Hey, Everyone! It's been a little longer than I would've liked since our last blog post. Things have been pretty busy in my life and at The Lab. There's lots to talk about!
For starters, in my last blog post, I mentioned that I had a concert coming up. Well, the concert went really well! I am the bassist and vocalist in a Death Metal band called Blood Gulch. Our music is pretty extreme, but if you're cool enough to be reading this blog, you probably get the appeal. Anyway, the concert was an absolute blast. We played McDowell Hall at Saint John's College in Annapolis, Maryland. Our drummer is a student there, and he managed to get us on the bill for a free show that was being planned there. The venue itself was so cool. The building is now the centerpiece of the college, but it was originally built in the 1800s as the Governor of Maryland's house. Picture a big old mansion with a huge main hall. It's always a bit of a gamble being a metal band playing a non-metal show, but the crowd ate it up. It was our first show as a band and my first show ever. I've done a piano recital or two when I was much younger, but nothing like this before. It was really important to the band and me that we get a good live production out of the show so that we may release it as a Live album. It took a ton of hard work, and I had to be in 10 places at once the night of the show, but we managed to get good video from my camera and good sound from my board. I was very nervous the night of the show, but not at all about performing. Instead, I couldn't stop worrying that something might go wrong with our production. We must've sound-checked three times. Thankfully, nothing went wrong! I also did all of the album art and whatnot. Like I said, it was a lot of work, but I really enjoyed it. The concert has been released on all streaming services, and you can watch it on YouTube. Check it out for yourself and see if you think it went as well as I think it did!
I'm currently writing this at around 5:00 pm on April 8th. Today marked the day of a Total Solar Eclipse. I'm sure many of you readers put on your cool glasses (I sure did) and took a look at the sky. Unfortunately, like clockwork, a whole bunch of thick clouds rolled through right as the Eclipse was reaching its peak. Oh well. We still managed to see the beginning and end of it. It was pretty funny seeing everyone in the shopping center standing in the parking lot and on the sidewalk, staring at the sun.
Today marks the last day of our Spring Cleaning Sale. The sale was originally supposed to end on Saturday the 6th, but in honor of the eclipse, we extended the sale one more day. We had some pretty crazy deals going on these last two weeks and had a bunch of new customers rolling through to check it out. I'd say the sale was a huge success! Aaron and Stefan really encouraged me to take the lead on all of the social media marketing we did to promote the sale. I had a lot of fun doing some photoshoots and crafting these posts for all to see. Some of them received a lot of positive feedback, and I think they definitely served to get more people in the store. Between the blog and our Facebook and Instagram, I'm becoming something of a Social Media Manager at The Lab. It's a role I'm totally ready to embrace. I've always enjoyed writing and interacting with strangers as well as our regulars. It's also always awesome to see the work pay off in the form of increased engagement and more sales/people coming into the store. A little while ago, I also discussed starting up some regular short-form content to be uploaded to Instagram Reels, YouTube Shorts, TikTok, etc. You could expect things like Skits, Short Gear Reviews, etc. I'll have to remind some people around here of that idea because as I'm writing this, I'm yet again realizing how much fun that would be. Stay Tuned!
Anyway, things sure have been pretty busy around here. I'm planning on getting a new Gavin's Musings out once weekly. So keep an eye out! Take care everyone, thanks for reading!
-Gavin
