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Once again, it's been a long time since I've updated. The last 6 months have been interesting. I've gone on tour with a band, done outreach work with Campus Crusade, signed autographs, worked at weddings, and for a while, was in a different part of the northeast every weeekend. As a result of these things, time for me has passed very quickly.

I was not in college this fall. I will be going back in January, but not to RIT. I will be attending Finger Lakes Community College in Canandaigua, NY. At FLCC I will majoring in Music and Recording. This coming semester, I will focus on Music Theory and also personal practice on various instruments(guitar, bass, drums, keyboard.)

I've started writing some new music, but nothing is complete yet. I still haven't decided if it will be for Without Question or for another project (solo release? colaboration? who knows.)

Without Question has been doing well. We played just about every weekend from the beginning of the fall through to the end of October. At that time, we decided it was time to take a break, mostly because it was nearing the end of the RIT fall quarter, and travel was getting expensive for me. We sold a ton of CD's and ordered a second printing that has also sold pretty well. The band was featured in an article by RIT's Reporter magazine. You can read it here. It said I was a 3rd year software engineer, which was funny, cause I haven't been a software major since mid 2007. The other thing I thought was cool, was it's mentioning of me singing my song "Solutio".

An excerpt "The band members all contribute to the variety of the performance by taking lead vocals for certain songs during the set. Rovito gave up leading several times to allow his band mates some mic time. During such an occasion, Lennon sang “Solutio,” an upbeat song that he authored."

What I liked about that quote was that it showed that the band isn't just about one person, but that it is a group effort. I also liked the use of my last name, as I've got a last name that is kind of a big deal in music.

Besides playing drums in Without Question, I had the pleasure of being a sound tech with the Keynote summer project. It was definitely an enriching experience for me, and helped me get out of a pretty low time in my life.

I was attached to a band called Young Isaac. Young Isaac was Owen Yurko of Great Falls, MT on drums, Becca Wolford of Syracuse, NY on bass and backup vocals, Ashleyne Seitz of Oneonta, NY on violin and mandolin, John Shields of Fort Dodge, Iowa on lead acoustic guitar, Alex Barsamian of Hanover, NH on rhythm acoustic guitar, Arwen Fonzen of Madison, Wisconsin on lead vocals, and Kristin Troutman of Harrisburg, PA by way of Westfield, Indiana also singing lead vocals. Also with the band were Seth and Laura Irby of Fisher's, Indiana as the bands' directors and Scott Naylor of Fishers, Indiana as the musical director. I was the sound tech.

Seth, Laura, Scott, and Kristin are all full-time staff with Keynote. Keynote is the music and creative arts ministry of Campus Crusade for Christ. Scott Naylor is part of the full time staff band called Blue Sky Nine. Young Isaac was modeled after Blue Sky Nine, which has a distinctly acoustic sound.

I went to keynote about a week before most of the summer project students arrived. I took a 17 hour bus-ride from New York City to Indianapolis, followed by what should have been a 45 minute car trip, to the apartments where I would spend the next 4 weeks. It was there that I met fellow sound techs Chris Minnick, Jordan Lott, and Stephanie Smith. (She didn't stay in the apartment with us, she stayed with Vicki Guinn, one of the summer project directors). Chris Roemmich (drummer with Proof of Purchase [another summer band])) also came as both he and Minnick were coming from North Dakota. We spent the next couple of days familiarizing ourselves with the area and the keynote pa systems that we would be using. That first weekend was interesting as the Keynote Staff had vacation days before the project started and we were on our own. Being the sound techs that we are, we watched an entire season of The Office.

The next week, the rest of the summer project students arrived in Indiana and things got rolling. The bands met, and rehearsal's commenced. It was a frantic time, having to learn a full set's worth of music, practice stage etiquite, work on conflict resolution and forgiveness, and our own personal testimonies. It was a time of long days (7am to 10pm at times), lot's of fun, and personal struggle. And then tour started....

There were 7 bands at this years summer project. 4 were directly sponsored as part of Keynote, 1 from the latin american movement, Destino, and 2 from the African American movement, Impact. The bands were Mangofish (agressive rock), Proof of Purchase (christian contemporary), Swerve (alt rock), Young Isaac (acoustic), Destino (latin rock), Level 3:16 (gospel) and Soulseed (gospel.) There was also a film track. The film track group made a film called W[rec]k. You can watch the video here.

Young Isaac's tour took the band and me all over the Northeast of the United States. We Started in Wheatfield, Indiana, went to Traverse City, Michigan, then Harrisburg, PA, continuing to Boston, MA, coming back to NY City, NY, then south to Neptune, NJ, turning back and going north to Oneonta, NY, then heading out to Deering, NH, flipping a u-turn at the camp, and coming back to Oneonta, going back south to Sellersville, PA, then Columbus, OH, and finally back to Indianapolis, IN. The band had some interesting experiences, including equipment blowing up, no electricity, rain, late night campfires, homeless people, street musicianship, evangelism, conflict, pool parties, and other craziness. Don't worry though, in another entry I'll get into more detail about those things.

So then the project ended, and I was sad and went back to Long Island. Reverse that 17 hour bus ride, finish it with a 2 hour train trip, and then a good walk home from the station, and I'm back home. However, I didn't seem to get enough travel into my life, so I hooked up with a wedding band, once again as the sound tech, and bounced around the NY metro area. One weekend even invovled a day trip back to Boston. With Without Question we went to Northville, NY, Wilkse-Barre, PA, Rochester, NY, Penn Yan, NY. I also helped my sister move into her apartment in Philadelphia, PA when her semester started.

While I was buzzing around the northeast, several of my friends decided that Fall 2008 is a good time to settle down their lives a bit. Abraham Ruper and Marissa Chamberlain (lead guitar/vox and fiddle/vox in WQ) are engaged and set to be married in May. Eric Johnson (former guitar with RIT Crusade Worship team) and Kasey Nichols (violin at Victory Baptist Church, Rochester) are engaged and getting married in June. James Cliver and Kellie Barbato are engaged. Bradford Evans and Janie Harriman are engaged. Joel Stewart, a role model of mine from when I was a freshman, is getting married at the end of this month. There are several more engagements and new relationships, too numerous for me to remember them all, but suffice to say, there's love in the air in Rochester.

That's about all I have to say for now. Now I'll go back to practicing guitar and working on my new material.

people wish it was summer.