Vice Vega Ships off for Los Angeles...

Bah! It was only a matter of time, but on October 8th, Vice Vega will officially be headed to the west coast... permanently.

The band played its final St. Louis show on Sept 15th to a packed crowd at indie favorite venue, The Firebird. The show was a farewell to all of the bands family, friends and fans who have supported them over the last 10+ years, throughout their various incarnations. The set, I am happy to say, did not only cover their most recent repertoire, but also included a couple of hits from their days as OPTION//CONTROL.

So... where do I begin?

About 9 years ago, I met an up and coming pop-punk musician named, Steve Neske. We had both been in established bands since the late 90's and were recent attendees of Webster University in St. Louis. I was introduced to Steve in the school's University Center by my lead singer and best friend, Emilio Hernandez (Nothing Still). Even though Emilio and Steve had gotten to know each other fairly well by having class together, something about Steve and I clicked, and we found some sort of spark between us that formed a solid comradery from that day on.

Over the course of the next few years, we had fun, played music, dropped out of school, promoted shows, got drunk, wore dresses and did other unmentionable things that built the foundation of our friendship today. And while at times, we were competitive and even jealous? of one another, I knew that we had a connection that was unlike any other.

When I decided to take some time away from playing music and focus on filmmaking, I knew that I could use my connections in the local music scene to help build a portfolio. The first band I turned to was OPTION//CONTROL. Besides my own, they were the only other band in St. Louis that I felt like I just "GOT" and I knew that I had a creative vision for their equally (if not MORE) creative music. You can revisit our works together in the MUSIC VIDEO section of the site, but without them, I for sure would not be a busy and successful? as I am today.

So it is with a heavy heart that I have to say good bye to my friends, for now. Hopefully soon I will finally get to visit them in the City of Angels, and if I'm lucky... get to move out there myself.

Visit their Website, Facebook, Twitter, whathaveyou... and show them some love before they leave the MidWest for good!

You can READ the article about their move from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch HERE: 

Vice Vega, formerly Option//Control, heads to LA for a reboot

Thanks for listening,

-P

Vice Vega Makes It on PerezHilton.com!

Holy Shit! We actually pulled it off!

After cramming together a video and concept in less than 72 hours, we made the deadline of Perez Hilton's "Can You Sing?" contest and ACTUALLY made the Top 5!!

Let's put that into perspective... thousands, and I MEAN THOUSANDS of people across the world submitted their versions of Carly Rae Jepsen's "Call Me Maybe" to PerezHilton.com and we actually made it in the top 5 honorable mentions!

Not to mention, the band got to grace the front of the site and gained 3,000+ views in only two hours.

You can read the entire article HERE:

CAN you sing??? These Folks Can!

This topped off an amazing and successful week for me, which included the announcement of the official premiere of my short film, "The Stakes." Thanks to everyone who visits this site, watches the videos and just generally supports me and my art.

It is greatly appreciated!

Keep Watching!

-P

I just met you... And this is crazy, but here's Vice Vega... with "Call Me, Maybe"

These dudes call me last Monday night. They say "Hey, Perez Hilton is having a contest for this song 'Call Me Maybe' and it's due on June 3rd!"

It may not be the 48 Hour Film Project, but it was definitely gonna be a crunch, especially since the band hadn't even created their own version of Carly Rae Jepsen's monster hit track yet. Regardless, I accepted the challenge and two days later we were hard at work on a new cover video for Vice Vega.

Taking my suggestion to give the video some kind of gimmick to make it stand out in the contest, lead vocalist, Steve Neske, decided to record the enitre song on Apple's GarageBand for iPad and then perform the song as well on the tablet. Despite filming all four members of the band in separate locations, we still had four individual iPads for them to play on, mainly because we didn't decide til the last second that they would not be performing together. 

The video was submitted on Monday morning, just barely making the deadline for submissions on PerezHilton.com, if anything comes of it, you will here it FIRST here. 

Until then, keep watching

-P

Vice Vega - The Suburb Sessions

So you may have read previously that OPTION//CONTROL is now Vice Vega. 

A crucial part of this change included the addition of "The Suburb Sessions" - a collection of covers created by the band to help show their dynamic range of talents. The band has always set out to prove that they could compete with those "Top 40" artists that rely so heavily on digitally created instruments and sampled beats. "The Suburb Sessions" allows Vice Vega to now literally show how they can stand toe to toe with said artists by taking their hit songs and turning them back to an organic performance (played by real musicians).

We have more on the way, including a cover of Karmin's "Brokenhearted" this week.

Until then, Enjoy

-P

OPTION//CONTROL Is Now Vice Vega!

I had the amazing opportunity recently to revisit some of my first few music videos and sort of fix some issues that weren't a part of my skill set at the time in which they were first released...

Basically, I pulled a George Lucas. 

Last week, OPTION//CONTROL made the tough decision to change their name to Vice Vega, a decision that finally opened up the chance for me to make some of these crucial fixes, while also having the ability to premiere the videos to a whole new fan base. 

Some things you may notice, is the difference in frame rate on "Saw Her There," the video now plays completely at 24fps, instead of the variable rates which were seen in the original. We consciously made the choice from the beginning to have the video seem like it was shot from different perspectives all at the same party. Unfortunately the end result was something of an embarrassment for me ever since. Finally you can view the entire video, the way it should have been seen.

For "Falling Star," I was finally able to add moving text elements via motion tracking. I had originally wanted the logo of the band and other text to be floating within the cityscape during the first few minutes of the video, but unfortunately, I was not skilled enough to pull it off at the time of its release. The new effects were both to mine and the band's liking, so it will be a permanent fixture from here on out!

All videos also include my updated tag at the end and new Vice Vega logos.

Thanks for watching!

-P