so, brian caught me at the Rud on friday and mentioned that he was going to Michigan on saturday. somehow, i'm not sure how, he managed to convince me that i should tag along with him, to go up there and meet Hey Mercedes and some of the various other indie-rock icons that would be in attendance.

so, after the Rud & the Backdoor on friday–a night of debauchery to be sure–we both managed to drag ourselves out of our respective houses and get out of town about three hours later than we'd originally intended. but no matter, suffice it to say, brian drives fast. but aside from the momentary shock of blowing past a cop somewhere around Toledo, the drive was pleasantly uneventful.

the show was good. I enjoyed most of the music, but let me tell you, you put 4 or 500 sweating indie-rock kids in a huge room with limited ventilation, and the atmosphere gets oppressive at best. by the end of Hey Mercedes set (the first we were able to see), i was entirely ready to head back out into the cold Michigan night for a smoke and some elbow room.
the second band i saw was called "!!!" (which i think means "pretentious jam-band" in japanese). honestly, i enjoyed their music, and they seem to be very talented musicians, but basically all their songs just sounded like extended jams. perhaps there was structure there and i was just not in the mood for "party music", or perhaps the fact that the lead singer was pretty much a complete dick factors into my distaste. needless to say, i didn't stick around for the whole set.

let's see… then we saw a band whose name i can't remember, but it was two or three fat guys (one of whom unfortunately removed his shirt halfway through the performance) and a normal guy. They played some hard-rocking punk music and were really pretty good.

final band we watched was coalesce (see brian's pics, linked in his post.) who put on a good show. my tastes generally don't lean that far towards hardcore punk, or vocalists who scream more than sing, but they really tore it up onstage and i enjoyed it.

after the show we made the rounds again and hooked up with the Mercedes and Coalesce boys, headed out to the hotel, grabbed ourselves a room, and hung out with a bunch of people i'd never met before in my life. i pretty much felt like an outsider the whole night, but Sean helped make us feel welcome when we went out to grab some late night dinner at a place called Coney Island.

After that we were pretty much beat from our long day on the road and at a show (after a night of too-much drinking), and called it a night.
The next day's drive was again, thankfully uneventful and we made it home only about 45 minutes later than we'd intended (after stopping for an hour lunch at Denny's).

exciting stuff, eh?

yeah, i know.

anyway, in other news, there's not much other news.

the prick's demo is almost ready for public consumption, so hopefully, if i can remember to take some damned CD-Rs with me to practice tomorrow, i'll be able to upload at least one track for you to enjoy and comment on.

that's it. i'm out.

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i would write a big long post about how much fun we had in michigan. i would write about how awesome it was to finally see coalesce play again. i would make a valiant attempt to tell the entire awesome story if i wasn't so fucking tired and if i didn't have to go to chicago to see hot snakes tomorrow.

so until then…take a gander at the pictures that resulted…

me with various friends you may or may not recognize
(the one of me and dan is priceless)
and…
coalesce live

that about covers it.

more when i get back from chicago…

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we ended up heading out to catch telavet at the rud (they're playing pretty often, it seems) and then proceeded on to the back door, where i drunkenly convinced matt to go to michigan with me.

well…i printed out a map to the venue, last night. that's a victory. i got the oil changed, this morning. score two for me. matt? still asleep, i guess. damn it. [correction: matt was on the shitter when i called, making it impossible for him to answer the phone.]

no songs for this weekend. i have to get matt up and get me some food.

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last night scott and i headed out (seperately) to see the trail of dead show. i had never seen them live and heard very little of their recorded material, so i thought i should go see what all the hype is about. especially since i'll be interviewing them for lost at sea. yeah…might be a good idea to know what i'm getting into.

long story short: one of the best live shows i've seen in a while.

short story a little longer: they just rocked straight ahead, destroying anything in their path. they ended up kicking the drum set over and then set it back up and invited everyone in the audience onstage, for the sole purpose of going apeshit for one last song.

yeah…then i went home.

today i'm just puttering around at work, trying to get anything urgent done. i'm headed up to michigan tomorrow to catch coalesce, casket lottery, small brown bike, and hey mercedes (note to self: get an oil change) at michigan fest (another note to self: print map to venue). i think i'm riding up by myself, so this should be one of those liberating trecks across a couple of states. too bad i hate ohio with a passion. and i almost forgot the catch phrase of the last rock trip to michigan (with by the grace of god in 1995): "michigan is fucked."

i'll have to keep that in mind.

the live and/or rare mp3 of the day(or so)
hedge - halloween
recorded in 1993(?)
originally released on the first hedge demo and then later on the louisville babylon misfits cover tape.

this is one of the rare tracks from that comp that has any sort of "production values." which means you can actually hear some music.

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the live and/or rare mp3 of the day (or so)
sunspring - where eagles dare
recorded january 1994
originally released on the louisville babylon misfits cover tape.

sunspring went on to become the fabulous, full-throttle metroschifter, the band that wouldn't die. you can hear the original misfits of the version song if you listen close to the beginning of this track. it seems scott decided to play over it.

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remember when i promised to make an actual post today? well…i lied.

q: how's life been treatin' you, brian?
a: like i just ran over its dog.

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i promise to make an actual post sometime later today…

the live and/or rare mp3 of the day (or so)
falling forward - she
recorded january 1994
originally released on the louisville babylon misfits cover tape.

from ben: "sounds worse than the original…how much more punk can you get?"

falling forward ended up breaking up a couple of years later. most of the members went on to form elliott. you can hear the guys from blanq (another old louisville band) clapping at the end.

Popularity: 1% [?]

the live and/or rare mp3 of the day (or so)
zwan - el sol
pomona, ca - 11.16.2001
another track from their first show.

i'll be seeing them in colombia, mo on april 5th.

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saturday after worik i decided to head out to the of asaph show. i ran into a few scattered people that i never get to talk to, and it was nice to see alex before he leaves for train conductor's school. i ended up sitting around a lot, mainly because i was tired as hell and concrete floors play havok on my back, sometimes.

of asaph rocked the house, as is usual. they had some tv's set up, displaying edited footage from our friend sean's roadtrip vacation to california with his girlfriend. funny shots of sean driving 90 miles an hour down desert roads. when they showed vegas, i turned to my friend katie and said "westward, ho!" yeah. she laughed.

then this band from boston i had never heard of played. they were called 27 and they seriously rocked. they were like a weird combination of shipping news with more atmospheric sampling (ala neurosis) and a girl singing. seriously beautiful stuff. i talked to them about kwh heading out their way in may and they said they'd definitely come out to the show. we swapped cds and contact info. hopefully they like the one they ended up with, because their record is pretty damn good.

uhhh…then i headed up to the back door to meet up with paul and neil. matt was there, so i gave him a bunch of shit for telling me he was staying in. we hung out and shot the shit, then chris showed up and we ended up heading down to cahoots for a little while. it was mainly just aimless mingling. i handed out a few flyers for our show in april.

my entire fluid intake for the evening: a sprite on the way home.

last night was spent huddling over the computer until chris showed up to drag me out for "st. patty's" celebratin', which really just translated to us sitting at the front bar in a not very full cahoots (it was sunday night, after all), drinking our night away. we killed shit. we talked about tour. i noticed that some guy went into the bathroom and puked all over the stall. classy.

and then i went home and went to bed.

i think that's how all stories should end.

the live and/or rare mp3 of the day or so
on hold. once i can access the transmission3000 server, everything should be back up and running. apparently we're having some problems with our pipe in that neck of the woods.

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well, tonight I went out to the bar (which was a big surprise to brian, since i'd told him about an hour earlier that i wasn't interested) with paul, neil, & lisa, and we met up with brian there and hung out for a bit. at some point, i ordered a large sampler (mmm… sampler platter) only to come back to the table and find that neil & lisa were pretty much already on their way out the door. well, not that that really matters, 'cause between a hungry brian, a semi-hungry me, and a not-really-hungry but unable-to-resist-the-sampler paul, we finished the thing off without much trouble. shortly before the last morsels were yanked by greedy hands from the platter, brad and dave came over to join us. paul offered brad a won-ton, and brad's first reaction was to ask me which of the many sauces went best with them. (of course, the answer is "honey-mustard") brad then proceeded to dub me the "king of condiments," a declaration he even repeated later when his girlfriend joined us. so, apparently, either through pure obsessive behavior or a history of good advice, i am, at least in our little circle, the King of Condiments. thank you. you may rise.

another thing i've realized though, is that i could be in the running for a totally unrelated title. i'm pretty sure i could make a strong showing in a contest for the "king of work avoidance." not that i avoid doing the work i get paid to do, that is, not my actual job job. but my god, when i get home, there are literally 10 to 15 things i could be doing at any given moment. 10 - 15 projects i've started that i really need to finish. and what do i do? well, of course, as i recently explained to paul & brax, i've only got two weekday nights that are really worth anything–personal project-wise. Tuesday is band practice night (band-practice from ~7:30 to 11:00pm). Wednesday is geek night (trip to comics store, dinner at Denny's, then Enterprise at 8:00pm, and DS9 at 10:00pm). Friday is… Friday. That's socialization day. Friday is the day matt comes down from the mountain to carouse with friends and other assorted real living people. Friday is the night (typically–unlike tonight, which was an aberration) where matt goes to the bar to look at the few hot girls and (as noted in another post) not speak to any of them. Saturday is much more open, and should be the day where i get all kinds of shit done, but it is usually the day where i sleep a whole lot, then laze around the house. Sunday's another sleep day, and then also another band practice day, which accounts for at least 14 hours. So, i'm left with Monday & Thursday after work, and whatever hours & can squeeze out of Saturday & Sunday to accommodate all those things that i need to do. Needless to say, not a whole lot is accomplished usually.

I have to say though, that this past week/weekend has been pretty decent so far. on thursday, i went out to the hardware store and picked up this neat toolbox and some other bits & bobs, and constructed (what will be) a nice guitar effects pedalboard. so, i had quite the productive day on Thursday. today, after doing the normal saturday sleeping 'til 4 after a night at the bar thing, and lazing for a couple good hours once i got up, i actually managed to do a few productive things. i got the velcro strips placed on the plywood base for the pedalboard, broke out the guitar for 30 - 45 minutes and played around, then checked email for a little bit. oh, and i also sketched out some ideas that i had for a logo for My Favorite Martyr (no, it's not just you, that site is so horribly out of date, it's almost funny again. BUT! it does have the first mention of Old Man–paul & neil's band–on the web!), and for a flyer design for Old Man (which i was going to try to mock up & post, but i haven't been able to find any appropriate imagery yet). of course, there were several other things i needed to do (as i told brian when he asked about going to the bar), but after about an hour of sitting in front of the computer avoiding them, i realized it was a bit fruitless for the time being.

y'know, perhaps i'd get more done if i spent less time avoiding work and more time doing it. but my biggest problem has always been not so much finding things to do, as deciding between the things that i need to do. so, i'm going to ask for your help on this one. (realizing wholly that the majority of my pleas for public response have brought few in the past–but now that we have the comments system in place, perhaps that'll be different now…)

here's the list:

votes   project
_1__ finish 2nd poetry book
____ finish & submit short story(/stories)
____ write new poems
_3__ write screenplay
_2__ continue working on novel
____ redesign coffeemonk.com
____ design separate myfavoritemartyr.com
____ today/tomorrow mixed 2 CD set
____ mixed cover songs CD
____ learn to play bass for Old Man
_1__ put together (personal) media server
_1__ design new bipolar theme
____ finish playing computer games i'm in the middle of
____ put unboxed comics in boxes

and here's the plea: help! help me figure out which of these things i should attempt to do first. if you wanna go crazy, put the whole list in order of "importance." but at least tell me the one thing you think i should focus on until it's done. this is the struggle i'm presented with every time i enter the door to my house from work or being out on the town or whatever. and i've yet to reach a decision on my own. so, give me a hand. there are no prizes to be awarded, but if it's something that either exists or can be translated to the web-medium, i'll be sure to post it here first.

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