We’ve been hard at work the past couple of months and wanted to give you a quick update of our progress.

New CD!

Hopefully you have been following along with the photos and updates we’ve posted on our web site, Facebook and Twitter but in case you didn’t know, all of the drum tracks are finished for the new CD and we’re currently working on tracking guitars and bass. Things are coming together nicely and we can’t wait to get it all done so we can share it with you. As of right now things are looking good for an end of year/early 2011 release. We will let you know as soon as we have an official date pinned down. We put together a little sneak preview video for you so head over to our website to check it out:

http://www.asysttheband.com

Update on Vic

We also wanted to give an update on our Bassist Vic regarding his medical progress.  If you read from our last newsletter, Vic had to have emergency surgery on his lower back which left him paralyzed from the waist down and was given a 50/50 chance of ever recovering.  In the four months since,  we’re happy to inform you that Vic has made a remarkable recovery so far in the wake of his medical scare.  He has regained a lot of feeling and strength in his lower abs and legs, and is now able to drive and walks with a cane!  Though he’s not out of the woods yet as far as recovery goes, his progress has been remarkable and he’s optimistic of a full recovery.

What is Old is New

Many people haven’t had a chance to hear our first EP/Album ‘Drifting Down’. We released it all the way back in 2004 and only made a few hundred copies. We’re happy to announce that it is now available on our site to listen to and purchase in digital format for only $5! You can also get ‘Destined to be Damned’ for $5 too! You can listen to the full tracks for both albums right from our site and buy them directly from us thanks to bandcamp.com. You have a choice of a bunch of audio formats from regular old mp3 to high quality uncompressed CD quality audio. In addition to the music we have spruced up the web site a little bit – explore it and let us know what you think. Expect a whole new experience to when the new album comes out!

Share, Share, Share

Please feel free to copy and share our music with your friends and fellow music lovers, that is really the best way to help spread the word on our music. Please forward this email to anyone you think would be interested and send them to our site so they can sign up for email updates too. Check out all the links below too to add us on Facebook, Twitter and Myspace too so we can keep in touch with you there too!

We expect a lot more updates for you over the next few months as the album nears completion and release. We can’t wait to get out and play some shows!

Talk to you soon,

Asyst

http://www.asysttheband.com
http://www.facebook.com/asyst
http://www.twitter.com/asysttheband
http://www.myspace.com/asyst

Well it seems like these updates seem to be yearly now, since the last one we sent out was February last year. Sorry about that but we hope you have been able to stay connected with us via Facebook, Myspace or Twitter. That said, we haven’t been sitting idle. We’ve been playing plenty of shows and working on new material and even brought a new player into the fold. Recent times have brought on some challenges as well all of which we’ll cover in this update.

First, we’d like to officially welcome our new guitar player Tim Sankar. We could not have found a better fit for Asyst. He’s a great player, has a great attitude and work ethic and most of all, puts up with the rest of us. If you’ve been able to make it to the last several shows you’ve seen him in action. We put the new album on hold (more on that in a bit) to get him up to speed on our set list and to play some shows together and we are excited to be able to add that extra dimension to our sound.

Second, we wanted to let you know about our bass player Vic. As of late he was having some back issues that were bugging him, but he didn’t let that stop him from giving his all at every show. A few weeks ago the pain got worse until eventually he woke up in the middle of the night without feeling in his legs. He was rushed to Stanford where they told him he had two bulging discs in his spine and needed surgery immediately. Six hours of surgery later, he was in a hospital bed not knowing how much mobility he would have for the rest of his life.

Vic is a fighter though and it was within a day that he started getting feeling back in his legs. His progress has been amazing and after just a few weeks he is already mostly walking on his own. Though we cannot know how difficult all this is for our friend and brother to go through, we know how strong his will is and that will get him to a full recovery. Expect to see him rocking out on stage soon and please send your well wishes his way.

Due to Vic’s present condition we won’t be playing shows for a while and have decided instead to use this opportunity to get our album done. Starting this weekend, we will be locking ourselves away for weekends at a time to get a new CD out for you this year. We can’t believe it’s already been five years since our last CD! You can look forward to hearing a lot of the songs we have been playing over the last couple of years like Middleman, Withdrawn and Pulling Back. There will also be several that you have never heard as we are still finishing up a few new songs. Please be sure to follow us to get updates on the recording as it progresses. We’ll be sure to post photos and maybe some video teasers for ya!

Thanks again for all your support!

Asyst

Winter is almost over and it’s time for Asyst to finally come out of its hibernation! We have a new newsletter, our first shows of 2009 coming up and some line-up changes to announce.

First, we say a fond farewell to Kevin Bongard who is leaving Asyst to focus on school. Kevin’s been with us for about a year and we’ve had a great time playing with him and writing tunes together. We wish him the best of luck and he will hopefully drop in from time to time to jam.

With Kevin leaving, Vic Rodriguez will be back in the band full time!

We have a show at the Pine St. Bar & Grill in Livermore tomorrow and in San Jose at the Caravan the next evening. Check out the show details below. We’d love to see everyone come out and have a good time with us. At the end of March we’ll e playing at the Brookdale Lodge as part of the Your Music Magazine Olympicks – definitely a show you want to mark on your calendar.

You may have noticed the new email format provided by Reverb Nation. They are a cool site that helps little bands like us manage things a little better. So add this email address to your address book so you’ll be sure to get all your messages!

We’re still working on recording some of the new tunes – we’ll have more info on that later but we definitely want to get a new CD done this year – can you believe it’s been 3 years since “Destined to be Damned” was released?

Thanks again for all the support – we’ll try to keep in touch more often. Say hi anytime, you can visit us and be our friend on all kinds of sites like these:

http://www.myspace.com/asyst
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Asyst/21178796896
http://www.reverbnation.com/asyst

-Asyst

Brookdale Lodge
11570 Highway 9
Brookdale, California 95007

The Caravan Lounge
98 S Almaden Ave
San Jose, CA 95113

Pine St. Bar & Grill
875 Rincon Ave
Livermore, CA 94551

Ok this month is not a fancy newsletter but we wanted to give you an end of summer update and let you know about some shows that are coming up.

Shows and welcome back Vic!
The past couple months have been extremely busy for all of us – Mike started a new job, Kevin is prepping for school at UC Davis and I got married. We also re-located our practice space. All this stuff kept us from being able to put any shows together but we were fortunate enough to get a couple to help close out the summer:

Friday August 22nd, 2008
The Lounge Underground
638 Wave St
Monterey, CA 93940
with Power Solo and Hate for State
21 and up

Thursday September 4th, 2008

The Caravan Lounge
98 S Almaden Ave
San Jose, CA 95113
with The Nothing
21 and up – Free

We’d also like to welcome back Vic Rodriguez who will be filling in part-time on bass. In fact, at this Friday’s show at the Lounge Underground we will be playing two sets, one with Vic and one with Kevin! We’ll be playing a bunch of songs from Destined to be Damned as well as the new material so it should be an awesome show.

Recording!
We haven’t been completely idle these past few months. We’re in the process of recording a few of the new tunes and the first is almost done! We’ll let you know as soon as it’s ready and posted online for you to download and listen.

Mailing list!
Keep an eye out for another email from us real soon – we’re moving our mailing list to Reverb Nation which should make sending and signing up for these emails so much easier. If you get a notification, remember to click the link to ‘opt-in’ so that you get all these updates to your email inbox.

That’s it – thanks and hope to see you at one of the upcoming shows! Be sure to check out all these links for more info, songs, videos, pictures, etc…

Website: http://www.asysttheband.com
Myspace: http://www.myspace.com/asyst

Facebook: http://www.new.facebook.com/pages/Asyst/21178796896
Reverb Nation: http://www.reverbnation.com/asyst

-Dipendra

Friendship Gardens

Harvey West Boulevard
Santa Cruz, CA 95060

If you haven’t had a chance to see a show here yet,  you’re in for a treat. It’s just one street back from Cannery Row and couches line the whole back wall. It’s a great place to relax and enjoy some good tunes.

The Lounge Underground
638 Wave St
Monterey, California 93940
$5, 21+