Zero Bldg.
Goth JobCrissee and I came up with an idea for a television show that we need to pitch to someone in charge of making awesome tv shows. It'll be called Goth Job. See, Crissee's got this open-mic poetry alter ego named Carpasia Hellfyre. She's about to move to Atlanta and she said it'd be funny to get Carpasia a job at a Hot Topic. The show would follow her from application to inevitable termination.
A good mid-season shake up would be for me, insufferable indie kid that I am, to get a job at the same Hot Topic. Hijinks to ensue. Check your local listings.
Int'l Ukulele All-Star Touring CircuitNick and I got the organ part done tonight. The Rogers' array of speakers was too much for the crap Peavy unidirectional mic I've got, so I wound up dropping our equally crap AudioTechnica through the ceiling in the center of the array then boosting the amplitude of the faint signal in Audacity. Three words: Pri. Mit. Ive. But it seemed to work okay.
The last chord of the song is kind of a fucker. Nick keyed it out and it turned out to be two perfect intervals mashed together. News to me. Said Nick: "one could argue that you're implying an A." The effect I was going for was when the song brick walls into the last three chords, to drop everything but the organ. Didn't quite turn out like that. Those smashed intervals sounded really harsh coming out of the Rogers, so Nick played it how he "woulda done it" and the original guitar part stayed. Then he holds the chord, introducing a couple more stops along the way until it's this eerie, reedy sound, like a Messian piece. As usual, I couldn't be happier with his contribution.
So yeah. I'm getting the hang of this home-recording-on-the-crappiest-equipment-around bidness. Click the link!
Meaning of EverythingHad an eye dr. appt. today and got my pupils dilated. Wonderful stuff, that. Difficulty leaving the house after that, so started in on recording a song that used to be called "Logocentrism." Hate that title now. It was originally concieved on an out-of-tune ukulele, so I think a new name could be something like "Int'l Ukulele All-Stars" or something like that. I see no reason why all my songs can't have ridiculous titles. Already we've got:
An Objective Look at a Family Album
Everyone Goes Home in October
The Document Has Moved
Continental 48
No Sun
I was able to get the drums in less than a million takes (my timing is improving, hooray) and I'd laid down two guitars and a couple vocal takes before the Hold Steady show tonight. Came home from that excitement and dove right back into cutting and pasting.
If I can get a reasonable recording of "No Sun" and a less annoying take of "Document," (must get my guitar fixed) I believe I'll have something resembling a demo. Tomorrow I hope do the first recording of Nick's new Rogers organ for the bass/keys part of "Ukulele." Should be fun, it'll definitely get posted when it's done.
Is anyone listening?
Driving around on E yesterday, the signs for $2/gal. gas were pretty discouraging. It looks like this impromtu tour is going to be merely a jaunt up to Asheville and back for more vigourous planning.
In the meantime, I've posted a new song. It's called "The Document Has Moved" and can be found
here.
So over my break I'll be getting my guitar fixed, looking for a job, getting a haircut, and the normal boring, discouraging stuff I normally wind up doing. Stupid oil companies, ruining my fun.
Open Mhyque Tour, '05
March:
Thurs. 24th - Bean Streets, Asheville NC
Sun. 27th - Ragtime, Arlington VA
Mon. 28th - Pearl Bar, Columbus OH
Tues. 29th - Trixie's Cafe, Roseville, MI
April:
Fri. 1st - Front Room, Athens OH
All dates subject to change. Let's hope this isn't the stupidest thing I've ever done, and that if it is, even that won't prevent me from going through with it.
March FirstThere were geese this morning. Jogging up the wet steps--hands in pockets from the MARTA platform, frost bit into the railing and bushes. Turning to pavement and cursing the hole in my jeans, I saw them. Two geese, slender black necks and bodies muscular beneath shivering feathers. They stood nearly still on an icy corporate lawn, looking almost as confused as confusing. There are no bodies of water nearby. Just traffic, just steel and glass.
Georgia winters are self-amused. Cold is a novelty, a seasonal affectation for it to carry like a child with his father's gun. It doesn't really know what to do with itself, only trusting in its own need to be impressive--spiteful. And like an armed toddler's parents, Georgians are never prepared for winter. Panic ensues, groceries dissappear--and accidents happen.
GA 400 was shut down this morning by two accidents. Cars and trucks dancing clumsily against each other on the slick toll road. Commuters were left in the cold by delayed busses--pulling coats around themselves to shield from the city wind. This wet, spiteful cold, this gun-wielding child bites at any exposed flesh and on otherwise normal days, noses go raw and red.
I walked past traffic and worried about these geese. Subdued by the frost at their webbed feet, they made too-obvious targets. I imagined them as Confederate soldiers, deserters still on the march from defeat, bleak landscapes of snow and death making it palatable. Before home, one must first march. My breath bellowed long steam and at my back, wings beat to take flight. I spun in time to see the two slender birds chase each other into the air, away from frost, into winter and his pistol-grey cold.
