decided to run through the course. It started with a long dirt path through total darkness that was lit only by tiki torches that lead us to a slide that I discovered was wet when I slid down it and felt a peculiar dampness in my nether-regions. After the slide we were instructed by screaming summer staff to scale a wall and climb down the other side. We crawled through some muddy terrain and then were attacked by a staff member with lots of water left over. I was able to get behind Scott and shield myself from pretty much all of the water while Scott was completely drenched. We then were instructed to form a line and hold hands underneath our legs. I went first so Scott was stuck behind me with his face in my buttocks as we tic tac’d up the hill. Next came a tunnel we were supposed to climb through as fast as possible. I thrust my body into the tunnel immediately slamming my spine into the top of it giving myself my first war wound. At the top of the hill we found ourselves on a stage of grass with rolling hills before us. Welcome to the Jungle was blaring through the speakers as we danced for the roaring crowds in our imaginations. Due to being backlit by a few flood lights our giant shadows danced in the forest with grace and precision. After this we rolled down the hill colliding with eachother only once. Then we began to wheel-barrow down the hill. I started as the wheelbarrow but soon grew weary and so we switched and Scott the slithering snake wheelbarrow and I waddled the rest of the way down the hill collapsing in uncontrollable laughter at the feet of the next summer staff person who was not amused by our lack of physical prowess. We stumbled and bumbled our way down the rest of the hill and nearly completed the course. The final step of course is to actually jump in the inlet and we promised to do that part next time… So Scott and I are really getting whipped into shape up here and we are also spreading the joy of Holding Out to hundreds of new fans. Thanks for all your support, we couldn’t be here without the love and encouragement from all of you and we are having ?the time of our lives?. Peace and love from Malibu. -Kelly - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Well, that there’s the July newsletter! Please come see one of Dave’s last shows! You won’t want to miss being a part of this moment in Holding Out history, sad as it may be. -Jen **************************************************************************************** Hey, June I’m here to take a sad day and make it better by putting a sweet Holding Out newsletter in your inbox. You know you love it. Holding Out’s Comin-Uppins: Friday, June 6th at 9:30pm: Thirsty Lion in Portland, OR Saturday, June 21st at 3:45pm: Oregon Brewfest in McMinnville, OR Sunday, June 22nd at 9:00am & 11:00am: New Hope in Clackamas, OR Wednesday, June 25th at butt-crack of dawn am: Scott and Kelly leave for Malibu We’ve got exciting things coming up this month. (do I say that every month?) Well, this month, one of our very own members is getting hitched! That’s right, Dave Cramer will officially become Mr. Ashley Martin on June 14th, which many of us know as Flag Day. We’re very happy for Dave and Ashley and their future together as life long lovers and we wish them all the best! A few months after their marriage, Dave and Ashley will be moving to Pennsylvania so that Dave can attend Law School there. This, sadly, will be the end of Dave’s term in the office of bass player for Holding Out. We’re very sad to see him go but we are glad that he is pursuing his own dreams of becoming a lawyer, a husband, and some day, a father. If you want to tell Dave how happy you are for him or how dumb he is for bailing on such a sweet band that will probably become famous millionaires or if you have any last second efforts to change his mind about getting married and/or moving away, please email him at dave@holdingoutband.com and let him know your thoughts. Next, our very own Jen Brockett received her second Bachelor’s Degree from Linfield College. This one is in Accounting and we’re very lucky to have her in the band to take care of the tangled mess we call Holding Out’s finances. (oh, and she kicks butt on the drums too) Also, she did my taxes for me, which is great. Finally, I’d like to congratulate myself for landing a real-life grown-up full-time job. The City of Portland has decided to hire me as a Recreation Leader Music Specialty at the Community Music Center in SE Portland. This is very exciting for me because I will finally have benefits and be able to replace my glasses frames that I’ve been wearing for about 4 years now and feature only one nose pad and some nicely scratched lenses. Another reason this is exciting for me is that I actually was able to use my Music Degree to get a job! Can you believe that? So, the moral of the story is study what you love and just worry about getting a job later. Something will work out. So, after reading all this you may be thinking, “Golly, it sounds like Holding Out’s members are really moving forward in their non-musical lives, I wonder if they’re going to give up that silly band now.” Well let me be the first person to tell you that is not true. Although Dave will be moving on, Holding Out will be living on in the souls of Scott, Jen, and Kelly. In fact, in the next year things are really going to heat up. Are you ready for some insider info? Well, get your jock-strap on and pull up your socks cause this is a doozy. Holding Out is in the process of signing with a Booking Ageny and Public Relations Firm. We were selected from a large pool of applicants to be represented by this agency that is going to book us in Portland and help us advertise our shows!!! We are very excited about this and feel it is the step to the next level that we’ve been looking for. That combined with the CD we are planning to release in early 2009 are going to make 2008 a pivotal year in the Holding Out legacy. If you still want to claim you were in on the groundwork of this masterpiece, you had better start coming to our shows and buying our merchandise now to get yourself some legit pre-fame Holding Out memorabilia cause your time is running out my friends. I invited Scott Brockett to do a special guest appearance in this month’s newsletter. He had a pretty crazy morning a little while ago that he wanted to share with the masses. I thought it was pretty darn funny and knew you would enjoy it. Take the reins, Scott: I was sleeping soundly on Friday morning. Thoughts of Fender Strat guitars and the many things I would do for a million dollars seemed to revolve around my mind as lay in that perfect place between not fully asleep and not fully awake. The perfect oasis of slumber came crashing down as a gentle knock awoke me like a sledgehammer to the brain. “Scott” “yeah” “someone’s towing your car” “WHAT!!” I quickly threw on the closest pajama pants I could. Yeah I wear pajama pants. Their cool, big, and flowing just like the ol MC Hammer Pants used to be. I am proud of my pajama pants. I think they were Guiness pajama pants but that doesn’t matter. I have had my car towed once before and it cost me over $400 bucks to get it back so I decided I didn’t have time to throw on a shirt and shoes. I just ran out into the parking lot with my spare keys. (I, inevitably, couldn’t find mine as is usually the case when I really need them). Sure enough the tow truck had my car up on the back and was moving out of the parking place. I ran right up to him and stammered groggily “hey man, that’s my car. Can I get it back man?” The guy just looked at me funny and stated “ we’re just moving it cause were repainting the lines…man”. I then turned and saw one of the other workers laughing as I, the dreadlocked, bare-chested, sleepy-eyed man turned defeated back into my apartment. I will say this though: I looked cool into my pajama pants. Not long after that my brother-in-law and roommate, Dan, got a call from Game Stop, his place of employment. Something had happened and the stores alarm was going off. He quickly begged me for a ride, which I reluctantly agreed to give. We got down there and found that the store clerk who had opened the store was in a very peculiar predicament. His security code for the store’s alarm had gotten changed without his knowledge. He went to put it in and the alarm went off. The alarm at the store is a motion sensor alarm so if he stood completely still, it would stop beeping. Of course, the clerk figured this out so he just froze in the middle of the store. However, when the cops showed up, they asked the clerk to come to the door. But he knew he couldn’t do that because of the motion-sensor alarm so he made a make shift sign that said, “ I can’t move because of the alarm”. The cops were threatening to arrest the clerk unless he came to the door. Meanwhile, he just kept pointing to the sign and staying put. Eventually Dan and I got to the store and Dan straightened out the whole mess but wow…that was a busy morning. Most morning I just get into my pajama pants, eat some Life cereal and check NBA.com. Love, Scott Have a fantastic June and keep on looking for the son, I’m sure it will come out sooner or later. Also, don’t be freaked out if you don’t get a July newsletter, I think I’ll be able to send it from Malibu but just in case I can’t you had better save this one and read it again in a month so you can get your fix. Love and Peace, Kelly **************************************************************************************** Mother, May I? It’s the beautiful month of May and the weather just got way more beautifuller cause the Holding Out newsletter is now in your Inbox. I’ve decided it’s time to stop dwelling on the past and start looking forward to the future. So, instead of a show count for the past month, I’ll know fill you in on the killer gigs we’ve got coming up in the near future. Here are the shows we’ve got coming up in the next few weeks: May 9th at 9:30 PM: Thirsty Lion May 23rd at 9:30 PM: Thirsty Lion May 24th: private wedding May 31st: private wedding June 3rd at 7:00 PM: Infusion at New Hope June 6th at 9:30 PM: Thirsty Lion As I’m sure every single one of you knows, Holding Out just held it’s 2nd Annual Yearly Thing on Saturday, May 3rd. It truly was an epic night of human totem poles rocking out, fans on stage singing their hearts out, artists on stage pouring their hearts out over lost love, and hundreds of fans having their lives changed by the revolutionary rock ‘n’ roll of Holding Out. The reviews are in and Holding Out’s 2nd Annual Yearly thing was a show for the ages that will stick in the mind of each attendee for the rest of their lives. Now, I’ve got to get something off my chest here. I’m not trying to make anyone feel guilty cause there is no reason to do that. All I want to say is that you really missed out if you didn’t make it to the show. There were approximately 230 fans in attendance at the event, which means that a lot of you on this mailing list of 400 plus were not able to attend the show. This truly is a shame. There is only one opportunity per year to see Holding Out put on a show that is designed specifically for the fans. The Yearly Thing is our way of saying thank you for supporting us and sharing our vision of making music that can change people’s lives. We plan 100% of this show with the purpose of giving you a chance to join us in this mission. We want you to be in on the groundwork of something truly great here. Our hope is that the Yearly Thing would grow and grow every year and we can’t do it without the support of our friends, family, and fans. Remember, if you only see one Holding Out show a year, make it the Yearly Thing! As a result of us not getting quite as many fans as we hoped out to our Yearly Thing, we didn’t sell all of our Special Edition Yearly Thing t-shirts. This is a very cool design done by my good friend; Kent St. John who also designed our killer postcards we sent out advertising the show and we hate to see the shirts go to waste. So, if you’d like to buy one of the shirts we’ll make you a deal. Send us $10 and we’ll send you one of our Holding Out 2nd Annual Yearly Thing T-shirts with no charge for shipping. If you’d really like to take advantage of this deal, you can buy some more Holding Out stuff and we’ll stuff it all into one package and you can get it all for free shipping. It’s really quite a deal. We have CD’s, stickers, T-shirts (2 different designs), and Frisbees for sale. Email me (Kelly@holdingoutband.com) if you have questions about prices or how this deal will work for you. Don’t fret too much if you didn’t fully comprehend the importance of this event because the 3rd Annual Yearly Thing will be here before you know it and (I shouldn’t be telling you this but… what the heck?) we are hoping to use the 3rd Annual Yearly Thing as a CD Release Party for our 3rd full length album! 3rd Album released at the 3rd Yearly Thing? Sounds like fate but Shhhh! Don’t tell anyone cause that is top-secret insider info. If you did see the show on Saturday, let us know what you thought!!! Leave a comment on our myspace page at www.myspace.com/holdingout or send me an email at Kelly@holdingoutband.com and I’ll post your comments on the website. We’ve got exciting things coming up! For example, every other Friday we’ll be rocking the Thirsty Lion Pub. We’re now playing 50% original material at this gig so if you’re over 21 you should definitely come out and see us at our home base bar in downtown Portland. We’re playing this Friday, May 9th at 9:30pm and we hope to see some of you there! Also, Scott and Kelly’s trip to Malibu is approaching fast! We’ve been trying hard to raise money for the trip and Milwaukie First Baptist Church has been very generous in helping us raise over $1000. However, we’re still a few hundred dollars short of our goal of $1600 so if you want to help send Scott and Kelly to Canada to play for hundreds of high school kids, please email me back by responding to this email or at Kelly@holdingoutband.com and I will tell you where to send a check. You can also make donations online through our website at www.holdingoutband.com. Every little bit helps! So this has been a rather lengthy edition of the Holding Out newsletter but I refuse to let you go without a quick little story that I hope will make you laugh. I recently bought a T-shirt from American Eagle Outfitters that I sported at our concert on Saturday. While modeling the shirt for myself in front of the mirror in my room I began to try and read the writing that was going around in a circle on the shirt. The writing was somewhat large but there was a picture of an eagle and some numbers and other random objects on the shirt making it somewhat difficult to make out. After a good 3-5 minutes I decided that it simply said American Eagle Outfitters but strangely enough it seemed to be written backwards or upside down or something. Almost like a mirror image… after another 3-5 minutes I abruptly realized I was reading the shirt in a MIRROR and proceeded to laugh out loud at myself. Thanks for reading, please don’t hesitate to email me any questions, comments or complaints you might have! Oh, and don’t forget to visit the website! Love! Kelly **************************************************************************************** Aprils and Oranges Okay people, the time has come. The Holding Out monthly newsletter is in your inbox and you can’t wait to read it! We’ve got exciting stuff coming up including the 2nd Annual Yearly Thing! Here’s our show count for the month of March: 5 Total Shows!!! 2 Weddings 2 Bars and 1 totally hip college age group called Infusion! We’ve had a blast so far playing at the Thirsty Lion as one of their Friday night House Bands. It is really a great opportunity for us to showcase some of our original material while also supplying some great dance music to bring the people to their feet. We would really love to see some of you at our shows there! It is always nice to see some familiar faces in the crowd and to have some people cheer super loud after your original songs. So keep checking the website to see when we are playing there next, especially if you want to get a sneak peak at some of the brand new songs we’re getting ready for the 2nd Annual Yearly Thing. Speaking of yearly things…. Well, the Yearly Thing is almost upon us. We couldn’t be more pumped out of our minds than we currently are. In case you haven’t already heard, the Yearly Thing is Holding Out’s annual concert that is designed for our fans. We wanted to make sure that at lease once a year, every single one of our fans would have the opportunity to come and see us play some of our original songs that you all love so dearly. We wanted to have a chance to get you all together so we could say, “Thank You” and “We Love You” to all of you face t o face. We consider last year’s Live CD Recording to be our 1st Annual Yearly Thing. If you thought last years show was great than you are going to love what we’ve got planned for this year’s Yearly Thing. If you missed out on our Live CD Recording last year then I would guess that ever since then all you’ve heard about is how awesome it was and how stupid you were for not going. Well, here is your chance to totally redeem yourself. You’ll get a 5-course meal consisting of an appetizer of Trees of Lyres, a salad of brand new songs, the main course of Holding Out favorites with a side of new twists, and finally, a delicious dessert of fun and laughter. Two killer bands for $10, you can’t beat it. Holding Out will also be releasing a whole new line of merchandise for the fans that want to display loud and proud that they are Superfans of the band, Holding Out. Be there, you won’t regret it. Here’s the specs: What: Killer concert with Trees of Lyres opening for Holding Out When: Saturday, May 3rd 2008 Where: New Hope Community Church 11731 SE Stevens Rd. Portland, OR 97086 (if it comes up Happy Valley or Clackamas, don’t worry, you’ve got the right place.) How Much: $10 Should You Go: Yes. Where can I listen to snippets of the bands' music: www.holdingoutband.com and http://www.myspace.com/treesoflyres Honestly, my friends, this has been a very rough month for me personally. Brace yourselves because the following news may be painful to many of you. I got in a car accident and my beloved Toyota Carolla station wagon has been totaled. I officially signed the title over to Oregon Towing Co. in exchange for the two or three hundred dollars I owed them for towing and storage fees. I was able to salvage two of the precious spinning hubcaps along with my dad’s homemade roof rack but alas, my beloved has passed on. I hate to think of her now, likely just another mess in a row of broken dreams in some U-Pull it wonderland. As if dealing with the pain of losing my Carolla were not enough, I had to make a terrible choice in replacing her by purchasing a used Ford Escort Wagon off of Craigslist. I paid $600 for the wagon I thought could replace the sweet gansta ride I had been enjoying for the past 5 years or so. It started off well enough, by which I mean the car ran and would have similar cargo space and gas mileage to the Carolla. The guy even threw in a free CD player that I would have to install myself. I was feeling pretty good about myself, and the frugalness of my recent purchase, when I pulled up to a friend’s house and found my car to be leaking a massive amount of fluid onto his driveway. Turns out the radiator has blown and needed to be replaced. Now, at this point I seem to have transformed into another human being because my friend and I actually went to a U-Pull it, tore a radiator out of an old pile of trash and put it in my car and it actually worked! We did it ourselves, and it worked. It was truly a miracle. However, the glory of this battle was short-lived, as I soon would lose the war. I took my car to have the Emissions tested at a DEQ testing facility in order to get my car registered in the city of Portland. I proceeded to fail the test and find out eventually that it would take approximately $350 to $400 to bring my car up to par and get it through the DEQ. This of course would have brought my total dollar amount of repairs on the car disturbingly close to what I paid for the car. Eventually I decided the car was not worth my while and drove it out to my parents house to see if they would have any luck selling it out there where it doesn’t need to pass DEQ and can legally pollute the earth as much as it pleases. So, since then I’ve been looking for another car and have yet to decide on one for sure but I know now that if you’re buying a car off Craigslist, go ahead and pay the money to have it Carfaxed and make sure it is going to pass DEQ if you live in Portland. Learn from my mistakes, my friends because everything happens for a reason. One note about the Holding Out newsletter: next month we are going to try and spruce it up a little by using a program to make our newsletter awesome looking. This may cause your email provider to warn you against opening the newsletter. Don’t be scared, we’re not trying to steal your identity through our newsletter. In order to avoid this you will need to add Kelly@holdingoutband.com to your email safe list. Thanks for being awesome. As always, questions, concerns, complaints, and comments can be sent to Kelly at Kelly@holdingoutband.com. Visit our website for more information! www.holdingoutband.com Peace and Love, Kelly **************************************************************************************** March Simpson Hey party people, it’s time for another butt-kickin edition of the Holding Out newsletter! This is probably one of the most important newsletters I’ve ever written because there are some big things coming up soon including our 2nd Annual Yearly Thing and a trip to Canada! Keep reading to get the juicy details. Here’s our show count for the extra long month of February! 2 total shows! 1 Bar and 1 super sweet snowboarding camp! We want to thank all of our die-hard fans that made it out to see us at the Thirsty Lion this month! We’d especially like to thank Debbie Harmon and the good folks at Linfield College for making the concert an alumni event and bringing in 50 people just to see us play! As I mentioned in my last missive to you, we changed the format of our set list significantly by playing an entire set of original material! It was awesome to hear the people going crazy for our own music and gave us hope that we will write music that will change the world someday. March 28th marks the first date of our romance with the Thirsty Lion as one of its house bands. This means we will be playing there every other Friday night starting March 28th and we will be playing 50% original material. So if you’re over 21 and you wanna hear some new Holding Out songs (of which there are plenty) get your buns down to the Thirsty Lion, we’ll be pumped to see you there! Alright, here’s some big news. Holding Out has officially decided to put on a yearly concert for our fans. We are considering last April’s Live CD recording the first of this series of groundbreaking events. We’ve decided to call it, “The Yearly Thing”. Yes, our creative juices were flowing like raging rivers when we came up with this name. We’re very proud of it and in case you were wondering, it’s not redundant at all to say 2nd Annual Yearly Thing. So, that being said, you are all officially invited to the 2nd Annual Yearly Thing! This year the Yearly Thing will be held at New Hope Community Church in Clackamas, OR and it will be a combined effort between Holding Out and the Greater Clackamas Young Life Group. The kids of Greater Clackamas Young Life will be selling tickets for to the concert in order to raise money for their camp scholarship fund so they can attend Young Life Camp this summer. Many of the details of the show are still being worked out but here is the nitty gritty: What? Holding Out’s 2nd Annual Yearly Thing When? Saturday May 3rd at 7:00pm Where? New Hope Community Church 11731 SE Stevens Rd. Happy Valley, OR 97086 Cost? $10 For more information about Greater Clackamas Young Life please visit their website! http://sites.younglife.org/sites/clackamas/default.aspx Also, look out for a limited edition Holding Out 2nd Annual Yearly Thing T-Shirt being sold ONLY AT THE SHOW. Believe me, you’ve got to have one of these things. Next up on the list of crazy stuff I have to tell you about is the trip to Canada. This summer Scott and I have the opportunity to serve at the Malibu Young Life Camp in Egmont, BC. (Check it out: http://sites.younglife.org/camps/MalibuClub/default.aspx) We will be providing music for the camp for four weeks starting with the last week of June and going through the first three weeks of July. This is a great opportunity for us to hang out with high school kids and share our music with them! There will be around 350 kids or so there every week meaning we will have the chance to play for around 1,500 kids and staff that have never heard us before. Not only is this a great opportunity for us to make a difference in the lives of kids but we are getting our music out to a very large number of potential fans. We’re pumped out of our minds to be a part of this adventure! Here’s where you, our current fans, come in. We need to raise $1600 to cover our costs for this trip. We’ve already received some extremely generous support but we’ve got a long way to go. If you feel like helping us out we would greatly appreciate any size of donation. Every little bit helps! You can make a donation to us on our website: www.holdingoutband.com/store or you can send a check payable to Holding Out (contact me for the address). Let’s start Operation Send Scott and Kelly to Canada! Go Team! So I was coming back from 7-11 on my killer long board the other night. I was very pleased to discover the close proximity of this 7-11 to my place of residence. I’ve long regretted my lack of time spent on the smooth loveliness that is my long board since I graduated from the long sloping sidewalks of Linfield College. Alas! The trek to 7-11 is the perfect long boarding distance and there is even a skate park located along the way that if nothing else provides a nice smooth sidewalk for me to roll through on. You might say it was the perfect situation and I had gotten very used to frequenting this short journey. Anyways, back to the other night. I had just purchased a delicious Mountain Dew that was really hitting the spot and I was about to return to watching my beloved Trail Blazers whip up on the hated Los Angeles Lakers. As I turned into the driveway I was kind of rolling gently along, in no big hurry when my front wheels caught on the lip of the curb and I was propelled off the front of my board. As any skateboarder knows, this even always causes your board to roll backwards from the spot you hit. To my horror I realized that my board was now rolling slowly through four lanes of traffic. I was frozen with fear as I realized that two cars were bearing down on it mercilessly. Everything was moving in slow motion as I thought that the cars could surely see my board rolling helplessly across the street. One of the cars began to slow but I slowly realized the other car was not slowing down at all. A moment that took an eternity passed and I was brought back into the moment with the sound of a loud CRACK!!! Splinters flooded the air as the two halves of my board turned lifelessly over onto their backs, wheels spinning in the cold night air. I rushed into the street with no regard for my own safety to rescue the corpse of my beloved board. The car sped off into the night and I was left mourning the two pieces that were all that is left of my friend and companion. RIP my friend and let me assure you that you will never be forgotten even if your wheels ride again on the bottom of a new and strange board. Don’t forget to visit the website: www.holdingoutband.com to keep up on what’s crackin. Come see our show on May 3rd and support Operation Send Scott and Kelly to Canada! Love, Kelly |
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