KB Xiong Yexus Kov Yeej

Cool Video

Very cool video

I’m Running

In my first record I covered a song written by Kristian Stanfill called Running. The reason why I chose this song back then was because there are so many people out there that are caught in bondages and unable to break free from their sin/struggles/past. But this song talks about how God strips away that sin and gives us strength to move forward and away from our past, our old self. It’s sad how some people are actually living in defeat instead of victory. They’re so indulged by sin that they become brainwashed and never see God’s blessing in their lives. Satan tells us lies and we begin to believe that sin is greater than the King of Glory. That totally steals our ability to dream big dreams and believe in a plan God has for us. This song strikes at the core of how God intended us to live our lives: victoriously!

In Isaiah 40: 28-30 this passage talks about those who wait/hope on the Lord, will give them strength and they will soar on wings like eagles. To hope and wait on the Lord means even when you’re in the midst of giving up, not being able to walk one more step, have come to a dead end, have no other options, weary, have been drowned in stress, sorrow, and tormented from every direction…you stand right in the middle of it all and still say, “God, even though all of these things are happening to me I’m going to continue and keep my hope in you and wait for you. In the midst of it all, I completely trust in you.” God’s promise is that when we wait and hope on the Lord he will comfort and renew our strength to keep moving forward. You keep hoping and he’s going to keep giving you a little bit more strength to keep going and going until you soar on wings like eagles. You’ll run and not grow weary, you’ll walk and not faint. To soar is to be completely FREE.

Just a pretty cool lil thought for today. Here are the lyrics to the song. -KB

Running (by Kristian Stanfill)

It seems I’m never free
From a past that holds me down
A past that haunts me now
But you, you break the chains
You shake the bondage off of me
And help me to believe

That I’m free to live, to breathe,
To walk with you

I’m running, I’m running
To leave the past behind
No shame to feel
No chains to hold me down
I’m running, I’m running
I’m never looking back
With you I’m strong
And I can breathe again

It’s time to move along
I hear you calling me
To bigger better dreams
And you, you give me strength
You give me everything I need
Help my eyes to see
That I’m free to live to breathe
To walk with You

I won’t look back. I’m moving on.
I’m leaving the past
The past is gone

Electric Guitars going out of tune with Capo!!

Check 1-2, 1-2!

So you’re short on budget and don’t have 3 different electric guitars capo-ed on stage…tuned to the fret and ready to play?  Well, I have the solution for ya thanks to my brother Matt and with a lil bit of experimenting. KB, you’re starting to sound like Billy Mays…where’s your pitch? Nah, this is just a lil tip for all the musicians out there.

What I use to do was tune the G and B string when I change capo before the song starts but the downfall to that is people see you fiddling around with your tuners and knobs.  Now keep in mind that when you capo an acoustic guitar it’s completely different than an electric.  The concept is the same but there’s alot more stuff when you’re dealing with an electric.

Two things you have to do before you can capo electric guitars w/o them going out of tune is:

#1 – Ever heard of intonation?  Ever messed with the intonation of your guitar?  Ever tuned your guitar perfectly then when you play a note…let’s say on the 15th fret it sounds off?  Well, solution to that is to adjust the intonation.  Here’s a YouTube video of how to fix that problem.  Do it!

#2 – Do you remember these capos?

They’ve worked fine for me KB so what’s the deal? I love them with acoustic guitars but hate them on the electric. Reason is, it squeezes extremely tight causing your guitar to go out of tune when you capo even the 2nd fret! So here’s my solution to the capoing:

It’s called the “G7th 12-String Performance Guitar Capo.” This bad boy is so cool! Instead of me typing out two paragraphs explaining how it works, I’m going to refer you yet to another YouTube video:

The price for a regular capo would cost around $20. The G7th capo at guitar center would cost around $40. Yes it is definitely more expensive but for me personally, I’d invest in it. It saves me the trouble of re-tuning when putting on a capo and leaves your live music to sounding great!

Here’s how to order! J/k.

KB

Setlist 7/12

The setlist this past weekend was:

Your Grace is Enough
Glory to God
Mighty to Save
God of this City/ Hosanna

We started the set with an oldie but good one made famous by Chris Tomlin called “Your Grace is Enough.” A well known song with lots of energy is always a great opener! Then we introduced a new song written by Steve Fee called “Glory to God.” It was done in capo 4 and we transitioned it right into “Mighty to Save.” Yeah MTSave is usually done in “A” but we decided to do it in a higher pitch for more energy. It flowed together smoothly.

After the first three songs we took a break and Bruce came up to give a message about Jonah. It was the first week of the month so Bruce also led communion. The band played something simple for communion then as Bruce left the stage, we jumped right into “God of this City” which ties into Bruce’s message. The band worked up a transition from God of this City into “Hosanna” which are in different keys. It sounded weird in practice at first but started to sound good:) Hosanna was great because everyone knew the song well. We played Hosanna in the key of A instead of E (for female vocalists). The key of A was perfect for my pitch. That’s all folks.

This coming week, we’re rehearsing for Youth Service. My brother Matt will be leading that session and I’ll be jamming on the electric once again:) I don’t know how you acoustic guitar players do it…after two weeks of playing on an acoustic, my fingers are all callused up!

Stay tuned…

KB

Setlist this past weekend

Here’s my set list this past weekend.

Oh Happy Day – Steve Fee version
God of Wonders
God of this City
Inside Out

I was pretty happy with how this past week turned out. Much thanks to my bro Matt laying down some awesome riffs and adding much needed effects to the sound. Thank you Matt Lo and Tim for being the backbone of the band. Ya’ll rocked hard.

I took a bunch of my gear to help us out on the set. Miced the drums, amps, and used the POD X3 as a preamp for my acoustic. It sounded great except for the fact that there’s not enough juice to raise up the acoustic level. I think there’s a bad wire hooked up to the house somewhere. I’ll get that fixed this coming weekend for the new set. It should be pretty exciting. One of my good buddys Bruce is preaching and asked me to do something cool with the last song ending the service. Be sure to come check it out!

KB

iPhone working with my Web Site

So, I’m finally going to get my hands on an iPhone! No, not the 3GS but the 2nd gen. My neighbor has one and no longer has a need for it because his company is switching to blackberry’s. So he’s going to hook it up!

Anyways, I’ve been building my site to communicate with my “soon to be” iPhone. The thing I dread the most is updating my own web site on a weekly or even monthly basis. I want a site that updates itself with the latest and greatest. Two to three years ago, the “thing” to have was a flash web site. Now, the new trend is to have a web site that consolidates blogs, facebook, myspace, photobucket/flickr, youTube, and twitter all in one. Now believe me when i say I don’t usually follow trends (hence the iPhone), I can’t help but take the easy route and having all these social networking sites update my own site for me anytime and anywhere! How awesome is that?

The trick is the iPhone! When i tweet or post up on facebook, it’ll automatically update my site with the latest happenings. When I’m taking pictures, I can use the Flickr app to post it to my account and therefore updating it automatically on my web site too. I’m loving the iPhone already

As excited as I am with this new web site, i can’t help but be even more excited about the release of my new album “Yexus Kov Yeej.” It will be available on July 25 right here on my web site. Another cool thing is…my album’s going on iTunes!!! Yes it’ll be available via iTunes in a couple months. So save yourself the trouble of waiting for me to send you the CD through mail and just buy it on iTunes, get it right away, and slap it on your iPod, iTouch, or iPhone!

More updates to come!

KB

New setup for the english service

So this past weekend a couple of us guys got together to rehearse for worship this coming Sunday. I brought all my drum mics and planned to mic them all up but that plan didn’t work because the mixer I tried to use to route the signals were dead. So what I ended up doing was simply micing the kick drum and used an NT-1a to capture the overheads & body of the drums. To my surprise, it sounded great! Very boomy yet clear at the same time. If only our system had subwoofer’s set up. It would’ve been on!

So we rehearsed 4 songs total. I have to say, I forgot how draining it is to rehearse especially if you’re on vocals. It pretty much drained all my energy. On another note, this is going to be the first time I’m leading with an acoustic!! LOL! Been a while since I’ve done that. I’ve been leading with an electric guitar for over 7 years. Let me tell ya this…I can’t wait to go back to electric. My fingers were killing me while trying to play the acoustic. Plus, I think it’s boring to just strum:) Reason why I switched to an acoustic is because my brother Matt is in town for the summer recording his record in my studio and I figure he can just play while I focus on leading. All in all, it worked out pretty good. I’m excited for this weekend.

Blogging

Alright!  So I install WordPress onto my domain and got it ready to roll.  I had a hard time trying to display it on the homepage but I think I finally got it.  Thanks to the awesome support site I’m able to show a couple teasers on the home page with the latest updates and happenings.  I know this probably won’t mean much but I can now post pictures and youtube vids on my blog & home page!!  Yeah sounds easy enough but the coding was oooogly!!

OK, time to go to bed.

KB