A friend of mine whom I grew up with in church recently posted on Facebook about an old videotape we were made to watch repeatedly in Youth Group entitled Hell's Bells. In the 1980's, the events now snidely referred to as "The Satanic Panic" formed their own bizzare, through-the-looking-glass alternate world among churchgoing America and Hell's ( Read more... )

September is here, and to welcome it I enlist the aid of SJ Tucker and two songs off of her excellent Wonders album. To be fair, these songs are actually about a fictional character whose name is September, but I think they capture the enchantment and potential of the beginning of autumn very, very well.

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This has been a very trying week for both of us. So many things went wrong. Angie has been recovering from an illness that sent her to the ER, then her car lost its muffler strap. On Monday the apartment gave us notice that they would be fumigating the apartment on Wednesday and we had to take everything out of our cabinets and keep the pets out of ( Read more... )

This weekend has been very busy for me, but I still manage to feel like I haven't done as much as I'd like. Come to think of it, this entire week has been pretty chaotic.

We had a bad thunderstorm Sunday night into Monday morning that fried out my surge protectors. All my electronics were spared except for my trusty old warhorse of a desktop ( Read more... )

I just spent twenty minutes typing a huge entry about how awesome my 4th of July weekend was. It got fucking eaten. There are disadvantages, it seems to this more intimate form of blogging. Well I will try again, shorter this time, I guess ( Read more... )

As unsatisfying as the concert at the Riot Room the night before was, it left me utterly unprepared for the sheer grandeur of the show I experienced the next night at Starlight Ampitheatre.

Starlight is a big outdoor theatre located next to the Kansas City Zoo. I've never really paid attention to it before, but it's got a huge stage that looks like ( Read more... )

I have purchased several guitars in my lifetime and the vast majority of them have been bought via Ebay. I won't lie, I love shopping for music gear on Ebay. It's a thrill ride. If you've never compulsively Ebay shopped, you won't understand. Even when I am not actively looking to buy, I still enjoy just going and looking at the listings because I ( Read more... )

I've gone over a month without updating again. Sigh. I wanted to do a review of the concerts I went to during my vacation, but somehow I just can't make myself care about writing them up. I experienced them and they were amazing. That was enough for me. I will say that while Hate Eternal and Fear Factory were both exquisite missionaries of metal ( Read more... )

It's hard to feel motivated to stop and update your blog when you've got a lot going on, just like it's hard to feel motivated to update it when you've got nothing going on. Catch 22. But I finally have a day off where I don't have to be anywhere, (except play rehearsal tonight,) so I thought I'd make a go of it ( Read more... )