Science? No frickin' way!

So yeah. I can't resist being stupid to do this.

Sheesh... Do what they tell you and don't ask why.

In the name of SCIENTIFIC exploration, How quickly does news travel in the Blah-go-shpere?

It's sad to see it go... but what fun it'll be!!!

Devotchka is going to be in town tomorrow. I'm interested to see the changes to their frontman's appearance. From what I've heard, he's let himself go.

Got the guitar tracks done last night. Stayed up till 2 am recording. That stupid solo actually kinda came together at then end. Sounds good to my ears, especially the rhythmic change in the rhythm guitar and the interplay of the solo with that in the second half of what I played. (Doesn't mean it's any good.) With any luck we should have this all wrapped up on Saturday(fixing bass tracks and recording Vocals.) Then it's just a matter of getting the songs mixed and my faithful readers will get to experience the expanded world of Where the i Divides. (it's getting down to the wire for us if we are going to try to secure an opening gig before the end of the year.)

and Diligenz can stop sending me work. Seriously! I never know what they want me to find for them and I never have enough time to do their big projects.

Big Red Pool

I got home last night and spent some time recording guitar tracks for Do the Math. This project is totally sucking in a good way. I think I'm almost done with that song and there's one track on Universal Quantifier that I need to re-record and then there's only One Day left to start on and finish by Friday night. I think I can get it done but I'm going to have to skip the gym tonight, or maybe I won't. When I get in a funk about going to the gym, I read about some different exercises to try and vary my routines and then get all excited about making some progress. Uh... what was I talking about?

Oh yeah. So I made myself go to the gym at about 8:30 and went out to my truck and started to back out of the drive way and had to go back inside to grab my phone and I noticed a big slick on the driveway. A big, fresh slick of red, oily fluid just sitting there right below where my truck's transfer case sits. The new transfer case I had put in last week. The one that cost me a lot of money to replace. Leaking red, oily transmission fluid.

Not happy.

So. I took it in this morning and apparently it's all ready for me to pick up. I've yet to find out if they're going to try to charge me for the work they did.

Another EPA library closed. I just love the last line of this article. And I heard something yesterday about how it's easier to control the masses if they ain't educated. So lets make sure no child gets left behind, no school is left standing, and no library remains open.

Wowee Zowee

Went out and bought something today. Actually two somethings today.

Wowee Zowee!!!

Sounds not so much like Slanted & Enchanted. Still think that Kannburg should have kicked Malkus in the balls a few times.

Saturday Night Wrists is good as well. Hole in the Earth! Oh my god!!! How many more times will I listen to it? Not enough.

Went out and sang Karaoke tonight. Part of my whole expectations for the evening was to go to Sparta/Tomah and get drunk and then have Thanksgiving dinner tomorrow (er... today) while watching the Broncos whoop up on the Chiefs (or vice versa.) (Stupid NFL Network. Make it for the rich. The poor have their drugs to entertain themselves.) So I ended up singing songs to drunk hicks in "fair Verona" because I couldn't sit still at home.

and the conclusion I came to is that there are certain songs that should not be allowed to be performed at Karaoke--NO EXCEPTIONS!

1. Come to My Window
2. I Touch Myself
3. Love Shack
4. Girls Just Wanna Have Fun
5. Copacabana
6. Anything by Jewel (even replacing the all of the pronouns in the song with the word "Jewel" has lost it's charm)

Ugh.

I need to go to bed.

Mas Booty. Man-ya-na.

Newz alert

Walking around yesterday, USA Today caught my eye. Sitting on the front page was this article.

Its just a fact of life.

Best answer... I would say, go to a trade school. Spend two years getting an Associates degree and get out into the workforce sooner. The fact that so many kids are going to college in the first place devalues the four year degree. What good is a liberal arts degree when %65 percent of people your age have one?

Personally: I was born right in the middle of the genX genY cusp. I've got my foot in both camps. I hate living at home. I can't afford to live anywhere else unless I find a job that'll pay more than $28,000 a year thanks to my debt. Most of that debt is my own damn fault though. I kept convincing myself that I'd pay off my cards once I graduated. I never looked at the situation I'd be in once I graduated and I wasn't getting the leftovers from my loans to pay rent. Having "My Car" as your address on a resume doesn't make a good first impression, but I'm learning now. It's painful and I wish that I could make a little more money a year to whack away at my situation rather than just whittle. I never was much for whittlin'. It was always too boring.

Thank God I have my band.

We recorded drums on Saturday for several songs. I have the rough mix for "Do the Math." Since I worked late last night, I didn't have the time to download it and start working on the guitar tracks. Hopefully, now that my truck is back from a week at the shop, I'll be able to get some more things done, and get back to the gym. I feel like I'm getting fat again.

so, excuse me please, I've got to go make a bulimia joke now.

Man am I boring. This blog has gotten seriously boring.

I was doing some research tonight and it seems that I've got some of these side effect things listed for the minocycline that I'm on. Not too pleasant to say the least but only one more day left of this crap and then I hope to god I won't feel like I do tonight.

Got some recording to do to get geared up for Saturday's "Jam 'Fest" and it just doesn't feel like fun tonight. Take after take after take of screwing up a part that's not hard to play at all.

Good Gravy

Where am I now that I wasn't five years ago? Found a copy of that Incubus album with all of their radio hits on in from the early '00's, like Stellar, and The Warmth, and that other one, Drive... Yeah.

Felt like it was 2000 November, driving to work at the Bread Barn.

Don't have any fucking time. "Hey Zach, can you work on Sunday?" Sure. Fuck the fackt that it's my day off. Fuck the shit that I'm not also working two other jobs.

Pisssssseedddd offfff as hell tonight. Can't even get drunk cuz of the antibiotics.

Not even gunna say sorry for not posting as of late. (just did though)

It's been a long long while since I've been this worked up. I did finish the solo for One Day. It ends with me banging my fist on the strings.


Sounds like music to me.

(this is the kind of mood that spawned the song, I Hate My Friends)

Slowed down to the speed of progress

It's been a crappy time in Zach-ville. My ear finally turned into an ear infection and it's been oozing gunk out the outside which I think means my ear drum ruptured on Monday night while I was lifting at the gym. I took Tuesday off from work and went to the doctor. My favorite part of the day was when four different people asked me if I had health insurance. Okay, well, actually my favorite part of my day on Tuesday was either sleeping in till eleven or the election results.

I will say that the "roommates" distaste for Democrats has made being at home a little unbearable. Oh well, at least I don't want to belong to any party that doesn't know how to party!

Um...

Yeah. I don't want to talk about it that much, really. I've been listening to Al Franken and Ed Schultz for the last week at work and I've been politicked out.

The band is rolling along like square toast. I finally got a callback from the recording school about getting us signed up for "free" studio time. The hours for recording there are difficult for everyone in the band except for me. Danny's buddy finally came through and we might actually be recording with him this weekend. That means that I've got to get my guitar tracks cued up and dialed in this week (which I haven't done since I've been sick and trying to get over six hours of sleep a night... ugh. Enough whining, just getting it done!!! I made myself record the tracks for One Day tonight before I went to the gym. There's a few parts that need to be punched in over and there's the whole issue of recording the solo that I've not worked out yet. I haven't heard what it's supposed to sound like yet. I really want to hear it but I don't know yet. Still searching. (I'll explain what that means if you really want to know (but you have to ask))) (alright already with the parenthesises)

So now.

Have had a few moments lately where I've been kinda scaring myself. Not fun right now.

Oh boy, Spaghetti! Now that's Italian!!!

Yuck!

okay, okay, okay.

This is so just like listening to Cosmo Radio in the morning (Sirius 111) but I can't help myself.


This guy just looks creepy.

What I can't figure out is why so many people belong to his church? Super creepy and not trustworthy at all.

All in all it'll just get more people riled up right before the election. That article says that he came to the station three months ago and they wait till now to 'break' the story?

E-mail to Joe (Scavenger hunt version)

Joe.

That's pretty dang sweet. What do you think he's going to do to help us out? Huh? Overstep our dependence on Danny's "buddy" for recording some tunes? (Hopefully.) Thank you for taking the time to do that Joe. My forte does not include 'Making New Friends' (in a business sense,) and it's nice that there's someone else in the band who will do more work than just show up at practice and write their part of the music. We would stagnate if I was in charge of everything.

Did you get my message about the demo? I talked to Dave and he said that if we are looking to play shows at local music venues as openers than we don't really need to have a super professional demo. With that said and a few days time since then, I still think you're right. Best foot forward. When we contace someone, we should look/sound like we know what we are doing even if we don't.

I finished that book of interviews from Punk Planet. It had some very thought provoking interviews. Some made me want to not work with "the big guns" at all and others made me think that it's not bad to work for a record company. What I do think is that there is change blowing in the wind and the record companies are behind the ball right now. Lots of small timers can do it themselves and network their way to notoriety but I don't know... I don't know.

The Barn is capable of being warmer this winter. I feel like shit from breathing in all of that dust last night (even with a dust mask on.) There are a few tweakings that need to be done to make the place work more effectively, but it was midnight when I left and I was feeling tired and sick and wanted to go to bed. I'll get the rest of it done sometime later this week (probably Friday.) Speaking of later this week. Rachel said that we don't need to worry about moving hay on Saturday. Her brother is doing something that she has to go and watch or something and the following week, her other brother is in town so she won't need our help at all.

I did find the book in my truck. Thanks dude. I'll read it when I want to get depressed and miserable about how my band is a failure in comparision. I haven't taken the time to crack the spine because I want to read it at home in the evenings and haven't had time to do that yet.

Love the hair.

Zach

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.

Where have I been?

Okay, two more days till the "big show." The stage is constructed out of ripped off pallets and 7/16" OSB. I still have to make a wedged prop for our guitar "monitor" so Danny can hear my guitar. I still have to make some boxes to set the PA speakers on. I still have to purchase my supplies (stuff that got assigned for me to bring. BRATS! Lots o Brats! Dis is Wisconsin don't 'cha know.)

Travis and I started working on a new song last night. We also went over Sasquatch by Tenacious D. We're gunna bust that out for a cover.

There are things to report but my time is too sparse right now to run a list here.

(Translation: We've had too much work to do at work and I haven't had any free time to sit and blog at work so I haven't been keeping up, that and my Dad's birthday this week and getting prepared for the show. Searching for insurance rates and debt consolidation. Reading a book about pure land buddhism.)

Check it.

I've got to get some pictures of the show. Shannon's going to film it.

Gotta run (over some broken bottles)

I would post, but there's nothing worth saying right now.
No new ideas today. Today is a good day.