same as it ever was

got back late last night from the hinterlands in which i spent my formative years. every time i go back there's a new strip mall and there's an infant-wielding face that i recognize from high school but can't put a name to. time marches on and on i suppose and maybe someday i'll get used to it.
another podcast originating in the uk called the weekly showcase played "if these walls could talk" last week. i emailed the proprietor (a personable guy, from the sound of it) to thank him for playing the song and he hinted that there may be more to come this week, so do keep your eye on his myspace for the newest episode sometime wednesday or thursday.

of course, if there are any podcasts that you listen to regularly, i wouldn't mind if you sent them an email letting them know that all this stuff is podsafe.

i got into a little flame war today in the comment section over at stereogum (of all places) about global warming. it's not usually my style to get into it with morons because really, there's no winning and they always have more energy than i do to fight for the last word, regardless of the merit of their argument. some days though, you just wake up with less of a tolerance for ignorance than usual. i guess today was one of those days.

if you still haven't seen an inconvenient truth (while we're on the subject) please do. i'll even give you my copy. get in touch with me if you want it.

bite size bonus

a cool thing happened this morning. if these walls could talk got played on today's edition of green dragon's bite size bonus podcast. it might not be the first time this stuff's been podcasted, but it's definitely the first time anybody's let me know about it and i'm quite thankful for the exposure. other bands featured on today's podcast include...bloc party. no big deal.

go here to check it out.

here's a link straight to the mp3 file.

why it takes me three weeks to move

the reason it takes so long for me to pack up all my shit and move it is that i keep everything. here's some scrap paper i scribbled lyrics on.

based on some other things written on the page (appointments, names) i'm 99% sure this dates back to the fall of 2001.

which is significant because it illustrates just how long it takes me to go from an idea to fruition. "if these walls could talk" appears to have taken me close to 5 years. file me under people probably not destined to be prolific songsmiths.

and one more for good measure

so since i decided to kill a song that would've come early in the record, i went back and updated all the id3 tags to have correct track numbers again. these are the heights of dorkdom to which i sail. but while i was at it i figured i'd upload the "if these walls could talk" premix which is a fancy-pants way of saying demo. only it really is kinda a premix since i ended up using all that original audio in the final recording.

whatever. you can download 2 versions of that song now and i guess you can decide which one you like better. the premix is available under the "other stuff" section of the music page.

were they all just lost in the flood?

i've spent all day so far today listening to old vinyl records. i have a totally sweet turntable that i never use and a really warm sounding old hi-fi amp that i probably paid about $10 for at a yardsale because some yahoo got himself an alpine. old speakers, etc.

the point is that everyone who says rock and roll sounds best on vinyl is 100% right. i have all these records on cd and vinyl. and they all sound better on vinyl. and if it totally doesn't break my bank, i am going to make some vinyl versions of "they're more afraid of you than you are of them" when i finally finish it. from what i hear vinyl is a specialty thing, but is affordable in small quantities. of course i haven't really done much homework on it yet.

but let's talk a bit about the record, since i don't feel like i do much of that anymore and as i've been recently reminded, that is why i started all this writing in the first place.

it's coming along. not without its share of frustration (i just shitcanned all but the drums for "a viking's funeral" so i can redo it in a different key that i can sing better), but it's coming. a song is done when i am still proud of it 2 weeks after the last time i tweaked it. and by that measure, 4/8 songs are done. of course one of those is the centipede song and it doesn't even belong on the album and it's been done for years and it'll probably just be a hidden track but who the f cares? the other three that are done are "if these walls could talk," "i spin forever," and "new york city." i haven't even started "doctor, these headaches" or "triple deke" yet. that leaves "the loudest man on the laugh track" which is the one i earlier intimated might end up sounding like a william shatner song. at this point that is still possibly the case.

in a drawer here at my desk i have about 10 rolls of undeveloped film dating as far back as my sophomore year in college (which is like 5 years ago) and some recent introspection has made me decide to get them developed. for all i know they've expired or something, but they've all been in lightproof cases and all that so i'm just going to hope for the best. the point is, there's going to be a lot on there that's going to hurt to see. but probably a lot also that'll be really nice. and since none of them are labeled, everytime i do one it'll be a surprise. i hope whether nice or not they'll move me forward with this record and with life in general. not that i'm living in the past or anything (not that far in the past anyway) but these film rolls represent to me a lot of shit i've avoided confronting for a long time. i guess i'll keep you posted.

lastly, i know i've linked you to the ex-girlfriend project about a million times by now, but he mentioned the other day how "mary, queen of arkansas" always reminded him of "kara" (who so far is unquestionably the most interesting of his ex's) and that just came on while i was typing all this. on vinyl the way it should be.

hot lava

hey. long time no talk. it's because i fell into some hot lava. i'm all better now though.

no really i didn't. that would kill you for sure. you'd be hurtin' for certain.

i've just been sitting here listening to what i think is the final mix for "if these walls could talk" over and over again on different sets of speakers and headphones to see if i hear anything that pisses me off. this is the process i go through for every song. that's why it takes so goddamn long. i recorded this in about 6 hours, and have been mixing it for about 6 months.

it's sounding pretty ok.

story time. one night me and my friend john drank a whole case of pabst blue ribbon and then climbed a pretty tall rock wall to get to the athletic fields at our beloved alma mater. then we stumbled around firing some pretty f'ing awesome roman candles into the air and laughing real belly-laughs after pretty much every shot went off. you ever have one of those nights where it just works right? that was one of them.

then we went to some kid's house that he knew and the kid had bottle rockets sitting on his nightstand (it must've been around the 4th of july) and we stole a bunch and i still have them in my sock drawer. don't be mad, he had like a ton.

liar liar pants on fire

i totally lied last night. "if these walls could talk" sounds so fucking different and sooooo much better but i'm going to keep it to myself for the time being. that is all.

we are. penn state.

this weekend i went to penn state to visit my brother and attend a football game with 109,864 other people. if you've never been there, you don't know. i left this morning feeling like i relived my entire college experience in the course of one weekend.

long story short: i screamed myself horse, drank myself retarded, and slept myself a sore-ass back. it was a great weekend. thanks, little bro.

so i got back to queens this evening after spending endless hours driving with the music as loud as i could stand it, and i've been re-mixing old shit by candlelight in my bathrobe. "if these walls could talk" is done now. it's not even different enough from what you can hear for me to repost it, but rest assured that when you buy the record next year (at an extremely reasonable price, of course) it'll sound a little different. hopefully better.

if you're keeping track, that makes the record 3/8 done. if you check the music section once in a while, i think i'll probably make an update there in a few days with a track listing for the record.