that's how you sing amazing grace

i'm listening to the latest ref disc of 'down to sleep.' it's the same as the other one- it just has different fades, namely all of the tracks crossfade into each other and i had to remove a weird noise that my cd burner makes that made it onto the end of one of the tracks. rrrr.
i didn't realise that i hadn't updated since before we went to fort wayne. the show was really fantastic! we lagged a bit towards the middle only messing up one song really badly (it was 'crawl to you'- i couldn't hear stefanie playing the drums and then i got confused at the end and it sent the whole thing into a tailspin because neither of us could tell what the other was doing), but the rest was really fantastic. we played 'sloba' live for the first time and it fucking killed which is what we were expecting. it was loud, loud, loud and achieved the proper effect. at one point some drunk girl came over and was telling us 'it's too much! it's too much! the noise is too overwhelming!' and she got kind of upset at us because she was drunk and misheard everything we said to her and got defensive. what was really funny about it was how it totally didn't bother us at all. as i noticed that she was getting more and more upset i was like 'i'm sorry, we'll fix the problem.' at which point she got all apologetic and i was like 'it's okay, don't worry about it.' and then we didn't change anything at all and it was fine. everyone at the show who talked to us was like 'i'm sorry about that drunk girl harassing you- that was such bullshit' and we were like 'that happens to us a lot- it's not a big deal.' i'm beginning to think that if at least one person in the room doesn't beg us to turn it down a bit we aren't doing it right. all told i really liked that place- and the people were all super nice. i'd love to play there again. i had my doubts walking in- an effect that's been happening since after the elbo room debacle (you see, no one told us to turn it down at that show and it was a terrible show).
n-e-way we have another show on the 15th at ronny's- which is a place i've never been to. i emailed the mpshows goons and asked if they had anything for us at ronny's and mentioned something about how i noticed all of these bands that i liked were playing there- namely cains and ables (who we played with once way back in december of 2005) and they just offered us a slot on that show. kind of nice since i was thinking of going to see it since they expanded into a four piece and dave writes such amazing songs and i happened upon their myspace and it looks like they have a fresh batch of them coming out soon.
so that's excitering. now that the final master is finished i think that it might be time to start listing the electric piano on craigslist and looking for a free upright to buy.
it'd be nice to get the new record finished soon too. stefanie is really dragging her feet about doing her vocals for it- i can't quite figure out why. she also has a drum part to do, but again dragging her feet. i have about eight decent songs. one of them the lyrics aren't finished yet- i have one really great verse, but that's it. that song also needs a violin part written- it is a droning masterpiece if i do say so myself. it might be the slowest song we've ever written. it's 44bpm. mike told me that most metronome's don't go that low. hee hee!
apart from all of that i had my first serious summer depression episode a few days ago and it was mainly over the music selecting politics at my new job. everyone there is already sick of everything i select to listen. mainly will just seems to only be in the mood to listen to raucous loud shit or weird electronic elevator music and he's been dominating the airwaves there. i was playing the cure unplugged set that i have on my ipod when i was opening with liz because i figured he wouldn't be there to hear it and it's a very upbeat cure set and also acoustic so good for the morning time and then he showed up and the second it was over he switched it and we listened to shit he picked all day long. at one point he said something about sad bastard music and then he puts on 'kid a.' ah, these bohemian jobs. you've gotta love it. *vomits*
if you're still reading i'm going to elaborate on the causes and problems caused by this summer depression. i have met a handful of people in my life who suffer it as well (and silently as well). i get violently depressed during the summer months for a few reasons- 1) my allergies awaken as early as march, taper off until the dogwoods and other trees start to flower, go into overdrive towards mid-to-late may and usually stay at a level that can only be described as difficult and stressful to deal with until as late as mid-to-late june. that's a good four solid months of all-allergy action. i've tried every kind of allergy medication on the market, and several that are prescription only and the conclusion i've come to is that they will work moderately for one season and that's it. what can lessen the symptoms and make me semi-functional is tea with honey. tea geschwender used to sell a looseleaf stinging nettles tea that worked the best, but now it's gone and my stash hath run dry. i've been on pretty much nothing for the past week. it's fine for now (it helps to be busy at work and that at least distracts from it for a period of a few hours), but when the heat and humidity hits and the symptoms worsens it becomes extremely stressful to deal with. i try my best not to complain and rant and rave too much. i really do. usually now i'll only enlighten people on why i don't enjoy summer if they ask me about it. i try to keep it kind of lighthearted. so that's reason number 1. 2) when you experience seasonal affective disorder during the summertime you must suffer silently because everyone else is so happy that the warm weather is finally here that hearing you bitch and moan about how miserable you because of the heat ruins their enjoyment of it and poops their party. i say this half-sarcastically, but also fairly seriously. i get kind of bummed on rainy days sometimes because i love them so much but usually have to spend the day hearing people bitch and moan about how rainy and grey it is and how much they hate it when it rains. it doesn't ruin it for me, but i do find it a bit irritating. during the warmer days when i'm really feeling awful invariably everyone will come up to me going on about what a wonderful, beautiful day it is. since you're suffering silently and can't really find anyone to talk to about how last night you couldn't sleep because your eyes were bugging you to the point that you wanted to rip them out and your nose is so bone dry that you wake up in the middle of the night because you have rivers of blood coming out of your nostrils and since you're getting so sleep-deprived and constantly uncomfortable while everyone else is so happy you also start to feel incredibly isolated and freakish. this is where the suicidal feelings come in because it's a long time to feel isolated and freakish without getting suicidal. i try not to and i'm generally pretty clear headed about these things but there are moments when those thoughts pass through your head. what's more i've noticed that people don't like to hear depressing music when it's dreary outside, but while you'd think that the opposite is true it's not- they don't want to hear it when it's nice out either. they don't want to hear it period because evidently their lives are so happy that even the mention of sadness will ruin their little perfect world so you also can't listen to depressing music when it's nice out because that will ruin their 'nice day.' for me i listen to 'sad bastard music' mostly because i feel incredibly isolated in the world and intrinsically different and out of step with about 99% of people that i meet (all bohemians included) so i tend to listen to a lot of sad music because being isolated and different from most people makes you feel like there's something wrong with you. sad music usually is often an ally waving a flag for a fellow isolated person to see. you listen to it and it reminds that even though you hardly ever meet anyone else who understands you someone out there is right there with you and it's invaluably comforting. if i listen to too much happy music it begins to drive me insane. songs like 'fire and rain' by james taylor make me equally insane because that is an artificial sad music song- a sadness that everyone feels (which is why it's so acceptable to people who normally can't stand to listen to sad music). to someone who's really isolated it seems incredibly trite and precious. it just doesn't cut the mustard. also people tend to lump slow music (even if it's loud) in with 'sad bastard music.' i also listen to a lot of loud, slow music- which is also enough to ruin a happy person's day.
so this is why i'm in such an awful mood because i now see that this will be my summer and all i can do is try to get through it. i will at least most likely write a slew of amazing songs (most of my music is written during the summer months).