it looks like they found a decent draw for the show at the empty bottle. ironically it's a tundra- i've tried to weasel my way onto one of their shows in the past. now they're playing with us. jim's band is also playing. should be pretty good. so now that that worry is out of the way i woke up this morning filled with anxiety about the tour. it's entirely possible that we won't be playing a good show until seattle. kind of a bummer. the show in minneapolis is going to be a bit... punky metally. i guess we should just play really loud and be completely unforgiving. that's usually what's most fun to do at those kinds of shows- your songs are mellower and slower, but then you have punks moaning about how you're playing too loud and that it's too noisy. excellent!
i'm also downloading another my bloody valentine bootleg. i've downloaded about four shows now in the past day. the one i'm downloading today is one that i already have, but this seems to be a better version. it's of the third night at the roundhouse. the one i have right now is kind of marred with audience noise- there was a group of japanese people next to the person who taped it and they yell a lot during the show- it's kind of funny because they are obviously enjoying themselves and inbetween songs keep yelling 'whooooooaaaaaa! whoa! whoa! WHOOOOOAAAAAAA!' the only bit of it that i somewhat object to is that one of them is singing along to 'lose my breathe' out of key. that shit just don't fly! nah, it's really not a huge deal- but since there's another version that sounds at least as good then i'll go for that one. i'm really not too picky with bootlegs, but these my bloody valentine ones all sound so good i have actually been making it a habit of listening to them very regularly, so it seems worthwhile to have decent versions of them around. i'm listening to the first ica show right now. i might even download the other version of that that has surfaced- supposedly it's a soundboard recording which means it might sound better. sometimes soundboard recordings sound worse than audience recordings though because you don't have the sense of space or acoustics at all. live albums are mixed both from the board and the space. one of my favourite swervedriver mp3s that i have is that amazing live version that's on swervedriver.com of 'duress' which is a combination of an audience and a soundboard recording. it still definitely sounds like a bootleg, but holy shit is it fantastic!
i'm still sick as shit for not having that old my bloody valentine bootleg. of all of the ones i have (which is a lot) i'm beginning to think that that one might have been my favourite. naturally i can't find it at all. i even listened to the new boston show that i have and i actually think that the detroit one i used to have might sound better to my ears. the interesting thing about the boston show is how fast they play all of the songs- the performance has a lot of energy. the detroit one is a bit more of a mix- it's more subdued in places, but a few of the songs are a bit more hopped up and driving. there are a few fuck ups in there as well- 'nothing much to lose' is kind of a sloppy mess as it often is on mbv bootlegs. when i hear it on every bootleg and think of how often it falls on its face it sometimes amazes me that they used to play it so often and still manage to play it so sloppily.
today i have made myself a to do list, which i don't do very often, but things have gotten to the point where there is a lot to do before the tour and it must get done asap. i realised last week at some point that it would be a really good idea to get t-shirts made before the empty bottle show. that way if they sell well we will have time and money to order and make more for the tour. i will be a silk-screening fool this month. i'm going to silk-screen the remaining 30 arigato paks so hopefully we'll sell some 'learning how to crawl' cds. then of course the t-shirts. i also wanted to get on prepping the screens since the weather is so cool lately. last time i made a screen it was incredibly hot and humid and the screen had a few bubbles on it if i recall correctly. i don't think it impacted the screen really- it was for the original t-shirt screen that i made, which i'm planning on using as the back of the t-shirts. mainly i also like to print when it's cooler because the bathroom gets especially hot and stuffy when it's excessively warm out and that's where i print because it's the only isolated room that the cats can't get in besides our bedroom and if i make a mess in there it's easier to clean up than our bedroom. what's more it's the only room that i can make 100% dark so i can expose the screens.
i have some recording to do as well. much to finish, much to finish. i wanted to do some new sounds for 'windsong' and possibly use jim's mellotron on those. i'd also like to use the mellotron on 'sleep now...' as i wanted to do a floaty keyboards kind of combination a la sparklehorse for that song. i have a hammond organ part recorded it already. it had a few problems, but as of the last listen their impact was minimal. i'm keeping the scratch vocal for the first half as well. i'm not even going to double it. every time i try to sing that song it is excessively hard for some reason. the melody is relatively simple, but for some reason i usually have trouble with it.
there are vocals for two tracks from the 'dandelions' 'ep' which we have to do 'down to sleep' style (which just means we have to double them ten times and then add reverb- it's quite difficult to get stefanie to do these) and then a drum part for one of the songs. there are, of course, violin parts to record still. then in preparation for the halloween weekend trip i'll be taking to kansas city to record with billy there are tons of other songs that haven't even been started yet. of all of them i think that the only ones i need to get to work on right now are the ones that have to be done piece by piece because all of the rest of them need to be done live, there's no real way to do them piece by piece. as it is right now there's probably already plenty to do for that first weekend. not sure if i'm even going to bother going the next week for one day. that seems a bit silly to me, but who knows... i've done stupider things in my life, i guess. on the other hand i'd only have about 9 hours or so in kansas city. a new idea popped into my head to do try to find a violin player in kansas city so that some of the parts can be done at the same time and therefore there will be less annoying bleed- because bleed is going to be a serious problem with these songs. they are so minimal and the way that i usually do strings with billy is that i wear the headphones and play along with the tracks on acoustic guitar and he plays along with what i'm doing. there is often some bleed and sometimes it's a problem and sometimes it isn't. i was sure it was going to be on 'fade to white' but it ended up not being such a huge problem- it could be fixed, although if you listen you can hear the acoustic guitar on it because i play with a pick on some of it. but bleed caused what billy did on the verses of 'voices in the air' to be scrapped because it was really hard to play stop start even with myself on that song because i had to do the little cue strums that i did on the recording along with myself and i fucked about every single one up. kind of a shame because on something like that bleed isn't normally an issue because it's just a double of the acoustic guitar that's already on there. also some of what billy played was overpowering stefanie's vocal on the verses. it really was hard to mix out his cello on the second though because on that one it would've been so nice and dynamic to have it there because it kind of underscored her vocal on that one, and i tried to just mix it in and out and it just didn't work.
today is a 'photo shoot.' i should do the dishes too. and order t-shirts. naturally the internet is out AGAIN. it was on last night. annoying. it's been out several times over the course of the week. at&t doesn't even know what the problem is. i think it might be a shitty and antiquated phone wiring system in our building. you can tell just by looking at it. i look at the mess of wires and just think to myself 'yeah, i'm sure there's nothing sketchy about all of that.' it's just a giant mass of wires running in and out of these tiny boxes and the wires just dangle down in the open air. sometimes just the wind can be enough to knock our internet out of commission. ah, humanity and civilization- it's just so SOLID, y'know?
Thursday, August 14, 2008
Monday, August 11, 2008
my bloody valentine live at the axis in boston
i spent a few weeks searching for this bootleg after finally hearing good things about it and since i finally found it i figured it would be nice to share the link. here it is-
http://www.sendspace.com/file/cojm9g
i used to have a bootleg of the st. andrew's hall show in detroit from this same tour. the cdr that i have it on has completely deteriorated over time, so if anyone happens to see this entry and has that show then please share it with me- i am just sick over the fact that i don't have it any more. i even dug through boxes and boxes of tapes on the off chance that i still had the tape i made of it to listen to in my car.
http://www.sendspace.com/file/cojm9g
i used to have a bootleg of the st. andrew's hall show in detroit from this same tour. the cdr that i have it on has completely deteriorated over time, so if anyone happens to see this entry and has that show then please share it with me- i am just sick over the fact that i don't have it any more. i even dug through boxes and boxes of tapes on the off chance that i still had the tape i made of it to listen to in my car.
Saturday, August 9, 2008
what is going on?
i think we've entered a parallel universe now. seriously.
the skinny on the two shows we just played is basically that the 'two with water' didn't really work so well because of a lack of volume- it was held at the catalyst and the p.a. didn't have a lot of power, so we had to be kind of quiet. we were also a bit shaky since we haven't played a show since may. we opened with 'down to sleep' too and it was too quiet and stefanie said that we lost a lot of people because it's so long and doesn't really change much, which is true. we played 'fade to white' for the first time and it was very very shaky. even songs that are normally easy for us were a bit strange. since we were so bumbly and people seemed so bored we closed with 'sloba' and that actually worked really well. people seemed to like that one- so therefore it was the right way to end it. weird fact- the guy who set up the bands told me we were the most notable band playing at that thing. us? notable? i was truly baffled. flattered to be honest, but 100% baffled.
the show at the record bar was a very different story- we started out really strong and threw in 'petals in a rainstorm'- which went very well and then we decided to try 'fade to white' again since we unexpectedly had to play longer than we expected and it went much better this time. i felt like we kind of petered out at the end, but everyone i talked to didn't seem to agree with me- which is a good thing in this case. i was able to get enough volume to get the sounds i wanted- which was very nice for a change. kudos to the sound guy at the record bar- he is the tops! i think we were ready to play in about five minutes and it sounded really good- he seemed to know what we were after without us having to even hint at it. i could hear my vocals really well- so it was really easy to sing. the 'angels...' loop was blaring in the monitors, which threw me off a bit, but i still think that we did a good job with that song. people always like that one. i broke a string onstage for the first time in a really long time. it was a string i usually only strum open for texture and i discovered the value inherent in the open strings that i use for texture during 'sloba.' i'm sure no one else noticed, but i would've been a bit happier if the texture had really been there, but whatever...
ghosty were really awesome- the lead singer/guitarist guy was so nice too. i was a bit bummed when we got home because i had seem them listed on a bill here in chicago and i thought that it was going to be after we played kansas city, but unfortunately it already happened. bummer in the summer. kudos to them!
as if that weren't enough the staff at the record bar were all very nice, gave us guestlist spots, free pizza and other food and six free drinks. at the end of the night we got a very decent cut of the door too- enough to pay for the two day rental fee for the igo car (though not the mileage- that's going to hurt like hell).
on that note i doubt that we're going to do any more of these one-off things unless they are much closer- the mileage is a killer in that department. it wasn't too terrible after the ft. wayne show, but for a 1000 mile roundtrip it's just not worth it. fun fact- if we still had our van it would have cost more than the rental fee and the mileage charges. i don't think we could've done this trip in the van for under $500. seriously. the only reason we were able to do the new york trip in it was because gas was at a low- as in you could still find gas for around $2 a gallon. we lucked out.
we sold a few cds too- which is always good.
frightening news reached me today as well about the empty bottle show- they have us down as the headliners. why the fuck are we the headliners? that doesn't make any fucking sense at all. i feel like everyone might be taking us a bit too seriously at this point and it is a bit of a point of worry for me. i guess i shouldn't get too upset about it, but still i am very worried now about how in the world we are going to get anyone out to that show, let alone enough people to justify us headlining the damn thing! i was considering emailing pete and being like 'are you sure it's a good idea to have us headline? shouldn't you try and get someone who can pull in a significant draw.' even with the promotion we're doing i am still very skeptical that we can draw enough people to justify something like that and it would really suck to ruin our chances of ever playing at the empty bottle again.
the skinny on the two shows we just played is basically that the 'two with water' didn't really work so well because of a lack of volume- it was held at the catalyst and the p.a. didn't have a lot of power, so we had to be kind of quiet. we were also a bit shaky since we haven't played a show since may. we opened with 'down to sleep' too and it was too quiet and stefanie said that we lost a lot of people because it's so long and doesn't really change much, which is true. we played 'fade to white' for the first time and it was very very shaky. even songs that are normally easy for us were a bit strange. since we were so bumbly and people seemed so bored we closed with 'sloba' and that actually worked really well. people seemed to like that one- so therefore it was the right way to end it. weird fact- the guy who set up the bands told me we were the most notable band playing at that thing. us? notable? i was truly baffled. flattered to be honest, but 100% baffled.
the show at the record bar was a very different story- we started out really strong and threw in 'petals in a rainstorm'- which went very well and then we decided to try 'fade to white' again since we unexpectedly had to play longer than we expected and it went much better this time. i felt like we kind of petered out at the end, but everyone i talked to didn't seem to agree with me- which is a good thing in this case. i was able to get enough volume to get the sounds i wanted- which was very nice for a change. kudos to the sound guy at the record bar- he is the tops! i think we were ready to play in about five minutes and it sounded really good- he seemed to know what we were after without us having to even hint at it. i could hear my vocals really well- so it was really easy to sing. the 'angels...' loop was blaring in the monitors, which threw me off a bit, but i still think that we did a good job with that song. people always like that one. i broke a string onstage for the first time in a really long time. it was a string i usually only strum open for texture and i discovered the value inherent in the open strings that i use for texture during 'sloba.' i'm sure no one else noticed, but i would've been a bit happier if the texture had really been there, but whatever...
ghosty were really awesome- the lead singer/guitarist guy was so nice too. i was a bit bummed when we got home because i had seem them listed on a bill here in chicago and i thought that it was going to be after we played kansas city, but unfortunately it already happened. bummer in the summer. kudos to them!
as if that weren't enough the staff at the record bar were all very nice, gave us guestlist spots, free pizza and other food and six free drinks. at the end of the night we got a very decent cut of the door too- enough to pay for the two day rental fee for the igo car (though not the mileage- that's going to hurt like hell).
on that note i doubt that we're going to do any more of these one-off things unless they are much closer- the mileage is a killer in that department. it wasn't too terrible after the ft. wayne show, but for a 1000 mile roundtrip it's just not worth it. fun fact- if we still had our van it would have cost more than the rental fee and the mileage charges. i don't think we could've done this trip in the van for under $500. seriously. the only reason we were able to do the new york trip in it was because gas was at a low- as in you could still find gas for around $2 a gallon. we lucked out.
we sold a few cds too- which is always good.
frightening news reached me today as well about the empty bottle show- they have us down as the headliners. why the fuck are we the headliners? that doesn't make any fucking sense at all. i feel like everyone might be taking us a bit too seriously at this point and it is a bit of a point of worry for me. i guess i shouldn't get too upset about it, but still i am very worried now about how in the world we are going to get anyone out to that show, let alone enough people to justify us headlining the damn thing! i was considering emailing pete and being like 'are you sure it's a good idea to have us headline? shouldn't you try and get someone who can pull in a significant draw.' even with the promotion we're doing i am still very skeptical that we can draw enough people to justify something like that and it would really suck to ruin our chances of ever playing at the empty bottle again.
Tuesday, August 5, 2008
weirdness...
even though i'd gotten the day off today i would've had it off no matter what. the basement flooded again at the shop, so much so that they went ahead and closed today. i figured the basement would flood with all of the rain last night. i figured it would be how it always floods- enough to pick up with a shop vac. yipes. supposedly it's supposed to do all of that crazy storming again tonight. i'm wondering if i'm going to get another day off. truthfully two days off at this point would be tantamount to a pretty nasty financial hit at a time when i don't really need it. i can still pay stefanie the rest of the money that i owe her, but i would like to pay the normal payments to my credits cards for this month since next month i'm going to have to do the minimum payments only in order to still pay rent and whatnot. that's why it's important that i pay stefanie back asap- so that then i have the newly freed up money from not having to buy a monthly cta pass. in october i'm going to start it up again at some point in anticipation of winter time when i'm going to have to ride the train every day again.
today i feel a bit better. almost refreshed. i slept for about 11 hours last night. i had some strange dreams. i was drafted by jason pierce to play in spiritualized. so in my dream i got shipped back to london. a beautiful thing. it was about a week before i even met jason. it was sort of a whirlwind of suddenly being summoned. when he'd talk to me i'd be somewhat nervous and over-eager. when the time came to get everyone together and play it was in a kind of beautiful, surreal setting- it was on a rooftop and we all set up in a really wide circle. i was right next to the drummer- who i believe was actually the drummer for the dirty three- jim white. in the dream i even obsessed over which guitar would be better to use for it. i was never shown the songs- they just started playing them and i played along- sort of affected chords because i figured that was what they wanted me for for some reason, plus no one else was doing it. one of the songs was one i'd never heard before and had to figure out as i went along. while we were playing i looked across the way and saw neil young playing with a revamped crazy horse or something and poncho was dancing all crazy up towards neil's microphone and i saw neil quit playing and smash his hand into poncho's face to push him away and get him to stop and it made me laugh. for some reason after the song my sister was there- i think she was playing keyboards or something right next to me and she got upset and was like 'is there any way to make it so that we can't hear those people across the way?' and i was totally baffled because i couldn't hear it at all. then, finally, jason started talking to me- he wanted me to put a chip inside my amp that would block out any interference from across the way- he was very insistent and i didn't understand what he wanted me to do and i asked 'do you want me to just play louder?' and he says 'no, i just want you to put this chip inside your amp- it looks like this- that's all.' and he showed it to me and gave me a key ring. ironically he lived next door to laura mcrae and i was supposed to use the keys he gave me to get into her house and get the three pieces of the chip. he gave me a keyring that was on this massive orange. all in all a really nice dream- you get to be in spiritualized and walk around in london for free. sweet.
i guess that that'll be it for today. titillating as always.
today i feel a bit better. almost refreshed. i slept for about 11 hours last night. i had some strange dreams. i was drafted by jason pierce to play in spiritualized. so in my dream i got shipped back to london. a beautiful thing. it was about a week before i even met jason. it was sort of a whirlwind of suddenly being summoned. when he'd talk to me i'd be somewhat nervous and over-eager. when the time came to get everyone together and play it was in a kind of beautiful, surreal setting- it was on a rooftop and we all set up in a really wide circle. i was right next to the drummer- who i believe was actually the drummer for the dirty three- jim white. in the dream i even obsessed over which guitar would be better to use for it. i was never shown the songs- they just started playing them and i played along- sort of affected chords because i figured that was what they wanted me for for some reason, plus no one else was doing it. one of the songs was one i'd never heard before and had to figure out as i went along. while we were playing i looked across the way and saw neil young playing with a revamped crazy horse or something and poncho was dancing all crazy up towards neil's microphone and i saw neil quit playing and smash his hand into poncho's face to push him away and get him to stop and it made me laugh. for some reason after the song my sister was there- i think she was playing keyboards or something right next to me and she got upset and was like 'is there any way to make it so that we can't hear those people across the way?' and i was totally baffled because i couldn't hear it at all. then, finally, jason started talking to me- he wanted me to put a chip inside my amp that would block out any interference from across the way- he was very insistent and i didn't understand what he wanted me to do and i asked 'do you want me to just play louder?' and he says 'no, i just want you to put this chip inside your amp- it looks like this- that's all.' and he showed it to me and gave me a key ring. ironically he lived next door to laura mcrae and i was supposed to use the keys he gave me to get into her house and get the three pieces of the chip. he gave me a keyring that was on this massive orange. all in all a really nice dream- you get to be in spiritualized and walk around in london for free. sweet.
i guess that that'll be it for today. titillating as always.
Monday, August 4, 2008
lonely...
listening to the stone roses and lost in a giant miasma of myspace wormholes. i've written about this very new millenium type of wallowing- looking up people you used to know and haven't seen for years on myspace. or doing googles and finding random shit. these are strange times...
it has been raining buckets tonight. it's been incredibly lovely. it can storm all day and night and all of tomorrow for all i care. i unexpectedly have tomorrow off. someone wanted to pick up my shift, and considering that today was a crappy day at work i figured it would really help to have a day off. this week has been a bit crappy now that it comes to it- but just at work really. everything else has been brilliant. even the loneliness, rainstorms and myspace wormholes or sketchy creepiness. yes, i look up old girlfriends. it's so rare that i even remember them that then i like to try to see if i can figure out what they've been up to lately. it's sometimes very easy and sometimes there's nothing.
last night was brilliant- i went to jenee's going away party that was way out in old irving park- which is tricky to get to without a car- or so i thought. it actually proved to be really easy because it's on irving park road which has the only consistently reliable east/west bus line in the entire fucking city. at least it's the best one i've ever come across. it was supposed to start at 2 or 3pm and i went after work was over- which put me there at about 4:30. i was the first one there. awkward. i didn't really know the person whose house it was at and their family was there. i drank from 4:30 to 10:30 though- i was very wobbly. i woke up to go to work this morning and i was still wobbly. for about two or three hours. not fun- i've never had to do that before.
my spiritualized green vinyl finally came today. i paid for it back in june. christ almighty- i gave neutral feedback since the record was in pretty good shape. they did pack it kind of strangely so the two record sleeves were damaged (the seams were a little ripped from the vinyl flopping around loose inside them), but everything else was okay, so i don't really care. i listened to it twice and it sounds very nice and the vinyl is very beautiful- translucent lime green. mmmm. limes. i left neutral feedback- evidently i wasn't the only one having these problems- they had a few really nasty feedback messages on their page today.
i bought a vox pedal on ebay today too. it's sort of billed as 'top boost in a pedal.' meaning that it emulates the top boost feature on a vox ac30 which is holy grail for tyler. i will one day still try to buy one of those elusive and expensive vox ac30 amps, but i figured that this pedal would be well worth a try. it has the same kind of controls, it does indeed run on tubes (which could only be a good thing) and i figured it might help me have a good dense-reverb sound (which i will need very soon). if it sucks then i only spent $100 for it- it just came out and a new one is $200. i just figured i should buy it- such a good deal, such an interesting and unexpected thing that exists and the coin toss told me to go for it. all signs that are good enough for me.
i'm not depressed i wouldn't say. or maybe i am- i can't really tell the difference sometimes anymore and sometimes i go so quickly from one to the other and back that i begin to question the reality of said depression (or said happiness). there is also no predicting the things that will set me off on any particular day. sometimes nothing at all will no matter what's thrown my way and sometimes it will be the slightest thing that normally wouldn't even make me think twice.
i should really be happier i feel like. financially things are kind of crappy in some ways- i owe a lot of money and can't seem to get caught up at all- but at the same time we have the money to go on tour already. not only are we going to be housesitting for jay and diana before we leave but we will also be housesitting for them for a few nights right after we get back and we'll be nearly destitute, so housesitting for them at that time will be very nice. it might be a nice way to unwind after all of that tour craziness. pretty much the next two months are all planned out for us and we won't have much time to stop and absorb much of anything. getting a day off is kind of a godsend.
i'll probably report back tomorrow from the coffee shop in that case.
talk to you then, i guess.
it has been raining buckets tonight. it's been incredibly lovely. it can storm all day and night and all of tomorrow for all i care. i unexpectedly have tomorrow off. someone wanted to pick up my shift, and considering that today was a crappy day at work i figured it would really help to have a day off. this week has been a bit crappy now that it comes to it- but just at work really. everything else has been brilliant. even the loneliness, rainstorms and myspace wormholes or sketchy creepiness. yes, i look up old girlfriends. it's so rare that i even remember them that then i like to try to see if i can figure out what they've been up to lately. it's sometimes very easy and sometimes there's nothing.
last night was brilliant- i went to jenee's going away party that was way out in old irving park- which is tricky to get to without a car- or so i thought. it actually proved to be really easy because it's on irving park road which has the only consistently reliable east/west bus line in the entire fucking city. at least it's the best one i've ever come across. it was supposed to start at 2 or 3pm and i went after work was over- which put me there at about 4:30. i was the first one there. awkward. i didn't really know the person whose house it was at and their family was there. i drank from 4:30 to 10:30 though- i was very wobbly. i woke up to go to work this morning and i was still wobbly. for about two or three hours. not fun- i've never had to do that before.
my spiritualized green vinyl finally came today. i paid for it back in june. christ almighty- i gave neutral feedback since the record was in pretty good shape. they did pack it kind of strangely so the two record sleeves were damaged (the seams were a little ripped from the vinyl flopping around loose inside them), but everything else was okay, so i don't really care. i listened to it twice and it sounds very nice and the vinyl is very beautiful- translucent lime green. mmmm. limes. i left neutral feedback- evidently i wasn't the only one having these problems- they had a few really nasty feedback messages on their page today.
i bought a vox pedal on ebay today too. it's sort of billed as 'top boost in a pedal.' meaning that it emulates the top boost feature on a vox ac30 which is holy grail for tyler. i will one day still try to buy one of those elusive and expensive vox ac30 amps, but i figured that this pedal would be well worth a try. it has the same kind of controls, it does indeed run on tubes (which could only be a good thing) and i figured it might help me have a good dense-reverb sound (which i will need very soon). if it sucks then i only spent $100 for it- it just came out and a new one is $200. i just figured i should buy it- such a good deal, such an interesting and unexpected thing that exists and the coin toss told me to go for it. all signs that are good enough for me.
i'm not depressed i wouldn't say. or maybe i am- i can't really tell the difference sometimes anymore and sometimes i go so quickly from one to the other and back that i begin to question the reality of said depression (or said happiness). there is also no predicting the things that will set me off on any particular day. sometimes nothing at all will no matter what's thrown my way and sometimes it will be the slightest thing that normally wouldn't even make me think twice.
i should really be happier i feel like. financially things are kind of crappy in some ways- i owe a lot of money and can't seem to get caught up at all- but at the same time we have the money to go on tour already. not only are we going to be housesitting for jay and diana before we leave but we will also be housesitting for them for a few nights right after we get back and we'll be nearly destitute, so housesitting for them at that time will be very nice. it might be a nice way to unwind after all of that tour craziness. pretty much the next two months are all planned out for us and we won't have much time to stop and absorb much of anything. getting a day off is kind of a godsend.
i'll probably report back tomorrow from the coffee shop in that case.
talk to you then, i guess.
Friday, August 1, 2008
it is possible this will be the last entry in a while
as next week we will be in kansas city to play a show at the record bar. we are pretty excited and it's going to cost us a lot of money to be there, so we are really itching for it to be good. next week is going to be a bit of a harried time. jenee's last day is on monday, which will be sad because she's probably my favourite work person. she's having a goodbye party type of thing on sunday night and i have to be at work bright and early at 8am the next day. very nice. i must say that riding my bike to work every day has made a difference- i can sleep later and i've noticed i'm a little more with-it lately when i'm there. in addition to that since ty had a shift that he needed covered up on the board for the 14th i took it since i'm going to miss a day of work as well and that way it'll still be a full paycheck. he called me yesterday to inform me that he had the wrong week and that it will actually be this coming thursday that he needs covered. so in one way it sucks because that makes this week a six-day week and we have a show that night, then we leave early the next morning, but on the plus side now i'll have a three day weekend and a four day week next week after we get back and it will go by very fast and probably be fairly mellow. we're also playing on wzrd next saturday night. fortunately (for a change) it's a venue that's really nearby and won't be much of a time commitment. thus it will be cheap for us to do from an igo point of view- which will be nice after this whole kc debacle. and then our next show is at the empty bottle and we don't need to reserve an igo car for that at all because we'll be housesitting for jay and diana during that time, so we'll be able to just use diana's car. yay.
after some careful consideration i have come up with a plan for next year. it's always been something we've kind of been wondering about. i have a lot of equipment to buy, so i was beginning to think that i should just start buying it. i'm not going to be able to get a studio together without working up some debt. end of story. since i already have some considerable credit card debt it might just be a good idea to get started after the tour once things have calmed down and i might just go ahead and buy those api preamps and the mics i went on about in the last entry. i'm still going to plan on getting the 'dandelions' ep released once it's finished. disk factory just sent us a nice brochure and they are wayyyyy cheaper than cdman is now and they're in the city. i know where they are. cheaper cds and i can go pick them up on my own rather than pay for shipping. so that means we should be able to get about 500 plain discs pressed for fairly cheap and then we will do what we did with the 'learning how to crawl' ep- i only ordered 100 of the arigato paks from them since i knew that that would last us a while and i've only printed up about 50 of them. we only keep a handful of them around at a time. i think it's about time to reorder more of them, actually. i should take stock before we leave for tour. anyway, we'd do pretty much the same thing with the 'dandelions' ep- the entire cover will be silk-screened. stefanie's going to do the artwork and it's going to be silver ink on red cardstock. very simple. she showed me the cover-design she had finished and it looks very nice- i like it a lot. naturally she's going to get a tattoo of it as well. so hopefully that won't be too much of a production. hopefully. haw haw. i'm going to mix it down to tape and send it away to magneto that way. they have nice tape machines and seem very analog/digital hybrid oriented. i always felt that that was why the stuff they mastered always sounds so great. i think the ep is going to sound very nice- it sounds very natural. it's almost finished too. i need to finish the lyrics for two songs, but those two songs have been started and have a decent chunk of their music recorded. one has a nearly finished string score- i'm missing a good part for the chorus. it also needs a sort of swirling feedback symphony type of thing.
the next project i'm going to start is going to be going through those old instrumentals. i might just mix them all down, redo the ones i think need to be redone and then just make cds of them and give them to stefanie and try and have us write lyrics for them independently. i think that they would make a good double ep or something like that- like if we were able to write lyrics for some of them then they could work well. that stuff would work in that 'low level owl' kind of context. just beautiful. deeee!
our internet has been out for two days at home. i am very tempted not to get it fixed as i am kind of enjoying not having internet. although i worked for about four or five hours on that proposed animated 'angels floating on the head of a pin' video to absolutely no avail. evidently scanning images and then importing them into imovie via iphoto doesn't work as well as it should. they end up looking like total dogshit, especially if they're small. the pen and ink drawings might make good t-shirt designs or what have you. i should probably order some t-shirts as well for the tour. i think it might be entirely possible that t-shirts might be something that could make us some much-needed extra cash on the road. what's more there is something to making people into walking billboards.
so my new plan is just to buy the equipment i want to get my little setup that much closer to being a proper studio and then all i'd need would be a tape machine and a mixing desk, which would be easier to save up for by itself.
my plan for next year- we are going to be very quiet on the local front. i feel like we shouldn't bother with getting shows booked around chicago. if we are offered shows we will probably take them, but we will not actively seek out shows. if i get a jones to play live i should play open-mic nights on my own or something. no local shows. we will still apply to play at south by southwest in march- then just split the cost of a rental minivan with nick and nadine if they're going to go (and by some weird miracle we get to go). then work towards getting the next full-length out in time for another promotional trip in september. this one will be of the east coast and be shorter- ideally around a week long. i'm beginning to think that we should do these week-long or two-week long tours every year, just alternating between the east coast and the west coast. i really don't see the point any more of just going going going constantly and jamming yourself down people's throats. i'd rather do it more gradually. it feels to me that we could do this and it would work out well for us. our music takes time for people to get used to. there's no point or help in just making ourselves incredibly visible- it's just not going to work. i feel like if we find subtler ways of getting ourselves out there then it will grow more gradually and people will react more positively. so that's my plan as it stands at the moment. next year- less local shows (not to say there won't be any) all working towards the goal at the end of the year.
next week my little project is to go on the consignment rounds. i'm going to take a day after i get off of work and go around and take 'down to sleep' cds to permanent records, two or all of the reckless records shops, laurie's planet of sound. voila. i definitely want to do this before we go play live on the radio. it would be nice to be able to say that it is readily available to buy in the city. i don't really think that many people will hear us on the radio, but you never know. do people still listen to the radio anymore?
after some careful consideration i have come up with a plan for next year. it's always been something we've kind of been wondering about. i have a lot of equipment to buy, so i was beginning to think that i should just start buying it. i'm not going to be able to get a studio together without working up some debt. end of story. since i already have some considerable credit card debt it might just be a good idea to get started after the tour once things have calmed down and i might just go ahead and buy those api preamps and the mics i went on about in the last entry. i'm still going to plan on getting the 'dandelions' ep released once it's finished. disk factory just sent us a nice brochure and they are wayyyyy cheaper than cdman is now and they're in the city. i know where they are. cheaper cds and i can go pick them up on my own rather than pay for shipping. so that means we should be able to get about 500 plain discs pressed for fairly cheap and then we will do what we did with the 'learning how to crawl' ep- i only ordered 100 of the arigato paks from them since i knew that that would last us a while and i've only printed up about 50 of them. we only keep a handful of them around at a time. i think it's about time to reorder more of them, actually. i should take stock before we leave for tour. anyway, we'd do pretty much the same thing with the 'dandelions' ep- the entire cover will be silk-screened. stefanie's going to do the artwork and it's going to be silver ink on red cardstock. very simple. she showed me the cover-design she had finished and it looks very nice- i like it a lot. naturally she's going to get a tattoo of it as well. so hopefully that won't be too much of a production. hopefully. haw haw. i'm going to mix it down to tape and send it away to magneto that way. they have nice tape machines and seem very analog/digital hybrid oriented. i always felt that that was why the stuff they mastered always sounds so great. i think the ep is going to sound very nice- it sounds very natural. it's almost finished too. i need to finish the lyrics for two songs, but those two songs have been started and have a decent chunk of their music recorded. one has a nearly finished string score- i'm missing a good part for the chorus. it also needs a sort of swirling feedback symphony type of thing.
the next project i'm going to start is going to be going through those old instrumentals. i might just mix them all down, redo the ones i think need to be redone and then just make cds of them and give them to stefanie and try and have us write lyrics for them independently. i think that they would make a good double ep or something like that- like if we were able to write lyrics for some of them then they could work well. that stuff would work in that 'low level owl' kind of context. just beautiful. deeee!
our internet has been out for two days at home. i am very tempted not to get it fixed as i am kind of enjoying not having internet. although i worked for about four or five hours on that proposed animated 'angels floating on the head of a pin' video to absolutely no avail. evidently scanning images and then importing them into imovie via iphoto doesn't work as well as it should. they end up looking like total dogshit, especially if they're small. the pen and ink drawings might make good t-shirt designs or what have you. i should probably order some t-shirts as well for the tour. i think it might be entirely possible that t-shirts might be something that could make us some much-needed extra cash on the road. what's more there is something to making people into walking billboards.
so my new plan is just to buy the equipment i want to get my little setup that much closer to being a proper studio and then all i'd need would be a tape machine and a mixing desk, which would be easier to save up for by itself.
my plan for next year- we are going to be very quiet on the local front. i feel like we shouldn't bother with getting shows booked around chicago. if we are offered shows we will probably take them, but we will not actively seek out shows. if i get a jones to play live i should play open-mic nights on my own or something. no local shows. we will still apply to play at south by southwest in march- then just split the cost of a rental minivan with nick and nadine if they're going to go (and by some weird miracle we get to go). then work towards getting the next full-length out in time for another promotional trip in september. this one will be of the east coast and be shorter- ideally around a week long. i'm beginning to think that we should do these week-long or two-week long tours every year, just alternating between the east coast and the west coast. i really don't see the point any more of just going going going constantly and jamming yourself down people's throats. i'd rather do it more gradually. it feels to me that we could do this and it would work out well for us. our music takes time for people to get used to. there's no point or help in just making ourselves incredibly visible- it's just not going to work. i feel like if we find subtler ways of getting ourselves out there then it will grow more gradually and people will react more positively. so that's my plan as it stands at the moment. next year- less local shows (not to say there won't be any) all working towards the goal at the end of the year.
next week my little project is to go on the consignment rounds. i'm going to take a day after i get off of work and go around and take 'down to sleep' cds to permanent records, two or all of the reckless records shops, laurie's planet of sound. voila. i definitely want to do this before we go play live on the radio. it would be nice to be able to say that it is readily available to buy in the city. i don't really think that many people will hear us on the radio, but you never know. do people still listen to the radio anymore?
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