26.03.09

Trap Them will be recording a new EP in july. there will be new songs and we're recording a handful of covers. Some will make sense and some will make you scratch your head. More details in the coming months. After that, we'll be doing a few weeks on the west coast and into the midwest. More details in the coming months. I want the rest of my teeth to finally fall out of my head. More details in the coming months.

Cryptic today, aren't we? Hmmmmm?

I have two short stories that, for the life of me, I'm too lazy to do anything with. Maybe when my motivation is in high gear and my debt is in low gear, I will print them up in book form and sell them on a tour. Really, don't hold your breath....all five of you that may be interested. It may take a while for this to happen.

Lyrics have taken shape for the next LP. There is a title. There are about ten days finished as of this point....well, not finished. Perhaps, we'll say, very fleshed out and 80% complete. Want the title? Not telling. Want details? Okay....Barren Praise has turned into a writhing ball of hate. I'm very satisfied with the direction.

Much like my time left in Seattle, my whiskey bottle is almost out. I'm going to go take care of this situation right now.

I saw "Last House on the Left" the other night. It was good. Not amazing. But, it absolutely didn't suck. It was sadistic and depraved, as it should be.

I don't know who actually reads all this bullshit, but thanks.

23.03.09...want/need...then/now

About three years ago, I had a record collection that, quite simply put, was to die for. I was not a collector nerd. I was a music enthusiast. There is a very large difference. I had a wall of LPs. I had 7"s in a shelving unit...six drawers of EPs. It was an overwhelmingly great spread. My friends would come over and sift through them, always pulling something out and saying something along the lines of, "Are you fucking kidding me? Where did you get this?" To which I would have to reply I went to the show when they played. Or I pre-ordered it, etc.

I worked at a record store for five plus years, and every little disorted gem that came through the back of that store in shipment I, more times than not, ended up purchasing.

I didn't buy clothes, or shoes, or cars....or, a lot of the times, food.

I bought records, cd, and dvds.

Present day, I now have about a tenth of the records I had back then. I sold them all. Not for pointless shit, not for every day needs. I sold these records off little by little to afford a touring lifestyle. Those records paid for plane tickets. They paid for ordering another box of t-shirts, for recording, for extra gas in the van. Those records paid for things that were necessary.

I've had so many people I know ask me how I could do this. So many people not able to understand how I was able to part with some of these gems. For me, that's where I realized I'm different than a lot of the people I know that value their possessions more than thier lives. I traded a wall of sound for a few years of making it. An LP can't drive you around the country or fly you to Europe to play shows for three weeks.

Do I miss them? Fuck yeah, I do. I miss them dearly. I miss the pining through the shelves for hours on end, being able to grab something I forgot I had, taking out that beautiful slab of vinyl and placing it carefully on the record player, dropping the needle and turning up the receiver loud.

When I sold these records, I made sure to play all of them one last time, giving them the respect they deserved. It was much like having my own musical autobiography, seeing as I was selling things that had taken up the last fifteen years of my life. I remembered which show I had bought something at, remembered coming home from work with a big mailorder package waiting for me at the front door. All of those things.

I did what I needed to do to make things happen and I don't regret it. I know that within the next few years, I'l slowly build that monster back up to what it used to be, and I know it will feel even better this time around. Being in my forties, sifting through those shelves, will mean just as much as it did twenty plus years previous. Until then, I can be happy with what I have: less records, but a full time touring schedule, the opportunity to create albums of my own, and personal artistic expression without barriers.

Boys, girls, men, women....sell what you own if it gets you to where you want to be. Don't worry, odds are the kids that buy your records from you will become jaded and disinterested within five years and will sell them back to you if you want them. If you're a lifer, then you know this already.

This whole piece just kind of seems like a downer. In a way, it's like trying to explain your longest relationship in your life, and how it ended, and whether or not there's hope for the future. Don't worry, wall of distortion....you'll be back in my arms as soon as can be. I just have some things to take care of in this life before we'll be able to see each other again. I know you'll understand, and I promise you'll have new friends added to you on a weekly basis as long I can still find my way to a record store.

20.03.09

if any of you have the catharsis LPs for "samsara" and "passion", please sell them to me. i've been hunting way too long and just want this ordeal over with.

11.03.09

dearest information superhighway...

It's been about two months since my last confession.

I don't have too much excitement to report, other than the usual.

My job as a burrito roller has been well recieved by the cast of characters I work with. For the time being, as in while I'm not on tour, this job suits me pretty damn perfect. Almost too perfect. Make food. Eat food. Drink. Drank. Drunk. Go home.

My next confession is rather HUGE on a personal interests front. Let me preface this with the quickest long story short ever. So, I've been an avid fan of Clive Barker's "Abarat" series. You know the one I mean?...The one with Candy Quackenbush visiting an undiscovered world? Yeah....it's fantastic. It has all the brilliant characteristics I desire in my fantasy novels, for which I read very few. Herein lies the problem....this is supposed to be a series of five books. The first one came out in 2002...the second in 2005(?). So far, this is all he has done. Two books in SEVEN YEARS. And, from what I gather...the third volume hasn't even been started. Clive, my man....you're killing me here.

Okay....so, long story short time:

Because of how much I loved this series, I continuously shot down the very notion that J.K. Rowling's "Harry Potter" series was anything but second rate.

Fast forward to January of this year of the rat. A local bookstore had a 20% off sale, so you know my night readerism had a huge boner. I spent about sixty dollars on clearance books. Right before I got in line to check out, I looked at one last display. There, slightly taunting me, was a hardcover copy of Rowling's "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" for two dollars. Two dollars. With the discount it would be just a bit over a buck and a half. I said, "Fuck it..." and tossed it in the shopping basket.

Two weeks later, after running through most of the books I had bought, it sat there and stared at me. I finally picked it up and started reading.

Twenty minutes, two chapters, later, I closed the book, sighed heavily and simply said "..shit..".

My wife looked over at me in a concerning way and asked what was wrong. I looked back at her, looked down at the weathered, second hand book, and then simplay said, "...this is really good."

I read the whole first volume that night, unable to put it down. I waited a week before going back to the bookstore, as I was preoccupied with the 900 page behemoth, "2666" by Roberto Bolano which, by the way, was so goddamn epic, the last hundred pages simply astounded me. Highly, highly recommended if you have a good week or two to kill.

After "2666", I was ready. I went back to the bookstore and bought the remaining Potter volumes (my mother, who works for a town schooling system, sent me the third, fourth and fifth volumes, knowing I didn't have expendable income to purchase six more books that month). I then proceeded to read volumes two through seven over the next three weeks.

It was an unbelievably fantastic series to read. I wanted to hate it, and, instead, I'm in love with these books. I HATE fantasy novels...wizards, dragons, etc. never interested me until I read this series. The last book almost hurt to read, knowing this little literary journey was on it's last leg. I had to talk myself out of starting all over and reading them again, knowing there's other novels calling my name.

Laugh if you want, but the Harry Potter series was exactly what I needed.

Last confession:

As much as I love being home, for the time being, I am a man of the road. I find myself easier to deal with and I feel like I'm accomplishing things better. I don't know how long it will be this way, but it seems like it will be for quite a while. In the end, as much as I want my feet to be cemented within the heart of rain city, it's better to do the thing that I do best, which is release my bipolaristic tendencies in twenty minute intervals on a daily basis. Two homes and two lives all squished into one six foot frame.

I leave again in a little under a month. I will be on a great tour that spreads across the entire country and parts of canada. This will last for about five and a half weeks, in which time Trap Them will then play Maryland Death Fest, followed by a three and a half week tour with the swedish men that introduced me to red wine mixed with diet coke (heavenly). We aren't allowed to talk about this tour until April, but I can say this band is KILLER.

Plans for this summer are starting to take shape. Dude Fest will happen, as with a few other tours being worked on. A tentative plan is to record a new EP so that we'll have a new release in 09. The other tentative plan is to record a new LP in late fall/ early winter. More news on that will make it's way to the internerds very soon.

Fall will also, again, be spent in the van. If the tours that are being talked about actually happen, I will be in full sonic bliss each and every night. This is what I do. This is how I make my living, no matter how bizarre it may seems to anyone on the outside. I provide better for my wife and son(son being puppy) in that van than I could ever do here in Seattle...at least right now.

Shit....I know there's more to talk about. It's been two months.

Fuck it....I'll remember in May or something.

Currents awesomes:

Film:

Before the Devil Knows You're Dead

Little Children

The Harry Potter series (watched after reading the books....the films are great. It's as if they took the volumes and made them all cinematic novellas)

The Wackness (perfect description of a virgin that loves hip-hop in the early nineties...not that I would know or anything....except, yes...I know very well...)

Frost / Nixon
Gran Torino

Blindness

.....and I liked Watchmen very much, because I'm not an elitist douche bag that wants to watch a three hour film and then bitch and moan about everything. I also like horror remakes. Almost all of them. I like almost all comic book films. Everyone wants to find faults in everything...maybe that's one of the reasons the world is so fucked....no one wants to enjoy anything for what it is anymore. Your loss.

Books:

Again...the HP series

2666 by Roberto Bolano

Motherless Brooklyn by Jonathan Lethem

currenty about to read: The Flood by Ian Rankin, followed by The Ruins by Scott Smith

Audio assaults:

Dismember - s/t

new Mono

wolfbrigade - comalive

rotten sound - cycles

16 - bridges to burn

warcry - not so distant future EP

propagandhi - supporting caste

milligram - this is class war

mogwai - the hawk is howling

cast iron hike - watch it burn

born dead icons - work

anaphylactic shock - two thousand years

new Mind Eraser

many more....my wife got me an ipod nano for christmas....walking the dog has never been so fun.

speaking of my dog, up top is a picture. the blanket has since been eaten.