Road to a thinner road...
Happy 2009. Goodbye two thousand nate. This break has been exciting. The bowery poetry club was a lot of fun, I hope that everyone we provoke into coming to see us and spending their time and money gets some satisfaction out of our shows. I want everyone to have fun and enjoy themselves and not ever feel ripped off in any way. Exemption's been doing shows for six years now and so many of the people who came to see us on Tuesday have been seeing us since the beginning and that's just crazy and awesome. I feel priveliged to have friends that supportive of us. Even people who I am not personally close with I feel like I owe them a hug and a kiss when they come out because they legitamize what we spend so much time on. Even when we're not recording or playing a lot of shows every month, it's still the first thing on our mind's the majority of the time. It becomes draining when all you want to do is play your instrument and write new songs and get better as a band but you also don't wanna start falling behind, not playing enough shows to keep people interested, ignoring this whole web based music pissing contest. It's so shallow, it's so fake, the only way your band is getting anywhere quick is if you suck every dick the industry offers. Look like this, sound like this, act like this, write about this, record here with this guy, pay to play, make the font on your myspace a little bigger, tell your drummer to wear tighter jeans, black-rimmed glasses, more flannel, electronic dance beats, 3rd generation fall out boys, okay your signed. Don't worry about art, don't worry about emotion, don't worry about a community or values, just get down on your knees and make me money while I exploit you until Wal-Mart ain't selling your shit no mo'.
Go
Fuck
Yaself.
This quickly turned into a rant of sorts. I think Exemption is currently writing music that makes almost everything else we have written thus far sound sophomoric and dated. I still love playing a lot of them and I love playing them for people who really dig them but I can't wait until we have a set that is just new shit, I'm proud of what we've done but I do believe that we are finding a sound that will (hopefully) turn people on their heads. I shouldn't get so ahead of myself, we'll see, but I feel good about the band in a way that I haven't in awhile. It's completely a part of who I am and I let it tear me down too much with just worrying about it incessantly. I gotta make some money, I gotta get through school, and we gotta really write good songs and figure out our attack. If Exemption isn't touring the country by the time I'm 21 then that really is not the end of the fucking world, if we want to do it with our own music and not sell out then it's gonna take time and I have to just accept it and just keep at it for as long as it takes.
The more Alli, Bill, and Caroline talk about an apartment in Brooklyn, the more I just stress about money. I think I can do it, if I really just don't fuck around and I save my money until the fall then I probably could as long as I get a job near the place. I really want to though, I don't wanna spend all four years of school at home, and if I graduate in two years and I'm still making money then I'm exactly where I wanna be already for whatever's next and with good friends also. I've been doing really well in school, granted I'm going to Nassau and I haven't taken it as seriously as most of my friends but whateva nigga i got a 3.6 I'll get a degree in FLAVOR COMBINATIONS and taste yo food before you!
FUCK. I always write about band and school in this. I sit down on my bed and I want to write about everything but those two things but that's all that comes out. I don't know though, I wrote an entry about wanting to stop smoking because I was stressed out and I didn't. I don't feel stressed out anymore, but I didn't stop smoking el pot because I'm 19 I don't work for the government and it's good times. Vices. But don't talk to me about who I am and what I do because of something that I wrote on Livejournal. Because of LJ and Facebook everybody involves themselves so much more in everyone else's life. It's entertaining but it's also frightening and unsafe. I write in this thing because it is nice to express yourself and vent in a somewhat public forum, but that doesn't mean that it isn't a passive voice. Everyone has the oppurtunity to rub dirt in other's faces but they don't need to because they all seek it out for themselves. It's a big masochistic highschool cannibalooza! I'm not being high and mighty either, I have one I use it. Facebook is the drug of the insecure generation and we're all stuck in it waist-deep. Your whole life is on a website. Is that really a good thing in the end?
I say live your own life, let the people come and go as they please, keep yourself happy, love who loves you, happy 2009.
Nick J. Lee
Go
Fuck
Yaself.
This quickly turned into a rant of sorts. I think Exemption is currently writing music that makes almost everything else we have written thus far sound sophomoric and dated. I still love playing a lot of them and I love playing them for people who really dig them but I can't wait until we have a set that is just new shit, I'm proud of what we've done but I do believe that we are finding a sound that will (hopefully) turn people on their heads. I shouldn't get so ahead of myself, we'll see, but I feel good about the band in a way that I haven't in awhile. It's completely a part of who I am and I let it tear me down too much with just worrying about it incessantly. I gotta make some money, I gotta get through school, and we gotta really write good songs and figure out our attack. If Exemption isn't touring the country by the time I'm 21 then that really is not the end of the fucking world, if we want to do it with our own music and not sell out then it's gonna take time and I have to just accept it and just keep at it for as long as it takes.
The more Alli, Bill, and Caroline talk about an apartment in Brooklyn, the more I just stress about money. I think I can do it, if I really just don't fuck around and I save my money until the fall then I probably could as long as I get a job near the place. I really want to though, I don't wanna spend all four years of school at home, and if I graduate in two years and I'm still making money then I'm exactly where I wanna be already for whatever's next and with good friends also. I've been doing really well in school, granted I'm going to Nassau and I haven't taken it as seriously as most of my friends but whateva nigga i got a 3.6 I'll get a degree in FLAVOR COMBINATIONS and taste yo food before you!
FUCK. I always write about band and school in this. I sit down on my bed and I want to write about everything but those two things but that's all that comes out. I don't know though, I wrote an entry about wanting to stop smoking because I was stressed out and I didn't. I don't feel stressed out anymore, but I didn't stop smoking el pot because I'm 19 I don't work for the government and it's good times. Vices. But don't talk to me about who I am and what I do because of something that I wrote on Livejournal. Because of LJ and Facebook everybody involves themselves so much more in everyone else's life. It's entertaining but it's also frightening and unsafe. I write in this thing because it is nice to express yourself and vent in a somewhat public forum, but that doesn't mean that it isn't a passive voice. Everyone has the oppurtunity to rub dirt in other's faces but they don't need to because they all seek it out for themselves. It's a big masochistic highschool cannibalooza! I'm not being high and mighty either, I have one I use it. Facebook is the drug of the insecure generation and we're all stuck in it waist-deep. Your whole life is on a website. Is that really a good thing in the end?
I say live your own life, let the people come and go as they please, keep yourself happy, love who loves you, happy 2009.
Nick J. Lee