if i should

got some good stuff laid down yesterday. i ended up pulling my 6-string bass out from the very back of the closet yesterday. i did some regular 4-string bass as well. finished a loop, played along with it on the drums. ironically it's easier for me to play along to it on drums than it is to sing or play the 6-string bass stuff i made up for it. i'm thinking of speeding the loop up. it might not work though because that sp303 is kind of shitty about changing speed on loops. it hacks them up and they sound all... well, hacked up. not good. it was fun to kind of suss out some newer tones yesterday. that's something i really kind of enjoy and it's something i feel like i'm quite good at if nothing else at all. i noticed when we were on tour that i was able to get all of my sounds very quickly, even if they were pretty radically different. i'm sure no one else notices, but i am quite happy with it. i also overcame a rather sizable hurdle yesterday- i have always been trying to no avail to get the 6-string bass to sound more brutal when i turn the distortion on- something that i've never been able to get right. it's a problem i solved yesterday as well and it's pretty simple- i just ran it through the vox boost pedal that i have (it has a tiny tube in it) and that worked like a dream. the next time we go on tour i actually want to bring the bass amp and the 6-string bass and play those songs again. it's kind of something i really want to do- play those songs again. there are a few new ones, so that should give me the motivation to follow it through.
wow, i'm off to a rolling start here.
i wanted to go to that plastic crimewave sound show last night and the coin toss told me to do it, but i ended up staying home with stefanie. i've become such a homebody these days. i want to go to the tomorrow never knows festival next week to see department of eagles, alla and poison arrows (the guys in that band come in to beans and bagels all the time because two of them work for touch and go). i am beginning to think that i'd better buy myself some tickets so as to assure that i get off of my ass and get down to schuba's. it shouldn't be a problem because i seem to not have any problems getting off of my ass and going down there. it's not very far away or difficult to get to, so that tends to be a major factor. if it's going to take more than about 30 minutes then i tend to stay put. there've been many shows at the bottom lounge that i've passed on because it is a bit of a to-do to get down there. realistically it isn't that big of a deal, but i always tend to lose my gusto once stefanie comes home and we eat dinner and start watching a dvd. i guess i just really like being in my apartment. so there's my strategy right there- buy a ticket this week. i've been meaning to see alla for a really long time and have never bothered to actually get out and see them.
so there you have it.
right now i am listening to sigur ros- a former favourite of mine that i sort of turned off of for a period. 'takk' is a great record, but my heart will always belong to 'agaetis byrjun' and '( ).' i have a bootleg in my ipod of the show i saw them play at the civic opera house. that was a wonderful show. i went by myself because it cost about $50 and i'd missed them when they played at the chicago theater. i was working late a ceda that night and ended up walking down there to try and get in, but of course to no avail. bummer. i had gotten all cavalier about it and then when i was there trying to get in i was really bummed that i couldn't. but the show at the opera house was a beauty. i missed the beginning sadly. i can't remember why- i think it took me a bit longer than i expected to get downtown and get there on foot. i could hear them playing 'glosoli' as i was walking around up the tiers trying to find where i was supposed to go in. it was a really fantastic sounding show. the new stuff sounded really nice in that setting but it was whenever they'd play an old song that i'd get real emotionally involved. they played 'vidrar vel til loftarasa' too, which i'd never seen them do live, and i almost passed out about four times. no lie. i got very overcome and i had to fight myself not to cry. it stops about four times i believe and that was all that would save me. i was really happy they played that one because it's one of my favourites of theirs. my other favourite is 'svefn-g-englar' which they didn't play, but they played it the other two times i saw them so it's alright i think. all in all it was a very emotional night. i don't normally get like that at shows. i got pretty emotional at spiritualized a few times and at my bloody valentine once or twice. what really kind of renewed my sigur ros gusto was seeing 'heima'- highly recommended if you haven't seen it. amazing.
even given all of that jive they aren't one of my favourite bands anymore. i don't know why. i don't listen to them anywhere near as much as i used to. a strange thing because the first time we saw them was their second american tour. we came up to chicago to see them- the show was at the vic (which pretty much seems like small potatoes for them at this point). it was a wonderful trip as well- we had so much fun. i seem to even remember stefanie and i talking about how we'd forgotten how much we liked chicago. for some reason we were still hell-bent on moving to portland. we certainly did more and had more fun than we had ever had on any of our trips to portland. we also had tons more friends in chicago than in portland. oh, well... what can you do? o to be young and naive again. the other night i was entertaining moving somewhere and i couldn't really think of anywhere to move to that i truly and honestly would want to move to. even kansas city. the only way in hell i would ever consider moving back to kansas city is if they put the light rail in. i saw a system map of it and it looked quite nice. if i could live in kansas city and not have to drive everywhere it would be the shit. but then on second thought it'd probably be better to stay away. that seems to be how it retains its charm. i also noticed there isn't a single thing to do there late at night. it's very difficult to keep yourself entertained out there past 10:30 at night unless you want to go to a bar and get wasted. here you have a few decent dining options and there are a few other things that work well. i certainly am rarely lacking in decent shows to go to.
i guess that what i'm trying to say is that i'm enjoying living here.
stefanie is beginning to get burned out on working at lorna's laces. or i guess i should say that she's getting burned out on dealing with beth and amanda. that's really all that you can get burned out by at that place. the work certainly isn't very strenuous or irritating. the worst you can say about it is that it's boring and repetitive. i do love hearing people complain about repetitive work. if that's all you have to complain about then you've got it pretty good in my opinion. she even spent a good half hour to an hour sending out emails and beefing up her resume. bad news for them because she'll get something and probably pretty quickly. as is always the case with stefanie i always want to pat her employers on the back and be like 'good job, you fucked up big time. good luck finding someone half as competent.' she was an office manager for god's sake.
as far as i'm concerned i've always thought of myself as a good worker, but now i'm beginning to think that that isn't necessarily the case. i'm very lazy and i don't like to hold any kind of a job that's much in the way of exerting. i also have other things i'm always having to do so i haven't been able to acquire any kind of job that requires a full-on commitment. going out of town to go on tour isn't something most employers would allow. this next time should be hopefully not such a major biggie. no one at beans and bagels seems to care that much. at least no one's said anything (which i know doesn't necessarily mean that no one minds). i am looking forward to going out again. i'm chomping at the bit to do so in fact. we have a lot of travel on our plates for 2009. kind of scary. as always where is the money going to come from? i am kind of dreading getting the news if we actually get into sxsw. it would be a very good thing, but also kind of like getting a bill for about $500. we also don't hear until some time in february. i guess it's nothing to agonise over- the likelihood of us getting in is very very low indeed.
i am hoping to get some shows going in the next couple of months. i definitely want to get back to practising again. i have started to make a list of new and old songs to get to work on playing again. i would like to make an effort to play some of the old stuff again. i say that and then the new stuff just takes over. to the maximum.
i have some things to do today as usual. i got all of the running around out of the way yesterday. today is doing the dishes and changing the litter. fun stuff. i don't really understand how my days seem to be so packed. i don't understand how anyone manages to set aside enough time to loaf and watch tv etc. i guess that i do actually spend much more time working on music than i am necessarily aware of. i guess that this is a good thing. how could it not be? i am really happy with how the new record is beginning to come together. so far i've only hit one snag and it's that loop i was talking about earlier. i think that i might have to try and approach that song from a different angle or something. every record has a problem child. i'm not so sure that 'dandelions' had one necessarily. i don't think i had to do multiple versions of any of the songs- i think there are two 'sleep now...' versions maybe but one never got past the scratch vocal stage. i just sat down and sang and played the whole thing and it was too long and i tried it a different way and ended up liking it better and thus never bothered to do anything else with the other version. 'down to sleep' had several problem children. there are three versions of the title track alone. two were completely finished. there are two of 'don't go' and then all of the extra tracks that didn't make the cut mostly went through a few versions. ironic. the best songs usually go like a dream the first time. that's usually how i can tell i am on the right track if i'm doing another version of a song- if a version goes really smoothly where the other version(s) had hit a huge snag that was difficult to overcome at some point.
i'm really getting into the mode again here. i'm totally going to have some stuff to go over and get going when i get home. possibly. i guess it might be some string stuff that's coming to mind. over and out.