I tell you what, it has been a crazy few weeks getting all the sections together for this issue as well as a few surprises. We have some great things lined up for you in this issue. The Tastyfresh.com staff and I have been hard at work planning the rest of this years magazine, Afterhours, as well as some things for the future of Tastyfresh.com. One of the ways we will be going about the changes is going to be a survey. This will be coming out in the next few weeks. I want everyone here to take that survey as soon as it goes live. This will give us the information on what the community wants and needs so that we can make sure those things are being provided.

Twenty-five years ago, a group for Christians with a love for music decided to put together a festival dedicated to Christian Rock. Over the course of twenty-five years, that festival has changed locations and expanded to cover everything dealing with Christians and well… creativity. The festival’s name: Cornerstone. The festival’s founders: Jesus People USA. The festival’s location: Bushnell, IL.

 As common when something has been around for a quarter century, this year’s Cornerstone Festival will be a huge celebration. We here at Tastyfresh.com are proud to not only be present at this celebration, but to help put it on in our own special way. This year, we’re going to have a truly huge party.

Doug Theodore, Jeremy Kadinger, Kevin Oneel and myself starting planning for the 2008 Afterhours Club stage before we had even gotten out of Bushnell last summer.  After the huge success of last year with Kenneth Thomas, Greg “Stryke” Chin, Joel Armstrong, BTU Productions and all the other DJs, we knew we would be hard pressed to beat it. We also ran into another snag when we found out that there would be a 25th Anniversary program on July 4th which would shut down every stage until midnight.  Despite all of that, I think we might be set up to outdo ourselves this year. So without further delay, I give you the Afterhours 2008 Line-up!

I just wanted to share a few things with you as far as things going on with Tastyfresh.com’s official generator stage. Many of you know and have seen pictures that show the great success the generator stage had in promotion of our main venue at the Cornerstone Music Festival.  We pretty much had music, fellowship, lounging, and overall a thick hanging-out vibe occurring from noon to 7 pm each day of the festival.  Jeremy Kadinger was the ring leader of the generator stage last year and did a phenomenal job.  He set the timeslots, set up and tore down every day and brought a van down as a DJ Booth. Those of us who went to Cornerstone looked at a lot of the things that happened at the generator stage as seed planting.  People were reminded to get their behinds down to the barn for Afterhours each night as they heard thick beats and nice melodies emerging from the speakers at the generator stage.

In the last issue we discussed the 1st part of professionalism as an artist.  We dove into the artist’s general professional behavior and his attitudes toward professionalism.  I think that we laid a pretty good solid foundation to build upon.  I thought it was important to do that to understand the general behavior of a successful artist.  We now will move onto more meat on how to secure gigs that will help your career locally, regionally and so on as you expand your influence.  We will also discuss ways to hold onto the connections you desperately need to maintain your money making ability.  Hopefully we as a community are using some of the thoughts from the first part of this two part series.

Drums are the common element in all forms of electronic music.  Getting your drums to beat down dance floors takes some knowledge and a little work.  The kick drum and its relationship to the bass can be crucial for getting a great sounding recording.  Here are a few tips and guidelines to follow to get your rhythm section sounding big and translating on a lot of different systems. 

It’s the day after St. Patty’s day and we’re back again with another mix. This time around we’ve got Christopher Carl and Andy Hunter°. I also take a moment to let you know about the 2008 Afterhours Club lineup for the Cornerstone Music Festival.