Ok, an update from me.
It's been a while, yes. But I'm busy. And when I'm not busy, I'm lazy. And that's a bad combination for updatin' livejournals. Fortunately, LJ's not blocked at work any more. I expect it will be again eventually. It seems like they installed some new security software and had to go back and re-block everything, and this was probably not a high blocking priority.
I need to do posts about my cat and my new cookware, but those require pictures. So I'll leave those alone for now.
Still being pretty lazy about house stuff. Those cabinet doors have been sitting in the garage waiting to be painted for a couple of months now. It's just too hot for that kind of thing, even well after the sun goes down. I put up my new ceiling fan instead. It has a remote. Maybe I'll put a picture of that up on here, too.
Band stuff is always really not interesting for everyone else. So I'll do an EXTENSIVE update on all of my band ventures. You're so lucky!
The Separation - After a waste of a D-Fest show we were supposed to play at Cain's in September with other OKC-area bands (Student Film, Ghost of Monkshood, etc.) but that fell through. In the past couple of months we've been working on new songs, which is nice since the set was getting a little stale. We're going to be working with Allan Vest (Starlight Mints) on a recording - a few songs, at least. We'll see what becomes of it. Right now Dave and Allan are putting together click tracks for me to practice and record along with. As soon as they're done with them I'm going to devote all my spare time to practicing with them, because the plan is for me and Matt to go in to Bell Labs on Sunday, August 20 and record drums and bass for as many songs as we can in a 12-hour span. If I practice every day I might be able to knock them all out easily. It should be good. Practicing with a click works wonders.
Year of the Jackalope - Last night we had our first practice in two months due, in part, to James' new girlfriend and living situation and others of us going on vacation and what-not. We've got a show on August 11 at the Conservatory. It should be fun, being on a Friday. And it's with the Coke Dares which is most of Jason Molina's backing band in Magnolia Electric Co. I'd already met the drummer, Mark, when his other band, the Impossible Shapes, stayed with me after playing a show with the Separation. Other than that, there's almost nothing going on with this band. A lot of negativity, if you asked me. Richie's talking about his own band that he's getting back together, and James was threatening to move to Little Rock briefly, and Josh is moving to Portland in a year. So, there's a lot of "What's the point" feelings about it, I think. I just say, "Let's just do what we can, because it's good and we're having fun." But whatever. Last week, frustrated at the lack of practice, I recorded drum tracks for most of the songs on my own - in the band room, on my computer. They're not great, but they don't sound bad. I think they could be useful. I think we need to flesh out one of the ones I played best on and if it turns out nice I'll redo the other ones that I mostly messed up on.
Yeah! Lasers - James and Dylan are fighting over James' new girlfriend. With that complication, and all the complications from Dylan's repeatedly leaving for months at a time, Jeff and I agree that the band should just be laid to rest. Apparently Dylan disagrees, but I haven't spoken to him. Still, we're on the bill for the next Bluefish show in August. Kinda doubt that's going to happen.
Richie's new thing - Richie is basically getting Colossus back together, now that Joey's back. Stephen is not on board, though. So Richie asked me if I would record some demos with him - just get together for a couple hours on Fridays for the next few weeks and then knock it out. He doesn't know where he's going to record yet, but he's going to try to go to Carl's (the Mousetrap). Of course, this sounds like the exact same situation that roped me into becoming Yeah! Lasers' permanent drummer, but I'm not so averse to it. I do feel a little uncomfortable getting into Richie's band (again, I guess?), but they've already got a show opening for the Melvins at the Opolis, and that sounds cool.
Thing with Jeff - Since Jeff moved back from Austin I'd been wanting to start playing music with him. HIS music, I should say. It was supposed to happen twice so far, but hasn't yet. Y!L was Dylan's thing. The only really good Y!L song was the one that Jeff wrote. He's really good at writing pop, which a lot of people aren't into, but I like the pop. What he said was that he was sick of screwin' around and was just going to write a mountain of material to pick and choose only the best songs and parts of songs. I'm all about that. I think that's what you really need to do if you want to come up with something (a band) that's truly great. Most of the bands I've been in, especially my older ones, were far too content to write a song and keep playing it just because it was a song, and not constantly finding something better to replace it with. Anyway, it's supposed to be just the two of us at least for now, and I told him he had to let me try singing some. We were supposed to get together last week, but he had to go to Tulsa, and then this week, but I haven't heard from him... so who knows if it will ever REALLY happen. We'll see. He's currently busy writing a soundtrack for a friend's film.
Ok, that's it.
Sorry.
So, I've been going back and reading my old entries. No surprise - I was whiny. A lot of that stuff that I have hidden away actually doesn't matter to anybody at all anymore, so I might go back and release most of it. I don't think I can release all of it, though. There's some things that you just don't wanna know.
I need to do posts about my cat and my new cookware, but those require pictures. So I'll leave those alone for now.
Still being pretty lazy about house stuff. Those cabinet doors have been sitting in the garage waiting to be painted for a couple of months now. It's just too hot for that kind of thing, even well after the sun goes down. I put up my new ceiling fan instead. It has a remote. Maybe I'll put a picture of that up on here, too.
Band stuff is always really not interesting for everyone else. So I'll do an EXTENSIVE update on all of my band ventures. You're so lucky!
The Separation - After a waste of a D-Fest show we were supposed to play at Cain's in September with other OKC-area bands (Student Film, Ghost of Monkshood, etc.) but that fell through. In the past couple of months we've been working on new songs, which is nice since the set was getting a little stale. We're going to be working with Allan Vest (Starlight Mints) on a recording - a few songs, at least. We'll see what becomes of it. Right now Dave and Allan are putting together click tracks for me to practice and record along with. As soon as they're done with them I'm going to devote all my spare time to practicing with them, because the plan is for me and Matt to go in to Bell Labs on Sunday, August 20 and record drums and bass for as many songs as we can in a 12-hour span. If I practice every day I might be able to knock them all out easily. It should be good. Practicing with a click works wonders.
Year of the Jackalope - Last night we had our first practice in two months due, in part, to James' new girlfriend and living situation and others of us going on vacation and what-not. We've got a show on August 11 at the Conservatory. It should be fun, being on a Friday. And it's with the Coke Dares which is most of Jason Molina's backing band in Magnolia Electric Co. I'd already met the drummer, Mark, when his other band, the Impossible Shapes, stayed with me after playing a show with the Separation. Other than that, there's almost nothing going on with this band. A lot of negativity, if you asked me. Richie's talking about his own band that he's getting back together, and James was threatening to move to Little Rock briefly, and Josh is moving to Portland in a year. So, there's a lot of "What's the point" feelings about it, I think. I just say, "Let's just do what we can, because it's good and we're having fun." But whatever. Last week, frustrated at the lack of practice, I recorded drum tracks for most of the songs on my own - in the band room, on my computer. They're not great, but they don't sound bad. I think they could be useful. I think we need to flesh out one of the ones I played best on and if it turns out nice I'll redo the other ones that I mostly messed up on.
Yeah! Lasers - James and Dylan are fighting over James' new girlfriend. With that complication, and all the complications from Dylan's repeatedly leaving for months at a time, Jeff and I agree that the band should just be laid to rest. Apparently Dylan disagrees, but I haven't spoken to him. Still, we're on the bill for the next Bluefish show in August. Kinda doubt that's going to happen.
Richie's new thing - Richie is basically getting Colossus back together, now that Joey's back. Stephen is not on board, though. So Richie asked me if I would record some demos with him - just get together for a couple hours on Fridays for the next few weeks and then knock it out. He doesn't know where he's going to record yet, but he's going to try to go to Carl's (the Mousetrap). Of course, this sounds like the exact same situation that roped me into becoming Yeah! Lasers' permanent drummer, but I'm not so averse to it. I do feel a little uncomfortable getting into Richie's band (again, I guess?), but they've already got a show opening for the Melvins at the Opolis, and that sounds cool.
Thing with Jeff - Since Jeff moved back from Austin I'd been wanting to start playing music with him. HIS music, I should say. It was supposed to happen twice so far, but hasn't yet. Y!L was Dylan's thing. The only really good Y!L song was the one that Jeff wrote. He's really good at writing pop, which a lot of people aren't into, but I like the pop. What he said was that he was sick of screwin' around and was just going to write a mountain of material to pick and choose only the best songs and parts of songs. I'm all about that. I think that's what you really need to do if you want to come up with something (a band) that's truly great. Most of the bands I've been in, especially my older ones, were far too content to write a song and keep playing it just because it was a song, and not constantly finding something better to replace it with. Anyway, it's supposed to be just the two of us at least for now, and I told him he had to let me try singing some. We were supposed to get together last week, but he had to go to Tulsa, and then this week, but I haven't heard from him... so who knows if it will ever REALLY happen. We'll see. He's currently busy writing a soundtrack for a friend's film.
Ok, that's it.
Sorry.
So, I've been going back and reading my old entries. No surprise - I was whiny. A lot of that stuff that I have hidden away actually doesn't matter to anybody at all anymore, so I might go back and release most of it. I don't think I can release all of it, though. There's some things that you just don't wanna know.