'oh lord, you're my only friend tonight...'

listen and look-



once again the doledrums have made their appearance right around the time that a new album's going to drop... more variables to make it go nowhere. maybe it's time to take the fucking hint... for some stupid reason my brain understands that it might be time to let it go, but my heart just can't...
the song in that video up above is the crystallization of everything i am feeling right now. why bother with a long-winded circular misery-filled entry when it can be summed up by a pair of actual GOOD musicians in under three minutes...

'i just want to be left on a block of ice...'

once again at metropolis and as always listening to thee oh sees. now that the new record's finished and mastered i'm just not sure what to do with myself. i have this song i've been in the mood to start recording for at least a week or two that i just haven't bothered to get started yet. i'm hoping i'll be able to today, but something always tends to come up and i end up spending my whole day doing nothing. i've also got a bit more scoring to do- i got most of it done last night already, but there's more stuff still to be done...
i'm selling some stuff on ebay right now to help raise the money for the mastering quicker- a big black ep, a deerhoof album and a bright eyes ep. the last two are actually very rare and out of print so i'm hoping i make some money on those. they're all free shipping, so i hope that the price for them is still pretty decent. we shall see i guess...
i'm getting a bad feeling about this whole telecommuting internet job- the guy's emailed me twice in broken english and some of what he's saying doesn't make any sense at all... i think i might do a coin-toss kind of thing to see if i should reply or not. he emailed me yesterday, but what he was saying didn't quite match up with the job description he sent me.
anyway, this is a nice preview for the coming year i guess- what am i going to do with myself if i don't have these crazy releases breathing down my neck? i want to keep the recording going, but i'm wondering what i'm going to do with myself. i guess i'm going to try to get more shows going, but i'm not sure how that's going to work out... once i get the promo cdrs for the record pressed up i'm going to start trying to do some promotional work and then there's the tour in march or april to start trying to book... i've been trying to think of this break from releasing stuff as a bit of an opportunity to start playing catch-up in that area. i haven't done much promotion at all- 'dandelions' wasn't promoted hardly at all. 'down to sleep' got some really great reviews, but there were still a lot of copies that were sent out that fell completely by the wayside. i'm a bit lost in this regard to be honest. i found a promotion company that looked very promising but it was VERY expensive- about $2400 or something like that for the full year-long promo package. they had a 6-month package that was half of that- still a lot of money for me. the rate at which i've managed to crank out these albums has really paralyzed me financially from that standpoint. the west coast tour last year was a nice exception to the rule since we didn't lose that much money on it. most of the debt i worked up in its wake was due to buying some recording equipment- a bunch of microphones that i needed and the contact mics for the strings show back in april. i'd say it was worth it- that stuff has really helped me make better recordings and having the capability for live strings is completely invaluable- especially with the bunch that we've got right now.
we did get a christmas-time show going- it's on wnur 89.3- 'airplay' again. we're going to play the entire 'christmas suite' that we've got going (hopefully we can get that new version of 'christmas song' finished as well)- hopefully the single itself will be released digitally before that- all that really depends on is if we can get it finished in time, which shouldn't be a problem... i guess i still have a great deal to get finished before the end of the year- no whining about boredom.
i think this is mammoth entry might be enough for now. talk to you folks later...

'of longitude and latitude...'

i'm not moving to a table with a wall-outlet in the hopes that that means i won't be sticking around here at the coffee shop as long as i normally would. listening to the last of a playlist on my ipod that has all of the my bloody valentine stuff from 'you made me realise' onward- there are only about eight songs total that aren't from vinyl sources (those are all unreleased tracks too that either aren't available on vinyl or cd or are but for a small fortune). right now i'm listening to the gorgeous instrumental '2.'
i'm still quite coughy today. it's kind of hard to tell if my condition is improving. i slept through most of the night- i think i got up at 6am maybe and then i woke up when stefanie woke up but then fell back asleep until almost 10am. other than this cough i'm feeling pretty damn good though, i have to say. my throat doesn't hurt and the headaches are dying down- i can go for fairly long periods of time without coughing and it seems like if i wanted to i could go out today and feel fairly normal.
today is the day, however, that i will NOT go anywhere! i have a song to work on today and hopefully that means that i will actually stay home and get to work on it.
i bought 'thee hounds of foggy notion' by thee oh sees yesterday- came home, put it on immediately, ripped the audio into the computer (i have one of those usb record player things) and then watched the dvd right afterwards. i'm listening to it again right now. beautiful stuff- i completely fucking love it. after all of that i went in search of more of their stuff only to find that it's still available, but only on cd. instead of moping about it i put all of it onto my amazon.com wishlist. i don't know what's up with me right now, but as it goes this particular record is EXACTLY how i feel. nothing quite matches that feeling. ironic that a band from san francisco can make such a fitting soundtrack to fall and winter in the midwest.
the zine pages for 'all hope is blind' are almost finished- i have all of the large prints (they all look really nice btw) and just need to finish copying the lyric write-outs for the rest of them. stefanie is going to do some pages as well. one of her pages is going to be a knitting pattern- which i originally thought was something i didn't want to include, but now i think it's a totally sweet idea. i guess it's coming down to the wire and we need to get our act together. i should probably start trying to get some more 1/4" tape to prep up a production master for the record duplication.

there's nothing like feeling crappy on your day off

welcome to the adult world. this is kind of like the calvin and hobbes series that they did on calvin being sick during summer vacation. good stuff! i have a pretty bad cough (i've had so many bad coughs over the last three years that i've completely lost count). the pain from yesterday seems to be over- i coughed myself hoarse and had a really painful sore throat all day which developed into a throbbing headache by the end of the day and the feeling that i was going to pop a blood vessel in my head if i kept coughing. i don't know if all of the crap i've been taking has been working and i should keep taking it or if i should just let it run its course at this point. i have to go to dominick's later on anyway to get cat litter. i also have to do the dishes today- the sink is overflowing with them. i meant to do them on monday night but something interfered.
i don't have anything else to report really- i have no plans for the day at all. perhaps some more recording would be in order? i dunno... i should probably try to be somewhat active and that would be a good distraction- i've found if i have something to distract me it keeps me from coughing too much which i've noticed makes me feel better as well. the most irritating thing about all of it is that i feel completely fine in every other way- no aches and pains, no chills, no fever. i just felt completely bone-dry yesterday.
so right now i'm listening to 'loveless' and i'm at the coffee shop. i'm in a bit of a sectioned off corner in the back that i like and figure would be good for not making people uncomfortable/irritated with my coughing. i've been working on a 'best tracks of 2009' playlist for the end of the year list that i'm always doing- so far it's pretty great stuff. i always do a list of my five favourite records of the year- not very much so i thought it'd be good to do a full-on playlist so that i have a bit more to talk about. not that anyone's reading... or are they?

chicago vs. portland

i was going to skip writing for the day when i realised i actually have something decent to write about. i never wrote about our trip to portland- mainly because it was very packed with activity. i'm beginning to think it would be wise to try and make the effort to visit more often just to remind myself as to why we left in the first place. it's not that it's a terrible place, just not the place for us. we didn't do much outside of hanging out at stefanie's sister's house and spending time with our nephews. we did all of the fun stuff that we wanted to do in a total of about six or seven hours- basically we went downtown one day and spent several hours walking around and seeing our favourites- powell's, everyday music, stumptown coffee, etc. i found two cds at everday music and then we went and had a couple of beers at the henry weinhard's tavern (which i'd recommend for anyone visiting and wanting to sit down for a few beers) and kvetched for about an hour. it was good fun. ironically enough of a dose of portland to be just enough for a while. honestly if we didn't make it through next year on tour i wouldn't be that broken up about it. i still want to do a west coast tour next year if our pal in bozeman can still hook us up with a show at msu (when one show can pay for two weeks of a rental car it's hard for me not to go ahead and get going) then it will happen again next fall- it seems easy to find people/places to play in portland and even in seattle as well- possibly a few other places might open up in the northwest. it gives us an excuse to visit stefanie's friend sarah in spokane (when else would this occur?). this time if nothing works out in california we can just head back home.
basically all in all this move has been very good to us- it's been easier to find jobs, a place to live that we love, it's a more diverse city, there is no shortage of good food to be found, it's not terribly difficult to get around with a car (of course, this is true in portland as well) and we have tons more friends here than we ever did in portland.
i'd go on in greater detail but i'm not really sure what the point of that would be at this point.

'goodbye applesauce' mix 10.28.09

i made this mix for a co-worker of mine who's going on a long road trip. i made it from all vinyl-sourced music that i have and included a few tracks that are fairly tricky to find. her nickname was applesauce because her first name was emily and we had another emily that worked there at the time and her last name was appenzeller and i might be wrong but i think i was the first one to start calling her applesauce and it ended up sticking for some reason... as usual i've packed the spacemen 3-related stuff on here through the different band name loopholes (my favourite thing to do on any mix i make).



song- artist- album
1. surf city (revisited)- the black angels- 'directions to see a ghost' 3lp
2. love is a wave- crystal stilts- 'love is a wave' 7"
3. o katrina- the black lips- 'good bad not evil'
4. pretty suzanne- the monks- 'black monk time'
5. don't you just know it- the sonics- 'boom'
6. my little red book- love- s/t
7. little red rooster- the rolling stones- 'the rolling stones, now!'
8. nevertheless- the brian jonestown massacre- 'bravery, repitition and noise'
9. he hit me- grizzly bear- 'friend'
10. oh baby- spiritualized®- 'amazing grace'
11. you're the one- sonic boom- 'spectrum'
12. blind spot- vivian girls- 'i can't stay' 7"
13. medication #4- the gris-gris- 'for the season'
14. the killer- thee oh sees- 'sucks blood'
15. hear my call, here- holly golightly- 'christmas tree on fire' 7"
16. tightly- neko case- 'blacklisted'
17. dreamless days- the warlocks- 'heavy deavy skull lover'
18. to here knows when- my bloody valentine- 'tremolo'
19. nightsong- sian alice group- 'nightsong' 7"
20. lord can you hear me- spacemen 3- 'playing with fire'

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