Another post?

I suck at keeping up with this blog.

That said, when I actually have time to sit and post, I generally have nothing to say.

The band is still in the process of retracking the album. On Friday the status was four songs left for the album that needed guitar work, two songs that needed the organ, and two new demos that needed guitars. On Saturday, I learned that we're going to rerecord one of the songs for the third time (the drums are still unsatisfactory.) That took the demos out of the equation since we can rerecord them as well and hopefully get a better couple of tracks out of the next drum session.

With that news, I went out to the studio yesterday to finish off guitar and organ tracks. It went well. Better and faster than I had expected. I had to make up a new part for "Believe" (what a cheesy title) with the organ since I don't play that part live ever. Something or something, I got the chords down and then took a couple stabs at it before I got it close to good. (good enough)

I had been having some thoughts about "The Moment" and the original guitar part that I play live. Changing it up, dropping it off this recorded version entirely. The organ holds down those same chords so it sort of makes that track redundant. The ambient slide space noise additives over the verses got a little more "rowdy" this time around and it bleeds into the guitar solo section. It's slowly becoming the song I envisioned it last February. (I could even go out and record some walking on snow and city noise to throw in there... hmmm. Maybe.) I decided to add a lead part over the second verse and will probably revisit the song on my next trip out there. Some lead-in noise in A minor??? Sure.

"Transfusion" went smoothly except for the solo. I've never had a set idea for that solo. It's just an attempt at making noise that sometimes comes off great and most times leaves me mad at myself for not actually writing one. (Prescribed solos are so boring though!) I have a starting point and an ending, but I never know where to go in the middle. Something with at least three notes to add texture...

This means that now I've got "USA #1" left to track. Yuck! It's one of the first songs I wrote for this band. Lots of delay. Requires some precise timing with the rhythm section that they're not up to speed on yet. Once the drums, bass, and guitars are tracked for that song, it's then only one session to set up automation on the guitars with studio effects and finally time to put the vocals down.

We started this damn project last February. February 2nd.

One year later... still not done, (but it sounds a lot better this time.)

We have seven new songs that are musically complete. Three new ideas that we are assembling and working out still. If we used all of those songs we could record the second album real soon. Put it out the same time we put ot the first one... Sure. (Chinese Democracy anyone?)

But enough about the band... even though that's what I spend most of my time working on.

The "Holiday" season is almost over. Pretty soon, I'll be able to go to work for five days and then work for the band for two. Gym four nights a week. The normal routine. No out of town guests. No days off in the middle of the week. No closing down bars and working in the morning. Just a mindless gear-turning as the saturnic return nears and passes... oh boy.

Fuck Christmas!

I've been playing "Matchmaker" today. I don't know how I feel about that... somewhere between excited and Jealous.

When's hype gunna get the run'in? WHEN?

All in all... Fuck Christmas. Total bullshit waste of time holiday. I'd rather be driving a semi acrost frozen lakes in Ontario than sit around and watch the greatest Christmas Movie EVER!!!

I knew those southerners were totally backwards in re: superstition, but a Christmas Witch? Hell's Yeah... that's the kind of religious defecation I can get a'behind!

(drunkenly) BOO-Yah!

Christmas Cheer

I always think of that TV Funhouse Christmas episode when this stupid holiday rolls around. It's the one where the Anipals perform a spinal tap on Doug the Host to draw out his Christmas Cheer... which they proceed to freebase and the go out caroling in Times Square.

If only Christmas was really like that.

Instead it consists of sitting around at my parents like a miserable convict stuck in a cell. (MC Chris is a bird, Debbie. You can't cage a bird.)

Back when life was simple

In an attempt to distract myself from the wonderful day of sitting and staring this one has seemed to want to become, I started checking out the old Onion archives.

Man did that take me back. Sitting in the video room with The Song Remains the Same taped off of VH1 playing on the small television during study hall reading the week's news.

Shit. Back then, they had two offices. One in Madison and one in Boulder.... Good times.

"Some nights I'm so touched by the KidCares feature that I break down and cry in my TV dinner. I just can't get enough of those anchors!"

"Some days der ragged, emaciated bodies of ze junkies are staked up in ze back like corpses," says von Kreutzen. "But even zat has its roots in German culture!"

"When I come to schools to talk to kids about the importance of dragon safety, one of the first things I tell them is, always be sure to turn around completely if you think a dragon is stalking you,"

"Despite fully expecting to defeat the rich kids and learn something about themselves in the process, the only thing the Camp Winnepesaukee underdogs learned was that they were too poor and outmanned ever to stand a chance."

"let's say that those men were willing to risk arrest and a $110 fine for public drinking. They certainly would have taken the extra 10 seconds to make it a little less obvious by simply pouring the alcohol into a soda can or paper cup or something."

Re: who brought the "sorry" to the party?

Just a quick note here: this was a series of email exchanges between Travis and myself sparked off by Misty's email. We were generous enough to "CC" all of the other recipients in on our exchange.

misty wrote:

Hey Guys

Just wanted to send the reminder for tomorrow night. You can come anytime after 8pm. (Zach will this give you enough time for your work thing?)

Let me know if you need directions to my place.

Hope to see you all there!

Misty


Travis Wrote back:

word. should i bring anything? you know, like, food-wise?

napkins?

people always need napkins. (and the person who brings them is usually "the hit" of the party). i mean, i likely would be anyway...

will there be intoxicants? not that i need them to have to good time or anything...because i don't...i just need them to have a good time around other people...

thanks for the invite and the hospitality...

travis

Then I wrote:

Der...

should I bring the napkins?

Der...

Travis' reply to me:

your royal hypeness...

are you mocking me and my light-hearted (yet heartfelt) attempt at a little holiday humor while still trying to be helpful?

i call that "multi-tasking"...you should look into it...i already have a little "multi-tasking" you can try at home or even right now...its called "perch and rotate", homes...

let me know if it doesn't take...

and no, you can't (because you're insecure)...i'm already bringing the napkins (and the funk)...

My response to Travis:

Mr. Xxxxxxx,

That's all good and well. The perch and rotate did in fact take quite fittingly... thanks for you helpful (and heartfelt) suggestion.

Now as for what I am to bring then to this gathering, I'm thinking that I'll be bringing along "the class". I wouldn't expect someone such as yourself to even know where to begin to find something so foreign in the wastelands you called home (Mxxxxx County). (And no, working as a taxi service for the Amish does not count.)

But all politeness aside, I strongly suggest that you multi-task your ass back to charm school for a few more weeks so as to learn proper etiquette for attending a dear friend's festive holiday gathering without offending, insulting, and generally reeking of fetid onions and body odor.

See you then.

Zach "Hype"

Travis' latest response:

my dearest mr. "hype" Xxxxxxx

my polite indignation knows no bounds...

thanks, a suggestion is nothing if it doesn't have "heart"...

glad to know you'll be bringing the "class" (all of it 3rd? coach? what are you gonna do? sing "puttin' on the ritz"?). one less thing for me to carry...i'll be bringing the "substance" (and extra napkins) and setting the room on fire with my enthralling (if personally distant) conversational abilities...i may also try to bring some "charm"...that's a huge maybe though...

on the charm subject...i have attended "charm school" via correspondence...i have a certificate coming in the mail...and if i can't attend a holiday gathering with insulting and offending others (see my "awesome" fondue puns on misty's b-day) then what is really the point of getting together at all?

oh yeah...the food...and napkins... and texas.

warmest regards and best wishes travis xxxxxxx xxxxxxx

Then Travis wrote this: (for all the other people who have a bunch of emails in their inbox from Travis and me)

yeah...sorry about that...as you (misty) may very well know, sometimes
the correspondence betwix zach and "yours truly" can take on a life of
its own...i'm sorry you all had to be a part of that ugliness.  don't
fret none, fellow partaygoers, zach and i will "make nice" at the party
like nothing ever happened...(but deep down, we'll all know...)

travis "the secret ingredient" xxxxxxx

Vandals in the parking lot

"Hey bros it's been a while since I rapped at ya..." I've got my excuses. Mostly bad ones. But an excuse is just a reason you haven't accepted yet.

Or how about this one? "It's not that the good times end, they just turn into other good times." I think I screwed that one up. What's the one about rats? Oh yeah... "Rat Stevens" That's almost as bad as Ferrett Bueler or Paws Skaggs.

So what's the point of all of this? Nothing. (you know what I like about you? Nothing!)

I've been busy recording demos for the band. We have seven new songs that are complete without lyrics. Danny and Travis want recorded copies of these songs to rehearse with (this means electro drums for Travis and Bass Lines for Danny) and Joe doesn't really seem to give a damn about finishing these songs. I've been fuming about that most of the morning. Now I'm fuming about it here. Consider yerself shat upon. Then there's the two other ideas Travis has and a smattering of ideas I come up with and then forget. All that and nothing to show for it.

But I went to a 'battle" of the bands that didn't really incorporate much battl'n on Sunday night and felt that had "the i" been a part of it, we would have taken second. (behind Know Boundaries who were the clear winners by a long shot.) But it's in the past and I'm in the now. (And the local music scene here is an insular joke anyway.)

Since last week, I've been reading a book by Brad Hooker called Ideal Code, Real World. It deals with rule-consequentialism moral theory. I'm reading it to write a short paper to get an even shorter paper and I'm not going to try to explain it at this point because I don't feel like I've got a good grasp on the topic yet. Which leads into the fact that I've discovered something interesting about myself. Now that I'm not in college, I really want this paper to mean something, and not just to the audience (professor) but to myself. Several years ago, I would have read the book, cranked out a ten pager and handed it in without even bothering to proofread. There were quite a few times when I re-read a paper after I got it back that made me say, "I wrote this? This is way to intelligent to be my paper."

But this time, I want to actually know what the argument I'm positing is after the paper is shipped off to it's recipient. I would like to be able to explain to someone who doesn't give a damn about this kind of shit (moral theory/metaethics) on an academic level what it is the author proposed and what I agree and disagree with. It just takes a lot more effort to focus.

But what else am I going to do? Write lyrics for Joe? No, that's his job. (how much more of this slacking do I tolerate from him before I decide to fire his ass? Today wouldn't be a good day to ask that question.)