When trying to come up with new material that really sticks I find myself always telling my vocalist to write it down, but it is important for all of your musicians to be writing. If your process for creating involves freestyle jam sessions you will be doing yourself a favor by writing out your bass lines, guitar riffs, chord progressions and lyrics. My drummer swears up and down that he can remember any beat that he's played only after a handful of times, but once a working title has been put on the shelf for a few weeks we all can have trouble remembering exactly how it felt the first time.

I found a great site called www.blanksheetmusic.net. It has a great app that allows you to print blank copies of sheet music with lines for staffs, tabs, key signatures and much more. If you don't know the correct way of writing music don't fret. Find a way to write out the notes you play or tabs. This is mainly for your own use and there are plenty of people out their who can help you when you are ready to publish your first music book.

Writing down your music enables you to put down the music for later use without the fear of forgetting how to play it. Well written notes coupled with some rough home recordings will ensure that when you come back to a piece you can pick up right were you left off.

When Justin Munsey of 7 Day Sun sent out a random message in the 502 boards asking "Does any one know of that guy who did the 21 questions thing?" I had to send him some questions to pick his brain a bit. Justin was very cool concidering my questions are a bit all over the place :)

So are they any good? You can decide for yourself over at their myspace www.myspace.com/7daysun. As for me well, they have my vote. You can really tell when an act has put a lot of hard work into their music, their art, their passion. 7 Day Sun has definately polished their sound and is definatly worth seeing live!

1. Have at least an hour worth of music written and practiced that you are confident in.

2. Have decent recordings of at least two songs to show to promoters and venue owners, preferably diverse in your specific style (a ballad and a rocker).

3. Make sure that all the members of your band are cool with the dates of your potential shows BEFORE you accept them.

4. Make sure you have adequate equipment. Drummers, don’t use caved in drumheads. Guitarists, buy a tuner. Don’t have a job? You can donate plasma for $50.00, average band 4 members – that’s $200.00 off the bat.

The Vernon is a relatively large venue in Louisville that compares its size and event structure to Headliners or Bogart’s in Cincinnati. The Vernon has been owned and operated by Dale McCall since 2006 and is also the oldest bowling alley in the area. Since The Vernon started booking music in 2006 it has had a great effect on the Louisville Music scene. With state of the art music equipment and a stage that truly doesn’t have a bad seat. So I sat down with General Manager Eric Widmayer to get the details of The Vernon and how you can get booked there.