I look terrible in this picture, but hey, it is what it is I guess.
This is a video from May 10th, 2008 that I didn't even know Eric filmed until I just saw it on my computer:
The last thing I said in the video was a reference to the scene at 7:24 in this video:
I wish I just never said it so that I wouldn't have had to explain it.
As you can see, recording vocals with Mike Rendini is a slow, grueling process, but the end result is so pleasing that it's worth all the frustration.
Tomorrow, I leave for the 5 day tour with The Wonder Years. I am looking forward to this for many reasons, most of which I already talked about in my last entry, but I'll add that I am especially happy that Joe is going on this tour. I'll just leave it at that I guess.
I didn't do much today. I sat around and waited for Julia to get out of work, and when she did, we went to Grasshopper. After that she went home and I drove Eric to Cape Cod.
I urge everyone to add my friend Robert's studio's page on Myspace. NO CONTROL STUDIOS. Energy and/or Children Of The Night will surely end up recording some material there some time, hopefully soon.
It's 2:43 am right now and I need to be at Dan's by noon to head out on the tour. I should probably go to sleep now.
I haven't update since before I left for the Mongoloids/Energy tour. Not much has really happened, we played the shows, some were good some were bad. It was a tour. It was nice to finally tour with them because we've known them for a little while, but it just never happened for one reason or another. I want to go into detail about it, but I feel it would just be boring.
We got home this past morning at like 5:30am and I didn't get to sleep until like 6:30am. Somehow around 9:45 my body tells me it's time to wake up. It is now 11:11pm, and I'm still not tired. Julia came over around 12 I think, and she got me Town Spa. She's staying over tonight.
I wanted to head to Mike's to work on the new song some more, but I know that if I head over there I'll get tired so fuck it.
I really only get internet access a handful of times on tour, and when I do, I'm not really in the mental state to make blog entries. It's not an excuse, because I could just type it out on my Sidekick in the van, and post it all later, but that's one of the reasons behind my lack of updates.
I think I have to pick Eric up tomorrow at some point which is going to suck because it's Memorial Day, and everyone goes to Cape Cod on Memorial Day, so I'm probably going to get stuck in terrible traffic. I'll just try to go really late so that hopefully I miss it.
My life is pretty uneventful. I like being home because almost immediately upon arrival, I feel the urge to write and record. That urge never strikes me on tour. MAYBE once in a blue moon, but not usually.
We leave Thursday for our tour with The Wonder Years. I'm happy that that's happening for a handful of reasons. One of the reasons is because Josh and Julia are coming, and that is just going to make me extremely happy. The other is that the tour is with a band that isn't a hardcore band. I don't want to get into a rant right now, but I'll just say that lately I've been really fixated on the idea of playing shows other than hardcore shows. I love a lot of older hardcore bands, but that's irrelevant really (as far as where Energy fits in). The percentage of shows we play that are hardcore shows should somewhat match the percentage of which our sound falls under the genre. For example: Let's say we all believe that our sound is 25 percent hardcore/75 percent other influences, that would mean that ideally, we would only do hardcore shows 25 percent of the time. The others would be oh, I don't know...any of the dozens of other sub-genres of "rock" that exist in the underground music scene. I talked to everyone about this last night at the show and everyone is on the same page so this isn't JUST me ranting uncontrollably, it's more or less me recapping a discussion had last night during the drive home. Sick actually IM'd me during the ride home and we talked about the same thing. He agrees 100 percent. I didn't even bring it up either, he IM'd me to talk to me about it. Generally when that happens, I know it's not just me over analyzing, or over exaggerating a situation or topic, and that it's actually justified. Well, it looks like I ended up ranting a little anyway, oh well. I'll end the rant that I didn't want to get into on a positive note by saying that I am really looking forward to our upcoming tour with The Wonder Years...despite still having never heard them.
Even though our show last night sucked for the most part, I've been in a fairly good mood since we played. We maintained steady conversation on the drive home, and I haven't been annoyed TOO badly by anything since I entered Stoughton. Hopefully it stays that way.
I have to hang out with Matt at least a few times before Thursday because after that he's moving out west for a while, and possibly to Africa to work with the Earthship people for a while. He said it could be for only a month, but it could also end up being longer.
I have recently decided to start collecting movies on my computer. Preferably .avi files. I have them all alphabetically organized with artwork. Right now I have 36 movies, 10 or so comedy videos, a handful of documentaries and music videos, and some TV shows = 41.47 GB. I plan on getting a Terabyte (1,000 GB) Hard Drive and eventually storing them all on there. I would also like to get the necessary wires to play these movies on my TV straight from my MacBook, but of course money stands in the way of all this.
I am currently getting the Jurassic Park trilogy which I'm very excited about. I have a list of "Movies to get" which I'm constantly adding to, so if you are reading this and can think of any other "must-have" movies that I don't have on these lists, please leave a comment with your suggestion(s).
MOVIES I HAVE:
American Psycho Army Of Darkness Beetlejuice Big Lebowski, The Big Money Hustlas Children Of The Corn Clockwork Orange, A Corpse Bride Craft, The Dark Knight, The Devil's Rejects, The Ed Wood Evil Dead Evil Dead 2 Eyes Wide Shut Fight Club Fire In The Sky Forgetting Sarah Marshall Friday The 13th (2009) Halloween Halloween (2007) Hellraiser House Of 1,000 Corpses Howard Stern - Private Parts Jerky Boys, The Jurassic Park 1,2,3 Nightmare Before Christmas, The Office Space Powder Prince Of Darkness Shining, The Simpsons Movie, The SLC Punk! Tropic Thunder Waterboy, The Yes Man Zack And Miri Make A Porno
MOVIES I NEED(In no particular order):
Hitch Milk Twister Ghostbusters 1,2 Happy Gilmore Billy Madison Celtic Pride Empire Records Wedding Singer Departed Cable Guy American History X Pump Up The Volume Heathers Sleepy Hollow Sweeney Todd Charlie and the chocolate factory Willie Wonka and the Chocolate factory Halloween - All Hook Black Sheep Tommy Boy Almost Heroes Tremors - All Haggard Step Brothers Friday The 13th - All Nightmare on Elm St. - All Nirvana - About A Son Man On The Moon Batman Batman Returns Batman Forever Donnie Darko 40 Year Old Virgin Dodgeball Slapshot Stripes Caddyshack Animal House Blues Brothers Groundhog Day Back To School Naked Gun - All Airplane Ernest - All Elf The Grinch Old School Road Trip Spaceballs Robin Hood: Men in Tights Young Frankenstein History Of The World Blazing Saddles Thank You For Smoking Supersize Me The Crow Dirty Work Adams Family 1,2 Ace Ventura 1,2 Dumb And Dumber Truman Show The Mask Me, Myself & Irene Ferris Bueller's Day Off Boondock Saints Big Daddy Mr. Deeds Sid And Nancy Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind Bruce Almighty Liar Liar Dracula My Cousin Vinny Romper Stomper Death To Smoochy Lady In The Water Signs The 6th Sense The Happening Back To The Future - All Independence Day Men In Black Edward Scissorhands Pulp Fiction Grindhouse Death Proof Wayne's World 1,2 American Pie Exorcism Of Emily Rose Vacation Christmas Vacation Vegas Vacation Fletch 40 First Dates Airheads High Fidelity Spinal Tap 2001: A Space Odyssey Gummo The Illusionist Amadeus The Red Violin Almost Famous Rookie Of The Year Jeepers Creepers 1,2 Honey I Shrunk The Kids Donnie Brasco The Forbidden Zone The Others Invasion Of The Body Snatchers
P.S. I just look way too bad right now to take a picture for this entry.
What he says at 1:54 couldn't be more relevant today:
"But they're good dudes"? Fuck You.
So you're telling me that because you were nice to me during our few encounters that I am expected to support and/or like your band now? Nope. I'm not one for generalized public posts like this, but since this isn't directed at any individual band or person, I can't just say it to that one person or band. It seems to happen every single day.
Statements like "I don't like their band, but they're good dudes so good for them" are bullshit. If my friend starts a band, and his/her band writes music that I don't like, I'm not going to give it my stamp of approval. If they start let's say...oh I don't know, A SKATEBOARD company, yes I am going to support them, because I don't have anything against skateboarding. I do however have something against bad music, and if I think your band is bad, I'm NOT going to tell everyone to go check out your songs, or that you're an "amazing" band. At the same time though, I'm not saying that any time you don't like a band, you have to go and publicly announce your dislike for them, because sometimes it's just mean and uncalled for, but stop making musical recommendations based on the personalities within a band. There are plenty of people that I really like as people, but don't like their band. There are also plenty of bands that I really like, that have some bad people in them. AND THAT'S OK. In the past I have actually brought up a band that I like and someone interrupts me and tells me that they can't believe I like that band because of what a certain individual did to someone they know. I'm sorry, I forgot that I'm supposed to like bands based on how this weeks episode of the underground music scene's soap opera turned out. If a band sounds good, I listen to it. If not then I don't. But then again, I'm forgetting that most people don't actually listen to music nowadays. If I met any of my favorite bands and they weren't "good dudes" to me...Oh well. I will always like their music the same way that I always have.
Here's an interesting scenario:
Let's say that you are a fan of the music that I make. An Energy fan/COTN fan, whatever. LET'S JUST SAY... I walk up to you, call you a piece of shit, run over your dog, and steal all of your money. I do this knowing very well that you are an avid listener of the music that I make. Are you still an Energy/COTN fan? If your answer was "No fucking way", "Not a chance", or any variation of "No", then you never liked us to begin with. Because what I just did to you didn't change the fact that you identified with lyrics I've written, It didn't magically change any of the melodies that I wrote into ones that you don't like, and it sure as FUCK shouldn't make any difference whatsoever as to whether or not you enjoy my music...because it LITERALLY CAN'T make that difference. What was actually happening all along was that you never liked us to begin with, that's all.
P.S.
If you took any of this the wrong way, good. You are probably one of the thousands of idiots out there that this entry is directed towards.
"Yes" is generally what I put for a title when I can't think of anything else.
I am not wearing any makeup, my eyebrows look like shit, and I need a haircut.
My Mom bought me these online the other day:
Not the red ones, but 2 pairs of the black ones. The pants that I have right now have huge holes in multiple places, so this is awesome. She also bought me some more shoes as well. I always get the same exact pair of shoes every single time. I like all black shoes, and I hate having to tie my shoes. So if all black Vans slip-ons are clearly the best choice, why change? If I had the money though, I'd get all kinds of different shoes just to switch it up, but since I am so poor, I can only get what comes my way, which is one pair of new shoes every time mine start to fall apart. No complaints there. And when I say "falling apart", I actually mean it. I literally duct taped one of them back together while I was on the Defeater tour.
Here is what they look like right now:
Pretty bad.
Tonight I went to Mike's and we toyed around with different drum ideas. Yesterday around this time I went for a walk around Stoughton and came up with a melody for the chorus that I like. I then proceeded to write some lyrics to it in my head. I need one more line to have the lyrics for the verse and chorus done. There may be more spots in the song that need lyrics, but I'll decide that once I record everything that I already have so that I can get a better idea.
Yesterday I burned a hole in my air mattress with my hair straightener, so now I'm sleeping on the floor. I think Julia and I might try to find a patch kit for it after she gets out of work today. I wanted to go for a walk again this morning, but it was raining so I couldn't. I really like going for walks. When I'm alone on a walk, I think about a lot of things that I wouldn't have otherwise, and when I'm with other people, things are discussed that otherwise wouldn't have been. I like going for walks around Stoughton especially. On tour it's good to get away from everything, but at home it's good in a different way, it's hard to explain.
Speaking of tour, I leave for another one in 9 days, this time it's with The Mongoloids, and the tail end of it is with a band called "The Wonder Years". I have never heard "The Wonder Years" before. I'm pretty sure they're a pop punk type of band so I guess that's good that we aren't going on ANOTHER tour with all hardcore bands. I don't like most pop punk, but at least we won't be the only band that has melodies. I don't like most hardcore either. I just can't really think of many newer bands that I like. All of my favorite bands are either broken up, or have been around for 10 years or more. The only hardcore bands that were left that I liked were Modern Life Is War and Go It Alone, and of course they both broke up. I am excited about Jesse Michaels' new band "Classics Of Love" though. This picture of them playing gives me at least a LITTLE hope in the underground music scene:
I'll stop there because there's no point in going any further on the topic of music being terrible nowadays. I talk about it WAY too much.
Back to tour. Another tired subject, but I am not really looking forward to it for the same reason I'm never usually looking forward to it. Julia and I started dating June 15th 2002. We have lived with each other on and off ever since. I will never be happy until I can spend every single day with her. Every single day that I'm gone on tour is so hard because of this. Don't get me wrong though, I really am looking forward to constantly rushing around, eating terribly, getting zero exercise, personalities constantly clashing, sleeping on floors, temperature extremes, spending hours on end in a van every single day, listening to horrible band after horrible band every single night, having absolutely no time to myself...you get the point. BUT, music is the only thing that I believe I'm any good at, and it's what I have the most fun doing, so I'm going to just keep working at it until hopefully some day I can bring the aspects of home that I miss so much, on the road with me. That's all I'm going to say about that.
Along with that comes the fear I have of the idea of conventional "success" get into my subconscious too much, and having an effect on my art. I NEVER want to be trying to "write the song that will pay the bills". I want to always write the music that I would want to hear, and IF that somehow eventually works out well financially for me, then so be it. Ever time I sit down to write, I have to shut that out, and concentrate on what the 14/15 year old version of myself would have wanted to hear:
There's an interview with David Grohl where he says something along the lines of "I didn't start playing the drums as a career choice, I started playing because I love music." I didn't learn how to play the guitar and sing so that I could someday be secure financially, I started because I was so inspired by music that I wanted to someday create my own. I looked for a while for the interview, but I can't find it.
I just came back from picking up Julia and she's off to work now. She just brought to my attention that I probably enjoy going for walks so much because it allows me to relax, while at the same time giving me the sense of structure that I need at all times in my life. I don't ever just sit around and relax, EVER. Even when there's nothing to do, I just sit in front of this computer and waste time on the internet. I never just sit somewhere and relax. I don't know why, but I just can't imagine myself doing that. It's like "OK, next I would like to sit right here and do nothing for a while.", I just can't do that. I need to be doing SOMETHING. Julia also just told me that we're going to Grasshopper tonight. I am really looking forward to that seeing as I didn't eat anything besides potatoes and Oreos today. I seriously just heated up a few whole potatoes and at them as if they were apples or some kind of fruit that you eat by hand. Overall, today was pretty uneventful. Julia has the next 4 days off from work and I am still working on the recording of my new song. That's pretty much all that's going on in my life right now, and that's just fine. Actually, it's my ideal situation to be in: writing and recording music, and hanging out with Julia.
I'm going to end this entry here only because I feel that it's getting too long.
P.S. though:
I added different icons on the sidebar of this blog. I even added an iChat one so that you can IM me straight from this page. I think it's pretty cool. Ok I'm done.
A preview of the music for "The Shadowlands". I'm bored watching Mike do keyboards so I recorded some of it. We still have a quite a bit more to do. And to the recording nerds out there: There isn't any reverb on anything yet, he's waiting until it's all done for that.
Today I woke up around 5pm. I woke up from my Mom putting a package I got in the mail in my room. It was the package that Tanya from South Carolina sent me. She works at Hot Topic down there and got me a couple shirts. I asked her how much I owed her and she said "I'm sure we can work out a trade or something". That was very nice of her. I'm wearing one of the shirts she got me in the picture above. Here are some better pictures:
Front:
Back:
and last but not least:
I love getting new clothes.
I also did my nails today:
I think this is the first time in almost 6 months that I've had nail polish on...weird. Also, as you can see, I need to get my eyebrows done BADLY, and I need to trim my hair...I hate all the maintenance that goes along with being a human being.
My mom offered to buy me pants today. I am beyond excited about that, I just hope I can find some good ones online. Any suggestions? (Jason, I'm looking in your direction)
My mom ALSO bought me a veggie pocket today and we watched "The Strangers". I thought it was great, apparently it's based on a true story...yikes.
I'm not as depressed as I was last night, so that's good. I think that typing up that huge entry helped get certain things off my mind. Tonight, Eric and I went to Mike's and I finished bass on "The Shadowlands". We also added a few more layers of ambiance. I am really excited about this song. I can't wait to do vocals. I have the verses done, but I need a melody and lyrics for the chorus. I don't think this is going to be a very "chorus-driven" song, but that could very well change seeing as I don't have it written yet. I really like the verses though. I always get so nervous when I write stuff because I'm so paranoid about it being too influenced by one thing or another. I'm also always worried that the melodies that I write are from another song, and that I won't realize until it's too late and the song is recorded. Every musician I know worries about these things though.
Tomorrow, well today technically, Julia comes back from watching her boss' dogs. I can't wait to see her. Even after just a few days, I really miss seeing her. I hope we do something fun like go to Borderland or something. I also can't wait to record again. Every time I leave Mike's it's because he's too tired to continue recording until the next day. I'm not complaining by any means, I'm just saying that because if it were entirely up to me, I would never leave. I would record and brainstorm until I passed out. I love recording so much. That's easily my favorite part of being in a band. I sit in my room, come up with song ideas, and then watch it all come together in the studio. I like recording with Mike especially because he gets the absolute best takes out of you. He makes it sound real AND perfect. I must have played the same bassline 100 times in a row tonight, but I know that once I nail it, it's definitely a keeper because Mike won't settle for anything but perfection. Listening to the song it sounds like I'm some great guitar player/musician, but I'm not. It took me a million tries to get it that good. I guess that's what recording is all about though, bringing out the absolute best in you. I could never do any of that live though, no way.
I wish I was tired, but I'm not. I should at least try and go to sleep. Goodnight...or day, whatever.
I don't do anything besides sit in my room, and I like it that way. The only time I really ever leave my bubble is to eat or make music. However, I did go to the Bridgewater Triangle recently, that was cool, but of course the one time I choose to go out and do something, I get reminded almost immediately as to why I like to remain in this bubble. I can't stand everyone, and you know, it's probably better that I don't associate with anyone anyway, because my negativity and dislike for their character flaws will only cause stress in both of our lives, so fuck it. Every single stressful situation in life is caused by someone else having a problem with something about you. It's hardly ever something that you did that pisses you off. So, the less people I know, the happier I will be.
Also, I can't remember if I wrote about this recently or not but, I don't think I care if people think I'm an asshole anymore. I'm not going to beg and plead for it anymore, just fuck it. It sounds like common sense, but I'm just going to say and do what I want whenever I want. Fuck it. I keep thinking that lately: "Fuck it". Nothing is fun anymore, it seems like I don't get thrills from anything anymore. I just want to have that liberating feeling of going in front of a crowd and saying all the "wrong" things, and not giving a shit about what they're going to go home and say on message boards. I almost want to intentionally say the things that would piss everyone off, whether I actually believe what I'm saying or not, just as a way to say "fuck off".
I haven't updated this in a while, but I wish that I had been. Nothing that eventful has been going on in my life that Twitter can't handle, but it's just nice to sit down and type out what you're thinking in a long winded manner. I'm back to being on a nocturnal sleeping pattern. I just can't help it, it just happens no matter what. Every time I come back from tour, within 2 days I'm staying up until 8am, and waking up at 4pm.
Lately I've been recording at Mike's house. I've been slowly working away at completing a recording of MY first complete piece of music. Besides "Invasions", which doesn't count because it's just an instrumental song based around 1 single riff, this will be the first time I've written a song all by myself. I would LOVE to continue to do this from now on. I want to be one of those people that just has albums and albums worth of material that they're just sitting on, waiting for the right moment to release each song, like Prince. This song I'm working on right now is called "The Shadowlands". I'd like to go into detail as to what it's about, but, for the most part, I don't like to make my song topics public. I feel that the lyrics should speak for them self, whether that be my interpretation, or the listeners. I came up with an idea for a song the other day that I'm pretty excited about. The song called "Valhalla Radio". It seems like every time I hang out with Matt, our conversation leads to me coming up with artistic ideas that I really like. That's where the title "Invasions Of The Mind" came from. So far on "The Shadowlands", I have drums, guitars, and keyboards done. I started on bass the other day, but only completed one part. I am trying to record as much of this song by myself as I can. I can play guitar and bass well enough to get good takes after 600 attempts, and I can sing well enough to get one good take out of 6,000 attempts. So hopefully it's sooner than later that I complete this song. I really only want to record it so that I can listen to it, and know that I did it all by myself. I want it to become an Energy song, which it probably will. I don't see why not. I wish that the recording industry wasn't so stupid, where I couldn't just include this exact recording somewhere on our next album. That we will have to re record it to fit the sound of the album. I'm for the idea of an album having a uniform sound, but I'm also for the idea of going into different studios (which is what this is) and getting different sounds. If there are a few songs on an album that sound completely different, so what. Who gives a shit. I could see if it wasn't as loud as other songs or something basic like that, but I think that this specific song, has a specific feel, and Mike's basement captures it perfectly. But hey that's just me...
I have been REALLY into this song lately:
Apparently they didn't want that stupid chipmunk intro in the song, which I don't blame them, but the evil advertising bastards said that it was the only way they would ever become popular, so they left it in the song. I believe it was a DJ who accidentally played part of the song at the wrong speed one time, who suggested it. Great melodies, great lyrics, just a great song all around.
Julia and her sister are at Julia's other boss' house watching her dogs while she's away, so I won't be seeing her all weekend. So this is pretty much going to be a shitty weekend for me, especially seeing as I don't even have a car to drive to Mike's and work on my song.
An overall quick summary: I'm really, really depressed lately, and I'm pretty sure I know exactly why, but as usual, it's many, many different things.
P.S.
A lot of the time I feel like when I talk about these things, people can tell that there's actually substance behind what I'm saying/writing because I'm clearly not trying to impress a girl, or vaguely hint at wanting a girlfriend. What I'm saying is exactly what it is. Because let's face it, that's all most people's "writings" are, are really generalized, cryptic ways of letting a girl know that they are lonely and that they want said girl to approach them and initiate a romantic relationship. I'm not saying that that isn't a real issue that people deal with, but it seems to be the ONLY issue that EVERYONE ever talks about. Myspace should somehow put a filter on every bulletin containing an open "hangout" invitation, and change it to something like "Not only do I not have the confidence to approach you in real life, and let you know that I am interested in you, but I can't even do it online without making it coded beyond recognition."
I'm sorry, but I just can't take anything anyone says seriously, because every single action, that every single person takes, is just them trying to get laid. I know that I'm not pathetic like that, so I guess that's at least ONE thing to not be depressed about. The internet can make so many people embarrass themselves so badly.
