battletapes - a life of action and behavior.

2004-06-01T23:46:00.000-07:00

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.

2004-05-17T17:26:00.000-07:00

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.

2004-05-04T17:56:00.000-07:00

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.

2004-04-14T01:42:00.000-07:00

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?

2004-04-01T07:59:00.000-08:00

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.

2004-03-31T01:50:00.000-08:00

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

2004-03-23T10:49:00.000-08:00

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

2004-03-19T18:09:00.000-08:00

i saw the remake of Dawn of the Dead last night and, if you're into horror film, or just like getting freaked out, i'd definitely suggest that movie. i haven't seen the original in a number of years so it's hard to say how they compare -- and i'm sure people new to the movie might think it's just a lot like 28 days later -- but i had a really good time watching it last night... my friend shane has a friend who has a friend or one of those things... anyway, we got into the test screening for free at like 1am or something... then got out of the movie at 3something and it was pretty cool... dead streets and help add to the mood the movie left me in... came home and ate a very late dinner and then finally got to sleep at like 6am. good time.

2004-03-17T10:00:00.000-08:00

hmmmm. this is all the evidence we need that we are coming to the end times! oh, and there are zombies in my sprite cans.

oh well, at least we know that there are still other places being found where we could go someday. (do you think they planned for space exploration when they described the whole "end times" thing? could you outrun something like that if it were actually going to happen? -- taking into consideration that if such a thing were to actually happen, it could be after man was able to send lots of people into space at one time). maybe i'm just rambling... of course, i suppose you have to keep in mind that most "new places" are not suitable to sustain human life without many years of terraforming, so there would be a lot of "living out of your luggage" on spaceships.... hahaha

2004-03-16T12:21:00.000-08:00

i've got a fair amount of recording work lined up right now and have done some shit since i last posted. all exciting, let me tell you.

i've gone to a lot of shows lately and i'm glad i brought my ear plugs. mock orange was probably the highlight, though there was like no one there to share their greatness with. you should go to their page and check out "ryan's new song" mp3 (i linked to it 2 entries ago). they have a great new record, "mind is not brain", coming out this spring and they already have a *really* amazing other new record written and demoed AND ryan has a whole solo acoustic record demoed that is amazing. it's sick how talented some of my friends are.

and chris, i know you're reading this, return my message, dude! mercator must schedule practice now that we are ready to rock again. (and the rest of you heard me right).

there's a "new" planet. cool.

2004-03-01T09:53:00.000-08:00

so michael triplett of the chapel hill, NC band Fin Fang Foom has taken extremely ill in the past week. mercator has played with FFF and i've helped michael book FFF shows in the area in the past and he's really just a super nice guy and extremely helpful to bands on tour (he runs a go room #4 in NC where a LOT of bands play when on tour in the area. at any rate, as of this writing, he is supposed to have been moved out of the ICU and taken off the various life support systems they had him on and is doing a bit better. go here for information from ben over at FFF's label, lovitt records. i'm sure that i speak for everyone who knows michael when i say that i hope he gets better soon and is able to leave the hospital on his own two feet.

2004-02-25T12:20:00.000-08:00

i can't stop listening to this fucking song.

or this one either.

the first one, though, i just play over and over... it's live hiv pos and my ears are the blood it needs to infect. shit.

2004-02-24T02:08:00.000-08:00

i got the new mojo magazine today cos there is a coverstory on brian wilson and his new tour performing the record "smile" in its entirety, supposedly finally reveiling the original order and concept behind the album that was shelved 37 years ago. for some people (like mike and jay and myself), this is pretty fucking exciting news (though there are multiple versions of each song on our bootleg records so though we may now know an order, the feel of the song is still in question til we hear it for ourselves). at any rate, i won't really go into the story of the record cos you should just go buy the mojo (it comes with a "soul" cd and also has a 30 page article on the velvet underground and a pretty long one on the mars volta... best issue in a while, and that's saying a lot cos that magazine is consistently great).

so, if you're interested and a big geek, there is a review of brian's first smile show in london at this site

and, also if you're interested but don't feel like clicking the link, the official smile tracklist is:
Our Prayer
Heroes And Villains
Do You Like Worms?
Barnyard
The Old Master Painter
Cabinessence
Wonderful
Child Is Father of the Man
Surf's Up
I'm In Great Shape
Workshop
Vega-tables
Holiday
Wind Chimes
Mrs O'Leary's Cow
I Love You Da Da
Good Vibrations

i am very happy about this and can't wait to take some of my smile bootlegs and put it in order and see what i think. the article also hinted that smile may finally get a release (though if that'll be a live album like last year's "brian wilson presents pet sounds", or the original recordings, or even a redone smile with his new band, has yet to be known.)

2004-02-11T11:19:00.000-08:00

my friend adam sent me this link, which i found hilarious. it's a funny list of fun.

2004-02-09T15:10:00.000-08:00

cos stephanie demanded it and i just can't say no to the pretty ladies:

here i am and i am writing words again. boooooooo.

i recorded every day last week except one and this weekend i logged 24 hours in about a day and a half. my ears are still ringing. (though it's only a day later).

i eat way too many smuckers brand jelly beans.

my rear left molars hurt and i think it might be cos my wisdom teeth are trying to show their ugly heads (i'm 25... 26 next month... shouldn't i have already had this problem way earlier?... then again, i didn't get my first tooth til i was a year old, supposedly... and that's a big supposedly, my parents lie to me all the time, or so the voices tell me.)

and in keeping with mike's lovely little brain post (and stephanie's doing the same thing), here is my brain stuff:

Your Brain Usage Profile

Auditory : 33%
Visual : 66%
Left : 57%
Right : 42%

Jeremy, you are somewhat left-hemisphere dominant and show a preference for visual learning, although not extreme in either characteristic. You probably tend to do most things in moderation, but not always.

Your left-hemisphere dominance implies that your learning style is organized and structured, detail oriented and logical. Your visual preference, though, has you seeking stimulation and multiple data. Such an outlook can overwhelm structure and logic and create an almost continuous state of uncertainty and agitation. You may well suffer a feeling of continually trying to "catch up" with yourself.

Your tendency to be organized and logical and attend to details is reasonably well-established which should afford you success regardless of your chosen field of endeavor. You can "size up" situations and take in information rapidly. However, you must then subject that data to being classified and organized which causes you to "lose touch" with the immediacy of the problem.

Your logical and methodical nature hamper you in this regard though in the long run it may work to your advantage since you "learn from experience" and can go through the process more rapidly on subsequent occasions.

You remain predominantly functional in your orientation and practical. Abstraction and theory are secondary to application. In keeping with this, you focus on details until they manifest themselves in a unique pattern and only then work with the "larger whole."

With regards to your career choices, you have a mentality that would be good as a scientist, coach, athlete, design consultant, or an engineering technician. You can "see where you want to go" and even be able to "tell yourself," but find that you are "fighting yourself" at the darndest times.

huh.... and i thought i was an artist... oh well, fuck it.

2004-01-29T12:38:00.000-08:00

RIP Anton Maiden, you will be forever dead. (i was just informed of this today). for those of you who haven't heard his hilarious out of tune vocals sung over midi-versions of a number of good songs from the Iron Maiden song catalog, you have missed out for years. i think i might have left my copy at the red rose more than a year ago for them to borrow but i will soon be trying to locate my copy and play it at 2 Minutes To Midnight with a single candle in his honor.

2004-01-15T11:21:00.000-08:00

sweet dreams are made of these (as requested by jay:

last night i had a vivid dream... here goes (i'm just going to type this like if i were telling you about it in person, i'm not going to edit it to make it read like a short story):

starts off in a truck stop style restaurant/convenience store, where i've just entered, god knows for what. i meet up with some friends, one of them being a cute girl who i want to spend some time with... she leads us into a room adjacent to the restaurant area where there is some crazy band playing. i recognize one of my friends who is a really laid back guy and probably doesn't even play music, but he's in the band. i'm shocked and ask who this band is... someone tells me their name but i can't remember it now. there are probably 10 people in this band and they all look normal... the lights go out. suddenly, flames erupt from the stage and everyone in the band is in some freaky clown make up and/or something equally strange to see on a band on stage. these guys are playing some evil, heavy shit and i've somehow ended up in bleechers, watching them with other friends i didn't know were there and the cute girl is nowhere to be seen. this band has people just running around on the floor, doing crazy clown shit, and guys on the stage who are fuckin' turning invisible so all you see is a guitar floating in the air! i never figure out how they turn invisible but the crowd LOVES it and sometimes they slowly turn visible again (maybe to shred, maybe in order to let the audience know "this ain't no string holding up this girl from above the stage... i'm invisible under this bitch!") they do their show for a while but people become less impressed over time and, though i never drink anything, i'm getting kinda drunk. eventually, i decide it's my time to follow the masses and get the hell out of there. i go back into the convenience store and look for food but this shit is like twinkies and fucking cupcakes and what-not and i'm just not having it. i go outside to see my van (the one i rarely drive) and a number of old, high school friends waiting near it, along with some other cute girl that i recognize but can't place. i tell them that i am hungry and we go to another gas station that has a restaurant, this one set up like one of those old 1950s fast food places where you walk up to the side windows and place your order. i look for a while but i'm kinda drunk and can't decide what i want (plus it's mostly burgers and i want breakfast food).

at this point, the dream continued but i don't remember what happened so it was probably loads of bullshit) then i remember the rest:

so we are driving around in my van and i say "okay, i'm gonna eat now" and we go back to the previously mentioned new gas station. i leave the van in the parking lot with my friends and say "i'm getting food, don't take my van." i walk up to the stand and they're no serving breakfast food and they have also sorta turned into a jack in the box restaurant (sorta meaning they serve JItB food but they also have greasy gas station food). i look at the menu and find "bacon, egg, and cheese biscuit - $2" and say "i want that." they start making the sandwich and it's HUGE... like the size of a small pizza or something... and i am THRILLED. they hand me the sandwich and say "that'll be $10.99." and i freak the hell the out. "dude, i don't want to spend $10 on a fucking sandwich! it says $2!" "well, we don't serve those any more and this is $10.99". some little shitty punk kid is standing behind me and says "man, trust me, it's totally worth the money" and i am still pissed but fork over the money cos i already have sandwich in hand and i am starving. i walk back towards my van and notice that one of my friends is sitting behind the wheel and they all have these shiteating grins on their faces. one of my friends has gotten out of the van and is kinda laughing and then they take off! i yell after them "give me back my van, you motherfuckers!" and, in the process, get so excited that i drop off about a quarter of my sandwich, which pisses me off even more. they drive circles around me and then take off and i'm left with my friend, who is suddenly saying "wow, they're fucking assholes, dude", to which i reply "yeah, i know". we start walking towards my house (which is now my parents' house as i realize we're in indiana again) and i'm eating my sandwich and cursing my friends while my other friend tries to console me. as we walk along the side of the highway, the night gets extremely dark and suddenly, there is oncoming traffic about to hit us but they can't see cos it's so dark and we're not really showing up in their headlights. to our left, there is a big hill that kinda keeps us from walking more than a few inches off the road and it's getting really dangerous for me, my friend, and my $10 bacon, egg, and cheese biscuit, so we start climbing the side of the hill which peaks to a little ridge that follows the road but which is probably only a foot or two wide... so it's narrow walking, to say the least. then i notice on the side of the hill opposite the highway is a SPOOKY GRAVEYARD. i say to my friend "this is some scary shit" and suddenly i notice that my sandwich is gone... i have no idea where it went and i know i didn't eat the whole thing, but it's okay cos i've totally lost my appetite.... between van thievery, oncoming traffic, and dead beds to my left, the last time i want in my mouth is greasy breakfast food (especially since i realized that i didn't have my antacids to keep me from feeling ill from all the food). we walk a little further and we're at another goddamn gas station. this one appears deserted and my friends are sitting in the parking lot, laughing, with the van behind them. they walk towards us and i don't stop as i continue towards my van so they change direction and follow behind me. i get to the van and say that i didn't think that shit was cool and i kinda punch one of my friends... everyone looks at me like "he's just picking on that dude, though that's kinda mean" and then to prove i mean business, i start kicking ass on the cute girl and then everyone else following her. one friend remains standing while the rest of them lie on the ground in pain, having had me just beat ass on them for taking my van and fucking up my evening.

at this point, i woke up feeling about 10 degrees too hot in my bed and decided to get up for the day. i talked to some people online, one of which was jay, and i started recalling my dream and he told me to post that shit here so there it is. not necessarily coherent or that entertaining but i figured, sure, i might as well do it.

so there you go, ass.

2004-01-15T00:50:00.000-08:00

the reno kids will be coming to visit again a week from today (if this shows up as being written on thursday, which it technically is since it's 2:36am my time). i am excited and it's nice to have people actually excited to see you.

i've been really busy recording and doing shit like that... did a session at a dude's new studio that went well, almost done with an EP by the wonderful "the whole fantastic world" band which i think is pretty great all around.

tonight, i spent a lot of the evening trying to fix my mac with jay cos it said my disk was really fragmented and wouldn't let me record in protools. hours of shit trying to get it to do something and it wasn't until i fucked it up really bad using norton's disk doctor that i was then able to use disk warrior and actually get the fucking thing to work right and let me record again.

today i got my hair cut. i'm not sure how i feel about it yet though i'm pretty sure the person doing it did a good job and pretty much what i wanted done. i always feel weird for the first week after a haircut. i spent way too much money, though, and that always hurts.

all i've really listened to lately have been old aloha records and, the past few days, a beatles comp i made for myself months ago. if someone ever says to me that they think the beatles are overrated and are really sincere about it, i think that i could probably care less what they have to say from that point on, on a musical level (josh hood not included). i have the song "girl" stuck in my head right now, bad... and that is in a good way.

and i stumbled upon this girl's art today on myspace (frankly cos i saw her picture on the "cool new people" page and her eyes were killer) and i think it's amazing. i have to find a reason to contract her to do some art for me and have it as a write-off. check it out.

2004-01-03T01:05:00.000-08:00

happy new year's, jerks.

2003-12-27T23:09:00.000-08:00

jay's in reno and i'm not.

watch the video for the darkness' "christmas time (don't let the bells end)". another little piece of genius that makes me not want to slit my goddamn wrists right now.

2003-12-23T22:57:00.000-08:00

okay. so, mercator played our last show with aaron, our original bassist, this past friday in murfreesboro. pretty much the polar opposite of our final nashville show with aaron... way more people showed up than we expected to, we sold some of our old-ass records, we got compliments from people i'd never seen at a mercator show, we played our long set (mostly pretty well) and we had a really good time. didn't feel like the last time we'd probably all be together as a band but oh well. the way i see it right now is we have 4 people who have told us they'd like to play with us and each one of them is really great in his own way and we really can't lose if we play with one of these guys. i just need to start doing guitar exercises again so that i can keep up with how good we could potentially be on our instruments. i never really practiced that much when i was learning my instrument and i think i'm pretty good, considering that, but i think i could be a lot better so i'm going to try and start focusing more or something. mercator have always been really good. i'm not egotist when i say that... we are a good band, plain and simple, and while i'm sure some people might disagree and say that they don't like us, chances are that they couldn't say that we're not good at what we do but i'm still not sure we've lived up to our potential much yet. maybe i'm been foolishly optimistic here but i will now say that, if things work out with our new bassist (whoever it may end up being), expect some good shit from us in 2004. seriously.

though maybe i'm lying.... but probably not.

last night i saw the new lord of the rings movie at the IMAX theater in opry mills. i don't really know what to say about it... movies that are that long and part of other, larger stories, sometimes i have a difficult time judging. i mean, i still love star wars and goddamn if episode 1 wasn't total crap and episode 2 only slightly better. but i ended up really liking the lord of the rings movies for whatever reason (i think the two towers was my favorite one, though) and this third part, while it had the buttery ending that i'm sure everyone who didn't read the books but who likes movies would have guess, i thought it was really good, i think.

i spent the past few days recording a kid who is maybe 21, who i started recording when he was like 17 or 18 in his last band, the dustin change, and now he plays with a band from my hometown called mock orange, who i have loved since i was like 16 or something and he's still writing his songs and damn if i don't feel like most of them are better than most of my songs. his name is zach grace and when we finish some songs, i'll host them and post links to them cos you people need to hear his songs. just great, poppy songs.

and now i am sitting in the room that was the "playroom" for me as a kid, growing up in southwestern indiana, typing this update on what i guess is christmas eve, though it's really more like late, late night on the 23rd. as always, it's strange to be home but my mom has zoe: a dog and i played with it most of the night and it kicks more ass than dogs should be allowed to. and i'm listening to one of two mix cds a friend made me and then fed ex-ed to my parents house so that i would have something to occupy my mind. perfect timing and a fucking really great mix so far, though i'm maybe half way through the first disc so we'll see if it ends up making me think "this is all crap". i'm willing to make a bet it won't. and i got some other kick ass shit with the cds, like motherfucking glitter sunglasses. goddamn, i'm gonna be way more fancy lad than you.

anyway, i can almost definitely say i won't be updating this before christmas day and maybe not til after new years so, to anyone who reads this, have a great holiday and be safe.

2003-12-18T23:20:00.000-08:00

tonight was mercator's last practice with our bassist, aaron. tomorrow (friday) is our last show with him, which will take place at the red rose coffee house. we're gonna play a long set so if you're reading this and you're coming, get ready to have your shit blown back for a while. i feel kinda weird about it. i guess i'm a little depressed right now. but we'll see everyone again in a few months' time, i guess, so fuck it, whatever.

2003-12-17T09:15:00.000-08:00

if anyone is looking for a christmas present for me this year...

2003-12-14T10:48:00.000-08:00

jesus.... where to begin?

let's try it chronologically...

the apollo up cd release show was fantastic. mercator ended up playing first but there was an okay-sized and enthusiastic crowd for the majority of our set, we played well, and then right before our last song, i look up to my "internet friend" (lame, i know, but fuck you), camille standing about 10 feet from me. all of you who read this probably already know who i'm about if you know jay but, if not, camille is someone jay started talking to online and then made the reno and nashville worlds collide when we found out she had 3 other awesome friends (jared, casey, and sadie) and i was sucked into chatting with them all as well. so, camille flew with her friend jared to nashville, from reno, as a surprise for jay's band's cd release show. it was a shock, it was fantastic, i fucked up that last song so damn bad from thinking about it. so yeah, saw her, played, fucked up, saw jared, thought "jesus, this is weird." and then hung out with them through the rest of the night (and until about 6am the next morning). the crowd got HUGE by the time apollo up played. the band slayed and, i think, sold a pretty good number of cds and it was great.... what an unexpected night; i thought no one would be able to even find the boardroom, really, and it would just be close friends but that place was fucking PACKED. then i also expected the weekend to be just a typical one -- nothing too exciting -- but it turned into a pretty damn good time and i became homeboys with jared through our constant asskicking humor.

following their departure on monday, i showed some signs of flu and/or cold (bad stomach but with headache and earache). spent the rest of the week doing loads of different things though my main mission has been to get supplies together for care packages i'm sending to the reno kids that include nashville memorabilia (since the 2 of them that came didn't have time to get to the really "tourist-y" areas to get that sort of shit themselves)... i've gone all out on this bitch to these 4 reno people who i think kick a lot of ass but who also keep me entertained on those days where i just do not want to get up from in front of my computer. on the rare thought that any of them may read this, i won't go into what will be contained in the packages and it's not like there's a lot of kick ass shit but there are some cute/funny things that theywill hopefully dig and some pretty cool cd-packaging for the mix cds each of them is getting.

coming up on friday, mercator prepared to play our last nashville show with our current bassist (and sometime guitarist), aaron yung. aaron's moving to boston at the end of the month so we were planning on playing a couple going away shows for him (friday in nashville, next friday in murfreesboro) and then we'd go through the process of auditioning a new bass player and continuing our rock mission a few months into the new year, as long as we found someone who could not only play aaron's old parts but make us excited to play at all. the show was friday at the muse, nashville's only all-ages venue that i know of, a place that i've always hated and typically associated with 15 year old kids trying to bum cigarettes off older people and fancy-lad haircuts on the heads of kids listening to music that makes my whole body hurt with disgust. the show was with emery reel, who i really like and whose record i recorded last year, and the whole fantastic world, my ex-roommate, daniel's new band (he also played in the band lotushalo with jay, who we released a split 12" with in 2001) and they were really good, especially considering that it was their first show and they have a LOT of shit going on at once for a 3-piece band. if only the venue and turnout could have been as kickass as the lineup, it might have been a really memorable night. instead, there were probably less than 20 kids the whole night, the soundguys have no fucking clue what-so-ever, and they tried to make us stop playing early... you see, we were planning on doing extended sets for these last two shows... we had 12 songs ready for the show at the muse... because of the turnout, we dropped it down to like 7 or 8 before we even hit the stage, where we then decided to make it something like 6 or 7. i think we ended up playing 5 songs, one of which wasn't even one of our's and probably a minute long at most. maybe it was 6. who knows. the point is that we found out right before our set that the "punk rock" club, the muse, had booked a DJ set after our show was supposed to end and it would cost more for the kids and be their "party show" for the night. our turnout was small but enthusiastic and i don't know if they planned on having tons of kids coming for the dj shit but i didn't see it. they told us to wrap it up and i said "whatever. we have 2 songs left, then". we played that one and then i said "okay, last song" and startedsaying my thanks. the "stage manager" (some homeless looking old fucker) then said "no, you guys are done", to which i replied "fuck you. we're playing one more song and that's all there is to it." i said a few words against the venue (each one of which was dramatically understated considering how much i hate that fucking place and wanted to just burn it to the ground right then, big-white style) and then we played an extended version of 'dunebuggy attack battalion', during which i talked more and thanked the venue for fucking it up and pointed out that this is why we didn't typically play all ages venues. it's really a fucking shame when the most punk rock thing you can do in a "punk" club is not let them cut your set more than in half so that they can charge more money to kids so they can hear some dude playing fucking records on stage. it's obvious that that venue is very selective in their support of local music. if they think that the show will make them loads of money (and we didn't see a single dime from our show), they're all for the local scene. if not, you can expect them to treat you like shit and for "crash", their fucking moron soundman, to tell you some bulllshit like "if you ever want to play again, you'll take your shit offstage and tear it apart there" when you're taking your gear down. crash, we don't ever want to play there again, and i wish you would die in the most horrible way possible at the time the forces choose to take you. oh, and their fucking moron soundman wouldn't let me "borrow" their marker if i took it away from the bar area where it stood (cos you know i'm a fucking marker thief). i had to go there again the next night to see my friends apollo up and forget cassettes play the 91.1 benefit, which sucked cos i really never wanted to go there again, but i also really wanted to see those bands do their thing... their turnout was fantastic but, then again, forget cassettes is a fucking huge drawl. and, as reestablished last night, there is a reason. they fucking kick ass. now, unless there is just some amazing show at the muse (or unless i want to go stare at hot 16 year old girls), there is no way you're gonna see me at that place again (though i'd love to go back and fucking pick a fight with those worthless cunts). chances are, given their love of mostly booking horrible hardcore lineups that appeal to angsty teens, that won't be a problem.

now i am going to spend the rest of the day finishing the reno packages and getting them ready to mail out tomorrow. a lot of work left to do but i definitely see the end of the road now, so that's nice, considering i was supposed to have the early incarnation of this package (just a mix cd) out before thanksgiving. oh well, hopefully they'll be able to see the work i put into it all and appreciate it or something.

oh, and this next week, after our last show at the red rose (friday, 9pm go to the mercator page for details) my friend, ex-dustin change frontman, current mock orange bassist, zach grace will be coming to the house for 3 days to start recording his album, which we'll be doing for the next however long it takes to put together when done over a few days here and a few days there spread out over months. i am REALLY excited to do this record, i love this dude's songs.

2003-12-04T00:40:00.000-08:00

okay, so the matt sharp show was kind of a bust... there were *maybe* 50 kids there the whole night and that seemed more like 10 when you put them into a fairly large theatre and have them spread their seating out so they are in groups of 5 or so across various rows. it was pretty fun, however, getting to play on a stage that big with dramatic lighting and "big sound" with a monitor engineer and even a backstage room (albeit shared between all the 'opening' bands) with a deli tray and a cooler of drinks (i had a turkey, ham, roast beef, and cheddar sandwich with chips -- which i *really* needed by the time i was able to have it). unfortunately, "ridah world productions" (who have 5 members) had their "entourage" there and those fuckers (probably about 20 of them, none of which stayed beyond RWP's set) drank almost all the drinks and devoured the rest of the food pretty quickly. i got mine, so whatever. but it was fun and i liked seeing apollo up on such a huge stage. just the 3 of them spread so far apart, i can't imagine how they actually heard each other at all.

speaking of which, their cd release show is this saturday at the boardroom in nashville. go to the mercator news page for directions, if you're interested. clicky. i'm proud of my boys, i'm glad we're gonna get to play with them this weekend on this show.

thanksgiving was a bust, of sorts... i spent the majority of the day in western kentucky at my uncle's mom's house with the family. my dad's mom was put into a nursing home this year as she's developed alzheimers and was wandering out of the house at all hours of the night, unaware of what she was doing. add to that that her husband, my grandpa, is also really old and has his own health issues to deal with, and putting her in the home seemed the best idea. to try to keep her from being too confused, we had thanksgiving away from their home, where we usually do it. i don't know if it helped or not. i don't feel that at any one point she knew who i was and she would mumble things to me that made no sense and it was just crazy. i found myself trying to concentrate on a football game on tv whose teams i didn't even know at all or care about just to try and tune her out a little bit. i know that probably sounds harsh but it's easier than paying attention to someone you love unable to make the simplest connections in their brain, talking to you like you're someone you've probably never met from 50 years before.

i then went back to my parents' house in indiana and spent 3 or 4 hours trying to de-fuck their computer from a number of spywares and viruses. i can not suggest spybot or ad aware to anyone who has these problems. after spending hours and hours trying to get online, i finally go to the point where i could download them and they completely fixed my parents' computer and i was very happy and they were proud of their smart son. now, if i could only find a real life version of those programs for my own spyware and viruses. my penis keeps popping up, trying to get me to buy my christmas presents early for the pets i don't have.

i also ended up spending an evening hanging out with my old best friends from back home. they've all changed a good deal due to their various life experiences and we've been apart from each other in the capacity we once enjoyed so much for a long enough time that i consistently feel "out of the loop" when i'm around them but we managed to pull it together (with the help of some alcohol... who would have thought?) and had a fantastic time, even if my old best friend, mike, ended up maybe having some sort of meltdown and leaving early and making us all wonder "what happened to mike?" he's had such a difficult year, i think he deserves to have these things slide for him.

then, other bullshit life stuff has been happening now and then. i got my hair cut today for the first time since may and it feels weird to me and i don't know how i feel about it yet, even though it's really not very different at all. it just seems like a different me when i look in the mirror, i suppose. let's see if this one picks up girls better than the one that was starting to look like a goddamn hippie.

and i saw Bubba Ho-Tep tonight and i enjoyed the majority of it pretty well though my buddy mike, who went along, made the comment "next time i pick the movie" after we got outside and that made me feel kinda bad for all of a few seconds until i realized that it's not problem if people like the movies i want to see or not and that if they decide to go, they're gonna have to remember that i like shows like dawson's creek, the oc, ed, and other "bullshit tv". fuck, the day after thanksgiving, i watched the justin timberlake holiday special on tv and thought it was great. (he played some really okay rhodes parts while singing as well as doing a -- what i believed to be -- difficult syncopated guitar part (even though they were powerchords) while singing really well. fuck it, i like him.

it's really hard for me to want to sit down and write shit here. feels too much like a diary and i don't like keeping diaries and it's also difficult to write funny shit all the time or comment on interesting current events as i happen to have news-junky friends who beat me to it every motherfucking time. i need to surround myself with people who are completely uninteresting and unintelligent so i can really shine, i guess.

shine on.

2003-11-18T12:00:00.000-08:00

MythBusters. definitely one of my new favorite shows on tv.

2003-11-17T18:45:00.000-08:00

i ended up doing 5 days in the studio instead of 2, spread out over 2 weeks. it was a really good time, pretty easy most of the time, and i picked up a few tricks i hadn't thought of before, got some more soldering experience, and, most importantly, got paid.

this sunday, mercator is supposed to play a show with Matt Sharp, who played bass on the first two weezer records and fronted the rentals for a few years (alongside apollo up, who will be second on the bill). it's in mtsu's tucker theatre, which i've never been in, but, along with playing a show with matt, i'm really excited to get to play a place designed to sound good. the only problem is that chris, mercator's other guitarist, has a grandpa who keeps have strokes and looks like he will probably die this week and i'm really hoping, somewhat selfishly, that he can do it really soon or after we play so that chris doesn't have to be out of town on sunday at his funeral (though, if that were to happen, obviously i would more than understand why we couldn't play). i wish i could easily count the number of shows we've almost missed this year due to "life problems" in the band. i think someone's trying to tell us something (along with aaron leaving for boston at the end of the year, making us have to find a new bassist). fuck it all, sometimes.

i spent the majority of the day repairing the toilets in my house and definitely fucking that all, all the time.

2003-11-03T21:39:00.000-08:00

i'm going to spend the next 2 days in the studio, assisting mr brad jones, a man i would call a mentor to me in some ways of recording. the best part about assisting is, typically, i don't have a whole lot to do and i get to pay close attention to whatever producer or engineer is doing the session and steal techniques and shit. it's really quite good, typically.

most days i have no idea what to type here. i was told before to just start typing into notepad and edit out a post based on my musings but i really can't ever be bothered to be productive lately, as long as it's for myself. i have no idea why i'm so damn tired all the time but i really have no energy and no matter how much or how little i do, it never changes, so i can't totally blame it on the fact that i'm not doing a whole lot right now. i blame the weather, i blame mother nature, that fucking mother.

oh well.

2003-10-28T13:05:00.000-08:00

holy fuck, this was a great girls are pretty, today.

2003-10-28T09:19:00.000-08:00

rod roddy, may you come on down with angels, good sir. (linky)

i could talk about how much i loved the price is right as a kid but i'm sure anyone reading this probably feels the same way. elliot smith ain't got nothing on rod.

2003-10-21T12:36:00.000-07:00

okay, so when i first heard of this band, the darkness, i thought they were just another stupid cartoon metal band trying to poke fun at the past... and, well, i still kind of think that. their singer does the super high falsetto shit that was huge in the 80s hair metal scene but, if only judging from their single, these boys have riffs and this guy's vocal melodies and style are much closer to freddie mercury than axl rose. then, at like 5 this morning as i was drifting off into slumber (i know, i'm a total piece of shit), i had the tv on vh1 and their video came on and blew my mind and woke me up with laughter. it is maybe the best video i've seen in a long, long time, and it's super obvious these dudes are not taking themselves too seriously AND have a great sense of humor at that. go here and watch their video for "i believe in a thing called love". it's fucking great.

oh, and, to courtney love, who i'm sure is reading this: you deserve to lose your child and you murdered your husband, you worthless bitch. someone should off you like you did him or maybe you should just off yourself.

2003-10-18T13:57:00.000-07:00

and now that i've given myself to the love of bob powers and his girls are pretty site, i want to read everything he does, including this.

last night i saw texas chainsaw massacre (2003). let me start by saying i love the first TCM and think it's one of, if not the, best horror movie of all time, a genre which i geniunely love. i think that if i hadn't seen or been a huge fan of the original, i wouldn't have minded this movie that much... i probably would have thought "that's almost the best horror movie i've seen all year" (though i did enjoy '28 days later' pretty well). however, i have seen the original and i am a huge fan. i went to the late show with 2 old friends and met 2 new ones and was really excited... then the show sold out right after i bought my ticket (which i knew was a sign that this would be annoying, if only for the fact that so many people would be in there) and then i got into the theater and the only 3 seats i could find with my old friends were in the very fucking front row of hollywood 27... HUGE screen + front row = neck pain and a general feeling of "what the fuck is going on?" any time there's much action on screen. my friend tom hadn't seen the original and didn't like this one. i haven't known him long enough to get a huge feel for the kind of movies he likes so that didn't matter much to me. my roommate matt hated it. however, matt either really likes a movie in the theater or hates it so his opinion didn't matter much to me, either, especially since i figured that the proximity to the screen probably affected his hatred more than anything. i'm not saying don't go see the movie, i'm just saying that, if you're a fan of the original, don't expect it to be nearly as good, though you probably wouldn't anyway.

2003-10-15T21:31:00.000-07:00

everyone else's life is more interesting than my own.

tonight, 3/4 of mercator tracked drums for what will probably be our last recording with aaron (unless we get the sonic youth cover done by the end of the month for deadline), and could possibly be the last recording ever for the band. we'll see and keep our fingers crossed for now. tomorrow i start a new record by a guy named tom. he may or may not be my 3rd cousin. matt's playing drums on the record and we're basically building a "band" record for him (as he's only guitar and vocals). i'm excited as i'll be trying some production techniques i've never used before in session.

the apollo up! was mastered last thursday and it went really well. i think we're all satisfied, if not happy, with how their first record turned out. go to their page and download the 2 new mp3s they put up from the record. (or listen for them on 91.1)

i want to see the remake of texas chainsaw massacre this weekend. don't ask me why.

2003-10-08T11:42:00.000-07:00

so, at first, i didn't really get the whole "girls are pretty" blog in a way that made me say "fuck!" but now i do and, though everyone who probably reads this has read plugs on mikro or brittney's pages, screw you cos i'm gonna plug it for today's entry, entitled " Living With AIDS Beats The Shit Out Of Living With Your Parents Day!" i laughed and i laughed. and then i laughed.

and you should really take my advice and check out the GI Joe Public Service Announcement remixes i mentioned a few posts ago. they have my whole house in constant laughter. we haven't been this unified since one of us got crabs and we had to shave him of all his body hair, as a house.

tomorrow, the apollo up record goes to mastering. i'm excited and pretty soon you'll hear how much better a band can sound thanks to their producer/engineer and his bundle of tricks (thank god for on-screen waveform editing...)

i kid, i kid.

their record will be called "light the end and burn it through" you might want to get your lava lamps, blacklight posters, and pot-friendly decals out for this one kids...

2003-10-05T11:27:00.000-07:00

looks like this pussy finally got tired of some gay guy toying with her. it's about time, if you ask me.

2003-10-01T23:53:00.000-07:00

the super furry animals were very good. last year, when i saw them in atlanta, they played a longer set and i enjoyed the show a bit better (less people, cooler venue, most of the songs i wanted to hear)... and this year they didn't have the surround sound thing going, which was a bummer, though that place was so big, i doubt it would have been that easy to do well (especially with the idiot running sound)

on the way back to nashville, we saw an accident on the side of the road where a tractor trailer carrying a bunch of big, plastic, carnival bears cars for a ride was almost overturned. it looked really surreal. it's times like these i wish i had a digital camera of my own that i could carry to take pictures of which shit all the time.

jay stayed in town and went to see the black eyed snakes at the end with kid dakota. then they crashed at the house. i woke up early enough to catch them before they left and see how their show went. they informed me that there were like 12 people in the audience, which made me feel bad that i didn't get to see them and paid $17 for a ticket plus gas money to see the SFA .. though not really. i got to talk to alan sparhawk for a few minutes, though, which made the little fanboy in me very happy. fighting all urges to ask him a ton of Low questions, i only asked him "what's it like to play to like 12,000 fans (during low's recent opening slot on european dates with radiohead) and then come back and play to very few people with this band?" to which he responded (in summary) "it's a little weird" and smiled. there aren't a lot of times that i feel all that fanboy talking to musicians, especially anymore, but i did feel that a bit today, though hopefully it didn't really show. i'm very happy jay got to hang with them a bit and i hope he enjoyed it and was happy to talk to someone i know he respects as well (though we haven't exchanged notes about it or anything).

some of you reading this may very well have seen these before but they're new to me and a friend just im'ed me the link so i'll put it here now cos it made me laugh outloud. gi joe psa's. make funny.

2003-09-29T21:42:00.000-07:00

tomorrow, i'll be driving to louisville with 6 friends to see the super furry animals and grandaddy. i saw SFA last year in atlanta and it was one of the best shows i've seen. if you haven't heard them before, you're missing out. 2001's "rings around the world" is a great place to start but this year's "phantom power" is also a fantastic record. they're kind of all over the rock map, musically, playing folk-ish songs that turn into electronic-music-influenced noise freakouts... they have loads of beach boys inspired harmonies (4 of the 5 of them sing), and play some hugely catchy pop tunes as well. i don't think i'm really describing them that well... let's leave this one to all music guide. live, they reproduce some of the most intricate parts of their records, totally nail the harmonies, have cool video stuff playing on a screen behind them (which the keyboardist has controls to change on the fly), and have quad sound representation (just like pink floyd used to!)

i am way fucking sleepy. i don't know what the hell is wrong with me lately. i just can't stay awake.

2003-09-28T11:05:00.000-07:00

i saw the movie lost in translation last night. very funny, i enjoyed it very much upon first viewing. i still love bill murray and i still think that scarlett johansson is sexy as hell. i liked sophia coppola's 'the virgin suicides" but was somewhat let down as i loved the book (when is that not the case with a film versus its book?) and i felt she tried to condense too many important scenes when she didn't need to (that movie was what, an hour and a half long or something?) my friends, who saw the movie with me last night, said "lost in translation" was paced a bit slow for them at times and made other comments that made them seem to like it but not like it a ton, but i would say that it's definitely worth seeing. hell, even my roommate matt went to see it and, let me tell you, dude does not go to too many movies (though he watches plenty of them at home).

also, yesterday or the day before, i downloaded the new strokes record, "room on fire", off the intraweb and am not sure what i think about it yet other than "sounds a lot like the first, sonically" and "i don't see this making them any bigger and, probably, they won't even hold onto (or regain) that many old fans." roommate sklero was accurate when he told me "it sounds like the vocal is wondering around quite a bit and there aren't that many hooks." i really enjoy the first song quite a bit and there are moments on the record where i love the vocal melodies but, in general, a lot of it sounds like new wave meets billy idol's "rock hits of the 80s" or something. and, one of the music magazines i respect most (hell, probably THE music magazine i respect most), mojo had a coverstory about the strokes and their new record in the last issue and they were saying that it sounded familiar but also futuristic and all this shit (those are called synthesizers, by the way... those spacey sounding melodic instruments... they were developed in like, what?, the 60s, man.) and the band were saying how lead singers/songwriter julian would spend 8 hours trying to get their engineer/producer to find exactly the right hi-hat sound that he was hearing in his head. well, they should have just sampled a hihat hit off the first record then cos IT SOUNDS EXACTLY THE SAME. the vocals have the same production, the drums sound the same, the guitars do sound a bit better, but that's pretty much the only noticable difference. email me if you're dying to hear this record and i'll send you a link, if you can't find it yourself on soulseek, kaaza, or limewire or something.

today, i'm going to go see the fantastic apollo up with my roommate tony's new band "the school of accuracy" (used to be "weights and measures"... fucking mathrockers.) too bad mercator isn't play as well or we could have billed it as "roommate-a-palooza".

2003-09-26T10:01:00.000-07:00

today, my buddy mikro gets my vote for best two things i think about every now and then but haven't put to blog. (the 2 posts for today about space and the arm-y album covers). read and be merry.

2003-09-26T00:05:00.000-07:00

today, i took one of my close friends to the airport, where she would be leaving the state for good (on a residential level, at any rate). our goodbye was rushed and it wasn't as emotional as i thought it'd be (or as like goodbyes have been in the past), which was some relief but also left me feeling a bit weird (she is just a friend, so it wasn't weird on *that* level). this is one of my favorite people and one of the few (if not only) people in my life who has always been kind to me and who i feel has not done anything to hurt me in the past. that's so rare that it makes me value that friendship even more. and now she's gone and i'm feeling a bit bummed about the whole thing... there are pretty much 3 girls in my life (outside of my family) who i feel a strong closeness to that i feel probably feel the same way about me (there are a few others who i care about intensely but who i no longer have relationships with) and, for whatever reason, i am able to communicate my caring for them much easier than with boys, even if it's a platonic love that i feel for them, similar to that which i could say i feel for, let's say, my roommates or a few other guy friends. but that's not the issue. the issue is my friend is gone and i'm hoping that she doesn't just become another bookmark in the life of my friends, though i guess everyone becomes one to someone at some point, eh? i told her i'd miss her and that i'd talk to her soon.

after i left her, driving away from the airport, listening to the cure's "disintegration" on my car stereo, she called me and apologized for the rushed goodbye (though it really wasn't her fault) and thanked me for helping her get shit together so much lately and said, again, that she'd talk to me soon. i guess i felt better for it but i also felt slightly worse cos i wish that some fucking assholes hadn't flown planes into buildings and that i could have hung out with her up until the point she had to board the plane (being that people without tickets aren't allowed in the gates anymore, for those of you who may read this and not know what the fuck is up).

this is the second person this year who has moved away from here that i have been very close to and while i'm happy they're still alive and i can talk to them on the phone or visit them in person, i don't to lose any more people. i hate it.

2003-09-23T10:59:00.000-07:00

friday night, i FINALLY got to see "freddy vs jason" (and the late show, no less) as my friend asaka told me she wanted to see it too (where has she been the past month or more when i've been saying that i wanted to see it but no one would see it with me?). i liked it. all the people who said it sucked i think just haven't paid attention to the other movies in both franchises as it's almost the same movie. or maybe they were scared by those movies as a kid and now just find them ridiculous. being that i've seen those old movies again throughout the years, i'm still "on it" enough to know: same shit... kicks ass.

i really fucking hate the mooney suzuki. now they're about to do their major label record and are recording it with the matrix, who have done hit records for avril, ricky, liz, etc. this article that i just read on vh1.com's music news page has them saying stuff like "if sk8er boi was written by ric ocasek for the cars, it would have been a hit" and "people said we sold out when we bought a van anyway" and i hate them so much more now. why can't they just own up to the fact that they're 40 year old dudes acting like they're 20 who started playing the en vogue style of music (the horrible new garage rock revival shit, which i also mostly completely hate) and their ultimate goal was to sign to a major and, now that they have, they want to insure that they can have pop hits for the radio crowd instead of the mindless "fans" that got them there? goddamn it, i hate that band.

last night, i was chatting with a friend and she hipped me to rate my kitten and rate my puppy, which are, i guess, like hot or not or something but much better cos these are animals and god loves them. so, if you want to have your heart and nut-strings pulled, go there and get ready for a tug. i want a puppy so goddamn bad, i can taste it. (the puppy, that is)

2003-09-19T12:27:00.000-07:00

last night my brain whispered to me that i should die. i couldn't tell if it was joking or not.

2003-09-17T18:09:00.000-07:00

i like fig newmans. hell, i even like the people who would steal them from me. snackforce motherfucker.

2003-09-16T10:39:00.000-07:00

holy crap, we're all going to die.

2003-09-16T00:22:00.000-07:00

i'm not sure how many of you out there are Dr Katz fans but, if you love me, you'll sign this petition to have a rhino release the series on dvd (write the series in in the "other" spot) and maybe this petition as well, just so maybe someone will release it. i personally loved that show for years but have unfortunately lost all my tapes of it. the voice talent of h jon benjamin (ben katz) on that show, alone, is worth your efforts to watch it. pure animation genius.

oh, and jon's newer show, home movies (which airs on adult swim on the cartoon network), is really worth watching as well.

2003-09-15T21:12:00.000-07:00

because i'm a little, baby girl and bored waiting for my first period, i watch horrible tv and, lately, love it. i remember brittney talking on her old page about her love of saved by the bell and how, at the time, i was thinking how much i hated that show (and still do). but, while i do love great tv shows, i apparently also love total shit ones. right now, current favorites are fox's new drama The O.C. old standbys like The Real World and Road Rules (which ended tonight). and i just finished watching Joe Schmo before i typed this thing (probably the inspiration to write it at all).

i know i probably come off all badass and like this totally topshop bro but, deep down inside -- under all the badass -- is little debbie, waiting to break free and cry every time the road rulers finish a challenge!

2003-09-14T00:30:00.000-07:00

this is probably old news but, to me, it's new news as i just read it on a radiohead website...

"According to the New York Times, Ticketmaster plans later this year to begin auctioning off the best concert seats to the highest online bidders. "

this is absolute bullshit and makes me think, now, more than ever, that ticketmaster needs to be taken down. there's a HUGE difference between a fan paying a large amount of money on ebay for a good ticket that maybe they didn't get the first time they tried and the company selling the tickets that are best to some fucks who just have huge bank accounts. i'm a huge fan of a lot of bands and it really annoys me to think that maybe i'd get hugely crappy tickets to a big show just cos i couldn't afford to get as close as i would like... if this is the case, there should be a break, i would think, that would make the really shitty tickets like $5 while the people who got great tickets pay upwards of $1,000.

today, i got back up, having gone back to sleep, like i mentioned in the earlier post, around 3 or so and then mixed most of the day before going to see imaginary baseball league play tonight and getting to beth cameron's birthday party after everyone had already left. bogus, but ibl was great.

2003-09-13T05:56:00.000-07:00

it's like 7:45am and i just got done eating breakfast from mrs winners, following the drop off of a friend at the airport at 6:15am. i had a chicken biscuit, 3 hashbrowns, another biscuit, eggs, and bacon. i am full as a motherfucker. and i'm fairly sure i will be regretting this in a few hours but, you know, right now, it was worth it. i miss breakfast from fast food places sometimes. oh, and i wanted hardee's to get a ham&cheese biscuit and hashrounds but i drove around for 30 minute through madison and east nashville and couldn't find a single franchise.

now i'm going back to bed since i really only slept an hour or so last night.

2003-09-12T15:14:00.000-07:00

you win this round, captain death, but we will meet again.

2003-09-11T02:16:00.000-07:00

on this day in history ... important things happened that most people will never hear about again unless they search them out. and harry connick jr was born, as were these other people.

i am currently enjoying reading "diary" by chuck palahniuk and i still can't stop listening to the mars volta record (thanks a lot jay).... the lyrics get so strange sometimes it makes me happy that i still can't sing along to this album accurately (if not just in pitch alone) after listening to it at least every day for probably a month or more now. (i was switching between it and Low's "trust" quite a lot during this time, though the cure's "disintegration" and old cave in cds have been popping into rotation again in the past few days. goddamn good music...).

and today i bought the super furry animals' "phantom power" dvd. as far as the visuals, it's cool, though not as cool as their rings around the world dvd (an album and a dvd i can't reccomend highly enough). i look forward to seeing them the last day of the month, even though that means i'm probably missing my chance to meet low's alan sparhawk at the nashville black eyed snakes show (though i got jay on the list for the show and they might crash at the house afterwards so maybe i might still meet him). i saw the super furry animals last year in atlanta with my roommate matt and my friends whitney and nick and it was fucking amazing.

2003-09-10T16:04:00.000-07:00

everybody and their local indie record store clerk and spooging their pants over the reunion of the pixies today. don't get me wrong, i think the pixies were great and all that but, especially in the past, i don't know, 10+ years, with all these reunions and shits going on, why do people keep forgetting that, for the most part, reunions suck and it's just a way for a band whose members aren't doing well on their "newer" projects to cash in now that their old band sells 100 times more records than they did when they were still together? granted, some bands have reunited and done cool things (i hear the mission of burma shows are great, though, being thoughtful, they aren't currently making a comeback record... i don't think... and though i don't think they ever really broke up, weezer pulled their shit together and i still have plenty of hope and love for them.) but, i think the majority of the bands who do this maybe just very well be pulling your collective dick all about... and not in a sexy way.

a site i have a lot of respect for, pitchfork wrote a story about it today and, though the dude could have been fucking around, was declaring "The Pixies. Are back. Together. Music is saved. Lovers of rock, unite and cheer. This is going to truly own." and i wanted to go get my copy of doolittle and bleed a little on it and then stab it with a knife and mail it to dude.

and if you're reading this and you haven't been checking out my friend brittney's new blog location, Sparkwood & 21 , sklero's renewed interest in updating signalkorps or my homeboy mikrophon's new blog, you better ask somebody. what you need to ask them, i have no idea. maybe how jello tastes so good...

okay, back to mixing the records for apollo up and chattanooga's jairus ! i love my work. i only wish it would make me some real money.

2003-09-10T01:23:00.000-07:00

i know that, for the majority of my life, i have been "unlucky in love" and that as hard as i sometimes try to be the guy some girls want to be with, i seem to fuck it up somewhere. however, why is it that when you've had a good run of ladies standing you up and ignoring you, the people you see are almost always really happy with someone new or at least someone that recipricates their feelings? i don't know and i fucking hate it. that sounds so goddamn emo.

starting earlier this year, i began reading my horoscope at astrology-online.com on pretty much a daily basis. i don't know why. maybe this was my "searching for something" the way gamblers stare at cards before they're turned over to will the cards to be what they want or even the way people suffering from OCD touch the car door 14 times so their families don't die in their sleep from carbon minoxide poisoning after the pilot light on their gas heater goes out unexpectedly. whatever it is, it seems that at least one of the things said every day could pretty easily apply to me... and not in that "today you will make a decision and it will cost you" like when you get mexican food and, wouldn't you know it, you got the shits from it. it's slightly more specific though the believers want to look for the things that would make them believe, don't they? anyway, a few weeks ago, my "lucky day for the week" was the thursday i got stood up by some bitch out of the blue. (let's just call her a bitch cos, fuck it, she screwed me over.) and today was supposed to be my lucky day this week with a daily reading that seemed like it came true to some extent. but why this was my lucky day, i'm really not quite sure. i went to murfreesboro to see my friend, who turned 21 today and hung out with her and a lot of her friends that i hadn't expected to see. i had fun, it's not that i didn't, but i found absolutely no luck in this day and, in the end, felt a little bit more disconnected than i did when i woke up. i'm really not sure when the actual feeling starts, cos i've felt this way for so long, but who the fuck are people and why do they all seem to be in some place that i'm nowhere near? these are the days i wish i had a puppy. a little unconditional love is all i'm looking for... that or some poor girl who wants to do something as simple as touch my arm with her hand or even her shoulder for an extended amount of time. warmth, not release.

boo whooo. somebody get the tissues.

Discuss battletapes - a life of action and behavior

2003-09-07T02:11:00.000-07:00

played a show tonight... earlier in the day, one of the 3 bands cancelled and i spent the majority of the day trying to find a replacement and our bassist almost didn't play cos he's still recovering from surgery. by the end of the day, i was pretty stressed out but i had stuff to take care of that and, by the time i got to the venue, i was not giving a shit. we played okay considering we hadn't even seen each other for 2 weeks and i probably picked up a guitar 3 times total during that period. the turnout was good, the privates were great and the fill-in band, the lylas, i enjoyed quite a bit. sorta french/norweigan style acoustic pop. good voice.

tonight, matt kicked my toe while he had a shoe on and split my toenail an inch or two from the top. painful and looks kinda bad. bogus.

2003-09-05T09:03:00.000-07:00

Turtles lured to disco death in Greece = best news headline i've read all week. (from cnn.com's science&space page)

Discuss battletapes - a life of action and behavior

2003-09-04T16:52:00.000-07:00

i think bulletin boards on bands sites are kind of lame.... or at least have the potential be extremely lame. the thing with the internet and the fact that you're basically anonymous just offers too much power to those who would never have the balls to do or say shit in their normal lives and while that's empowering and all that and gives a voice to people who might have issues with publicly saying these things, i also think it's fucking stupid cos, if you have enough conviction in what your beliefs are, you'll make them heard anywhere, whereas i think it's so easy to say anything you want on the net, people will just let it all slide out easily without anything else. mind you, i don't really think that that part of it is too bad but it really bothers me when people basically live their lives through these things like bulletin boards or try to start shit with people on them and whatever else. as you may have figured, i had a bad experience with a message board recently while trying to promote a show for my band this saturday (at the sutler, if you're interested). it was fun to joke around for a while but then i realized some people were actually getting really worked up about the whole thing and there's really no point in that.

maybe i'd change my mind about the whole thing if the same beast that got me annoyed got me laid as well...

2003-09-02T22:22:00.000-07:00

today i ate soul food from a place about 3 minutes' drive from my house called "bailey and cato's"... well, soul food as fried chicken, mac&cheese, and about the best cornbread i've had in years. so, i have that, a kick ass pizza/sub place (right next to the soul food place) called castrillo's that is super, super cheap, and a really good mexican restaurant called es fernando's (though i don't eat it often unless i want to have to spend the next day in the bathroom). i had no idea that moving to east nashville, away from most fast food restaurants, would kick so much ass.

i've eaten too much and i feel ill.

children supposedly only eat until they're full while adults usually eat past the point of fullness. i do this constantly and i just can't figure out why... though i have a suspicion what's to blame...

2003-08-31T18:59:00.000-07:00

adding to the darkness:

my parents visiting me is like washing the dishes before you put them in the dishwasher... i clean and i clean until i think that there's really no more cleaning to do but, once they're here, there always seems to be something else to be done (though not by me). and, i spent like $40 i don't have just to clean everything with something other than my palm and some water. all this scrubbing and, having helped some friends move earlier, i'm totally tired and my arms are weak (and i even took the day off from exercising otherwise).

everything smells so clean (though it's very strange how i link the smell of cleanliness with something that is an acidic chemical that, if i were to lick with my tongue or touch my eye to, i would be tempting some pretty serious infections).

oh well... fuck it.

Discuss battletapes - a life of action and behavior

2003-08-30T11:15:00.000-07:00

okay, so i'm starting to work shit out. at least now i have some of my own links to the left.... now i just have to work on the size of the font and maybe the overall look of the page. i figured i had to follow their template but i guess maybe i have more freedom that previously thought... and here i was, worried that i couldn't do what a trillion teenaged girls do every day in their barbie wallpapered rooms, only to sneak away a few hours later to screw and do drugs. i'll tell you, growing up, one thing that always blew my mind was when i'd have to teach old(er) people how to do things like work the vcr or use the microwave... it all seemed so simple to me... "here's a button that says 'play'... push that to watch a movie... type in the time you want and press 'start' to cook. jesus..." now, with this whole intraweb, i am an old person who can't figure out why i'm watching static instead of the highlights reels from the golden girls.

oh, and a revelation last night while burping after having eaten a blueberry muffin 30minutes ealier and then eating a bunch of planters cheez curls... "they really ought to blueberry cheese up those curls."

Discuss battletapes - a life of action and behavior

2003-08-30T00:56:00.000-07:00

holy sweet fuck, that is some huge fonting going on on my ass. maybe i'll learn to reformat them shits so it doesn't look like some tardo child wrote the code on the whole damn thing? and i guess i don't have comments on them shits? what the hell... i've posted one thing so far and i'm already let down. and it looks like a monkey wrote this shit.

this is going to be a sweet ride straight into the vagina of oblivion.

oh, and my roommates are queer for me.

2003-08-30T00:51:00.000-07:00

watch out for this guy, he's a total bastard.

thanks for the idea and encouragement brittney. i will now destroy all faith you have in my humor while revealing the secrets of my household.

if you're reading this, and you're a girl, and you're not getting excited or in a mad dash to find out where i live, i will know i have failed at what i intended to do with my words in this place.

what do people really write with these things? such circus-like bastards, these people are.

shitfuck,
bat -L top.zz