Panhand-ellerou

There's this guy who panhandles outside the Walgreens next to where I work. He's there most mornings asking for change and cigarettes. He's got a weird accent and speaks fluent spanish to some people that know him. I assume that those other people are panhandlers as well cuz I'm prejudiced like that. Or maybe it's because I see some of them taking the afterknoon shift when I go and get lunch from there.

There was something that I wanted to say about that but that was like, four hours ago and I don't remember. So yeah... that's my post on panhandlers.

I also discovered that YoVee has their albums for sale on Rhapsody. Ten bucks for Too Far Gone and you don't even have to wait for Dylan at Manaloft to send it to you.

Which brings me to the point that I've been pondering as of late in regards to the potential for recording Where the i Divides and the end product that we will poop out. What's to be done with the market of selling music these days? It's not like it was ten years ago where it was super expensive to buy a CD burner and make copies of CDs and downloading was something that hackers did on Warez and Crackz pages.

What got me thinking was the fact that I didn't have to purchase the most recent album by a certain artist because I got a copy from a friend. He purchased it but I didn't and I still have a working copy, which I've put on my computer and can potentially make copies and "steal" even more from that artist. Selling music is not where we are going to make our money. Our money will be made by stealing cars and stripping them for parts sales.

I'm bothered by the fact that there's no easy path to the future of selling what may be called "Manifest Destiny" the first release from Where the i Divides outside of doing it myself. I have no qualms about running my own Label (so to speak) but it's a lot o work for one busy and required by circumstances known as spent-too-much-in-college-and-now-must-pay-that-all-back to work for a living person such as myself to do. "But what about the other guys in the band?" Is that your question? Yeah. I do the work in this band. Sure, I don't write the lyrics, melodys, bass, and drum parts (but I could if the other members of the band decided that they were to damn busy with whatever they hell they're doing.) So, I'm going to be the one getting some shows in the greater Madison/Milwaukee area lined up once I get this three song demo finished and generate a press kit. I'm going to be the on calling people and handing out information to get in as an opening band.

...

Okay, don't whining. I just didn't have much of a post about the panhadler.

Danny J. air guitar rockin' out to Mastedon.

Did it snow?

Saturday night was fun.

Per Kevin Wolf's endorsement, I went and saw Little Miss (Can't Be Wrong) Sunshine with some friends. It was a super-de-duper movie... first and foremost because Devotchka was responsible for the soundtrack. Oh man. Needless to say, I really enjoyed hearing the variations on the songs, How It Ends and the other song... um... the Bullets one. I saw them in Boulder, CO two years ago at the Fox Theater and it was a really good show. Then they were supposed to play a show in Madison with M. Ward and Norfolk & Western June of '05 but their van broke down and that's where I learned about Norfolk & Western. Coincidently, N&W has a new album out. Haven't picked it up yet but they're coming through Madison in a few weeks. It should be a good show at a crappy venue. Anyway. Devotchka played another show later in the year sometime (I forget the month... it was after I quit working for the Home Despot.) but the venue was a more intimate setting and it was a really fun show to attend (even with the weak showing of wannabe hippies that Madison can't seem to get rid of. "Keep the dream alive and Jerry will return!" Whatever.) So yeah. The movie was good, music-wise. Story was good. It made me feel something.

After the movie, I went out to the barn and started setting up for our recording session that Travis and I had talked about on Wedensday night. I have been getting increasingly impatient with the lack of progress on the recording front cuz I'm still waiting to hear from the instructor from the class at the school for the free recording and I hadn't heard anything about Danny's friend (until Saturday.) I decided that we really needed to get a 3-song demo cut for our press kit to obtain shows in the Madison/Milwaukee area and decided that we would get the music done on Saturday if it meant staying in the barn till six A.M. on Sunday. Things went smoothly as far as recording Drums, Bass, and Guitar with two microphones. There's volume discrepancies in the drums that I can't do much about. The Bass sounds decent and the guitar can be fixed with overdubs at home over this coming week. Then I just have to make Joe K. do his thing all over a microphone for three measly songs and we'll be on our way to making $25.00 for an hour of hard rockin'! (less driving time and gas money... I think we come out $15 in the hole.)

The barn was cold, again. Despite the fact that I purchased a propain heater at the Farm and Barn, (Their Toyland opened up on Saturday and it was full of INSANE Christmas shoppers. Christmas isn't for two months... eight weeks... 63 days!) it was still super cold in the barn. The fact that there was wind and temps were hitting the low 30's made it worse and it had been raining most of the day on Saturday. Well, once it got dark, the snow started to fall and it was thick, wet snow. Suitable for making rock-hard snowballs and throwing them at the Lead Vocals, but he was at a wedding so he lucked out... this time. UM... story... yeah. We finished recording at about 12 am and I had a birthday paryt to go to a few miles away. I didn't even try to get out of the drive without dropping it into 4 low, (rain all day coupled with an inch or less of snow... slippery mud) and when I got to the top of the drive, I stopped to see if Danny would be able to get out, which he wasn't. So, fortunately, I have a tow strap and we got him out and on his way.

The snow is still lingering in places, and it's snowed a little today as well. Driving home on Saturday night reminded me of going from Bozeman to Livingston on a snowy winter evening (without the trip over a mountain pass) and made me really homesick (for the mountain pass).

Just thinking about it shuts me down. Packers won. yay...(goodbye first pick, first round) Broncos won. Yay. Chargers Lost. Boooo. Bears had the week off. Raiders won..... What?

Enough for today.

We got snow. We'll be getting more. Snow makes me happy.

behold, the photo!!!

As you can clearly see, the back of Travis' bass says, "Nothing's ever good enough for you." He stole that from me, I stole it from Thom Yorke.

Joe got some new pictures from last Saturday and e-mailed them to me! I can't get my pictures off my camera without a lot of hoopala... stupid HP.

I can't really think of anything else to talk about. I've been trying to get myself back on track for the band and it's been nothing but lazing about. I went to the gym and did some laundry and watched the football game last night. I didn't pull out my paints. Didn't sit down and clean off a space to work on the desk. Didn't get any ideas out of my head and into the world. I don't even have any good ideas for this stupid blog thing either. Nothing to complain about. Nothing worth noting. (Maybe that's what I'm complaining about.)

I talked to a girl yesterday evening. ..about recording at her school. She is taking classes at MMI and has a recording class that is looking for bands to record. It's a bunch of students in a rather nice studio learning how to be studio bitches but it's a bunch of students. If they want us to come in and record, it'd be nice to get a song or two done without having to pay for it. She could actually do a bunch of work for us on the side if she really wanted to, but I doubt that.

I toured the school last spring as a possible thing for me to do instead of continuing to work in the legal field. They wanted a lot of money and wouldn't be able to offer me much in the way financial aid except for unsubsidized student loans. No thank you. I already have enough of those.

I really wanted to post last night on my drive home from dinner/reading session. It was about 11 pm and I was leaving the Denny's in Monona and it felt like eight years ago when I was going to MATC. Snow was blowing like mad! I love the snow. I love the cold.

Some "dude" flew his plane into a building yesterday. I don't feel like making snide comments about it. People died in an accident and now it's all over the "news."

I've been isolating myself this week in my room working on the guitar tracks for "America the Beautiful Monster." My final decision is that I need to probably get a new hard drive. I can't figure it out but when I record, I get these electric bursts that end up in the wave and generally there's a static distortion of the wave right before the pop. It's unbelievably irritating. So... I came up with a new way to record the guitar parts on my drive home. Instead of just recording two guitar takes and mixing the two, I decided I'd try to play the song with no delay straight and then a second take with delay where I only hit the chords on the accents of the part. It sounds a lot cleaner. Now I just need to get my computer to cooperate.

There's more to talk about. It's keeping me from lunch though.

My friends had their baby!

That'll do... for now. I need to post in the evenings when I'm not as pressed for time and can actually focus.

I've also been reading Fear and Trembling. It's quite interesting. I doubt that our president could understand what Soren Kierkegaard is talking about (translated or untranslated.)

Morrow beckons.

This searching for the future. The happiness oft referred to in the illusions flashed on the television, in the skies, on each passing face, is something that needs to be found in the future. God bless this american and his misunderstanding that happiness is something in the future.

If I try hard enough, I'll eventually get to the future. Right? That's what I've always been taught.

I'm slogging through this depression thing right now. Let me get some more ducks in rows and then... then what? I don't know.

I really just want to shoot a huge salute to everyone and disappear for a while.

North Korea is probably not the place to visit right now. My friend Anne said that they blamed the Nuke tests on N. Korea instead of her because they don't want to start a war with her. Not yet. We do need more wars though. It's good money for everyone... (eyes roll in sarcastic aplomb.)

I'm grumpy today!

The BIG 100!

I stayed up way too late last night. I feel like sitting on a street corner, smoking cigarettes and staring off into space before going home and taking a long, long nap.

That's not going to happen. I just have to ride out today and tomorrow and then I'll have the weekend to... Oh yeah, the weekend is when I put all of my pent up energy into music.

Last night, Travis and I worked on the new song that we started last Wedensday. It's current working title is either "Wild Mountain Meyhem" or "Hambone Solo." We have a few arranging issues left for it and then I have the tone of the guitar to establish and then we'll introduce it to Danny and Joe and tell Joe that we're not waiting for his bullshit, nor are we going to put up with his lame excuses for not having lyrics. For the love of Crumb Cake, it's his job in the band!

The kicker, and the reason why I stayed up so late, is that I worked out a new idea after Travis left. See, lately, or more appropriately, this week has been one big downer, or more accurately, I've been in a fog of depression. Sunday through the present (even as you read this) has sucked, royally sucked and it's my own fault and I dug up my copy of the deftones self-titled album "Tune out everyone in the crowd because now it's just me and you. Come fall in love with the sound. Make a pact to each other. When no one's around, put the cross between me and you. Who wants to fuck with us now?" and my copy of Nico's Chelsea Girl. "Now that I smile, now that I'm laughing even deeper inside. Now that I see, now that I finally found the one thing I denied. It's now I know, 'do I stay or do I go?' and it is finally I decide that I'll be leavingIn the fairest of the seasons."
and then finally took the time to work, really work, on this damn band yesterday. Get my head out of my ass and pull the threads together again. Travis and I discussed the importance of having a meeting this Saturday to go over more important things that we need to focus on, such as recording and then something else, which may have been the next album (ha! next album, we talk about it like we've already got the first one done.) Our first album will essentially be about the working sap who hates his or her job/life and wants to do more (whatever the fuck that may be.) This second album has a theme already and Travis has put some sketch work into the direction of some of the songs. We talked about that last night and after he left, I stayed and put one of the themes into a song. There's nothing quite like trying to say something using music without saying anywords. It's a, Can you feel it? thing. So I kept working on that. And I have a good start on a new idea.

News stuff happend too. I didn't read or hear about it.

Word.

Sunday

So last night I got home and watched either the history channel or pbs. Every time there was a commercial I'd switch to the other for two different programs. One on Super Volcano and the other on How Illegal Drugs Became Illegal. That was going just fine until I fell asleep.

So when I awoke this morning, I made some toast and grabbed a Dr. Pepper and sat down to watch some boring Sunday morning drivel before football starts.

So the problem arises that the digital cable isn't working properly. Why? I don't know, haven't taken the time to call the company and say. "Hey, are you going to comp me my bar tab on the cable bill because I have to go to a bar to watch football today?"

So I think that when they I do make that call and I do say those words, the answer will be, "No, I'm sorry but there's nothing we can do for you, sir."

So you all are probably wondering why I'm writing about this instead of yesterday evening's action. And all I can say is that a journey of a thousand miles begins with one step. Trav almost fainted before the show. Danny had some pretty bad nerves and sped up the tempo on some of the songs. I was worried about looking professional and forgot to have fun. I didn't really get a chance to talk to Joe about what he thought of the whole thing but we did have a good time. The first show jitters are out of the way. We actually took the stage again to replay some of our songs for the people who showed up late. That second performance was a lot looser, more relaxed, and way more fun. The "crowd" was shouting stuff at us and it was a lot easier to not be worried about missing a chord by a fret or hitting A major instead of A minor.

So, there is a video. There are lots of pictures, I don't know where any of them are (specifically.) I took one picture of myself at around noon as I was walking into the barn for our run through before we set up the stage. I was waaayyy hung over and thought I would like to remember that moment. (Which was only probably a scant 15 minutes before I puked while playing the solo in 'Mt. Hindsight.' Thought I could make it through the song before running outside. Nope. Just popped on the floor in the barn. Rock and roll. Rock and roll. Still recovering from Friday night's binge.)

So there. Charter Sucks and the Show was a good first show.