Slacking?

Not quite...

Been biking a bunch with my bicycle. Though, I did get run off the road this evening. Still, I am enjoying the biking, just not the pain and soreness in my knees.

Will be updating more this week and getting a bit caught up...

Another crazy weekend in the books

It was another busy weekend for the Gholas camp. On Friday, we produced another mix of the record that all of us seem pretty happy with at this point... fingers crossed...then it will be off to mastering.

Saturday we played a fun show with Mose Giganticus, Hulk Smash, and Grass. It seemed like everyone enjoyed themselves, which is great. We are lining up a ton of great shows this summer, and all of us are starting to get excited with all the places and bands that we will hopefully get to play with then.

Habits and Dying Hard

Old habits are hard to break... (finger) nail biting when driving long car rides, nervous twitching when extremely bored, cracking your neck when it feels stiff even though you swore you wouldn't do it anymore... these are all examples and terrible habits that I have. Typing this with worn down nails (from a recent trip to visit my parents with my dog Holly) is a semi painful experience.

It was nice visiting my parents; Holly got along well with everyone in the house (which was a huge relief for me and the wife). I helped my dad fix his leaky sink. Relaxed a bit. Saw my friend Nathan whom I had not seen in a while. I borrowed a bunch of movies from my brother (YES, Ponyo)

The wife is tattooing our friend Kyle right now. Her first portrait of whom I believe is his grandmother if I am not mistaken. It is coming out rather well.

Tonight the Yankees have opening day...BASEBALL IS HERE

Updates

Here are some updates:

1. That Michael Gira record is sold out (you snooze you lose I guess)

2. Cars blow

3. Shady Mechanics blow

4. Into my third week of this Grad class, and I cannot wait to be done.

5. listening to a ton of Swans lately, but a bit of Nadja and Lotus Eaters as well

6. The wife's tattoo shop is picking up; I believe we are heading to the Detroit tattoo convention at the end of Feburary.

7. Gholas is recording this weekend. I will be attempting to document this process here.

Slacking

OK, I had every intention of getting more content on this, maybe I will in the future.

But until then, I hope to finish the year with a flurry of activity.

Checking In Again

Very busy again lately...

Life moves really damn fast sometimes, and no, I am not one of those that thinks time is speeding up as I get older. I hate time and try to avoid using it as much as possible but have to pay attention because of activities like work. Some day, time will mean nothing to me.

On a more grounded note, the Richmond Tattoo convention was a big success for Jenn. She was busy all of Saturday and got to do some more work the Friday night. Sunday was a wash for most of the artists it looked like. I must admit that I nerded out when I saw Civ there.

I've been listening to a lot of Lotus Eaters (the vinyl release of their Mind Control For Infants is exquisite), Coalesce (OXEP rules), Cave In, Jesu, and Nadja with smatterings of Bane and Cult of Luna thrown in for good measure.

The progress on the Gholas LP is moving forward. We have settled on Drew from Circle Takes The Square to handle the artwork for it. Recording still looks good for the end of January. We get to try out a couple of the songs live this coming Saturday.

It's been a while

Well, it certainly has been a while (no, I am not going into the particulars here), suffice to say that the absence of content has not been entirely because of my laziness…entirely. It has been a busy and good several weeks though since any updates hit here; so we’ll try not to get into a long expose but hit on some brief lives.

A couple weeks back, I got better acquainted with someone at my wife’s aunt’s birthday get together, and it turned out that he was a DJ at WLFR (the old radio station that allowed me to spin some records on the airwaves). Well, this meeting gave rise to a semi lengthy discussion on the love of vinyl records, hosting a radio on WLFR, and some of the going’s on concerning the station. Lots of reminiscing and such went on through the conversations, as well as talking about everything going on with the station now. Low and behold the station’s 25^th anniversary was coming up shortly, and the station managers were throwing a bit of a celebration in its honor; so, I was invited and decided to go.

Gholas is just about through writing our first full length, and we are shooting for a late January of 2010 recording session. On a personal level, I am very excited about the songs and hope they come out as we envision them. I am also hoping to record a Fissures album before the end of this year.

I did get to see Rorschach on their reunion tour, which was awesome. They were super tight and played a large amount of material. It definitely brought on a great deal of woolgathering and nostalgia.

Jenn’s tattooing is moving along, and she is getting better and better. We have the Richmond tattoo convention coming up in November that we are both looking forward to attending.

Long time...

So just as I was getting in the writing mood, Grad School kicked in immediately thereafter; it kind of snuck up on me really. I did get quite a bit of writing done for Scene Point Blank right before it started, which is good because this class is crushing me under the weight of all the "written" work that is due (mostly because I am not in the mode for school work, even now two weeks down into in the class). Ah well, I am not completely insane yet and there is less than four weeks to go.

Thankfully, I have been finding a huge amount of new music and rediscovered some older records that I guess that I just never gave its just due. Some of the newer records (some chronologically new some not so much) that are easing through the headphones right now include: Donnacha Costello's Together Is the New Alone, Clint Mansell's Moon soundtrack (the movie is awesome and well worth seeing), and a bunch of House of Low Culture rarities (I am still trying to figure out what everything is). Some of the rediscovering going on includes last years collaboration between Black Boned Angel and Nadja called Christ Send Light as well as some of Aidan Bakers solo material (Green and Cold specifically).

I am still anxiously awaiting the GREYMACHINE full length as well as the new records coming soon from Jesu and the Nadja Under a Jaguar Sun album.

I am hoping to finish up my mid year music write ups that I promised last within the next couple of days, but we'll see what Grad School says...

Changes

The wife and I now have a new addition to our little family. We adopted a dog (a mutt) and are bringing her home later today. This is exciting for me. I hope she likes playing catch. We are calling her Luna. Hopefully, I will have pictures up here soon.

2009...so far...maybe.

This is surely shaping up to be one hell of a whirlwind year in the music department; maybe I am getting old (maybe I am just busier than normal), but I feel like it is getting hard to keep up with all of the records this year. My review writing is behind (I do have a bunch in backlog that are starting to be completed), and acquiring everything that is dropping.

Curse you Nadja (Aidan and Leah, I am looking at you)!

Curse you Hydra Head records (Chel, your list is breaking me)!

So far, it has been an excellent year for music, well, what I listen to anyway. Quite a few of the records which I was looking forward to have come out: the new Isis (pretty damn good), the Narrows album (pretty good as well), the Supermachiner discography, and the new Tombs album. Ones that I was not expecting but are awesome include several Nadja albums and splits and the last record from Khanate (just wasn't expecting a new one). 

In the next several weeks there is the new Coalesce album, the GREYMACHINE ep and album, several more Nadja records, and maybe the new Integrity...maybe. Good year so far...good year.

Damn, I am getting up there

...today is my birthday. I feel younger now than I have in years while at the same time feeling ten times my age in my bones.

Still here though...

Still making a racket.

Will some things never change?

haha

Yes, that Serious...

Busy, Busy, Busy

Full swing with lots of happenings and little time to actually think. Maybe this is solely a perception that I have right now, but it is a strong impression that is pretty pervasive in how my time is occupied. Somehow, my time management skills are working pretty well right now and almost in a habitual way, which is actually scary. Ah well, I guess that is something I have to resign myself to being able to do.

Only a month left for this term of graduate school and I have to say it will not be a moment too soon. Right now, I am falling behind in house work, both inside and soon to be outside as the weather is warming up around here.

Nadja is my latest musical obsession, and good thing that the duo has a full slate of a bagillion releases coming out soon. Their split, Primitive North, with A Storm of Light is awesome, and I can't wait to get the records in my hand. If interested, check out Robotic Empire and their webstore to purchase.