Never use a cruelty when a joke will do in its place

Cold kicking it with veganguy and his kidlet at the moment.

The event last night went swimmingly. Lots of people came, and Hisham sold four paintings. We rocked the casbah as usual, despite 4 out of 5 band members probably having consumed too many beerth, thusly causing some interesting reinterpretations of selections from our repertoire. Tennis Pro also played, and I thought they were fantastic - almost as good as us. They kinda had this Beach Boys-run-through-a-Slayer-filter-kinda-thing. Heavy preppy, for lack of a better term - but that term is pretty good, so I'll stick with it. We plan on doing it again soon. So those of you who didn't come, you will get a chance to redeem yourself.

I've listened to our CD over and over and over. I'm really quite proud of it. Sure, there are things I would change, but overall, I think it turned out great. It was certainly a DIY effort - we wrote the songs, recorded them on our own equipment, mixed it, and did all the package art ourselves - all the writing on the cover is mine, even. The only things we didn't do were master it and reproduce it. Now all we have to do is to start moving some units.

I will be a rock star, dammit.

So I played at the EMP last night. I gotta say, that's a pretty swell place to play, even if the stage is postage stamp sized. We got free food, three drink tickets (instead of the usual two), and a parking pass. The sound there was fantastic. All five of us could actually hear everything. Goodness. I think we played a pretty good set to boot.

I have an interview/test thingy next Monday for King County Metro. It sounds like it's going to be math intensive. Grrrrreaaaat. Thibbbt. They're going to test me on how fast I can 10-key. Gonna have to exercise to get my keying skills back up to snuff. And learn how to do bank deposits. I sorta embellished that little bit on my application.

The apartment is coming together. There's still crap everywhere, but it's beginning to look presentable. I even had guests over last night - well, guests meaning my bassist, drummer, and drummer's girlfriend. I can't find my world map, and it needs to go up on my wall. I'm debating putting up a lot of the stuff that I had on the walls of my old place - band posters and whatnot. New place, new wall hangings, new attitude. Or something.

My head is fucking throbbing. This coffee right here doesn't seem to be helping any.

I'm applying for two county jobs - one to be a "Court Operations Specialist", t'other to be one of those people who sit in the little glass box in the bus tunnel and sell people Metro passes. I'm hoping for the bus tunnel job. Both pay well, but I think I'm more qualified for the latter gig.

Speaking of gigs, if anyone feels like making a road trip up to the scenic Scandinavian wonderland known as Stanwood tomorrow night, I'm doing a show at the Stanwood Hotel.

( Here's a map. )


It's just about the coolest little punk/rockabilly bar you'd ever be likely to find in...some place like Stanwood. Yah.

You know the old cliche about the guy who - through all the bad jobs (or lack therof), the failed relationships, and the people who just don't understand - wants nothing more than to rock?

Well, that's me. I feel like Bryan Adams in the Summer of '69.

LJ is being weird tonight.

Yesterday, I made the röck with the band, and then we went, as a group, to The Stanwood Hotel for more 40 ounce PBR madness. In attendance was one Mr. Van Conner, late of Northwest grünge stalwarts The Screaming Trees. From behind, he looks just like our old drummer. Weird.

I came out relatively unscathed, but I cannot say the same for my bandmates, who were all nursing severe hangovers.

Haw haw.

Last night, I played a show in Bryant, Washington. Do you know where that is? It's near Mount Vernon, over halfway to Bellingham, almost half the way to Canada. Bryant doesn't have a post office. It has two fire stations, apparently, but no post office.

I, along with my band, played in an old country house with a wood stove for heat and a decrepit barn in the back.

At one point I walked outside and found myself face to face with a big brown and white heiffer. There was a fucking cow in the backyard.

The house is occupied by our singer's sister, Tara. She decided to have a pajama party and wanted her brother's band to play. And play we did. We played our set, and then played most of it again. We did funny versions and silly versions, and some really good versions that we all wish had been captured by some sort of recording medium.

At one point, some jocky guy from yonder pasture passed out and fell face first onto the deck. Unfortunately I did not witness this. The night wound down with Tim and I doing our best godheadSilo impersonation, spontaneously creating songs to serenade the remaining guests - who, I should add, were all passed out by this point.

This morning, I had the pleasure of doing breakfast at Willow & Jim's (something) Cafe, in scenic Silvana, Washington, with Bob (the bassist) and Tara. Bob was still in his pajamas and bathrobe from the night before. We got a few funny looks from the townies. We thought for sure that the Garth Brooks-meets-Corky from Life Goes On-lookin' guy was gonna keel us on account of Bob's appearance and demeanor. But alas, we escaped unscathed.

The food was good, but remind me not to go to Silvana again anytime soon.

Um, that'd be me. :)

Sorry. I let pretense get the better of me.

We fuckin' rocked our brains out tonight. We had quite a turnout, made some money, and had people up front dancing and singing along. The band locked in, kept moving, and didn't let up for a second. My guitar even stayed in tune for the most part.

Wow. That was fun. Cannae wait to do it again. But right now I'm all about some quiet music and this mug of chamomile tea I have right here.

Someone on garageband.com said my band sounds like "REM meets Fugazi".

I think that's ok.

There was a review that started off with "Terrible..." It is unfortunately no longer on the site.

This morning, when Dave and I left for band practice, it was sunny. An hour later, when we reached Lake Stevens, some small hail/snow started falling, but then stopped. Three and a half hours after that, when we left, it started dumping snow. It's awful purdy out there. Unfortunately, here downtown, it's just wet and cold and slushy.

Our debut EP is almost done...we just have to get it mastered, and work out the kinks with the cover art. I think we decided to just call it American School Of Warsaw (vs. En La Guerra De Los Monos, or "At War With The Monkeys"). We managed to cull a usable track off of the tape we made of last weekend's rehearsal. Sean burned it off of a plain old cassette and ran it through Acid to clean it up a bit, and wouldn't ya know it, it sounds pretty damn good.

Today, the American School Of Warsaw (that'd be my band) entered Whiskey Tango Studios (aka our drummer's basement) to record what we believe will become our first release meant for public consumption. This is shaping up to be a 3-song EP, with our three oldest (and thusly most polished) songs on it.

Today we got the drum tracks recorded, and most of Dave's guitar parts. Since we're so used to playing these songs live, this multi-tracking thing is taking some getting used-to. In theory, Bob and Sean will have done the bass parts tonight. Tomorrow, we do my guitars and noises and whatnot, and then vocals and noises, maybe some auxillary samples and drum machines.

Soon, I will be rich and famous.

Heh.