I have spent all day in my room with my macbook. I need a life. But it's gotten better. Explored garageband, not bad. Iphoto works with my camera, so I'm happy. I'm listening to Exile in Guyville, having a good time.

Luau went well. I thought the meccalily set went alright. First public perfomance on guitar. I definitely feel I'm a better musician on bass. Everyone else agreed it was one of the best Meccalily sets, if not the best. Alright then. Set with Dad went alright, some of my worst playing but who cares, no one was there and everyone that was, were drunk. Oh well, made an easier crowd to play to.

Packed up, then spent the rest of the night in a good feeling. Kinda over did it, but it was fine. Went out on the dock and was completely enamored with the lake. It looked like a perfect reflection, plus whenever I looked up at the sky, it seemed to be falling down on me, but not in "OH FUCK" but more of some sorta of weird mobile that got more and less slack in the string. 

Was very cool, makes for a good birthday party. Woke up, still out of it from the last night. Lasted until 4-5 in the afternoon. Went over to  Bills. He had a bouncey house from his graduation party. Blew it up and bounced around with Bonnie and Allie. Was a lot of fun. 

Yesterday, saw Fiasco at AS220 which has Steve Buscemi's son in it. Talked with them for a while. Drove to Nick/Dean/Chris walked down before the show. Saw show, walked back and played pool, had a beer and listening to Captain Beefheart. Left around 1:30. 

Tomorrow. Radiohead, need to go to walmart/the bank before hand.

Just got my new Macbook. So far, really nice. Can't wait to unlock it's potential! 

Not much happened. Two days ago went up to Amherst to practice with the band. Practiced, got food and beer, came back to his house and just had a good time. Ended up with the smallest couch to sleep on. Not fun, until I had the dream with Liz Phair. Woke up and practiced again, left at 12. Back at 1:30. 

Meccalily rehearsal went alright. Nothing special. Not that good either but not as bad as I thought. 

Dad's rehearsal... wee-ow.

Lets just say that Wayne said he was embarrassed so much hes coming over to rehearse today after work.

While I am going to The Flobots concert tonight with Martin and Lily! Should be lots of fun, taking a risk here as I don't know either of the bands very well.

and, I am also seeing Radiohead on the 13th! hooray!

But for now, borderline-sexual-contact with my macbook will do just fine. 

Went to the final B/3.1 show. Good show, people seemed to enjoy it. Lots of comments from my friends how it was better than they expected. A lot of them bought Medicinal Reverb.

Rest of the show cool. Sacred Objects was alright. Almost busted a gut as this raver guy lost one of his glow sticks. His reaction just made me bust out laughing. But fine set from him anyway.

Controllar up next. Guy used a P5 NES controller glove with motion sensor technology hooked up to MAX/MSP to trigger sequencers/samples/filters, basically whatever he wanted, with it. It was nuts to watch. The singer had a completely beautiful voice. My only complaint is they didn't have a cd, and they picked the worst songs to put up on myspace.

Before that, discussion of meccalily. I will be playing with them. Some how I'm getting this feeling I should back out, but I know what it is and what happens if I follow through on it.

Part of it is also, this is my first time being a guitar player in a BAND. I don't know what to do with it in a band! I'm trying to find the right balance between Martin and Wayne and if I have to go low or high I figure it out, also if I should just double rhythm or if I should try and do leads that follow the vocals. Should I try and do something I've never done and actually write out all my parts and stick to then 100% with no improvisation? I'll have to see how it all goes at practice...

I'm also trying to figure out if I can quit before the luau, on like the 8th or something from my job. Will have to talk about it with my parents. From then on I only have 4-5 days where I'm not doing something all night (playing out). Hopefully I have enough fundage so this will support me. Just will have to ration my time and money. I would be happy as not to do it anymore.

Last night-Go to bills, go to Newbury Comics. Wanted to see if Pete was there and talk to him as he's the new lead singer of YavinFive and we're playing together, but to also pick up an impulse purchase or 3. Pick up Mission of Burma-The Obliterati and XTC-White Music and Go 2. I know my dad has them on vinyl but I thought it would just be easier to spend the bucks to have them on CD and not worry about conversation and all that stuff.


Today-Practice more meccalily, came up with some parts I hope go over well. Maybe they can give me some direction tomorrow.

In other news. I'm getting a laptop! A MacBook to be procise. I'm excited. Hopefully I can get a version of Pro Tools from Justin. I'm also looking at buying a Roland Micro Cube amp and bringing my guitar and my bass to my dorm room. Hopefully shouldn't be too much in the room.

Meeting with Wayne at 6. Sent him an email about what he wants to accomplish today. It's a bit crafty but I find it helps if I have a destination for a goal.

Shitty day at work. Long story short around 3 PM I delivered to a house. He wanted 10 back, I only had 7. I felt bad and apologize, but he said "Fine we'll take the 7". He slams the door in my face (well, I was half-turned, but I knew it was a slam). I hear him yelling to the people there about how it's bullshit and I should go fuck myself. I like to picture him giving the finger and stampeding around the house. I drive back to the store, tell Dan what's going on. He says to let it go. Then 30 seconds later the guy comes into the store and starts yelling. Dan, being the trooper, is polite, as am I. He asks (yells) for change. I am happy to give it to him. Long story short Dan threatens to call the cop and he just says (in his final words, and I quote, these will not leave my short term memory) "I will not act like an adult... I will act like uh...uh... uh... a customer who's always right!"

Somewhere in between now he also yelled about our prices and wondered what the hell we were using for toppings. They ordered 3 large 3 topping pizza, with delivery comes to around 13-14 dollars a pop. 13x3 is 39 dollars. plus 2 dollars added for tip is 41 dollar.

At the end he said he would never order from us again. YAY!

Work work work get yelled at by Dan because I'm new and I don't know what the fuck I am doing.

5 PM rolls around and I'm suppose to be rolling out and Sonja is suppose to show up. Sonja doesn't show up. Dan calls her and asks what the fuck is up. She's not coming in because she's in Connecticut. Her car isn't broken down, but she isn't coming in... yay. Apparently she's done this for the past three shifts. And surprise surprise, she's a roommate of Ami. Fuck me running, I mean, this is Rhode Island, but I thought you were suppose to leave cronyism at the state house steps.

I'm out at 7:15, with a shit load of free food. I come home and...fuck, my parents ordered dinner.

and now I'm getting sick at the thought of going back there in two days.



ANYWAY

Yesterday was fine. Mixing took place for AbleArcher. After a few crashes I decided just to go back to the original session and fuck seperate plugins and all that stuff. Came out alright. Might have to remix the new song since we did a quicky overdub to it and it's a little louder than the rest of the song. Honestly I didn't have to do much. They were fairly ontop of their game. Makes it easy to have good source material.

Then afterwards got a text from Meghan, asking me to go to a Battle of The Bands at Tantric. They were going to support Jump Jump Juliet. A good band, but nothing special, full of nice people. But I declined, mainly, I felt meh on the whole situation. I checked most of the bands on the myspace. The promoters definitely are not going to be booking the next XTC or Stooges. Also, it was a 10 dollar cover. I only had 20 bucks in my pocket. Third, it was at Club Tantric. You might remember that from the Mahi/3d Mystery/Triangle Forest show I slept through. (Back from Orientation, went to nap, woke up at 9:30...fuck). The day after the show, I check and Triangle Forest added a new photo album to their myspace, the "Hall of Shame". In it is one photo, and it's this.
















You know, I'm starting to grow a pair lately. I've stopped patronizing Cuban Revolution because they're expensive, and they're in cahoots with the people that threw out The Safari Lounge.

So why would I want to patronize a place that didn't pay 3 of my favorite bands?

(Update, while looking for this photo, he commented back. Apparently the owner wanted a payout last second and it ate up door money and could only pay Mahi... Who could have seen a show at Tantric going wrong?)

Anyway, I reply back with basically, that as a text message. I'm greeted by a warm hearted "whatever".


Later that night, I'm at Robbie, playing video games with Nick and Astrid and Robbie, and having fun, and talking about if I'm in the right in this situation. I say something off the tip of my head and it gets garbled, Robbie asks me to repeat. I do, and he replies "Oh, I thought you said 'They don't care as much about music as they think they do".

Which basically, is true. As much as I hate to admit it and it's fucking elitist, they really don't. I don't see any enthusiasm for local music shows or music in general, for finding out new bands or trying to see what's different out there. I'm sick of being the one who brought them the new music. Sure, they found a band that they liked, but it sounded EXACTLY LIKE SOMEONE ELSE THEY KNEW BEFORE.


That's all I know (right now).

Meditations on Banter/3.1 and High School.

So Monday is (as far as both Justin and I agree on), the last Banter/3.1 show. It really feels like the end of a period of time that I feel attachment to. I know I'm not in the band, but I'd like to think that I at least had a small part (ok fuck that let's stroke some egos: a very vital role) in the development of the sound and style of Banter/3.1 I'd also like to point out that he started around the same time I went into high school, and heard him more or less around midway through my freshmen year. I think it's funny that for some reason this project is stopping as soon as I graduated. I guess no Banter for soundtrack to my college years. My High school years? Fuck me, I listened to "14 New Songs", "Songs of War and Gardening" and "Medicinal Reverb" more than I thought on those drives to school. I even had some kids like it! I remember driving Jamie and Melanie to our gig at the elementary school teaching Spanish, they both said "This is really good, in a really weird way". I had "Medicinal Reverb" on. I turned it low because I didn't want to freak them out. Too late.

Am I sad that he's stopping it? Yes. We talked about the progression of Banter and where it could go, but I guess that stopped in order for him to work on film, and that's just where he's going. In terms of walking up the steps to his study and sitting on the floor as he walks over and gives me a new cd every other month, I will miss that. (I don't think I ever paid for a Banter album, and certainly never got any copies of the album that weren't CD-Rs with black sharpie writing.)

But I can see if he wants to end it, it's his choice. It's sad I will never hear "Grape Crush" or "All Up In The CLUBBBBB" played live again. But I will say it was a total pleasure to watch the progession up close and personal for the last 4 years.

Now, with that out of the way.

Met with Wayne last night. Worked on some songs, he got the 90% of them fleshed out. Helped out with the other 10%, worked on bass lines and other ideas. Really coming along, feel like I'm not doing as much as I could be doing but we still need to figure out the dynamic/relationship.

Talked about things, including Meccalily doing a gig at the luau. Long story short, he called up martin, expressed intrested in an electric set, and also about me playing guitar for them. Will see what happens. I'd rather have them try me and find out it's not working than just not give me a chance. Talk about recording, talk about Dom on drums and how maybe I should just track everything I can with the new songs. Speaking of recording...

Recorded Nick's other band "Able Archer" Tuesday. Started off getting sounds, cue 2 hours of figuring out why the fuck Channel 1 on the Delta isn't working. Dirty contact and I can't waste an hour cleaning it. Call dad twice, we both agree to just patch the Behringer "tube" pre amp to the delta. Whew! That was close. This was after getting sounds. Dan (bass player) had to be at work at 4 so we were running on a time table. they tracked 6 songs in an hour. Never did more than 2.5 takes. Fine. Listening back, didn't get the best drum sound I could have. Fuck. They seem fine. To the Mews for pizza/dropping dan off/break. Then back to the house for vocals and 2 percussion overdubs.

Lotsa shit I should have done for vocals, but didn't think about. Got caught up in the social side of recording...

But, with Wayne's permission to record on "Tower of Destruction", this basically means I get to track things one at a time, which means I can fully mic the drum kit (CLOSE MIC'D! GASP!) and basically can experiment with shit with funky mic placements and stuff. I think I caught the bug.

I am worried my job will never get better

I am worried that I will never do better

I am worried that my bandmates will become static and not evolve in their playing.

I am worried I am in the wrong band.

I am worried that Nick's new band will be ultimately better than ours, and it will be the band I've wanted to be in all along

I am worried about repeating ourselves

I am worried that we will not evolve in the right direction

I am worried that I am putting too much effort into a relationship that we have agreed upon to permanently remain at a fixed point

I am worried I will not stop thinking about her.

I am worried I will not be able to talk to new people

I am worried I will not be able to start a new relationship

I am worried that I might have ignored my real friends

I am worried that I haven't done enough.

And I'm worried I will never change.

Welp, it's Wednesday. My last week of classes.

And I'm home. I woke up this morning and my mom asked me "...are you seriously going to do anything today?" since I planned to get in late today from playing AS220 last night. I said "Not really..."

"Well" she said, "Do chores for me and I'll let you stay home"

I thought about it, and fuck it! Sure. I'll stay home. I know I'm not doing shit. And not doing work! But it's before noon, so there's time.

Alright, where do I begin? I guess friday.

Long story short, my school set up a dance, but the catch is that every dance we set up, they book bands in the auditorium. All emo bands. And my band, because I go to school there.

I ran sound, it was easy, just vocals, but I was also house manager. People in bands are douchebags. Plain and simple.

We played a good set, but one of our shorter sets. I guess we realize we have to go from 0 to 10 in about 2 minutes and stay there for 30 minutes. Everyone seemed to enjoy it. Glad my friends saw us at the top of our game.


Martin's Party

Wake up at 10:30, move my shit from my car to Dad's car. Shower, double check gear and go.

Listen to Eno on the ride, discuss things with my dad, get JBLs from Jon B, talk with him for a bit, up and walking around from his hernia operation. Glad to see him and he's doing fine.

On to Lake Mishnock. Get there about 1. Talk with Matt Richter on the way there, told him to bring brushes because I forgot mine and was planning to drum for a few songs during my dad's set.

Roll up, see Martin mowing the lawn, apparently he just found out about 10 minutes ago. First words out of his mouth were

"You guys fucking suck"

And then hugged us. Had to get the PA out of the attic, not bad, but not the lightest, most portable either. Start setting up sound as people start to come in. Over complicated setups are our specialty. Dad makes me laugh as he puts on Post Modern John for house music/test music for the setup. My dad starts his set. It's alright, not a lot of people giving attention. I feel as though it might be a little disrespectful to people, but I can understand there's only so much attention you can give in a party situation like this. Did frippertronics stuff on a song. Was alright, atmosphere was all wrong, I'll get into that in a minute...

Matt hadn't showed up yet. No drums for me.

House on Fire was not as much of a dud as I thought, but I played a really really short set. I ended at the logical end point. I felt like I couldn't play my best since they were really there for me. Pack up, dad a little pissed I didn't play longer. Oh well. I feel that HoF needs to go in the closet. Is it fun? Kinda. The Robert Fripp thing gets kinda old especially because I am not Robert Fripp. I put the "pop" songwriting on hold to expand with HoF. Maybe it's time for them to swap places.

Hot as balls outside. I pack up, put my stuff off to the side. By this point, Dan, Robbie, Astrid and Nick have shown up, and we all go swimming/ boating. Cools us off and puts me back into a better mindset. Matt Richter's band has started by now. One thing I'm always impressed with is how GOOD the sound is out in the lake, it sounds amazing and I don't know why! It's like a natural mix that doesn't blow.

Matt Richter's band is your standard blues/rock cover band, but they're all great musicians, to the point where I would probably go out and see them if given the chance. I think the covers were a bit overdone. But they were nice to listen to, although I was hoping they would finish up because I was antsy about playing. They ended up playing 3 or 4 mini sets, so I was just chomping at the bit to go.

Pete, Nick, Dan and I go to the jeep to concoct a set list. Except for songs we've collectively thrown out of the pile, I think we've played almost every song we've ever written, I'm pretty sure. (There's one song we wrote that everyone forgot about, what the fuck ever happened with that one? It was pretty good, gotta ask about that) Set up with Nick, Me and Dan from left to right, with Pete out in front. I forgot my keyboard stand (I don't know where it is right now. I fear it's left at the Blackstone) so I used a barstool from the house. Talk to Martin before, asked him to play harmonica on LMS. He obliged.

We go on, good set, kinda a blur. Crowd was small but way into it which was good. Lots of friendly interaction. Martin came up one point during the new song and laid down some free-form vocals, it actually fit.

So, we pack up our gear, and along come this man, soaked to the bone with his dog, in full clothing. He is under the influence of something, says how he tripped and fell in the lake, and walked all the way over here to find out where the music is coming from, and we must play one more song... We oblige. We play "National Anthem" by Radiohead and then go into a jam, with Martin on harmonica again, it was good. Pack up, Band hit the road. I go swimming again. Go in, dry off, see Martin in his house playing some songs, grab a guitar and join him. Play through some covers and Meccalily songs. Leave around 1 AM.

Yesterday. School, shit, what are you gonna do. AS220. I feel we didn't play that well, made the horrible decision to have Dan on the stage and put us on the ground. There were tables and a lot of things that weirded me out. Pete, Dan and Nick make a deal out of the pay deal, not the money, but the fact we weren't told about the system. I don't know what they're angry about.

Oh well. Was nice to see Justin and Martin and Lily there...