'why does the rain fall cold...'

listening to the new walkmen album right now and really loving it so far. i recognize two of the songs from their set at pitchfork 2009 (aka most likely the last pitchfork music festival i am likely to attend).
as usual the drama in the band continues as i (as usual) continue to make a new record by myself. also, as usual, the drama is revolving around one person. why do people have to have such fragile egos that they require constant coddling and special attention and why are these people so often more of a burden than they are a help? down with those who take up too much space. i'm hoping this person just thinks i'm a dick and quits because i'm completely sick of their shenanigans. their little power plays will do nothing to make me see the 'error' of my ways- in fact i'm more likely to just quit indulging these ridiculous pleas for attention and reassurance that they are, indeed, as great as they feel like they are and just find someone else to do what they do. it's not that difficult. oh, how exhausted my patience is and oh, how grateful i am for the people in my band who are truly helpful and understanding- they are among the people in the world who i most admire. i've found that people who can just roll up their sleeves and do what needs to be done without a bunch of diva-ish posturing insecure bullshit are in vastly short supply these days.

'just hanging there...' originally titled- i have company

i'm at wormhole right now and some people are sitting in my vicinity. i am hoping this doesn't hinder my sweet, confessional style. i'm sure it could really only be a benefit.
listening to tons of scott walker at the moment and it's doing wonders to make every tiny, insignificant thing that's happening today take on an air of grandiosity and graceful beauty. it's strange to me how normal torch-singery his stuff seems, but there is some weird ass shit even on the first solo record. i think his use of strings might be my favourite along with lee hazlewood's. he uses a fair amount of dissonance, i've noticed- and i mean even on his early stuff. beautiful.
i have quite the daunting task ahead of me once again at work. amidst the recording session that's coming up on tuesday i will be starting another nine-day stretch at work. the last one wasn't as terrible as i was expecting. i'm hoping the same is true for this one. i'm going to do what i did last time- expect it to be a horrible, raging shitstorm and just take it one day at a time and not think about what lies ahead.
spent wayyy too much money on records yesterday. $90 is the exact figure. that bought five records. not too bad, i suppose. two were birthday presents for stefanie- inspired buys and special finds. i think she will really love them. without them it would've been $50. not so terrible, i suppose.
i've got 'chinese blue' going full tilt. i seem to be doing most of it by myself. not sure how much i'm going to use the strings on that one. was going to figure that out later. there's no big rush for that one. it's not going to come out for at least two years, after all. i was just going to stockpile tracks for as long as possible and let it take shape naturally and slowly. i have a ton of songs and was going to really try and stretch out and do a bunch of different versions of them approaching them from a more raw place. some i will build into monolithic giants just in case. just because.
'plastic palace people' has some of the best use of strings in what could be considered a pop song i've ever heard. sorry, that one's playing right now.
'chinese blue'- so far i have a decent amount of finished tracks. i should probably take stock of those when i get home to get a more exact figure. what's going on so far is that i'm working from the stuff i started in 2007 and such and figuring out what's salvageable and what just needs to be redone from square one. so far it seems that for the most part it's worth it to just redo what needs to be redone on them as there's some pretty irreplaceable stuff on there. there's a ton of stuff that i don't even remember how to play that turned out so beautifully i don't see how i could ever recreate them.
that's about it for right now. this was supposed to be so simple and it's all over the place now. not sure how that happened...

diary 9.9.10

an untitled one. i think the sad songs on here are more hopeful. i suppose others would see it differently. this is dead-on, though.



song- band- album

1. walking and falling- laurie anderson- big science
2. when i'm with you- best coast- crazy for you
3. cry, cry baby- nina nastasia
4. you give me butterflies- shallow- high flyin' kids stuff
5. tu ne dis rien- françoise hardy
6. the sun ain't gonna shine anymore- the walker brothers
7. open heart surgery- brian jonestown massacre- bravery, repitition and noise
8. master of none- beach house- beach house
9. if i stay too long- thee oh sees- raven sings the blues comp. vol. 2
10. dead west- moon duo- killing time 12"
11. dead west pt. ii- moon duo- raven sings the blues comp. vol. 2
12. burn & fade- the black ryder- buy the ticket, take the ride
13. drive you home- the verve- a northern soul
14. the river- the dutchess & the duke- sunset/sunrise
15. to june- ganglians- monster head room
16. into dust- mazzy star- so tonight that i might see
17. stay with me- spiritualized- radio city music hall bootleg
18. song to the siren- this mortal coil/cocteau twins- it'll end in tears

finally, some action

i delayed far too long. it was starting to drive me nuts, but the worst of this process is over (well, maybe). 90% of what was worrying me has been allayed. even though 'the deed' (as i'm going to refer to it here for now until later) hasn't been done yet, i feel way better already about the way it's been handled. basically, all i've done is talked to all of my bandmates about stefanie's and my decision. all that's left now is to carry it out. i'm confident that we're doing the right thing- usually when you feel relieved at having to do something unpleasant it means that it is, indeed, the right thing to do, painful as it may be. this is just a very curious development- i've never been in a band where anyone's been kicked out. it's an unfortunate circumstance that the first time this should happen would be in my band.
i'd post something about what else has been going on in my life, but really nothing much has been going on! the strings are coming over to record a new song a week from tuesday and we're going to work on some more wedding music too. i'm really looking forward to it now and i actually received some good news yesterday that i'm close to having everything finished. i'd thought that i needed about an hour's worth of music, but i really only need around a half-hour's worth.
work is work. nothing much else to report besides that. i guess that last week wasn't too miserable. i was my cranky self for at least an hour a day there- probably not too pleasant. i am trying to keep that to a minimum. i've noticed that i'm not the only one, which gives me some modicum of comfort.
i'm going to wooden shjips tomorrow night at the empty bottle and thee oh sees at lincoln hall on wednesday night. definitely looking forward to all of it. i am a bit worried since i probably won't be able to get much sleep tonight and then obviously i'm going to be very tired on sunday morning. with having to get up so much earlier it's quite daunting. the napping ritual usually works alright to offset it. fortunately it's a non-issue for the oh sees show. don't have to be up early at all on thursday morning. tons of awesome shows. tons. probably going to go to the kurt vile show on halloween. i'm hoping it's just him solo this time out- i think i enjoyed that more.
my friend from work, kayla, posted a bunch of pj harvey videos and i was reminded of 'stories from the city, stories from the sea' which i'm listening to right now. it's bringing back a ton of great memories. it came out while i was living in london and stefanie bought it and put it on a tape (possibly with the 'virgin suicides' soundtrack on the flipside- which was our first date movie) and sent it to me in a care-package. at this point it would've been around november or so, so i was very homesick at this point (actually i just missed stefanie like crazy and i was flat broke). talk about an appropriate album for that time- love- physical and mental melding together and being in a vibrant but unfamiliar city in a different country and then the requisite downs associated with each. it was perfect. one of the things i am so upset about with the loss of my old ipod is that i've lost three years worth of diary mixtapes. they are the perfect emotional bookmarks and they just bring up such a flood of memory and emotion that is always astonishing to me. speaking of which i just finished my september diary mix yesterday (and listened to it twice). time to post it.

'i did all my best to smile...'

it's been quite the crap week. i'm going through a phase that sometimes happens to me every so often wherein i try my best to stand up for myself and not let people take advantage of me and the inevitable fallout is that i feel like i'm being a dick- usually because people make me feel that way when i stand up to them. this is a symptom of being taken advantage of a lot.
this song used to save me from the misery of working at starbucks- the chaos and the hopelessness and the futility would all kind of lift away and this song would take me away from there for that three minutes that it would come through the speakers there (it was on one of the cds that we would pipe through the soundsystem- all music chosen by kenny g). neko case's songs would come on occasionally and do the same thing. but this song is probably one that would be a shoe-in to be played at my funeral as it so perfectly encapsulates how it feels to be in my skin.

'i can't mend this living...'

well, things turned around very suddenly last week. august was an inordinately stressful month and as soon as i got to cole's and set up all of my stuff it was like the curtain had been lifted and i was suddenly able to relax finally. it was an instant turnaround and it had held on for several days until last night and now i feel myself sinking back into a hole. this summer has been a complete, miserable energy drain and i will be so glad to see it die. i'm hoping that this means that this winter will be extra awesome- all i know is that i've been daydreaming about snowy days for the last week and it's been making me incredibly happy.
i'm now at a loss as to what to write here. still not sure as to how to draw attention to this whole shalloboi project- it seems destined to be permanently ignored and yet there were a lot more people at the show than i expected and they were mostly there to see us. the set was a nice upward flowing kind of thing like we often do. no distortion until the last two songs. by the time we hit those last two songs they were both ecstatically great- especially the last song. i sang my fucking heart out and pulled things off that i normally have trouble with. i belted towards the end. fun stuff. it made me feel great. i was very swept up in the raw emotion of every moment and every song. 'narcoleptic' was probably the best that we'd ever played it. definitely the best that i'd ever sang it. very intimate and personal and i extended the ending a very generous amount- usually i lose my mojo because i worry that it's getting boring for the audience, but that didn't happen that night. during the last song i was sure that the music is so worthwhile and deserves to be paid attention to and that we really are a great band and that i do, indeed, desire recognition and validation for this at some point. how to get that- i don't really know. i suppose that all we can do is keep playing shows like that. forever and ever.
the feelings of dread that have been creeping up lately will not go away and i can't help but feel that the days of this incarnation of this band are entering their incredibly unstable days. people are letting their dissatisfaction show, which is inevitable in a band where one person is calling all the shots. not sure what to do about it. someone's gotta go. i'm just worried that this will cause a rift and split the band into factions and i don't want that at all, but someone has to go. their tenure in the band is over- someone who takes up the most space, creaks the loudest while continuing to be the weakest link in the chain and makes the same mistakes repeatedly over and over. also someone who causes me an inordinate amount of stress and has made my life a living hell for the past month or so.

diary 8.11.10- meet me by the water

1. can't seem to make you mine- the seeds- the seeds
2. (there's gonna be a) showdown- new york dolls- in too much too soon
3. no one does it like you- department of eagles- in ear park
4. dog days are over- florence and the machine
5. meet me by the water- saturday looks good to me- all your summer songs
6. so alone- ty segall- ty segall
7. throw aggi off the bridge- black tambourine- black tambourine
8. i will be- dum dum girls- i will be
9. little ghost- disappears- lux
10. silver soul- beach house- teen dream
11. you don't miss your water- otis redding- best of
12. desire lines- lush- split
13. horoscopic amputation honey- califone- quicksand/cradlesnakes
14. twilight- elliott smith- from a basement on the hill
15. wakes- nina nastasia- outlaster
16. cool waves- spiritualized- live at radio city music hall bootleg
17. untitled- the cure- disintegration

whisper

here's a video i made for the shalloboi track 'whisper.' i can't figure out my opinion on it at all- which is curious. i think it's worth watching, though.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xmucczqadgY