first update in over a month.
As you may have noticed, I haven't updated my journal in a long-ass time. And now I'm racking up a shitload of things to write about so yeah. I'll get them in print right now.
On the music front:
On Oct. 7, I saw The Fiery Furnaces (and Pit Er Pat) with Greg.
Pit Er Pat is pretty cool, they play a kind of quirky, low-key, lounge-indie rock with guitar, keyboard, and drums. The keyboardist lady is usually the singer and her voice is semi-atonal and pretty neat. She looked like she was about to keel over the whole time. Their ...tone is pretty unique.
Fiery Furnaces were great, as expected. None of their songs sound the same live as they do on record. They fucked with the tempos and the instruments used; sometimes even changing a major key song into a minor key and completely altering the tone. Sometimes, during long songs they would take a break, play an entire short song, and then go back to the long song. It was pretty crazy.
They played a few of the more rock-oriented songs from Blueberry Boat, and then some stuff from the new album, Rehearsing My Choir. The new stuff probably isn't geared toward rocking out live as much as it is listening and absorbing. It was pretty good but not very engaging. Then they went into the Gallowsbird's Bark songs (old ones) which are generally 2 to 3 minute, galloping bluesy rockers. Needless to say, it was fun as hell to dance to those.
The crowd was generally lameass and stationary, as hipsters too often are. But overall the show was deff worth it.
Then on Oct. 26, I saw Opeth with Nevermore and Fireball Ministry, with Sean.
I only saw the end of Fireball Ministry (like the last 1.5 songs) and they seemed kind of lame to me, but I was totally stoked for Opeth and I guess expecting them to be ass-nu-metal. They really weren't, and I guess I should listen to them. But they didn't really fit in with Nevermore and Opeth.
Nevermore was pretty good. The singer (Warrel Dane) had a ski cap on, presumably because he's balding, so he couldn't headbang very well most of the time so he just swayed side to side, which was silly as fuck. But, overall, they play solid music, they're really good at headbanging, and Jeff Loomis is pretty much an unsung metal guitar god. The guy is seriously insanely talented. I generally am not that keen to Nevermore's overall sound, but they put on a good show.
Opeth was like FUCKING OMG BEST. God damn. Their live sound is KRUSHING KHORDZ OV THE BLEAK BLAK NETHERWORLDS. Mikael is hilarious between songs: "I came up with this song while I was having... sexual... dreams... about Burt Reynolds." Among other priceless nuggets of joy.
They played some fan favorites as well as the underrated "When" and some new stuff. It all just kicked ass. I'm not going to go so deep into specifics, but the overall experience was basically the most visceral metal concert I've ever attended. (of the 3 I've attended). So yeah, I headbanged until my neck exploded. I was pretty much dehydrated, and my back was about to disintegrate, but it DIDNT MATTER BECAUSE I WAS IN METAL BLISS. Also, unproved warriors Per Wiberg and Martin Axenrot (stand-in drummer) were more than satisfactory, with an impromptu drum solo from Martin and a keyboard-bound thrashfest from Per.
I give that concert a perfect 10.
HEY MUTHAFUCKAZ: It is 99% likely that Grimoire will play at the Amnesty International earthquake benefit at York, in early December. Don't know the exact date, but friggin' be there.
On the school front:
I'm not doing that horrible in school, but calculus is a beast. Well, not really, but it's horribly boring and I hate it. AP English is actually a beast. It's very, very hard to know how to get an A from Wetta, who suddenly turned into a psycho nazi in the past couple days. Also, we read about 81 books at a time. Maybe I would get an A if I actually read the books, but I mean seriously who even does that !??!
Philosophy is retarded. Spanish is dismal. Government is easy. Genetics is getting confusing. And even York-hi is becoming increasingly frustrating. Overall, I'm not having a fun senior year. But whatever, school isn't about fun. Junior year taught me how to deal with stupid butt ass school and dickloads of work, so I'm just gonna stick it out.
Also, college applications are not going swimmingly; i.e. I haven't really started applying. It's funny because everyone in my spanish class only talks about colleges: "Have you applied to Brown yet? Did you get accepted to U of I? I hope I can get into Stanford; I just have to write a knockout essay." Well, my essay is pretty good, but I haven't applied to anything yet, I have lackluster grades, and I haven't asked for any teacher recommendations yet. It'll get done, if I just will it away and don't think about it.
Nobody cares about how I'm doing in school.
On the friends/other stuff front:
Greg's Halloween party was super great. Janes and Dan and Helena came, and they clicked with Greg! Yay! (Dear Greg: You remind Dan of Emmet, a lot.) I wore my hula girl costume, shirtless and pantsless. I did some dirty dancing for Sarah (who needs to upload the bulge picture soon). Erik and I drew a picture to combat Cait and Greg's picture. Ours was better, because it had 1 lemon-shaped head, 2 bodies, and a chinpenis. (Dear Greg: If you still have those pictures in your house, you NEED to scan them.)
Trick or treating was pretty cool too. I wore the hula costume again, this time with underclothes. I got many comments for my costume and hair. Anneliese was disguised frighteningly well. And it was Ann's birthday and she got candy. HAPPY BIRTHDAY ANN, again!!
One of my friends (it's nobody who reads this journal; they don't have a livejournal; some people may be able to guess who it is) is growing increasingly fake/shallow, and also kind of greedy. I don't wish to explain publicly, because drama is no fun; but if you ask me privately or something I'll tell you more about it. I'm thinking that if I lost this person as a friend it wouldn't phase me that much because they're becoming less and less valuable to me as a friend.
My roots are coming in PROFUSELY. I want to dye my hair a dark color to kind of cover them up, or maybe just redye it completely; but in any case a change is in order.
I hate raking leaves.
EDIT: Oh, here is a picture of my homecoming outfit.
On the music front:
On Oct. 7, I saw The Fiery Furnaces (and Pit Er Pat) with Greg.
Pit Er Pat is pretty cool, they play a kind of quirky, low-key, lounge-indie rock with guitar, keyboard, and drums. The keyboardist lady is usually the singer and her voice is semi-atonal and pretty neat. She looked like she was about to keel over the whole time. Their ...tone is pretty unique.
Fiery Furnaces were great, as expected. None of their songs sound the same live as they do on record. They fucked with the tempos and the instruments used; sometimes even changing a major key song into a minor key and completely altering the tone. Sometimes, during long songs they would take a break, play an entire short song, and then go back to the long song. It was pretty crazy.
They played a few of the more rock-oriented songs from Blueberry Boat, and then some stuff from the new album, Rehearsing My Choir. The new stuff probably isn't geared toward rocking out live as much as it is listening and absorbing. It was pretty good but not very engaging. Then they went into the Gallowsbird's Bark songs (old ones) which are generally 2 to 3 minute, galloping bluesy rockers. Needless to say, it was fun as hell to dance to those.
The crowd was generally lameass and stationary, as hipsters too often are. But overall the show was deff worth it.
Then on Oct. 26, I saw Opeth with Nevermore and Fireball Ministry, with Sean.
I only saw the end of Fireball Ministry (like the last 1.5 songs) and they seemed kind of lame to me, but I was totally stoked for Opeth and I guess expecting them to be ass-nu-metal. They really weren't, and I guess I should listen to them. But they didn't really fit in with Nevermore and Opeth.
Nevermore was pretty good. The singer (Warrel Dane) had a ski cap on, presumably because he's balding, so he couldn't headbang very well most of the time so he just swayed side to side, which was silly as fuck. But, overall, they play solid music, they're really good at headbanging, and Jeff Loomis is pretty much an unsung metal guitar god. The guy is seriously insanely talented. I generally am not that keen to Nevermore's overall sound, but they put on a good show.
Opeth was like FUCKING OMG BEST. God damn. Their live sound is KRUSHING KHORDZ OV THE BLEAK BLAK NETHERWORLDS. Mikael is hilarious between songs: "I came up with this song while I was having... sexual... dreams... about Burt Reynolds." Among other priceless nuggets of joy.
They played some fan favorites as well as the underrated "When" and some new stuff. It all just kicked ass. I'm not going to go so deep into specifics, but the overall experience was basically the most visceral metal concert I've ever attended. (of the 3 I've attended). So yeah, I headbanged until my neck exploded. I was pretty much dehydrated, and my back was about to disintegrate, but it DIDNT MATTER BECAUSE I WAS IN METAL BLISS. Also, unproved warriors Per Wiberg and Martin Axenrot (stand-in drummer) were more than satisfactory, with an impromptu drum solo from Martin and a keyboard-bound thrashfest from Per.
I give that concert a perfect 10.
HEY MUTHAFUCKAZ: It is 99% likely that Grimoire will play at the Amnesty International earthquake benefit at York, in early December. Don't know the exact date, but friggin' be there.
On the school front:
I'm not doing that horrible in school, but calculus is a beast. Well, not really, but it's horribly boring and I hate it. AP English is actually a beast. It's very, very hard to know how to get an A from Wetta, who suddenly turned into a psycho nazi in the past couple days. Also, we read about 81 books at a time. Maybe I would get an A if I actually read the books, but I mean seriously who even does that !??!
Philosophy is retarded. Spanish is dismal. Government is easy. Genetics is getting confusing. And even York-hi is becoming increasingly frustrating. Overall, I'm not having a fun senior year. But whatever, school isn't about fun. Junior year taught me how to deal with stupid butt ass school and dickloads of work, so I'm just gonna stick it out.
Also, college applications are not going swimmingly; i.e. I haven't really started applying. It's funny because everyone in my spanish class only talks about colleges: "Have you applied to Brown yet? Did you get accepted to U of I? I hope I can get into Stanford; I just have to write a knockout essay." Well, my essay is pretty good, but I haven't applied to anything yet, I have lackluster grades, and I haven't asked for any teacher recommendations yet. It'll get done, if I just will it away and don't think about it.
Nobody cares about how I'm doing in school.
On the friends/other stuff front:
Greg's Halloween party was super great. Janes and Dan and Helena came, and they clicked with Greg! Yay! (Dear Greg: You remind Dan of Emmet, a lot.) I wore my hula girl costume, shirtless and pantsless. I did some dirty dancing for Sarah (who needs to upload the bulge picture soon). Erik and I drew a picture to combat Cait and Greg's picture. Ours was better, because it had 1 lemon-shaped head, 2 bodies, and a chinpenis. (Dear Greg: If you still have those pictures in your house, you NEED to scan them.)
Trick or treating was pretty cool too. I wore the hula costume again, this time with underclothes. I got many comments for my costume and hair. Anneliese was disguised frighteningly well. And it was Ann's birthday and she got candy. HAPPY BIRTHDAY ANN, again!!
One of my friends (it's nobody who reads this journal; they don't have a livejournal; some people may be able to guess who it is) is growing increasingly fake/shallow, and also kind of greedy. I don't wish to explain publicly, because drama is no fun; but if you ask me privately or something I'll tell you more about it. I'm thinking that if I lost this person as a friend it wouldn't phase me that much because they're becoming less and less valuable to me as a friend.
My roots are coming in PROFUSELY. I want to dye my hair a dark color to kind of cover them up, or maybe just redye it completely; but in any case a change is in order.
I hate raking leaves.
EDIT: Oh, here is a picture of my homecoming outfit.