Hey Irony I Wanna Be Friends

Back from break

2012-01-29T16:38:00.001-08:00

So winter break was about as eventful as winter breaks can be! I'm feeling a mix of emotions right now, mostly because it's over. Brazil was a truly unique experience. The weather could've been better, but Julia and I did a lot of things that were unique to Brazil, and if such a thing is possible, I feel even closer to her now. The food and coffee were particularly amazing, and I really plan on jumping at the next chance I have to go back to Rio, be it for the 2014 World Cup or something more immediate. We also played lots and lots of Civ III, which neither of us had played previously. At first it was the most goddamn difficult game in the universe, but we improved quite a bit. Unfortunately, now that I've updated my operating system to OS X Lion, I can't play it anymore! Talk about bummers...

After Brazil, we spent a week out in Geneseo while Julia started school. Bumming around while she was gone was kind of strange, but it was worth it just to spend that extra time with her. I was home for a week after that, and I think that made me feel pretty crazy. I just sat around listening to Dio-era Sabbath and surfing Reddit, so I guess in a sense it's nice to be back at school. It's the last semester, and I can truly say it's been interesting, but I don't really feel I can say much else at this juncture. A mix of good and bad things, lots of learning, lots of discomfort, some growing pains, some newfound maturity (I think). It's even weirder because I'm not actually taking any class (just senior project), so while I have a lot to do, it'll pretty much just be me pushing myself, something to which I sort of exposed myself last semester, but this time is more extreme nevertheless. I do have time commitments, like working at that coffee place and doing a few odd jobs around campus for cash, plus I need to get out to Geneseo to see Julia as often as I can. I'm already starting to realize what a strange semester it'll be, both because of my relative lack of things to do and Julia's overabundance of them. My own needs have to take a backseat, but it's hard to actually put that thought into practice sometimes. Nevertheless, I think the whole thing is something truly special, so it just boils down to treating important things like important things.

On a less important note, Ajax's season pretty much ended today (barring a few miracles) with a 4-2 defeat away at Feyenoord. I woke up hung over as shit at 8:30 ready to watch the match, only to realize that it had started at 6:30 and that Ajax had lost. With that, I ran to the toilet, vomited violently, and went back to sleep. I daresay the day has improved since then, but last season, really my first supporting Ajax, was amazing, an unexpected amount of glory culminating in a triumphant final-day victory over Twente. I think Twente will take the Eredivisie and PSV will take the cup, so that's settled; honestly, at this rate, the club may not play in Europe at all next season. I will love the Godenzonen forever either way, so this is only a small setback for a team with some of the best young players in the world. Onwards!

Busy busy busy busy

2011-12-05T18:52:00.000-08:00

So towards the end of each semester, it really does become impossible to not make plans. Tonight, Monday, is the only night this week in which I have nothing to do, so I'm spending it writing a paper due in a week and a half because I have concerts to attend, as well as traffic court on Wednesday for a parking ticket I picked up more than a month ago. It's been taped to the wall next to my door so I don't forget, and I'm also starting to use the crude "Calendar" on my phone, which is by no means a smartphone.

At the same time, I'm also gearing up for my first senior concert. I had misgivings about my initial idea, which was to record a guitar loop on the fly and put it through a bunch of different effects for ten minutes or so, but I got to hear some sick cassette recordings of the Bard gamelan and that gave me a better idea, so I'm gonna use those to make what will probably be a much better final product. Still, armed with this idea, I now have to rush rush rush to make everything I want for this concert. Normally I'd have winter break to do it, but as I'm heading to Brazil in a little under three weeks (!), that's not really an option. It's an interesting thing: work hard now to relax later!

Action!

2011-11-27T21:27:00.000-08:00

So after a great Thanksgiving break, everything feels much better! I'm not really happy to be back at Bard, but the past few days have really made me realize how great my life is, and how much I have to be thankful for. I don't really want to go back and read my last entry, so I won't comb over the fine points, but honestly there's a ton for me to be excited about. Realistically speaking, whatever happens in the next year or two will probably be the most radical shift in my life ever, and that's a crazy thought, but the more I think about it, the more I'm comfortable with that. Julia and I made a list of things we can do to "be better people," and looking at it, a lot of what we wrote was unrelated to "adulthood" or "moving forward." It was little things, like learning to make soda, or traveling, or getting in shape, or learning to garden, valuable experiences entirely separate from career-mindedness or any expectations of what postgraduate life should be like.

Still, baby steps. The semester ends in about three weeks, and in that time I have a lot to figure out and practice and brainstorm, since I'm spending most of winter break in Brazil before coming back and pretty much jumping right into my first senior concert. Funny enough, my beloved Ajax is going to be in Brazil over the holiday, although they're staying in Sao Paulo so nothing can really come of that. Project or no, it'll be really satisfying to enjoy summer weather in January, and that'll be doubled because I paid for the trip myself. Excitement all around!

Not good enough

2011-11-18T22:13:00.001-08:00

It's 1 AM. I'm listening to Vaccine. Today has been such an unbelievably shitty day that I'm seriously considering just fucking driving somewhere tomorrow, getting a motel room, turning off my phone, and letting people think I've been kidnapped or something. I know full well that that won't happen, that I'm too levelheaded to do something even slightly rash or out of the ordinary, but the thought of doing something blatantly for attention is really appealing right now. Such has been my approach to the world that I now feel like people passively become my friends more because they're afraid of letting me down than because they actually like me. Same applies to family, too: I think I spent so much time making it clear that I wanted to do my own thing and that I don't really need help that they're more or less not really in my life, but right now I want to feel like I mean something, and there really is nobody there to do that. For all my grandstanding and pretending I'm my own little island, I really just want to share and love and all that, but I'm scared. Nothing I'm doing feels right and nobody will ever care because I'll never allow myself to scream for help even though every time I'm reminded how alone I am I can privately spend full days feeling like I'm going insane, wanting to vent, and wanting to die, but always being too restrained to do anything but tell everyone I'm fine, which only makes it worse.

Lately I've been thinking a lot about how fun Summerscape was, which is a funny thing because while I was doing it I thought it was monotonous and lonesome. As such, I'm not really sure how it was. I think in hindsight, the lack of stress I felt while doing that is very appealing, especially given how up against it I feel now.

The funny thing is, in terms of moving towards graduation, I'm doing better now than ever. I'm positively hurtling towards what I want to do, but I've never felt so placid and uninspired, even now that I've found a medium in which I can create something special. Necessity is the mother of invention, which is why I can keep churning out things I think are cool, but I guess it's always been my nature to get into a routine from which I'm afraid of breaking, but about which I will complain endlessly, to myself and others. For example, the boldness to go get a job is the sort of thing that will get me lots of jobs, but I'm not sure it'll get me any jobs I really want. While I'm only 21 now, I could easily wake up one day aged 55 having, in a blur of monotony, spent my entire normal adulthood obsessing over something (anything: chasing a dream, working a decent-paying job at which I am good, going to goddamn Ghana and teaching English, all for example) but never really attaining the heights I set out for, having settled for nothing special 20 years prior. I guess what this all boils down to is that I'm very good at convincing myself of what I want, but I'm not at all sure where that'll lead me, and absolutely not convinced it'll ever take me anywhere happy or successful if I let myself do everything alone.

Well cooooool

2011-11-14T21:35:00.000-08:00

So in the week since I last posted on here, a lot's been going on! I've slowly been recovering my health (I think, though it's not perfect), I started work at that coffee place, and as of tonight, I kind of finished the "Blender." There are a few kinks, like an LED issue I hope to have resolved in the morning and an issue where it starts to distort at higher "blending" frequencies which may be an issue with the buffer or may be an issue with the whole thing I'm trying to do (rapidly opening and closing switches may not be the easiest on the ol' 4066 chip). I made a schematic for it in EAGLE but I had to change a few things on the fly, so I'll be fixing that and posting it on here, as well as maybe on another blog, if I decide to start one solely devoted to electronics.

In other news, my friend Ben and I are making a spur-of-the-moment trip down to Brooklyn tomorrow to see Fucked Up, a band both he and I will always love, as they supposedly prepare to go on hiatus or maybe break up. Their new album isn't the best thing they've done, and they're playing it in its entirety, but their last album wasn't the best thing they've done either and seeing that played live still ruled, and I got my glasses broken. Really looking forward to it, though I'll have to drive back to Bard the same night in order to be around for work in the morning. Oh well!

Longer-term, it sounds like things are shaping up with regards to my moving to Rochester next fall in order to study electronics more in-depth and be closer to Julia. I'm really looking forward to that, and it sounds ideal: both enough space to do my own thing (i.e. learn) but more proximity than I have here, and the ability to see her anytime we want. She also brought up the prospect of, after she graduates, traveling around for a while on very little money and seeing things. I sort of panicked, honestly, because I was thinking like, "wait, what about my career?!" but I've been thinking about it since she brought it up and it sounds better and better the more I think about it. I'll have my whole life to do electronics and play music, but not my whole life to do things young people do, like see the world. It's important to disrupt one's routine, and sometimes I forget that, but it sounds like it'd be an invaluable experience. I don't know where she wants to travel (we've discussed Central America in the past), but personally I'd push for Europe, given the ease of transportation and a certain interest in all things European. Anyway, that's in the pretty far future, but an exciting thought nevertheless!

Back to it!

2011-11-06T17:37:00.001-08:00

Just got back from an overall incredible weekend in Geneseo. Julia's so unbelievably special, and there are these moments where I want absolutely nothing in the world other than to spend time with her. I feel like it's a sort of thing some people spend their entire lives searching for and never find; then again, maybe I'm shortsighted and almost everyone finds it at some point, or something. All I mean to say is that I'm an unbelievably lucky guy.

Unfortunately, the bliss surrounding my romantic situation right now does not extend to my own health, which, unfortunately, is less than ideal. My mom raised me to avoid antibiotics at all costs, arguing that they create super-viruses, so I've had a certain intestinal problem for about three months now that I've been trying to sort of treat naturally, by eating things that are right for it and the like. Unfortunately, I feel like that hasn't done much or anything, so my immune system is fucked and I'm experiencing many, many other symptoms specific to this thing. I am now aware that I should've called a doctor a long time ago, but my record of health has been such during my lifetime that pretty much everything has gone away on its own, and I've never really been ill for more than a week at a time. As such, I'm just now deciding to seek medical help, and as such, tomorrow (Monday) morning cannot come soon enough, because it is then that I know when I get to go to Hudson to beg some lady for antibiotics. In my experience, antibiotics are honestly great. I got lyme disease a few years ago and I felt much better a few hours after taking my first hit of doxycycline, although the shitty thing there was that I had to go through the first month of college (the really warm part) avoiding exposure to sun because I was very at risk for sunburn, as well as being too weak to really go to the gym, and probably prompting the first my many slides out of fitness.

And if I don't feel too shitty to function tomorrow (like if I feel how I do now tomorrow I'm not going to class), I'm going to get started on soldering my newest thing, which I might call "The Blender." I'm not sure if I talked about it already, but essentially it takes two signals and blends them in a fucked-up manner. As such, it'll be two-input and three-output, one for the effect and two to bypass each of the incoming signals so the box doesn't just eat two things' signals. To my knowledge nobody has done this exact thing before in one box, although I guess I haven't looked very hard. It uses a bit of that same WSG circuit, plus a cool use for an NE555 timing chip that I found Casper Electronics using, but there's a lot more to it that I can't really think about right now because that is one of the symptoms of what I have. Ick.

Happy Halloween!

2011-10-31T20:41:00.000-07:00

The thing is, every year of college thus far has featured Halloween on a day that could reasonably be considered "the weekend." Friday my first year, Saturday the next, and even Sunday last year sort of kind of was reason enough to "go out." As I recall, Julia and I went to see Titus Andronicus at SMOG, and it was a pretty laid-back affair (in Halloween terms), but it was still something. This year it's on a Monday, and despite the fact that I've had a few fun-sized Milky Ways and Kline played "spooky" sound effects all through dinner, I'm not really feeling it this year, which I guess is a shame, because the end of college (in my opinion) marks the end of the Halloween revival, the absolute last time you can dress up for Halloween and have it not be weird. Then again, it's very possible that I hate fun and this won't be the case at all, but I kind of feel like it'll be time to Take Myself Seriously.

To that end, I sent in a resume today to try to grab a part-time job at the college museum's tiny little new cafe. It's insane that a coffee shop needs a resume, sort of in the same way that it's insane that I may not have the "people skills" required to serve coffee. It's coffee, for Christ's sake. Still, four more hours of work would be a little extra money, and one can never have enough of that, for if one has money, one can drive to Geneseo to visit Julia, which is what I'm doing on Wednesday. I'm really excited, even though it sounds like she has tons of work, which is the norm. It really has been too long, and I can't wait to show her my new wheels, take her fun places, and generally be close to her. I feel like my inexperience with relationships has sort of come out again as she's moved out to Geneseo, but I need to remember that something as wonderful as this isn't to be taken for granted, and to treat her as such. Since we all have So Many Things going on, it's sometimes easy to lose sight of how things have to be done, and a relationship should always be fresh and new, in a way. She's really a beautiful, amazing girl, and showing her that is really the least I can do. In short, I really have to remember how lucky I am.

In lighter news, my new favorite thing on TV is Community. I have a Boardwalk Empire episode to watch, right off the back of easily the best of the current season, but after a month-long Breaking Bad binge, it's really refreshing to have a relief from heavy hourlong dramas in the form of short, funny, and witty 20-minute episodes that you can watch three of without feeling drained.

I also started work on a new gadget today, an early step in a piece for guitar and electronics I'm working on, tentatively titled "Degrade." Essentially, the piece will start with a short, minimal, kind of pretty acoustic guitar loop (already written), and over time, the loop will be degraded through the use of electronic effects. The thing I started making will (I hope) take an incoming signal (say, a clean guitar) and, at regular intervals, interrupt the guitar with another sound. Both the interval and the duration of the interrupting sound will be adjustable, and there will be a "dry/wet" knob. In theory, one could split one's electric guitar signal and run one through one effect and one through another (octaves?), and rapidly switch between one and the other using this thing. If one wanted, one could make a self-contained single-input/single-output effect using this, and I bet it'd do some seriously weird things. One day, one day...

Lots of thought!

2011-10-24T22:05:00.000-07:00

I had a sorta weird day today. Despite sleeping for a good long while, I went through the entire day just wanting to go back to sleep. It was one of those sleepy, headachey days, and I'm not sure if caffeine addiction or "the wrong side of the bed" should take the blame. Regardless, I had to get to class (eventually), and since my hot-ass white 2001 Chevy Lumina (owww!) is still getting tuned up, I had to walk the fair distance to central campus anyway, so I wasn't really afforded any naptime. On a whim I decided to go to Kline (the cafeteria), and it was "Food Day". There were samples of goat cheeses (with signs saying "please only take one of each"), and a woman handing out quarter-full Dixie cups of Vita Coco, of which I have lots in my room. They also had lots of strawberries (very out of season) and no apples (very in season), so I don't get the "wholesome" image they were definitely trying to cultivate. I guess another surprise was that despite having "better" food, I probably ate less during that meal than I have in a while.

I then had my first ever conversation with Peter Gadsby, one of two Englishmen (that I know of) among Bard's faculty. Like Richard Aldous (apparently a diehard Ipswich Town man), Gadsby is a big football fan (of Chelsea, though he disapproves of Abramovich, which is alright). We had a nice little talk, mainly about money in the game. Talking to people like him and Richard always make me envious in a way, because they became fans of the game when teams held onto players, and before billionaires could just buy a club with no glorious history and splash cash on whoever they wanted. I read an article today on being left cold by much of the game nowadays, and I have to say, a little over a year into my avid following of the sport, I can only really get excited when Ajax or (to a lesser extent) Holland plays. I find Barcelona-Real Madrid to be a fucking borefest regardless of the "sublime" quality, and nothing in the English game really seems to matter. Italy's league is honestly a little better, particularly this season, but unfortunately, watching Ajax struggle to draws at home against teams they really should be beating (they were lucky to draw against Feyenoord) is an added downer to go with the fact that big clubs will be knocking on the door for Vertonghen and Eriksen. (Judging by his performances so far this season, they can have van der Wiel.)

Musically, I received my copy of "Welsh's Synthesizer Cookbook" in the mail today, only to discover that it isn't at all what I'm looking for. I do not care how to use a Serge to make sounds like a clarinet. Sorry, man.

Proud owner of a few new things

2011-10-22T14:11:00.000-07:00

So I drove my first car, my beloved red 1996 Volvo 850 Turbo, to its death yesterday morning. Yes, I drove it to a junkyard. By now, it's probably a metal cube, but yesterday it was a sometimes-running machine full of memories. I kissed Julia for the first time in that car, I moved gear to and from countless shows in that car, I slept in that car, and I went everywhere in that car. It didn't sound good, it had no stereo, the trunk didn't work, but it was definitively my car. It is being replaced by a 2001 Chevy Lumina sedan, clearly a car previously owned by an old lady, with less storage space, much better mileage, and a tape deck. I love that it doesn't make noises, but mostly I love the tape deck. To celebrate (stupidly), I just bought a sealed copy of the last Carcass album (the cock-rock one) for $8. I know that album has its haters, but I think it's great; that said, I can't afford to keep paying $8 here and $10 here on little things like that when I need to pretty much be spending money on components, gas money/travel expenses where need be, and maybe a little beer. A Little Beer. I think I'm generally pretty responsible with my money, but these little impulse buys on the Internet can really add up. Oh well, at least I have Swansong on cassette, so that's cool.

Finished synth, other things

2011-10-20T10:39:00.001-07:00

This is it! Not the first synth I've ever built, but the first I've enclosed and the first I've done extensive tinkering on myself. Battery-powered only, two oscillators into two outputs with individual low-pass filters and "blend" control. I've messed around with it for a few hours and it sounds great, and I'm hoping to record it soon, maybe later today. Next up I'm going to finish my Ampeg Scrambler clone, a pretty simple transistor-based circuit which, if it really does sound as insane as Youtube suggests, will certainly warrant some breadboarding. I also want to build another synth using NAND gates (the one I just finished uses inverters) and live input, possibly to be driven by small, simple oscillator circuits which I can patch in. Apart from that, I'm going to try my hand at an envelope follower, which seems to be (according to Bob Bielecki) the thing for synths, a voltage-controlled amplifier, and, specifically for the synth I just made, a buffered-bypass compressor for the end of an effects chain, especially if nothing I try with it can do a bit to reduce the high end my beast pumps out when the filter's cutoff frequency is very high.

I have to say, it's interesting that this is very much going to define my last year at Bard College, especially since it coincides with Julia being absolutely loaded with classes out in Geneseo. As I write this she is taking a Chemistry test, which really couldn't be more distant from what I'm up to. If I move out to Rochester next year (and please, only for a year), she'll still be very busy (double major + philosophy minor) and I'll kind of be in the "real world," though I want whatever I do to afford me ample time to learn more about electronics, as well as the obvious proximity to her, which is still very much the main reason for my planned course of action after college. To the electronics end, I purchased Welsh's Synthesizer Cookbook yesterday, which looks like it'll have a ton of good ideas, and to the Julia end, I am trying to find a new car to replace my dead '96 Volvo. I wonder if someone would give me 200 bucks for it...

What else? I am trying very, very hard to switch from drinking copious amounts of coffee to drinking copious amounts of black tea, particularly Earl Grey, which has always been my go-to. This is mainly for digestive reasons, although my body (at least initially, this time) doesn't seem to really like Earl Grey either. It's possible that it's other things, too, though: I've been taking Wheat Grass powder, eating at pretty irregular hours, not sleeping enough, looking for a new car, etc., all of which can take its toll (though it's probably not the car). My beloved Ajax, off the back of a horrendous run which has seen one win (against Noordwijk, a fourth-tier side) in seven games, put in a fine performance in Zagreb, Croatia to put them ahead of Lyon on goal difference halfway through the Champions League group stages. This is a bit of excitement after a very shaky draw with AZ in the run-up to the year's first Klassieker, which should be a tighter affair than in years past, what with Ajax not performing consistently (on which I can only partly blame injuries) and Feyenoord being a much stronger side this year.

And whoa, (former) Libyan dictator Muammar Qaddafi is dead. Seemed like a horrible leader and person, so I'm not so sad to see him go, but I wonder where those who hold power will go now that the loyalist movement there is well and truly dead. I've heard that there's been a lot of infighting, and given the vast diversity in cultural/religious identity in the Middle East, I can't really see that region being ruled by anything other than autocrats. Then again, I'm not exactly a political authority, so who knows? Read news.

Wow

2011-10-17T21:11:00.000-07:00

So because my car is barely still a car, I've been walking everywhere. The music building, where I do my work, could not be farther from Manor, where I live, so today I spent upwards of fourteen hours out of my room, despite still being on campus. Weird!

In that time, I "completed" a ten-minute piece for Electronic Music Composition, which, I'm sad to say, I kind of half-assed. The first five minutes were an earlier piece I'm pretty proud of, but after spending two unsatisfying hours messing around with my friend Flo's Utopia Synth, which I'd been hoping to do something with, I sort of redid an existing piece with some new sounds, a few of which came from the Utopia Synth, and honestly, I don't like it as much. Richard Teitelbaum has been adamant that we are to try our hand at making a longer piece, but while I appreciate being challenged, the timing was not right for this.

Unfortunately, I find that timing is always a problem with me and experimental music. I always feel like if I can just get my hands on that one piece of gear, my setup will lack nothing, and I'll be able to produce tons of great sounds. Lately that one piece is the synth I'm building, and after that I'm almost sure it'll be the Ampeg Scrambler clone. After that, who knows? Another synth? I hate that I'm never able to focus on one particular instrument long enough to master it, as evidenced by my flirtations with guitar and drums, although with both of those I feel like the issue has honestly been the lengths to which one must go to practice at Bard (walk to security, surrender meal-giving ID, get key, practice, walk back to security, etc.). Ideally, when I have my own place, I'll be able to play whatever whenever, although obviously that's more realistic in a huge house than in a small apartment, which sadly seems to be the recent college graduate's destiny. I did end up playing drums today, and it was still a ton of fun. When I'm able to practice consistently for a week or two it all comes back, and I remember why I love playing drums, but in the meantime it's hard, and my drum setup certainly isn't ideal either. Jesus, my snare sucks. Sounds like a tub!

Anyway, Bob Bielecki is going to take a look at the troublesome filter circuit in my synth tomorrow. Thing works for about fifteen seconds, then powers down, then works for another fifteen when powered back up. Probably a capacitor problem, but I'm really at my wit's end trying to figure out what the hell's the matter. From there, the sky's the limit!

Man...

2011-10-17T17:20:00.000-07:00

I've noticed that I always do this thing, and it's starting to get to me: I develop a mindset where I feel like I need ONE MORE THING to be able to achieve my goal. This applies primarily to the music I make; despite the fact that I now have an Access Virus, part of me feels I literally cannot create anything until the synth I'm working on is done, and after that's done, I probably won't feel "complete" until my Ampeg Scrambler pedal is done, and so on. I just spent three hours fucking around with my friend Flo's Utopia Synth but really couldn't come up with anything I liked in the slightest, especially not ten minutes of sound for my Electronic Music Composition midterm. I was able to use it effectively for a reworking of a piece I already presented for the class, "Annihilation," which now has a second part and is about eleven minutes long. I think it was better as a five-minute piece, but hey, these things happen. As I recall, Flo paid $180 for this Utopia, but it honestly does not do much, and I don't really like it. $180 should probably get you a little more bang for your buck, but I guess it looks pretty neat and has a layout and PCB.

Anyway, I guess the point of my writing this is to say that while forever getting excited about the next project I'm working on will probably serve me quite well as I pursue greater knowledge of electronics in years to come, I'm at a point right now where I need to produce results, and I'm probably far enough behind on my project that I can't afford to throw out as much as I do. I know this synth I'm making is going to be great and useful (lord knows I've put in the hours to make sure it's that way), but what if it becomes another thing I use intensely for a month and then forget about?

Almost one year!

2011-10-16T18:46:00.000-07:00

Hi, Internet! Something Julia said yesterday made me sort of wonder why I just stopped "blogging," and I'm supposed to be putting together a presentation on the jazz drummer Art Blakey, so what better way to put that off? At the very least I am currently listening to an album my dad listens to a lot, Art Blakey with the Original Jazz Messengers. I've heard this record many times, starting way before I knew anything about jazz. (It is still debatable whether or not I know anything about jazz.) Allmusic gave this one four stars out of five, but I have probably listened to this three times as much as I have Kind of Blue or A Love Supreme. I guess I would call it a pleasant listen, although supposedly this record is "hard bop," characterized by extreme tempos, long harmonies, and aggressive playing. The first track, "Infra-Rae," is indeed really fast, and I think that's the one I'm going to play for the class tomorrow. The track I'm now on, "Nica's Dream," is something I would put on while having some friends over for a nice dinner or something. Who knows, I've probably heard this tune at my aunt's nice town house in Greenwich Village as the family gathered round for roast beef with scallops and red wine. It is long and smooth, a Horace Silver composition which is heavily reliant on piano, played by Horace Silver. I'm drinking a cup of coffee and listening to jazz in my room, and I must say, it's pretty decent. Interestingly, this is probably the first time I have written about jazz since I took Jazz Harmony I my freshman year of college, and was honestly considering studying jazz. Things sure have changed.

And boy, what they have changed into. Since my last post, I have gotten much deeper into the world of electronics. Julia got me her dad's Access Virus digital synth as an early birthday present, and that thing can make some really great drones, as well as, Youtube tells me, some pretty trashy Eurohouse. I will probably rely heavily on it to produce a ten-minute piece by Tuesday for Richard Teitelbaum's Electronic Music Composition workshop, even though I'm still getting the hang of what it can do. Slightly less complicated, but exciting nonetheless, is my current project, a dual-oscillator synth based heavily on the Weird Sound Generator circuit, with some deviations that have come from weeks of breadboarding the thing. I spent about eleven hours on it last night and it's barely half-enclosed, having already populated the three(!) circuitboards, and having discovered that one of the two filter circuits does not quite work. If I can find the time, I'm going to troubleshoot that ASAP, since everything else that I've done is sounding great. It'll be battery-powered and switchable between regulated and unregulated voltage (completely different tones result from the two), with two outputs, each with a great low-pass filter, volume knob, and a knob for balance between the two oscillators, each of which have four variable pots and three switches for pretty much total control over the sounds. After that, I'm working on an Ampeg Scrambler clone, a treble booster (which I can maybe sell), and a Proco Rat distortion clone which my friend Rory paid me for over a year ago (sorry dude!).

If I continue posting stuff here, it'll probably mostly be about electronics geekery, so bear with me. I am currently working towards the final step in my degree from Bard College, so project is on the brain. Julia came up with the excellent idea of taking some electronics classes at RIT next fall, which is nearer to Geneseo, where she is. As I don't really see the need to move straight to Brooklyn, that sounds like a fine solution, and perhaps it'll bring me one step closer to selling a huge expensive thing to Radiohead and profiting immensely. That isn't actually my goal, by the way: I love the thought of making my own instruments, which produce sounds only I have access to and which only I know how to control. If all goes well, immediate postgraduate life will involve a job that pays for things (probably food service; set the bar low!), close proximity to my best friend (even if that means Rochester), time to learn about electronics, and time to do something with them. Seems pretty simple, and I think therein lies the appeal: since I don't have a huge career in the music industry waiting for me, the chance to continue learning and to be happy seems to be one worth treasuring.

That said, it sure is going to be weird living life without insanely long vacations. I guess my plan for this summer is to work Bard's Summerscape again (which I did last summer), which should be fun, but my last "real" vacation will be going to Brazil with Julia. I've never been, and furthermore I haven't left this continent in quite some time now (last two out-of-US trips were to Canada and Mexico, and even Canada was over a year ago). I do not speak more than a word or two of Portuguese, but I went down to the City and got my visa last week, so it's happening! Additionally, I like that I'm able to pay my own way for something extravagant; it feels "adult" in a way, and I feel like I've earned it. That aside, it's going to be awesome hitting the beach in January. Julia and I have talked about moving south after college, but she still has a year after I'm done, so any escape from the northeastern winter in the meantime is welcome! Anyway, wow, I should probably stop and put my presentation together.

I really will end with this: Razor's 1990 album Shotgun Justice is hands-down the most contrasting display of cover art and music ever. Look at this beast:

Have you ever seen a worse album cover, like, ever? It in no way prepared me from probably the best pure thrash album I've ever heard. (It's better than Kill 'Em All, and Ride the Lightning and later are something else.) This is my favorite album of 1990, I've decided, a year which included Judas Priest's Painkiller, Megadeth's Rust in Peace, and the Black Album, which I strangely have a soft spot for. I've also recently been turned on to the Devil's Blood, an "occult hard rock" band from Eindhoven, Netherlands. They have an album coming out in November that I am looking forward to immensely after hearing their debut, 2009's The Time of No Time Evermore. Parts of it remind me of Thin Lizzy, but other parts remind me of Rumours-era Fleetwood Mac, which is a really interesting combination. I showed them to Daniel and he loved the instrumentals but hated the female vocals; weirdly, I think that makes this band stand out from a lot of other stuff, which is also sort of the reason I like Fleetwood so much. Anyway, this was fun; hope to do it again soon!

Sombreros are fucking required

2010-10-26T18:32:00.000-07:00

So someone hit my parked car today and fucked up the driver's side mirror. He at least did the right thing and told security, and offered to pay for a new mirror. That's cool because I have an old Volvo and apparently every part for those cars is really expensive, but it's used a lot of my energy today so I'm really tired. I'm also really tired because I woke up early, because I played drums for a few hours today, because ensemble ran too late, because I went to some dude's moderation concert (like mine last year!), or because I'm doing calc now. And I might be more tired later, since I'm going to go see my friend Lucian's band pretty soon.

The thing is, days like this really aren't that uncommon, but I hesitate to refer to myself as "busy" because it seems like everybody is always busier than I, or they make it seem that way. The thing is, though, that I don't think I could ever be one of those people who's always in the science lab, or always at the music building, or something like that. I'm not sure if it's a lack of work ethic or just a refusal to stop having fun, but it's sometimes hard to think about, since having no life is definitely how you get really, really good at something. Does everybody just do meth and stay up all night doing everything they "have" to do? I just can't think of any one activity I could commit to like that.

Anyway, I've recently spent all my "me" time hanging out with Julia, playing Zelda, or playing FIFA 11, or some combination of those. No partying, a decent amount of sleeping. Things are pretty good, but stressful sometimes.

Anyway, I just blasted the first LP of Electric Wizard's mammoth Dopethrone. The thing is so, so heavy, so I'm happy to have purchased the latest Rise Above reissue- Wizard vinyl always goes out of print and then sells for $200 on ebay, so I'm stoked to have gotten it for 20 bucks.

2010-10-04T23:46:00.001-07:00

The last time I wrote something, it was the beginning of September and the semester. It's started to get cold. The weather has been really terrible for a few days now, and is set to continue being shitty for, oh, six months.

What else is up? I never feel like doing any work or practicing or going anywhere. None of the music I'm playing right now is exciting me very much, so I'm sort of just letting it stagnate.

That whole thing kind of scares me, but apart from that I'm not really unhappy or anything. I spend a lot of time with Julia and have fun playing Goldeneye and drinking coffee, but that does not lead to studying! Fall break is coming up this weekend, and even though it's just two extra days off, I hope I can use it to think some things through, since I won't have any work to do. I'll probably just watch soccer and eat too much. I need to find that optimum zone where I have enough time to just do what I want (something I am apparently unable to sacrifice), while still being a lot more productive than I have been. How do productive people do it?

Anyway, I've been listening to the mighty WINDIR a lot these past few days. As someone who's never been big on the "spirit" of black metal, Windir came as a breath of fresh air for me. They're all about Norse mythology and all that, but minus all the malice and plus some stunningly mature songcraft. The album isn't really black metal to begin with, more folk metal. Anyway, I feel like I'm playing World of Warcraft whenever I listen to this, but in the most totally awesome way possible. This video features Windir playing their last show without their leader and founding member Valfar, who died of hypothermia while walking to his grandma's house; they still do an admirable job.

PS: on a whim I ordered the vinyl reissue of Electric Wizard's classic Dopethrone from (LOL) Interpunk. I guess they still have copies, and nobody has Wizard vinyl. They also have a new album coming out called Black Masses. Maybe they will get me back into music, they bring the loud.

Also, if I can drag myself out of bed in seven hours, I'm going to start building my ProCo Rat pedal replica. I am legitimately excited about doing that.

BARD

2010-09-04T19:14:00.001-07:00

So I am back at Bard College to commence my third year of study. I have been here for a week. I live in a pretty sick room and got a room to put my drums in, so that's cool, and things are overall pretty normal. I'm not taking a huge amount of class, so everything I'm taking is really cool and shouldn't load me up with work too much to prevent me from practicing. All good there!

It's Saturday night and I don't feel like drinking, so I'm just hanging out in my room writing a blog. Julia wasn't feeling well so she decided to go to sleep, which is a good thing since we're going to Saratoga early tomorrow to do some betting. It's interesting, I hadn't found much fulfillment in that sort of thing before this summer, but since she started coming with me it's been really fun and I can't wait to keep going to the track.

It's weird, though: since being back, I haven't really felt the urge to go to class or practice or hang out with friends or really do anything I used to do while I was here. I've never been a partier but that's hit an even lower low. I don't honestly feel very conflicted about this, but I think that Julia does from feeling the same way. This I understand, so I'm really going to try to remedy this situation for both of us, while making sure that sufficient time is spent together. We spent the whole day together yesterday and it was really great, so I'm just super-glad we can still get together and have a great time. This bodes well!

Like this

2010-08-17T15:03:00.000-07:00

666

2010-07-21T08:26:00.000-07:00

Hey, so I have been in Westport since whenever I last wrote something on here, hanging out, playing drums, painting, and drinking beer. I've also been doing more reading than I expected, although I don't think anything I've read has really been all that great...

A few weeks ago my world was rocked by the announcement that the "classic" Guided by Voices lineup is reuniting, first for Matador's 21st anniversary thing in Vegas, then for a short tour which ends in New York on 7 Nov. I am very, very happy because I just ordered my ticket to that show, along with one for my darling Julia. I like them a lot more than she does, but she gonna come with. GBV tends to get lumped in with other 90s "indie" bands, but to me they stand head and shoulders above almost any band ever, with the exception of maybe the Clash, Carcass, the Kinks, Flag and Sabbath. Since I will probably never see any of those bands (with the possible exception of Carcass), and since this is the GBV lineup that recorded all their best stuff, and since they're going to be playing songs exclusively from that era (though nothing off Vampire on Titus, unfortunately) this is just going to be the best time. Aaahhh I'm so excited.

Speaking of Julia, she is finally coming to visit on Monday the 26th. The day after that we're going to hit Montreal for some legal drinking and amusement park rides, then head back down to Westport and be together for a week and a half or so. Then drive down to Brooklyn and hang out for a week there. Looking forward to this very very much tooooooo!

WE ALL KNEW

2010-06-29T22:50:00.000-07:00

Heading up to Westport, NY tomorrow to spend a long time there painting, drinking beer, playing drums, and hanging out. I'm a little stoked without going totally nuts- it'll be better than hanging out in Kinderhook and avoiding everyone, but I'll be farther away from the city and Julia and that is not so pleasant. However, I'll probably be able to make it down to Brooklyn at some point, and she will come visit me up there and we will go to Six Flags. I like her very much and want to spend as much time as possible doing fun things with her.

I'm listening to Kreator's second album, Pleasure to Kill. I have to say, this is one of the only raw-thrash classics that I just can't totally get into. It's fast and thrashy and stuff, but for whatever reason it just doesn't catch my fancy. I know a lot of people think Seven Churches (Possessed) or Welcome to Hell (Venom), say, are overrated as fuck, but I think both of those albums are the shit, particularly the former. Just listen to "Holy Hell" and I dare you to avoid banging yer head at some point in that song. To go against Kreator even more, they recorded a totally boring album with the guitarist from the mighty Coroner. How could you make boring metal with that guy, he makes someone like Kirk Hammett look totally second-tier.

Oh, I have also been watching a fuckload of World Cup. I've watched almost all the matches, and my team, the Netherlands, is still in that shit. They play Brazil on Friday. Can they win? Julia says "no," and I will be an unhappy man if she is correct. Spain looked great against Portugal today, I don't "want" them to win, but I think they may have what it takes this year...

HEY

2010-06-14T19:59:00.000-07:00

HOW IS STEPHEN STRASBURG PITCHING? HOW ARE HIS CHANGEUPS? ZOMGZ HE'S GIVEN UP TWO HOME RUNS WTF IS UP WITH THAT WHAT PITCHES WERE THEY ON. CHANGEUPS?!?!?!?! HE SHOULD STOP THROWING CHANGEUPS OR WORK ON HIS MECHANICS OR SOMETHING BECAUSE IF PEOPLE CAN HIT THE BALLS HE THROWS THEN HE IS NOT AS GOOD AS WE THOUGHT HE WAS.

NOW WHY ISN'T HE PITCHING FOR THE WASHINGTON NATIONALS TONIGHT I KNOW HE PITCHED LAST NIGHT BUT WE WERE PROMISED A SUPERHUMAN...?!?!?! I HAVE NO INTEREST IN WATCHING THIS GAME NOW

2010-06-09T23:34:00.000-07:00

Diplo wearing a sick DEATH shirt

Summer

2010-05-23T00:06:00.001-07:00

Well, it's been summer vacation for a few days now. I've been bumming around my mom's apartment while "housesitting," which has involved a ton of Simpsons, plenty of sleep, some plant-watering, some eating, some running, and lots of metal.

My mom's neighbor just came in with either one or two dudes (I'm not going to guess what their relationship is) and said that she learned at the bar the other night that my mom had a son who is staying here right now (true, that is me), and that "he watches the Simpsons and listens to hardcore music a lot." I'm going to go ahead and say that she pretty much hit the nail on the head with that one, for an OUTSIDER.

Anyway, it's 3 AM, so I guess I'm getting back into my terrible sleep schedule. I need to wash all the dishes and hide my 40s before I go to bed. I brought two here, drank one, and couldn't bring myself to have the other, so it's still unopened and in the fridge. My mom would have a heart attack if she saw that, oh man.

I had a long conversation with Julia today (via ichat, naturally) about our definitions of "love" and it was weird. I like to tell her that I love her because I do, and I associate tiptoeing around the word with being fourteen and having no idea what it meant, but I guess I can see where she's coming from. I miss her.

Musicwise, yeah, it's been all metal so far. At first it was looking like all-black metal, but I'm in love with the new Darkthrone, Circle the Wagons. It's so, so good, I've listened to it about ten times in the last two days and I've started to write a review of it for posting on one of the websites I contribute to. I also just keep coming back to Possessed's Seven Churches, which is considered a prototype for "death metal" but to me just exists as a somewhat-sloppy thrash album with this really fucking evil tinge to it, which, I think, is why it stands out to me versus something like the second Kreator album, which is considered a classic but which I never really got, for some reason.

I am also currently just getting beaten over the head by the fourth Coroner album, Mental Vortex. Coroner's one of those bands who you never really hear about, at least in the US, I think because everything they did that wasn't fairly par-for-the-course (though technically adept) thrash was just too progressive for your average thrash fan. However, I'm really looking forward to memorizing all the time changes and sweet guitar parts this baby has to offer. Jesus Christ, these guys were technical. One of the reasons I love, say, Carcass (who I compare almost every early-90s metal band to) is because they could write fairly straightforward, awesome metal while adding little flourishes to it to remind you that they could shred. At this point, though, Coroner were nothing short of mindbending: their guitarist's all over the place while remaining completely in control, and his rhythm section is with him every step of the way. Somehow I have little difficulty seeing these dudes pull these nightmarishly complex songs off note-for-note live. They also hit you with a tambourine during the groovy 4/4 parts, just to show you who's boss. I've had this album for a while and it never hit me, but now that it has, I have a feeling that this is gonna be on repeat all summer long. Dare I say this is more complex than later Death? Or do I have an... OVERACTIVE IMAGINATION?

RIP

2010-05-16T16:51:00.000-07:00

"You're a Rainbow in the Dark"

Okay okay

2010-05-10T21:16:00.000-07:00

So it's "finals week" here at Bard College. Wrapping up year two in supremely classy fashion: putting my work off, listening to DJ SCREW, writin' blogz, surfing the web, etc. I don't have a job or anything lined up, and I don't have plans other than to spend July watching the World Cup in a location with a TV.

Summer's going to be weird as usual, but in a different way. It's way too long and I don't know what I should be pushing myself towards. I think Polluted Bitch-Hound is going to be playing a few shows over the summer, and I'm going to do my best to practice drums a lot. Jobwise or internshipwise I don't know (mom's pushing me hard about this), but I don't want to fuck up any sort of "future" in the "music business." I'm probably just going to drink a lot and paint and run.

Most of all, there's the emotional weirdness that comes with that much time spent doing nothing. Last summer ended up being probably my least favorite summer ever. Right now I am happier than I have maybe ever been thanks to a certain girl named Julia, and I think that when she's around, I'll at least be going out of my way to hang out with her. Unfortunately, I can't spend all my time on the move because with limited employment comes limited cashflow. However, I hope to afford the following relative luxuries:

June 18: EYEHATEGOD/BRUTAL TRUTH

Sept. 4 (?) THE STOOGES/SLEEP (ATP)

Drum things

Yeah that's about it. Eh, better do work now.

sup

2010-05-10T19:13:00.001-07:00

FIVE FAVORITE THRASH ALBUMS

2010-05-06T16:59:00.000-07:00

I'm wilding out on some thrash, so I thought I'd think up what my five favorite (pure) thrash metal albums are. Eh.

5. Forced Entry- As Above So Below

4. Exodus- Bonded by Blood

3. Possessed- Seven Churches

2. Metallica- Kill 'Em All

1. Metallica- Master of Puppets

Fucking THRASH

Right on

2010-04-28T12:30:00.001-07:00

My moderation concert went very well. We recorded the concert, and the audio can be found here.

By the way, Arab on Radar is back together.

Hell

2010-04-21T07:52:00.001-07:00

I'm moderating today. It's not a big deal but I am freaking the hell out. Elaborate Polluted Bitch-Hound concert in like seven hours...........

This is what we are playing:

ENTER THE HOUND

RAVEN'S CHOICE

CHANGES

FUN TIME

METHUSELAH

HIGH ATOP THE MOUNTAIN

BANUJAGA

CREATURE RUNNING WILD

...or something along those lines

TOP TEN CARCASS SONGS

2010-04-08T10:16:00.000-07:00

1. Embodiment

2. Child's Play

3. Tomorrow Belongs to Nobody

4. This Mortal Coil

5. Heartwork

6. Ruptured in Purulence

7. Carnal Forge

8. Edge of Darkness

9. Doctrinal Expletives

10. R**k the Vote

I love this band so, so much

2010-04-05T23:25:00.001-07:00

So I've not had internet for five or so days, but that's okay, because the weather's been beautiful. Happy spriinnngggggg!

I'm in a weird place right now: happier than ever, caring less about schoolwork that I "have" to do than ever. I actually wish I could just start summer vacation now, and that's not usually the case with me... oh well, lots to look forward to. Polluted Bitch-Hound practiced today and we sounded pretty good, a little rusty, but we have a show on Saturday that we should do okay with. I also wrote a Meatsmoke song with Quinn and Dan today that is a lot more complicated than the others.

Also I can't stop listening to BRUTAL TRUTH.

http://www.mediafire.com/?2eejmc0aoz5

Fuck

2010-03-26T15:37:00.001-07:00

FACEBOOK VOL. 666

2010-03-17T08:22:00.001-07:00

This is from an album on some dude's 18th birthday. "...Finally." Truly ready to tackle the nuances of adulthood.

NO

2010-03-06T08:24:00.001-08:00

get stoked, world

2010-02-15T19:58:00.000-08:00

weekend

2010-02-14T18:15:00.001-08:00

GOLD MINE

2010-01-22T23:37:00.001-08:00

I can't decide what exactly to think about Feet First. I don't even really know why I'm singling them out, since there are a lot of bands who do incredibly pale imitations of bands from '81 who were horrible to begin with, but they do it for me. I can't stand "punks" like this; I don't think there's anything "working class" about this band. They seem really into it, but the whole conception is just so... wrong to me. Side note: their guitarist really plays that fish guitar all the time.

NOTE that they are wearing their own band's t-shirts... just like Metallica did.

Anyway, here's their Myspace.

BACK

2010-01-20T12:45:00.001-08:00

So dogsledding was really cool and I just got back home but I'm in a really fucking terrible mood. I'm going back to Bard tomorrow and I don't know if that'll change anything either way, but at the moment I am not stoked.

Best Music Dude Hangs

2010-01-17T21:51:00.000-08:00

Andrew WK is fucking awesome. I'm not such a big fan of his music, but his entire lifestyle seems to have so much to offer that I think I put him up right up there with, you know, musicians whose music I actually really like. Maybe even more than a lot of them. Let me consider this: Steve Albini's kind of a dick. So's Ian Mackaye, and even though both have every right to be, I don't think either would be the sort of dude you could invite over to play NBA Jam and talk about babes. I am of the uniform opinion that Kirk Hammett would be a really good dude to hang out with, and probably the best guy I can think of to jam.

The dude is absolutely out of it, and really can't put a cohesive thought together, but I can respect everything he's about: solos, surfing, neutrality, and weird shit left around one's living space. I think I could also stand to hang out with Jon Bon Jovi.

I really like Bon Jovi, and I think he'd have some cool shit to say in hindsight about being in a band that never really died off popularity-wise just because it kept doing the exact same thing. I don't think I could hang out with Glenn Danzig, though, or Varg, or Mick Jagger. I met the singer of Orchid once when he was in Panthers, but he's a total hipster now and looks like he does a ton of blow. David Yow and Lemmy both seem kinda cool, I think there's serious chill potential right there.

Anyway, bottom line best hangs:
1.) WK
2.) Bon Jovi
3.) Hammett
4.) Lemmy
5.) Jus Oborn (would definitely smoke weed with, and would probably even buy the weed)
6.) Yow

Worst (1=worst):
1.) Varg
2.) Danzig
3.) Albini
4.) MacKaye
5.) Jagger
6.) I don't know

Maybe Jagger wouldn't be such a bad hang, I just don't think he'd be super fun. I think Keef would be great, and I think I've definitely had that conversation before. Oh well. I'm going up to Canada tomorrow to do some legal drinking and some dogsledding. When I get back I might try to snipe a Sunn head off eBay. PAIN TRAIN, WOO WOOOOO

THESE ARE A FEW OF MY FAVORITE THINGS

2010-01-12T23:37:00.000-08:00

IT NEVER GETS OLD

WAZZZZAHHHH

2010-01-10T21:09:00.001-08:00

Back to Bard for a few days of practice tomorrow.

LET'S GO SPACE TRUCKIN'

2010-01-05T21:54:00.001-08:00

Felt like blogging. I just got home a few hours ago after spending a bunch of time in the city. I'm listening to Deep Purple and lying on my couch. I dropped by my house in Red Hook earlier today and talked to Lotte and after a near-disaster everything is okay there. I was very surprised to realize that I'm actually looking forward to this coming semester. Last semester was a bit of a nightmare. I think whenever it's getting colder my mood worsens but 20 credits really was a downer. The Hound was my only glimmer of hope, and that remains intact.

I've been invited to review music for a new music site called Review Posse. Looks kind of hip-oriented and almost nothing on there (except the Mariachi El Bronx record which was okay) is of the slightest interest to me. They have some King Khan shit reviewed and Dave Matthews Band. I don't know, I've written some stuff that I need to proofread and shorten a bit, then probably submit and get rejected because nobody gives a fuck about Turboslut except me. "Review the new Wolfmother!"
If the Pygmy Lush/Des Ark collaborative LP actually comes out this year it will probably be #1.

THE HOUND

2009-12-14T19:37:00.000-08:00

I started a new band about two months ago called Polluted Bitch-Hound. We've played some shows and we have a bunch of songs. Anyway, this weekend we were given the opportunity to lay down some tracks, so over about an 18-hour period we played and came out with a tad less than 20 minutes of music. Anyway, the info:

POLLUTED BITCH-HOUND- HUNGRY
1.) Creature Running Wild (3:37)
2.) Banujaga (4:26)
3.) High Atop the Mountain (4:01)
4.) Fun Time (2:44)
5.) Chip Trip (2:00)
6.) My Girl (3:09)
Total: 19:56

download

coll-edge

2009-11-22T21:05:00.001-08:00

2009-11-16T05:39:00.000-08:00

Current Listening: Exodus- Bonded by Blood

WEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEKEND

2009-11-08T20:43:00.000-08:00

I saw Fucked Up for the third time this weekend. Andrew WK played keyboards and they did Chemistry of Common Life in its entirety. They also played "Crusades," "Baiting the Public," and "David Comes to Life." I lost a glasses lens and had to go back to Kinderhook on Friday to get my other pair. Fuck.

Anyway, my new band, Polluted Bitch-Hound, played its second show Saturday night, and our first as a three-piece. We honestly were tighter than we were as a two-piece, and everyone seemed to think the bass adds a lot. Here is a picture of the show:
I am not in it. I was sitting behind that thing with bottles on top of it and pipes coming out. That's our hot water heater, but I drummed a good set. We played four originals and a Stooges cover. We did not fuck up all the time and people were into it. I really like our band. Sweet.

Today I saw IRON LUNG. Holy fucking shit their guitarist played through three full stacks. Incredible.

Doing Arabic now.

These days

2009-10-28T23:21:00.001-07:00

So I'm pretty much exhausted all the time. I've overexerted myself in every way. Arabic is killing me, and I refuse to pass up any opportunities to be in bands and shit. I'm playing shows with three different bands this weekend, starting today, Thursday 9/29.

Anyway, not a whole lot else is going on, except...
A lot of shitty, shitty things have happened this year. I've been depressed for almost all of it, and for most of the time I haven't been depressed, I've been setting myself up for even greater levels of depression. At my lowest I had a "moment" with a band I just saw on Monday... oh, their name? EYEHATEGOD.

Fuck fuck fuck it was phenomenal. Best show of this year.

Anyway, while I'm excited about all the music I'm playing with all the bands I'm doing, the one that stands out is called POLLUTED BITCH-HOUND. I play skins, Quinn yells and twangs the six-string, Ian plucks away at the four-string. We have some songs which I will provide links to. They were recorded in my basement on a computer mic on different days. The sound is pretty uniform except that I think my drumming improves on each successive one. I forget the order though.

POLLUTED BITCH-HOUND - HOME DEMOS

Only "High Atop the Mountain" is a finalized name. Enjoy especially if you like Deep Purple and that kinda shit.

HMM

2009-10-11T23:14:00.000-07:00

I feel like observant people may be able to see the direction this blog's moving in.

Been a month

2009-10-06T09:49:00.001-07:00

Exciting

2009-09-01T14:21:00.001-07:00

I'm at Bard now and the house is nice. I'm in the library sort of doing Arabic homework but I just wanted to share something with you quick.

THE BRONX- EL BRONX

I really like this. I'm not a big fan of the Bronx's other stuff; that "school" of hardcore never really appealed to me, although I guess it's all right for what it is. This record (El Bronx) really showcases what good musicians these guys are. This is a legit mariachi record, which, while a bit of a novelty, really comes through as a good album. I probably wouldn't be posting this if I didn't have a song on here to really latch on to, but the opener, "Cell Mates," is a fantastically great song. The vocals kind of sound like the dude from Beirut and there are horns and everything, so it honestly could be Beirut, but I don't really like Beirut and I can dig this and still be "punk." Whatever dude, just give it a listen.

End!

2009-08-25T11:05:00.000-07:00

In a little while I'm going to go finish painting the house in Westport. I am owed like $400 and it's going to be awesome. Leaving for Kinderhook tomorrow morning, and then to Red Hook on Thursday with bed, pots, pans, rug, bike, etc. in tow. Nobody else will be around (I think), but this summer is finally ending.

Improvements: more skilled at painting houses (obv.), playing the guitar, BBQ.
Regressions: you know.

H8 Kinderhook

Been a month

2009-07-29T20:56:00.000-07:00

It has been a month and two days since my last Hey Irony post. Over the last month, I painted a house, watched a lot of baseball, wrote a few songs, and fell for a girl. Fell hard. Didn't work out at all so I'm pretty down right now but I'm getting better. I'm visiting Daniel in Phoenix tomorrow and staying for five or six days. When I get back, I'm going to the city to see Mark Kozelek of Red House Painters/Sun Kil Moon fame and then staying in Westchester for a couple of days to write songs with Quinn. Yup, I'm trying to move on and I'm trying to do it right.

Anyway, the first thing I did yesterday when it ended was whip out my three Pygmy Lush LPs (or two plus the Turboslut split LP). I bought Bitter River when I went to the city last weekend, so I did them in succession, took a shot of Jameson, spent time with a good friend, watched the new Harry Potter, and overall did my best. It honestly would've been a pretty good day if I hadn't started out at negative eight million, but that's how it goes. I wrote a song about her the night before and I think it's pretty good. I can't wait to give it the proper treatment in front of people. Anyway, that's my month, especially the last few days. Getting out west should help a lot.

I just uploaded the Pygmy Lush/Turboslut split LP. It's been exceedingly hard to find in MP3 form, which is a shame, because I had always thought of how great it'd be to listen to these songs in any number of situations. As it turns out, I was completely right. Since this is my blog, I can write about this in as much detail as I want, so I'm going to. I'll probably post it over on GIRTH CRISIS with a shorter review and with a few other albums over the next few days or weeks or whatever, but I'm going to post it on here now.

DOWNLOAD PYGMY LUSH/TURBOSLUT SPLIT LP

I bought this record exclusively for the Pygmy Lush side. I posted a live set they did on the radio that featured a then-untitled and absolutely excellent track a while back. Not long after I heard that, they posted the song "White Oblivian" on their Myspace and I listened to that about five times. These songs proved to be indicative of the new material as a whole: the loud songs, like "White Oblivian," are snarling, noisy, and ferocious, and sometimes fast, faster than anything on Bitter River but not quite veering back into Pg.99 territory. Chris Taylor can still yell and scream with the best of them. The untitled song, which turned out to be "Proud King of the Doomed," does show the marked change PL's quiet songs have undergone, though. There are three here, and "Proud King" kicks off with a very dreamy and elegant line, a feeling which continues throughout the song. The two other quiet songs, "It's a Good Day to Hide" and "November Song" are much longer and more swirling, which, especially in the case of the former, suit the songs well. "Good Day to Hide" is, at least to me, the most depressing song PL have done. It's beautiful and it's a great one to sing along to when everything fucking sucks.

I only spun that side for about the first month this record was in my hands, but I knew that one day I would have to flip it over and spin Turboslut's side. When I did, I was fucking steamrolled. The first song, "Speed," starts off with this killer slow, pseudo-Sabbath out-of-tune riff while one of the girls in this band spits some of the most miserable, negative lyrics I've ever heard. "This is awesome," I said to myself as I gazed wide-eyed at my ceiling and listened to four women tear my ears apart. The genre I'd generally put this in is the ever-controversial "grunge," but this "grunge" does something for me that Pygmy Lush can't do, even though PL are my favorite band going right now (and it just occurred to me that Turboslut are not. R.I.P.). Honestly, I put this more in a league with Master of Puppets, Black Ships, and the mighty Sabbath themselves: I just grit my teeth and bang my fucking head and yell along to some of the words, and believe me, shit like "Gut my arms like fish/armpit to wrist, armpit to wrist" is great to speak and think about. It occurred to me after I dazedly put the record back into its sleeve that Turboslut are also unique in another way: they're the first "female" band I've ever heard to not seem dominated by the need to be respected, or to need to prove that "chicks can rock." Actually, as I was typing that, the Vivian Girls came to mind, but Turboslut are like the negative of them: their music is anything BUT cute.

All in all, I have an inkling this split (yes, a split) is going to be one of the most enduring albums of 2009 for this year. It'll probably get bumped out of #1 by the new Darkest Hour, but I'm not even sure The Eternal Return will have the staying power of this. Yes.

Today

2009-06-27T19:33:00.000-07:00

This morning I had a revelation about the direction my life should go in for the time being with 100% certainty, and couldn't do a thing about it. This is a new sensation, and not one I ever want to experience again, though I suspect tomorrow will be the same thing. All for now.

Oh, and the new Darkest Hour rips just as hard five days later.

Hey dudes

2009-06-21T23:59:00.000-07:00

Just thought I'd stop by to ask HOW'S IT HANGIN'?

Actually, no, I just wanted to say that Darkest Hour's latest, The Eternal Return, fucking kills. I was not expecting anything close to Hidden Hands or Undoing Ruin after the somewhat disappointing Deliver Us, but the first listen kicked me into the fucking dirt. Second and third listens were even better, and now I'm absolutely floating. Everything I like about Darkest Hour and (almost) everything I like about heavy music on one record, which is, I believe, how they intended it to be.

The rest of you can kiss Album of the Year goodbye.

I APPROVE

2009-06-04T22:20:00.000-07:00

NSFW

2009-05-23T00:47:00.000-07:00

Wassssting summer. Trying to figure out how to pay for plane tickets to Phoenix and New Orleans in a month or two.

You should also see this if you haven't already...important.

Endings

2009-05-16T23:25:00.000-07:00

Today is Saturday, the final (weekend) night of my first year at Bard College.

You said it, Quinn.

I feel like since nobody reads this, I might as well just keep for my own records some of the bigger memories of this year. This is going to be a long post, if there's something I feel proper posting at the end, musical or otherwise, I will.

FIRST SEMESTER: Moved into Tewksbury. Chris came along. I had super long hair and hadn't shaved for months, and had just come from a Radiohead concert. I had an affinity for tightish pants, but apart from that I wasn't all that different from the way I am now. Chris and I did a lot the first two or three months I was here. We went to the Mills Mansion and it started raining, and we saw An Albatross three times. We also saw Sonic Youth at the final McCarren Park Pool show. That ruled. Then we didn't talk quite as much, and I started chilling with Daniel, with whom I bonded because we were both into City of Caterpillar. We started two bands: first, the screamo band Piskaryov with our friend Alex. We had four or five songs with no vocals. We recorded a really rough one-microphone demo in Daniel's basement which we both still listen to periodically, and do not find it painful at all. If he comes back and we still feel like it, we might try resurrecting and maybe reworking a few of those. I still like them. Then we formed the pop-punk band No Parents with Alex and his friend Ben, who also proved to be a cool guy. We played a show with Off With Their Heads that went well. Then Daniel's basement flooded with all our equipment in it, so we went to the city. Some bad shit happened, so Daniel left in the middle of finals.

WINTER BREAK: Spent some time being bored in Kinderhook, then went to the city for about two weeks, then was bored in Kinderhook for a few more days, then went to DC with some friends from Bard to see Obama become President. Then school resumed.

SPRING SEMESTER:
I did not have as much money in my bank account, so I did not make as many trips to the city. My crew basically became Ben and Quinn, who I started playing music with. He is a very good guitarist. We went to the city once to see Black Dice with my friend Jarred, Daniel's former housemate and an all-around cool guy. We started a band with this dude Eli which sort of fell apart before spring break because of me. Over Spring Break we saw Fall of Efrafa on their only US tour (which Quinn hated), then we saw They Might Be Giants. He loved that shit. After Eli, we started a band called Summerhome who have a lot of songs in various stages of completion and one song recorded. It's a pretty good recording and I am excited to give it the full-band treatment. Anyway, there was a lot less spontaneity, so even though the classes were better, the semester was less enjoyable overall. I'd give it a 6.

FUTURE:
Living in a house next year. Taking 20 credits in the fall. Lots of hard work will probably lead to a drinking problem, depression, and me quitting everything. Taking a lot of music classes soon. Cool.

RANDOM NOTES:
Tewksbury is a rotten shithole. My neighbors on both sides and the dude who lives above me are way too fucking loud. The place also attracts the biggest pieces of shit in my class. One of them tore down the picture of Ian MacKaye on my wall today. I am a much better guitarist than I was three months ago, and feel like I know how to get even better. I accumulated a lot of shit in my room that I need to figure out how to take care of before I leave in less than 48 hours. Everything here is gross and I pity my roommate for having to deal with this eyesore for six months.

Max tells me this is good.

GO TEAM

2009-05-14T14:31:00.000-07:00

SHUT UP

2009-05-13T09:03:00.000-07:00

SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP

Cannot stand this fucking place anymore

So

2009-05-11T13:48:00.000-07:00

One week left in my first year at Bard College. I have been super busy all day and have papers to write and shit, but at the moment all I can think about is how stoked I'll be to not have a roommate or live in Tewksbury.

Presenting Joseph

2009-05-05T00:26:00.001-07:00

SPRRRIIINNNGGG FLLLLIINNNGGG

2009-05-02T01:03:00.000-07:00

So I'm here at Bard still. It's been a pretty good semester. Spring Fling is currently happening and everyone else is enjoying themselves, so I am not.

LOVIN LIFE

What u up to this summer?

WINS

2009-04-26T00:21:00.000-07:00

With this post Hey Irony has surpassed Girth Crisis. However, it is far less useful. Congrats to me!

Just a few things:

1.) I tried (and failed) to record a new song on Friday. Good, two-minute song that I was seriously too tired to lay down properly. I still have a lot to learn, but the good news is that there is at least one song completely written for my new project, which is at the moment called Summer Home. Let me know what you think of that, or don't, because I don't care/you aren't reading this.

2.) I will be living in Red Hook (off-campus) next year in a punk haus. I got a terrible room draw number and Brian approached me about this whole thing and it's a nice house, so yeah. This, combined with the fact that I don't and will not own a car, means that the amount of time I'll be spending on campus will be somewhat limited, but I do have a place to put my amps and everything else, plus the place has a basement with a decently high ceiling that should be all right for shows, plus a great porch and lawn. Looking forward to it.

3.) I did some grilling with friends today. It was delicious, but almost ten hours later I still don't even want to think about eating or drinking anymore. I did not go out and party tonight because of this feeling, though I have been riding bikes a lot.

All for now.

YOOOO

2009-04-14T07:40:00.000-07:00

I am running on three hours' sleep and am about to hand in an essay which could be completely wrong, though I suspect it isn't.

I spend way too long on essays.

How are you?

I do not take college seriously.

Hey d00ds

2009-04-09T22:52:00.000-07:00

So this is pretty much my blog and nobody reads it, and I've come to terms with that. I like offering things to download or shit I find funny and I hope other people find it funny. I never really posted a mission statement on here or anything, but I do hope you enjoy your day. Lately I've come to appreciate a few things about my life, while also keeping in mind that the world is a terrible/comical place. Never be happy with what ya got, but be proud of having it. It's 2 in the morning.

I just watched Some Kind of Monster with Quinn. All of it. Well, almost all of it. When things actually started going well, we stopped, but I think it can all be summed up and you've probably all seen this picture in a different context:

I have a job at the end of this semester buying used books and generally annoying the shit out of people. I've read up on the company and it'll just require me to generally be a dick without necessarily compromising on anything. I hate anything resembling "the college lifestyle," and this really plays into that whole thing, but I like to think I haven't really "bought it." Ya know?

I'm still writing some things for a recording that I hope to do at the end of the semester, maybe over the course of a few long Friday nights. Maybe they won't be done, though, who knows. It's sounding like this weird folk/post-rock/Sonic Youth type amalgamation, even though I'm not satisfied with any of those labels except the last one. I like the lyrics I'm writing for it, and I think one of the songs will be very long if I figure out what to do with it. I'm gonna say 2.3 songs written so far, and I know what I want to do with another. Apparently our name is "The Yeti Drinks," and it is just Quinn and I. We haven't talked about it in a few days, but I think it might actually happen, and we might have our first show over the summer if anything works out.

I always like to offer up a download, so here goes. As a lover of music, I would like to try my hand at writing about how much Pg. 99 means to me. They represent just about everything I want to do with music; namely, they recorded music on their own terms that they liked, and it made their lives better (by all indications). They had about eight bazillion members who are and were all in bands now; the ones I care to mention are City of Caterpillar, Malady, Forensics, Haram, Majority Rule (briefly), and the amazing (and previously-posted-on) PYGMY LUSH. They were actually pretty technical and very heavy, while being distinctly more emotional than a lot of bands who bark up the same tree. It's debatable where Pg. 99 ranks among the aforementioned bands (though I would probably put them below CoC, Maj Rule, and Pygmylush), but it's undeniable that they were a fantastic and meaningful band. Their first full-length, Document 5, is 100% amazing and punk as fuck. If you're reading this, you probably already have it or want nothing to do with it, but in case you don't already have it and do want something to do with it, here it is.

DOCUMENT 5

FACTS

2009-04-06T23:00:00.000-07:00

Daniel has a new blog, and his first entry is about Omegle. That shit is so fun. He also found some place in the Caribbean which is like a hotel with emotional/physical hookers. Dude won the internet yesterday.

Anyway, I'm starting to think about what I'm going to do this summer. I did my phone interview for some company that wants me to buy used books for them. Went well. The commission's pretty good, so I may make enough during finals week to pay for my airfare someplace over the summer, with eyes toward either New Orleans or Phoenix, or both. Anyway, I'll have to do shit during finals week, but money rules.

I also plan on submitting applications to Whole Foods and the Strand, in addition to looking for intern work in the city. YEAH MANUAL LABOR RULES RIGHT ON BRO. Alienating shit, round 2, but I may know a few more people and have a bit more fun this time. Plus I might actually make some money for next semester.

So that's about all the news lately, except that I continue to hang out with the same people and fall more and more into a routine. Soon enough, they say, soon enough. New band on the way.

I also have a very special download that I would like you to have. This was recorded by me on Garageband on Saturday night. Contents: 1.5 drunken phone calls made by a girl buying weed from my friend's roommate. The first three minutes or so are the conversation where the girl found out about shit-talkin', and the last bit, the real gold, is a message she left for the perpetrator. This recording comes with critical acclaim from everyone I've played it for, so I encourage you to give it a listen for some serious lulz.

CHECK IT OUT

Hey

2009-03-25T22:14:00.000-07:00

So no update in a while, and this isn't gonna be huge. I have a blog.

It's the middle of Spring Break. I have been "writing songs," which has quotes around it because I haven't worked on any of the songs I said I would work on. That being said, now that I've spent a few days being removed from all that, I'm not really sure how much I like the stuff we have. I have also learned to play Neil Young's "The Needle and the Damage Done" and Weezer's "Say It Ain't So" thanks to the internet. The song I actually have written fully is a four-minute acoustic thing that I hope to flesh out under the moniker "Remain Standing In This Light." Not a reference to anything, just something I woke up saying yesterday around 2 PM. Life is good.

I watched the 1972 adaptation of Kurt Vonnegut's classic Slaughterhouse-Five just now. That book is a favorite of mine, and Vonnegut was right when he commented on how perfectly it was translated. Recommended.

Oh yeah, I've been listening to a lot of doom metal the last couple days. As a non-weed-smoker, that shit fascinates me. Jus Oborn apparently tunes his guitar to fucking A# and runs his guitar through a bass amp. Someday I will achieve that heaviness...

Uh huh

2009-03-18T18:57:00.000-07:00

I saw Ian MacKaye in person on St. Patrick's Day. He answered two hours' worth of questions which ranged from really great to really dumb, but was able to elaborate enough that nothing sounded really dumb. I knew this years ago, but he's a really smart dude. So that was fun. Also won a contest where I guessed something close to the number of Lucky Charms in a jar and won some Bard Buxxx. Overall yesterday was a good day.

Today was also pretty good, but suddenly I have no prospective ladyfriends. Usually I let them occupy me for months and do nothing with them before finding someone else, but this time I just don't really have anyone to fall back on. So if you know any relatively good-looking girl who is good at "not knowing how things stand," hook me up! You know where I am!

That was the most honest I've ever been on the internet. Should either keep it up or stop doing that.

Oh before I forget-- I'll be in Kinderhook for anywhere from five to ten days. Not saying you should go out of your way to do something with me, but... you should go out of your way to do something with me. I like tennis.

Okay so

2009-03-16T20:07:00.001-07:00

I have a massive headache and I hope to go to bed pretty soon, but this is insignificant. Why?

I am meeting him in less than 24 hours. I have been formulating questions for the last two hours, and hope it will end in a hug.

Current listening: FUGAZI

So I'm a terrible person

2009-03-09T15:04:00.000-07:00

Also, I have a new computer. It's nice.

Ghostin'

2009-03-06T12:16:00.000-08:00

So I got really, really sick yesterday after eating two tacos at Kline. I mean, theoretically it could've had nothing to do with Kline, but I got a huge stomachache about fifteen minutes after consuming them, and six hours later, I became more than casual acquaintances with a Tewksbury toilet, if you get my "drift." More like PUKESBURY... oh! Anyway, I woke up feeling really weak, but my strength has been restored to a reasonable extent since then. I haven't eaten anything substantial today, so I'm pretty ravenous and shit. Snapz n popz.

Might go see Watchmen today or this weekend. I also hear I have a subscriber now, but I'm not seeing that on here, so maybe not. Here's a picture of an antelope.More like... the band Antelope... LOL!

Catching up

2009-03-02T12:12:00.000-08:00

So I haven't had time to post much lately because I've been going to the library and keeping busy. I have an essay due tomorrow that I hope won't kill me. I wrote lyrics to a song and I think they're all right.

There is a Root Cellar show on Friday. Ghost Town Trio and Reverse the Curse. Should be fun. After that I have the studio at Blum until 4 AM and I want to lay some hot trax down.

I went to Cornell over the weekend and saw LUDACRIS play some of his songs. Guy's sold fifteen million albums, but nobody at this great Ivy League school seemed to fully grasp how much they'd been conned by this whole thing. Like I understand that I go to a school which is CRAZY about irony, but I don't think it's necessarily Bard speaking when I say that there was not "nearly enough" irony present in that room. I also feel like I've reached the plateau where a show has to be really, really fucking good for me to actually enjoy it. Luda was okay. Didn't have nearly enough tattoos...!

Science!

2009-02-24T09:01:00.000-08:00

So I am still in a band and we are still practicing music. Apparently Dear Friend(s?) might play the Root Cellar in April, so we're tentatively shooting for that as our first show. Eli was in a shitty mood and was sick yesterday, so we didn't really broach the subject.

The music: I'm not honestly sure how good it is. I don't think we've come into our own yet, plus I haven't written shit for lyrics, but yeah. I dream of making crucial jams and I'm not quite sure if these are crucial jams. I hope they're crucial jams. :(

Anyway, I did pull an all-nighter to do that paper. I did pretty well yesterday considering, but I slept like a rock last night. I used to write like ten-pagers all the time for US History, but I suppose that when they're on more complex/thought-provoking subjects, they take longer, like waaaay longer.

Yesterday and today I've been listening to a lot of Tunes for Bears to Dance To. They were a screamo band from Florida whose members went on to form or play in the fantastic bands Capsule, Torche, and Tyranny of Shaw. I prefer them to any of those bands, or most bands in general. Take the musicianship of a band like A Case of Grenada, combine that with rawer production and some degree of silliness, and make it a lot better, and you've got these dudes. Yeah, nobody reads this anyway, but here it is.

DOWNLOAD TUNES FOR BEARS TO DANCE TO

WAT

2009-02-22T19:13:00.000-08:00

So I'm here at New Henderson trying to start an essay (which, I hope, is the hardest part of this thing). I already know what I want to say (kind of), which is good, because it's past 10 and the thing's due tomorrow. Probably gonna be a late night, this has to be 6-8 pages. Probably 6.

Anyway, I'm writing this to try to clear my mind so I can get down to business. I need something catchy to kick off an essay about human freedom, man's social nature, and the relationship between the two.

So this weekend I went to New York (with Quinn) and saw Black Dice for the third time (with Quinn and Jarred). They played like 7 songs I'd never heard before, which I can only assume to be off REPO, "Glazin,'" which is off REPO, and one I recognized from Load Blown. The new jams were very solid, so I can only assume that their studio counterparts will be similarly good. I always like to hear a band that's good at what they do. Blank Dogs opened and played some okay rock stuff that was really Brooklyn and not hugely interesting, but at least didn't sound bad. Whatever.

If I ran this town, I would start this paper with "The relationship between man’s perception of his own freedom and his social nature is something complex that I won’t get into."

Unfortunately, I don't.

Photo Booth Life (Part 1)

2009-02-17T19:16:00.000-08:00

Unplugged!

2009-02-15T10:08:00.000-08:00

So posts on this are going to be intermittent for a while because I have finally laid my old computer, which looks like what you see above, to rest. I got it at the beginning of junior year and after about two and a half years of hard use, I am declaring it finished.

Shit rules.

I think about a year ago the hinge started to break, then I dropped it off my bed and it wouldn't shut, so that put me like $175 deep in repairs. Then the keys started sticking and the clicker didn't always work. Still we soldiered on! Then around November 2008, the thing started running very, very slowly, at which time I had 2% of my hard drive space available, which I think may have caused it. I continued to use it, convinced that it would still last me through this semester, but NOPE. The battery has ceased to function and it will instantly shut off if unplugged, which is often because the plug design on this thing always was piss-poor.

Hopefully GETNAMAC.

THE WARRIORS

2009-02-12T23:37:00.000-08:00

So a pretty disappointing Thursday night turned into a pretty fucking awesome Thursday night because I watched The Warriors with Ben and Quinn. I am a huge softie for these "Dirty New York" movies, partly because I've listened to Combat Rock so many times, so I probably already loved this movie without even watching it.

Honestly, the plot of the movie was also ridiculously awesome. An eight-member gang is framed for the murder of an important guy who says "CAN YOU DIG IT?!?!?!" a lot, so they have to get back to Coney Island from the Bronx with every gang in New York looking to git 'em. A lot of shit goes down that night.

What really blew me away was how often this movie tried to sabotage itself with gimmicky shit and piss-poor acting, but still ended up ruling. The movie made time move forward with this shit where the live action would turn into a comic book so they could switch scenes, and a female DJ sort of became the narrator, which The Warriors didn't really need at all. The movie's "antagonist" was a whiny little bitch who reminded me of Scorpio from Dirty Harry only not as menacing, and ended up getting fucked up by Swan real fast. Oh, the guy who played Swan actually did rule pretty hard. The "romance" between Swan and some woman was pretty weird, and the conflict within the Warriors between Swan and Ajax was hardly developed at all before Ajax got arrested (WHOA SPOILER) and the guy disappeared from the movie. THIS WAS AWESOME

We never dove for the truth...

2009-02-11T21:50:00.000-08:00

So it was abnormally warm and sunny outside. I wore a shirt with sleeves rolled up in the middle of February and did not feel cold at all. This has been a three-day warm spell here in Annandale, and since it sounds like it's raining outside, I think it might go back to being cold as balls like tomorrow. Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow this year, so this was really more of a pleasant interlude than actual spring. Last year I noticed myself appreciating the changing seasons much more than I had before, so the warmth and sunlight today put me in a really good mood.

When I think about it, nothing particularly amazing went on today. Well, actually, it definitely was above-average. Met a girl who I might be into although my natural fear of rejection makes me think I didn't impress her at all. That's neither here nor there, though. Who cares.

Also went to a Root Cellar pot luck briefly and saw the same people who always hang out at these things, which is good. I like them. Brought Quinn along and introduced him, so he might get in on it and it'll rule.

Biggest news: Daniel might be coming to the city over (his) spring break. Really miss that dude and I hope that whole thing works out. Also might go to Phoenix for a few days over the summer before heading to Dude Fest and flying out of Indianapolis. However, all this costs money, and I don't have much. So realistically, Dude Fest probably isn't happening and I will miss Black Ships/Comadre/Coke Bust (whose link isn't working)/everyotherbandiwanttoseeever. I am very optimistic.

I said I'd post some music on here and I haven't forgotten because I only said that a little over two days ago. So here it is:

Pygmy Lush are my favorite band in existence right now. I only really, really like a few bands in existence right now anyway, because everyone is always breaking up, but I really liked Bitter River the first time I heard it, at first enjoying the heavier songs more, but soon realizing how fucking brilliant the folky stuff is. Then they released the entirely-folk Mount Hope last year, which was one of my favorite records of '08 because it ruled. Anyway, I only got wind of this live recording recently, and it fucking kills. The audio quality is about on par with Mount Hope and better than Bitter River, and since there's no clapping, I'll take a wild guess and say it was recorded in a studio. The songs are mainly drawn from Mount Hope, which means that they're great but essentially the same, but the two off Bitter River, "Headless" and "Throw the Jockey," are rearranged and generally better. Sadly, no "Hurt Everything" or "Send Bombs," but in its place are the three surprises: a new, as-yet-untitled song which absolutely rules, a cover of the Ramones' "I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend" which sounds nothing like the Ramones but also absolutely rules, and a REWORKED PG.99 SONG. Granted it is one of the least abrasive songs pg.99 ever did, but I was very pleased with how a folked-up "Lonesome Waltz of Leonard Cohen" turned out. Love this shit.

DOWNLOAD PYGMYLUSH HERE

Also, if you're in the mood to hear something I really can't vouch for in terms of quality, I learned about fifteen minutes ago that Dan and Amit from Mother Night have formed a new band, Torchbearer. I saw Mother Night open for 108 (whose link also isn't working) in New York in '07, and they were very good. I was similarly impressed by their full-length, Lifestyle/Deathstyle, which was a good, creative hardcore record. I haven't listened to this Torchbearer EP, which they are offering up for free download (as everyone should), but I probably will tomorrow, and I'd expect something similar to Mother Night, which is a good thing.

DOWNLOAD TORCHBEARER HERE

Okay, sorry

2009-02-10T21:49:00.000-08:00

Last post on here, the Phelps one, was really fucking useless. I apologize. I am not used to this kind of power, and at this stage, stupid shit like that might devastate my huge fanbase. Here's how that one slipped through: I was going to write about Verse breaking up because their bassist decided not to be edge anymore, and use that as a jumping-off point to write something about how everyone needs to make their own choices, without necessarily agreeing with that dude, and how fucked it is that a band (probably) broke up over something that trivial. Then I realized that a)I don't really care about Verse and b)nothing coherent was coming out of it. So yeah. Fuck straightedge and fuck being pressured into doing anything.

"What is new?" For the last three weeks I have been playing music with some friends. There are about 3.5 songs written at the moment, and as the first is radically different from the most recent 2.5, I'm going to say we have 2.5 songs. I described it to Daniel earlier as something like "Drive Like Jehu covering Jawbreaker with harmonized solos," and I think that's about it. Honestly, after being in two bands just last semester that barely did and did not (individually) come to fruition, and before that being in many, many "bands" that totally fell apart, I have to respect groups that genuinely have their shit together onstage. You have to actually work at it and have things go your way. Last semester things did not go our way.

Oh, other thing. I don't want to fall into the niche of "Bard bands" who play Smog every month and nowhere else. In fact, I want to avoid playing Smog ever.

Phelps

2009-02-10T11:22:00.001-08:00

Think about this: no non-weed smoker has ever won eight Olympic gold medals at once. I am in awe and I don't even smoke weed.

My roommate also pointed out that the munchies this dude gets must be RIDICULOUS.

Apparently Ted Turner also likes weed. That dude is cuh-razy. I also realize that I'm a few days late on this one, but I didn't have a blog a few days ago.

PANDA DOG

2009-02-09T18:34:00.000-08:00

So I am sitting here in my room wanting to practice the Rzewski piece I have to learn, but my roommate and his girlfriend are dozing ten feet away and it's really awkward. Obviously it would be a dick move on my part to just start playing, but this actually kind of sucks. I literally can't do anything of use in a room which is legitimately half mine. Fuck this shit. Anyway, this was supposed to be a post about the PANDA DOG ON THE LEFT.

Holy shit that dog looks like a panda. It is cute and fluffy in its own right, but it also resembles another creature among the world's cutest and fluffiest. I just want to hug that thing until one of us dies. Careers and stuff be damned, if you can name something in life more worthwhile than a Panda Dog, I urge you to share. With me.

Update: roommate's girlfriend has left and roommate is still sleeping. Situation is slightly less awkward (or way less awkward) but no more useful. Kudos to him for going to bed early or something, but I really need to do this.

SUP

2009-02-09T17:15:00.000-08:00

So I'm Jack and I decided to start a blog because it's easy and the demise of Juicycampus has left a void that needs filling... in my heart. I post on Girth Crisis occasionally, but this blog isn't going to be totally about music like that one. I may post a good album here and there, or even most of the time, but this is about ME. ME ME ME.

I go to college and like to do fun things like everybody else. I'm generally a pretty bummed-out dude and I can only expect that that'll come out in these blogs. Also I will try to actually tackle things that matter (to me) other than my love life or other things you would expect to find in a personal blog. Might review some albums even if I don't post 'em, might talk about the news. I rarely watch the news.