battletapes - a life of action and behavior.

updates.

i've driven out to leiper's fork a few times in the past week to help out al perkins with some protools stuff. it's pretty far out there but it's really beautiful and, for example, today, i drove out there and listened to the new kings of convenience record, riot on an empty stree, 3 times. i'm still getting used to it but i love it already. then i played it another time tonight while i was playing "tennis" (the old nintendo version) on my new "fun time" game system.

also today, i got my MRL test tape in the mail so tony and i had kevin nimmo come over and calibrate our tape machine for the first time in its new home. i can't wait to record on it, which i think will be next week when we start demoing the whole fantastic world full length, which we will begin recording later this month (and which has a release date of next month... not sure we'll make that deadline but we'll see...)

manda bought me "battle ship" last week and i love that shit. so far, she beat me and i beat matt, and that's pretty much all the time i've had to play... but, i promise, i will sink everyone ever.

nick should be in town sunday or monday and will stay here for a bit before we drive to my hometown in indiana where he happens to have an art show on the 12th. i'm excited, i haven't seen him for a pretty damn long time.

that's about it for now, i guess.

i saw sondre lerche last night and i was super excited and happy to be doing so. i thought he put on a really good show but i have to review the show for nashville zine and popshot shortly anyway so i'll just talk about it there.

mercator has had two shows back... both of them have been fun, though this past saturday's in murfreesboro felt a lot better cos we all played all of our songs (the first show back had chris sitting on with amp problems on our second song of the set, "meritocracy", which sucked since i mostly play accompanying parts in that song to his main parts.

it's fun to be playing again but we only have one show left (may 29 at the springwater) before we take another 2 months off of shows while chris travels and the whole fantastic world do a 10 day tour.

today i tried to teach my friend kelli how to drive stick... i'm proud of her, i think she picked up really quickly (though she said she has sorta driven one before) and i think she'll be able to do that shit easy in no time, if she keeps having to drive one (she got a job doing valet so she wanted to know how to be able to get one at least to a parking spot and then back for work.

lots of stuff to work on coming up, i think.

still feeling pretty happy most of the time. i guess manda is probably to thank for a lot of that.

trying out this whole "outside world" life thing... not spending as much time on the computer. it's an interesting concept.

things have been pretty good around here lately. i won't go into specifics but i'm happy.

parents' house painting went well and they were happy, which made happy.

we got the tape machine in the house a little over an hour ago and i'm ecstatic about that.

i'm going to sell my van soon and use the money to pay off some credit debt and buy some more stuff for the studio. i think tony and i are getting ready to really do some shit with the studio and it's exciting... both of us going to buy more gear and all that... and we rearranged it so it looks more badass and is also more functional and spacious. i've never been so excited to spend all my money before.

see you in another 100000000000 days.

sometimes i forget that i'm supposed to write words here from time to time. i've been fairly busy lately recording or mixing or hanging out with my new group of friends (manda, kelli, kelly, & shane) and same old roommates (jay, matt, and tony). i've just been swamped and unreasonably depressed so i haven't spent that much time online, really... what a life.

at any rate, i'll be going back to my parents' house in indiana for 3-4 days starting wednesday to paint some stuff for them and to stain their new deck. not a whole hell of a lot of fun but i owe them so much that if i didn't do this, i'd be the shittiest son ever. maybe i'll get some muscles, too.

in another week or so, tony and i will be adding a 1inch 8track recorder to the studio... it's an old scully that has been completely rebuilt and reproduces accurately up to 20kHz (that's really good) and, i've been told, sounds better than most 2" 16 track machines out there. we are very excited, indeed.

what have you been up to?

happy birthday to my dear, sweet mother on this, the day of my mother's birth.

i'll be in the studio (alex the great) for the next 3 or 4 days working on a record. i'm excited.

recorded on command with tony last weekend. good times were had by all and we pretty much finished 10 songs in 2 days... that's speed.

26 years ago today, a legend was born. 52 years ago tomorrow, the woman that would give birth to a legend was born.

my friend kelly is the link queen and today she linked me to this and i really like the art.