My entries are basically divided between 2 days because that's how my sleeping pattern is. "Today" (08-26/08-27) I woke up, picked up Julia from her work, and went to Framingham where we got our tickets for the midnight screening of Halloween 2 tonight:

I can't wait.

After that we came home and I fell asleep until 2 am. I went to Mike's around 3 and just hung out there until 7ish. Not a very eventful day. I hope today is.

I leave for tour September 21st which is less than a month away. I think that means 3 weeks without Julia, then she's flying out and meeting up with us for the last week, then we're going out for one more week. 5 weeks total. I don't really care though because in my mind it's only 3 that I really have to make it through without Julia. I am looking forward to seeing how this tour goes because it's with 2 bands that aren't hardcore bands, and that always makes me happy because well, we aren't really a "hardcore" band. I'm not going to bore you and/or myself though with another rant about that. I'm just happy that it's going to be one of the FEW tours that we've ever done that I don't feel was a complete waste of time.

As always, I'm looking forward to the shows, but am dreading the hours and hours of nothing that take up the other 23 and a half hours of every day spent on tour. At least I won't have to listen to a million shitty hardcore bands that sound exactly the same this time. I'll probably just have to sit through a million bands of a different genre that are terrible though. At least it won't be terrible hardcore bands though, because I can't think of anything worse than a mediocre hardcore band. Like I've said before, mediocre is the new terrible.

We have a few photo shoots lined up during this tour which I'm excited about because I love that kind of stuff. Not to mention the fact that there isn't one single promo picture of the current Energy line up.

I need to learn how to sew A.S.A.P. so I don't have to worry about my pants ripping constantly and being stuck thousands of miles away from home without a way to fix them.

2 pictures I found today:

I think I posted this one on here before, but it's a good one and I like showing it to people as often as I can:

That's me when I was about 15, a lot skinnier, and not allergic to hair dye.



And that's a cartoon of me that I made a while ago. I think it's funny because it really does look exactly like me.

I don't know what else to write right now. Joe and I are slowly but surely working on new Energy material, and Mike and I have been recording the Children Of The Night s/t full length almost every night, so that's what I've been up to musically. I also made a new last.fm account because my old one was incredibly inaccurate. Some of the bands in my top 10 hadn't been listened to in over a year, yet remained in their positions. Whatever, here's my new address:

http://www.last.fm/user/JasonTankerley

I think I'm done with this entry now.

Yes

Today I hung out with Julia and we watched Halloween 2 and Prince Of Darkness. After that I went to Mike's and finally finished recording vocals for the new Children Of The Night song "I Play For Keeps":

We also got a line done for the re-recording of "In The Graveyard". I was supposed to drive Eric to the RMV today, but I guess he's not going anymore, so now I can sleep. Matt IM'd me as I was walking up to my doorstep this morning so I said "fuck it", turned around, picked him up, and drove around for a while. I'd say he's one of, if not THE only person I can honestly say is a lot like me. It's very hard to explain. Not to say that I don't identify with other people in certain areas, but Matt and I share very similar outlooks on almost every single aspect of life.

I didn't eat a meal yesterday, so needless to say I'm really hungry. I think I'm going to eat some ice cream before I go to sleep. I wish it would stop being so humid out, I want to enjoy the summer nights and walk around, but it's too disgusting out. I hope tonight is eventful and fun.

Currently listening to:

Me scaring the shit out of Bob

or:

CLICK HERE

Yes

Julia and I woke up today around 4pm, which is normal for me, but very unusual for her. We didn't leave my room for the rest of the night aside from a quick trip to the grocery store. We watched The Office, The Simpsons, A Haunting In Connecticut, and the Danzig home videos. She wasn't feeling very well and fell back to sleep around 11 or so. I let her sleep for a little while and then drove her home. After that I went to Mike's and started recording vocals for one of the new Children Of The Night songs called "I Play For Keeps".

Here is a clip of that:

Now I'm back in my room waiting around until I have to pick up Julia so I can give her the car. I hope I end up doing something fun today/tonight, because things feel like they've been a little repetitive lately. More repetitive than usual that is.

I can't wait for the fall.

The night becomes my bride and everything else must die

Today I woke up at 3:45 and immediately got stressed out from the fact that I had to be at Dan's by 4:30 so that we could drive to the show in Haverhill. Julia ended up driving me there and she slept in the car while I played. I was fine with that because I just wanted to be with her for the time that I wasn't playing, which is what consumed most of the night. I felt like I was having a panic attack from the second I woke up, until the minute I started playing, which is like a 5 hour gap. I don't know what it is about local shows that freak me out like that. I play shows to total strangers all the time when I'm on tour, but as soon as I start to anticipate having an awkward encounter with an acquaintance, my heart won't stop racing. I must say, it's pretty exhausting being me.

The show went very well, I'd say it was the best show we've ever had at Anchor's Up. We only sold 2 LP's, but I always like to assume that anyone who liked what they saw/heard will at least go home and type in "Energy Invasions Of The Mind Blogspot" on Google. When we got home Julia went right to bed and I just stayed in for the night. I also found out that the Samhain shirt that Julia bought for me isn't even back in stock at Interpunk for another 9 days. So I probably won't be getting it for like 2 weeks...lame.

In the next few days Joe and I will be writing material for the next Energy release at Mike's house. We have a pretty set vision as to what our next release will be like, and I can't wait to be playing songs of this style in our live set. We have an intro that I wrote almost finished that goes into a riff that Joe wrote which will begin track 2, as well as 3 other song ideas I can think of off the top of my head.

Also, Bill Hauser messaged me back regarding my Children Of The Night album art inquiry and it is now definite that he will be drawing the cover for the upcoming Children Of The Night self-titled LP. I am very excited about all the new music that I have planned for my future.

I should try to get to bed at a "decent" hour tonight so that I can hang out with Julia later on.

Until next time...

Currently listening to:

wow

I always forget that this exists...

Joe recording guitar for a new Energy demo

Buy my stuff that I don't want

http://shop.ebay.com/jasontankerley

I don't like many people

It's 8:23 AM and I should be asleep.

I woke up today, hung out with Julia for a while and went to Target. After that we moved her mattress into storage for some complicated reason that I don't feel like typing out. I dropped her off at home and went home. While I was home I decided to put up Halloween decorations around my room while watching The Nightmare Before Christmas. Yes, Halloween decorations in August.

As I was finishing that, Matt called to see when I was going to Mike's, so I went. Mike and I did yoga, but Matt sat it out because he'd been up for days on end and didn't have the strength to do it. After doing yoga I went out to my car to grab the protein that I had in there and being the moron that I am, I locked my keys in my car. I called Julia and had her leave her extra key in her mailbox so that I could walk there and get it. So, the 3 of us walked all the way from Mike's to Julia's and back. It took around 2 hours total, maybe more. On our way back a cop stopped us and asked what we were doing, what our names/address' were, etc. When we told him, he started getting all weird and telling us that we don't even know where we're going....Yes. After a little bit he got out of the car and accusingly said "THAT'S A LONG WAY TO WALK JUST TO GET KEYS". I was just like "yeah.....I know".

He let us go, but the thing that really bothers me is the fact that we were hassled for walking. That's it. At no point should we have had to explain ourselves to him. We should have been able to have said "we're just walking around for no reason at all", and have it have been fine. I don't get it, are full grown adults not allowed outside past a certain time? He was shining his light in our faces and shit too. I felt so degraded, all I wanted to do was go get my keys, and some total stranger with a gun pulls over, corners me and my friends, and starts giving us the 3rd degree. If we said one thing "wrong", there is no doubt in my mind that he would have searched us and done who knows what else. I have been hassled by Stoughton police so many times since I was 14 and NONE of those times, did I do anything wrong. It always starts with me just walking down the street a little later than when most people do, and some douche bag pulls over and starts giving me shit, searching me, threatening me, calling me names, etc. I shouldn't have to look on the "bright side" and just be thankful that he didn't shoot me.

Whatever, I'm done with that subject. We went back to Mike's and recorded a little bit, watched The Andy Dick show, and then I drove Matt home. Now I'm at home listening to Vaginal Jesus, which Matt showed me last night. Pretty funny/heavy stuff.

I'm going to go to sleep now because I don't like being awake.

I hate being tired.

Today was a fairly eventful day for me considering how boring my life usually is. I woke up around 1:30 and met up with Matt around 3-ish.

We walked around town for an hour or so and then Julia picked me up from Matt's house. Julia and I went back to my house and ate dinner/watched Contact. After that she went home and I headed to Mike's with Matt and we did yoga. After yoga we just hung out/recorded at Mike's for the rest of the night.

The first time I ever got a C.O.T.N. line in one take was tonight.

It's 5:57 AM right now and I'm just waiting around until 7:30 or whenever I have to pick up Julia. I think I'm driving her to work today so that I can have the car for the day, and so I can go to my Dad's later. This all depends though on whether or not I'll be too tired to drive her all the way to and from work.

I don't think I have anything else that I want to update about right now, so I'm done.

I wish I could choose when to sleep

It's 3:07 AM and I'm in the hotel room that Julia and I are staying at. We had a nice night relaxing and watching movies. Earlier, we went to Town Spa and got pizza. We also walked around Michael's and the Christmas Tree Shop. Michael's already has Halloween decorations for sale. I was grinning like a little kid the whole time. We initially went in there with the intentions of finding me some patches/fabric to patch up all the holes in my pants with, but we couldn't find what I was looking for. I have no idea where to get fabric like that other than cutting up old clothes, but I really don't have a lot of clothes that I can just cut up like that.

My plan is to just keep patching up the holes in my pants with different patches and eventually it will get to the point where the pants are more patch than pants. I am calling this idea "Operation: Scarecrow Pants". They are by far the most comfortable pair of pants that I have ever owned, so I am going to try to make them last as long as possible. Plus I'm always broke and wouldn't be able to afford new pants anyway. My Mom did buy me some pants a while ago that are nice, but don't hold up while I'm playing a set, so I pretty much HAVE to wear these pants. I'm gonna stop talking about pants now.

The new studio footage of A.F.I. recording Crash Love has me more excited about the new album than the sample of "Medicate" that I heard. They are the last band that I have any faith left in. If they can't make a great album anymore, then I don't think anyone is making anything great. There are GOOD songs here and there, but for me, I feel like music just isn't great anymore. There hasn't been anything that came out and made me go "wow, this is going to be remembered for a long time" in years. It sucks. I'm not really mad about it as much as I am sad at the fact that younger kids don't have any great bands to be excited about. I feel like there are kids out there who genuinely love music for the right reasons, but they aren't presented with anything new that's worth obsessive about. There aren't any bands that have true "fanatics" and/or cult like status. Bands who have a specific type of fan if you will. Bands with a devoted fan base that will not abandon them once everyone ELSE stops talking about them and said band's 15 minutes of "fame" are over. I mean...come on, there isn't ANYONE in the WORLD that can write a great song anymore? For decades and decades there have been so many great songs, so what happened? Did the well dry up? Are there no more great songs left to be written? No, there are an infinite amount of great songs that have yet to be written, people just aren't writing them.

Maybe it has something to do with the fact that it's the year I graduated high school, but I feel like 2003 was roughly the "cut-off-point" if you will. Like I said, there have been good songs here and there since then, but nothing that just makes you go...FUCK. I say it all the time but people need to stop and think for a second..."should I try to create my own music? or am I really just fixated on the IDEA of making music?" I'm not saying don't try, but I feel like there's a certain point, very early on, when you realize - "I'm supposed to make music". If you aren't listening back to the music you created/recorded and saying to yourself "this is awesome, I'm IN my favorite band", you're probably just fixated on the idea of being in a band, and should just stop now because you're ruining it for all the people out there that actually LIKE music. It's kind of like marriage: You always hear people say "you just know when you've met the right person, you just know" And of course, your average American being the IDIOT that they probably are, gets married and regrets it shortly after.

STOP GETTING MARRIED WHEN YOU AREN'T IN LOVE
& STOP MAKING MUSIC WHEN
YOU DON'T EVEN LOVE THE MUSIC YOU'RE MAKING

I know that these blog entries are never going to put an end to terrible music and/or the boring soulless people that make it, but I am human, so I enjoy venting when I'm angry/sad/frustrated.

Also, let's not forget the obvious/obligatory "You didn't HAVE to read this" disclaimer.

I should be asleep right now

Today Julia and I went to Grasshopper and it was awesome as usual. After that we got our eyebrows threaded, and got a few things from Yankee Candle. I'll just steal Julia's picture that she Tweeted:

With my air conditioner always on, decorations like the one above all around my room, and scented candles with names like "Autumn Leaves, Moonlight Harvest, Fall Festival, Vanilla Pumpkin, Spiced Pumpkin, and Pumpkin Pie" constantly burning, it might as well be Autumn.

We're getting a hotel room tomorrow night(technically tonight) which is always fun. Julia is insisting that she will get me to actually relax by the end of the weekend. We shall see about that.

Time for bed.

P.S.

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