so that whole thing about the construction being done by november 1st? lies. unless there are people outside just running chainsaws all morning because it's a good time.
i just hope they get everything straightened out before they decide it's too cold to work anymore and leave their shit laying around all winter.
i remember they did that once at KSU and it made it basically the most depressing winter ever. nothing like mud, dirt, snow, and slush piled all over a half-complete but temporarily abandoned construction site to give you a case of the stabbies.
Nov 3, 2008
the rumors of my musical demise have been greatly exaggerated
sadly for you. and your friends.
aside from now having pretty much the exact same band/song/album information on reverbnation, myspace, facebook, and the good ol' main page, i'm trying, somehow, in the depths of the most ridiculously busy semester of my life (and that's saying a FUCKING LOT if you've been around me at all in 2006-07 or 2003) to make some new music.
so, aside from writing things on napkins and post-its at 3am while i'm massaging my temples and thinking about taking nyquil just so i can sleep before having to get up at 7am for work, i've been occasionally sketching out some chord progressions and some little jams that might even be cool to play with other people someday. i'm trying to get at least 2, maybe 3 shows scheduled in ohio over break, hopefully at least a few with andrea, who i would be excited as fuck to open for/split a show with because i wouldn't have actually ever tried to write a song or sing if i hadn't met her and it would be cool to do this because of that (oh and she plays the violin so obviously that's badass). the deal is i want to do three different shows, one hour each, with a different setlist for each one. that means 10-15 different songs all three nights, no repeats. i know this won't matter to anyone else because no one person will be at all three shows, but it'll make them more fun and interesting to play and yowza, i just love that i have that many songs i can play right now.
i might have to bust out the notebook a few times to remember lyrics (especially for "caroline"...i get about 6 minutes into that song and remembering the words is like plowing through tolstoy = the hard). but otherwise it should be a good time and hopefully not embarrassing as like i forget i'm not in my living room and just suddenly try playing a wilco song that's entirely out of my vocal range or trying to capo "enemy" up to Fb minor or something.
other than the show(s), i am again/still/whatever working on four different collections of songs currently. i'm trying not to think of them as records yet, but it helps for me to categorize things. i wouldn't get anything done ever otherwise, were it not for the phantom assumption that some of these things go in basket A and some go in basket B. it's one of those things that i just need to do to wrap my brain around songwriting.
so first we have the ricochet lp, which i'm still working on, which is still the rock/jam version of a bunch of not california tracks...i stopped calling it an ep because at this point it's honestly longer than the original not cali lp...which was like 13 tracks and 50 minutes...this thing is like 8 tracks and 55-60 minutes with a bunch of low-fi, grungy, feedback sounds that nobody will want to listen to except me, but i'm excited as fuck about it anyway.
second we have lp3 (it doesn't have a name yet), which will be the collection that has all the fall 2007 songs on it (melody, et al)...i'm picturing it as a side A/side B thing where those six songs are on side A then there's six new songs (including delicate and better to be loved) and then at the end a just-piano song like where i play piano and sing only (a real piano, somehow) for the first time. the sound of this collection is sort of hollow but crisp (if that makes an fucking sense), and i'm envisioning it with lots of harmonies, lots of piano/bells/melodica/weird shit. i want to make it sound like what indie would sound like if it wasn't indie...like indie in the sense that there'll be a lot of weird shit going on, but just because it's fun, not because i want to prove that i'm the musical equivalent of the kid who thinks he's cool because he memorized the dictionary. i'm not that kid.
then, there's a big stupid rock project where i make a stupid rock thing with rock guitars and lyrics about fucking and dancing and smashing the shit out of shit...i will be drawing pretty much entirely on my 2003-04 life for this...so it should be amusing. i want the production on this record to actually be decent though so i might be interested in getting out of my place and trying to record somewhere else. i want the playing to be loud and sloppy but the recording of that sloppy playing to be clean? make sense? no, moving on...i have a few songs for this already that you might have/might not have heard..."w", "world war 3 was a bad idea", and "cost/benefit analysis"
last but not least is the collection i'm totally into at the moment. it's tenatively (and obviously derivative of heartbreaker) called dealbreaker (semi-humorously, semi-homagely)...and it's basically the recording that i've been practicing for like a year to make. in the last six months or so i've been trying to work a lot harder on fingerpicking, on coming up with really interesting patterns and little instrumental breaks and such things, songs that don't really rely on chords at all to hold them together...in the last year or so i've been working really hard on singing; on making my singing better, on learning how breathe (both while singing and otherwise) and on figuring out what i can and can't do with my voice, where i can go with it and where it's going to just not show up. i'm really really excited about this, and i want to take a bunch of songs that are mostly these types of acoustic (maybe slightly electric) melodies and sing a bunch of intricate read: different than any that i've come up with before harmonies and such overtop of them...along with all this fun, i want to really sit down and dig into revising and editing songs instead of just churning them out and try to write like ten songs that are just the most brutally honest, straightforward intense things in the universe (or at least the part of it that's between my eyes).
i have no illusions about how long it's going to take to do all of this during a ph.d program, but i know that music is my lifeline at the moment and it has been for a few years, and it's really what helps me understand a lot of things that, at one time in the past, i would have just run screaming from.
i have an idea for a book also, but since i'm already writing a dissertation, that idea is going to have to wait until post-2011. seems weird to talk about my future in such far-off terms, but there it is. the diss itself is going to be a book in itself (and i'm definitely going to get that fucker published once i'm done with it) but then i'm thinking about and starting to take notes for this crazy sci-fi/lit theory book sort of like snow crash but with medieval/celtic legends as the foundation and some fucking bizarro quantum theory stuff...fuck...it's weird. but i explained it to a really smart colleague of mine the other night (not while drunk) and she would have told me if it was all bullshit and she didn't. so maybe. we'll see.
anyway, i want to keep hammering away at music, and even though i'm looking down the throat of some of this stuff and thinking that it's possible that i won't get it recorded in satisfactory format for years yet, maybe, i've got to keep working at it and making a little progress here and there as i can and not let it turn into another job (i have enough of those currently) but also not just let it fall to the wayside. music rocks my socks (my boring-ass black socks) and i need to keep writing...but first, to dig myself out of this graduate work hole i've currently drunk/drank/drinken myself into, and then kick some acoustic ass in december.
i will try to bring an MXL or two home on the plane so i can matrix-record any gigs. i will try. without mixmaster mike there, though, who knows what will happen.
to bed for now. if i don't sleep soon, i'll wake up when it's dark out. and that's always fucked for morale. bon soir.
aside from now having pretty much the exact same band/song/album information on reverbnation, myspace, facebook, and the good ol' main page, i'm trying, somehow, in the depths of the most ridiculously busy semester of my life (and that's saying a FUCKING LOT if you've been around me at all in 2006-07 or 2003) to make some new music.
so, aside from writing things on napkins and post-its at 3am while i'm massaging my temples and thinking about taking nyquil just so i can sleep before having to get up at 7am for work, i've been occasionally sketching out some chord progressions and some little jams that might even be cool to play with other people someday. i'm trying to get at least 2, maybe 3 shows scheduled in ohio over break, hopefully at least a few with andrea, who i would be excited as fuck to open for/split a show with because i wouldn't have actually ever tried to write a song or sing if i hadn't met her and it would be cool to do this because of that (oh and she plays the violin so obviously that's badass). the deal is i want to do three different shows, one hour each, with a different setlist for each one. that means 10-15 different songs all three nights, no repeats. i know this won't matter to anyone else because no one person will be at all three shows, but it'll make them more fun and interesting to play and yowza, i just love that i have that many songs i can play right now.
i might have to bust out the notebook a few times to remember lyrics (especially for "caroline"...i get about 6 minutes into that song and remembering the words is like plowing through tolstoy = the hard). but otherwise it should be a good time and hopefully not embarrassing as like i forget i'm not in my living room and just suddenly try playing a wilco song that's entirely out of my vocal range or trying to capo "enemy" up to Fb minor or something.
other than the show(s), i am again/still/whatever working on four different collections of songs currently. i'm trying not to think of them as records yet, but it helps for me to categorize things. i wouldn't get anything done ever otherwise, were it not for the phantom assumption that some of these things go in basket A and some go in basket B. it's one of those things that i just need to do to wrap my brain around songwriting.
so first we have the ricochet lp, which i'm still working on, which is still the rock/jam version of a bunch of not california tracks...i stopped calling it an ep because at this point it's honestly longer than the original not cali lp...which was like 13 tracks and 50 minutes...this thing is like 8 tracks and 55-60 minutes with a bunch of low-fi, grungy, feedback sounds that nobody will want to listen to except me, but i'm excited as fuck about it anyway.
second we have lp3 (it doesn't have a name yet), which will be the collection that has all the fall 2007 songs on it (melody, et al)...i'm picturing it as a side A/side B thing where those six songs are on side A then there's six new songs (including delicate and better to be loved) and then at the end a just-piano song like where i play piano and sing only (a real piano, somehow) for the first time. the sound of this collection is sort of hollow but crisp (if that makes an fucking sense), and i'm envisioning it with lots of harmonies, lots of piano/bells/melodica/weird shit. i want to make it sound like what indie would sound like if it wasn't indie...like indie in the sense that there'll be a lot of weird shit going on, but just because it's fun, not because i want to prove that i'm the musical equivalent of the kid who thinks he's cool because he memorized the dictionary. i'm not that kid.
then, there's a big stupid rock project where i make a stupid rock thing with rock guitars and lyrics about fucking and dancing and smashing the shit out of shit...i will be drawing pretty much entirely on my 2003-04 life for this...so it should be amusing. i want the production on this record to actually be decent though so i might be interested in getting out of my place and trying to record somewhere else. i want the playing to be loud and sloppy but the recording of that sloppy playing to be clean? make sense? no, moving on...i have a few songs for this already that you might have/might not have heard..."w", "world war 3 was a bad idea", and "cost/benefit analysis"
last but not least is the collection i'm totally into at the moment. it's tenatively (and obviously derivative of heartbreaker) called dealbreaker (semi-humorously, semi-homagely)...and it's basically the recording that i've been practicing for like a year to make. in the last six months or so i've been trying to work a lot harder on fingerpicking, on coming up with really interesting patterns and little instrumental breaks and such things, songs that don't really rely on chords at all to hold them together...in the last year or so i've been working really hard on singing; on making my singing better, on learning how breathe (both while singing and otherwise) and on figuring out what i can and can't do with my voice, where i can go with it and where it's going to just not show up. i'm really really excited about this, and i want to take a bunch of songs that are mostly these types of acoustic (maybe slightly electric) melodies and sing a bunch of intricate read: different than any that i've come up with before harmonies and such overtop of them...along with all this fun, i want to really sit down and dig into revising and editing songs instead of just churning them out and try to write like ten songs that are just the most brutally honest, straightforward intense things in the universe (or at least the part of it that's between my eyes).
i have no illusions about how long it's going to take to do all of this during a ph.d program, but i know that music is my lifeline at the moment and it has been for a few years, and it's really what helps me understand a lot of things that, at one time in the past, i would have just run screaming from.
i have an idea for a book also, but since i'm already writing a dissertation, that idea is going to have to wait until post-2011. seems weird to talk about my future in such far-off terms, but there it is. the diss itself is going to be a book in itself (and i'm definitely going to get that fucker published once i'm done with it) but then i'm thinking about and starting to take notes for this crazy sci-fi/lit theory book sort of like snow crash but with medieval/celtic legends as the foundation and some fucking bizarro quantum theory stuff...fuck...it's weird. but i explained it to a really smart colleague of mine the other night (not while drunk) and she would have told me if it was all bullshit and she didn't. so maybe. we'll see.
anyway, i want to keep hammering away at music, and even though i'm looking down the throat of some of this stuff and thinking that it's possible that i won't get it recorded in satisfactory format for years yet, maybe, i've got to keep working at it and making a little progress here and there as i can and not let it turn into another job (i have enough of those currently) but also not just let it fall to the wayside. music rocks my socks (my boring-ass black socks) and i need to keep writing...but first, to dig myself out of this graduate work hole i've currently drunk/drank/drinken myself into, and then kick some acoustic ass in december.
i will try to bring an MXL or two home on the plane so i can matrix-record any gigs. i will try. without mixmaster mike there, though, who knows what will happen.
to bed for now. if i don't sleep soon, i'll wake up when it's dark out. and that's always fucked for morale. bon soir.
Nov 2, 2008
ahhhhh...the fucking panthers
there are three teams in the universe of my madden franchise that can make me shoot fire of fury out of my eye sockets on a regular basis. one team is the rams, who at least earn my fury by showing up and playing well and sometimes beating me. then there's the seahawks, who are pretty good (but not good enough), and yet somehow always seem to either pull off a win or put up an unacceptably difficult fight (see week one of this season for evidence of this). then there's the carolina panthers, who are absolutely fucking horrible but through any number of random contrivances always seem to beat me. like in last night's game, where they were leading 14-10 at halftime despite the fact that i had 250 total yards and they had 15. i had 14 first downs and they had zero. zero. i'll just let that sink in...
they went on to win 34-27 while garnering a mind-numbingly low 200 total yards. almost 100 of those yards were gained on 2 separate pass plays that both involved the ball bouncing off someone else's helmet before it was caught. 21 of their 34 points came from either special teams or defense. it was unacceptably ridiculous. yet, here we are, 3-1, and another year of undefeated awesomeness possibility is out of reach.
here's a picture of something that ernie did good before everything went to hell:
they went on to win 34-27 while garnering a mind-numbingly low 200 total yards. almost 100 of those yards were gained on 2 separate pass plays that both involved the ball bouncing off someone else's helmet before it was caught. 21 of their 34 points came from either special teams or defense. it was unacceptably ridiculous. yet, here we are, 3-1, and another year of undefeated awesomeness possibility is out of reach.
here's a picture of something that ernie did good before everything went to hell:
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| From Other and Posts |
Nov 1, 2008
droekening
 |
| From fall 08 |
greeting the morning with a "smile".
great halloween. it's one of those few particular days of the year that i feel should be celebrated with an incredibly long, digressive, jamming rock concert (along with NYE), but since that wasn't happening (obviously), it should instead have been celebrated by dancing, alcohol, and tomfoolery. and oh, it was.
glad i'm finally learning to kind of get out of my work-zone a little. it's really good for me. and i'm surrounded by really good people that i would totally just fly by otherwise.
at some point tonight i need to hit avery for some serious reading, but right now my head feels like it's on fire. and blowing up and dying and shit.
so i'm going to call a few peeps and then take a nap and probably get up and eat and what the fuck probably also finally - finally - listen to cardinology. then the show's over and it's back to work. but what a great vacation. thing.
more later on the cardinology perhaps.
oh...there are real pictures from last night, but not on my camera, on someone else's. so if there are any, once i see them, that don't involve me making a complete ass of me, i'll post them. unlikely there will be, though.
BZANG!
oh fuck the ceiling tiles are moving independently of one another.
which is extra interesting because the ceiling doesn't have tiles.
happy early thanksgiving everyone. my feet are currently made of marshmallows and perseus wings.
i'm drinkiing 2 litres of water so when i wake up i'm not all like 'URAGH!!!!' AND JUNK.
whoa. caps lock check.
i'd like to write meaningful shit because i'ts always funny to reread in the morning when i'm super-sober but...no.
i will not.
i also want to smoke cigarettes but i will not do that. mostly because i am currently wearing pajamas with santa claus on them and am shirtless. i think my shit might get arrested and shit.
have a lovely e3vening. i hope i dream about sexy dragons that come to earth in human form.
i hope you do, too.
which is extra interesting because the ceiling doesn't have tiles.
happy early thanksgiving everyone. my feet are currently made of marshmallows and perseus wings.
i'm drinkiing 2 litres of water so when i wake up i'm not all like 'URAGH!!!!' AND JUNK.
whoa. caps lock check.
i'd like to write meaningful shit because i'ts always funny to reread in the morning when i'm super-sober but...no.
i will not.
i also want to smoke cigarettes but i will not do that. mostly because i am currently wearing pajamas with santa claus on them and am shirtless. i think my shit might get arrested and shit.
have a lovely e3vening. i hope i dream about sexy dragons that come to earth in human form.
i hope you do, too.
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