I said....

My eyes are DOWN HERE!

Anywho, weeks in the middle of San Cristobal feel like months...I can't really remember a time when I was not here. When my days weren't filled with tofu, tortillas, americanos (not many places here serve "coffee"..), hours of internet cafes and everywhere, everywhere, everywhere, the hideous pariah that a friend of a friend geniusly termed:"trustafarians." (For the uninitiated, many of us purport all downwardly mobile romantics to have a twin sibling named "Trust-Fund," and usually we are right......The ACTUALLY poor find this to be incredibly endearing, and long for the days when they are so privileged that they can CHOOSE to never shower, wallow around in shit-stained clothes, and eat from garbage cans..............)

Nothing much new here, except going to a real, honest to god, terrifying(!), shopping mall to get swim trunks...Oh and maybe eating at a restaurant that had a real live (and quite haggard) chicken wandering around talking to itself:



Today we did manage to break the monotony up by going to the market to get many a very fresh vegetable (and then trap me in a terrifying warehouse of all manner of dead, rotting, and completely NOT SAFE FOR CONSUMPTION fish. Bags of fish, tables of fish, stacks and stacks of fish.....I nearly ralphed...Until we got to the exposed innards of other animals sitting around on tables in an un-ventilated warehouse part of the trip.....Peta should maybe invest in sending people here to quell their meat habits instead of constantly competing with American Apparel for the title of,"Worlds Biggest Child Molester".....), and then scurried over to our friend Kristin's house to make a big ole pot of soup while we listened to podcasts of Fair Game and UFOnaut Radio (yessssss!!)

I suppose I have been drawing again, which makes me happy:





Kadd and I were trying to push our flight back so we could leave Mexico a little earlier, and stay in San Francisco a little longer, but this was simply not economically feasible..........So, here I sit, in an internet cafe, surrounded by hippies and a language I can still barely speak......welllllll....maybe I'll draw for a bit.....

Lost in Tr.....*oh fuck that*....

Sometimes, when like me, you are a super pinche gringo, sometimes you try to do things and it just doesn't work out the way you wanted to. I was in a cafe and I was just like staring at the wall thinking about everything
But then again I was thinking about nothing
And then the server came over and I didn't even know she was there she called my name
And I didn't even hear it, and then she started going: hello!
And I go:
What, what's the matter
And she goes:
Can I get something for you?
I go:
Nothing please
And she goes:
Don't tell me nothing, you're on drugs!
And I go:
No I'm not on drugs I'm okay, I was just thinking you know, why don't you get me a bottle of water.
And she goes:
NO you're on drugs!
I go:
No I'm okay, I'm just thinking about getting a bottle of water.
She goes:
No you're not thinking, you're on drugs! Normal people don't act that way!
I go:
Mam just give me a bottle of water please
All I want is a bottle of water, and she wouldn't give it to me
All I wanted was a bottle of water, just one water, and she wouldn't give it to me.
Just a water.




And apparently, somehow I'd ordered a mate.....Now I'm really not sure how in our conversation the confusion over what I had said had turned into,"yes, okay mate," but I damn sure wasn't going to argue with that. Sure beats the fields of coffee I've been drinking......

Though I've been fighting with insane insomnia here for the past week, today was pretty good. After spending a dreary half day in said same interwebz cafe, I up and went for a walk....I went all around the main part of San Cristobal. I went by the store that houses the collective of indigenous people who make their own very hip paper, pads, posters, books, etc, out of fairly renewable resources and picked up a few neat things. Then I strolled around until I found a place to grab a new pen (a nice double ended sharpie to be exact)...

Let me deviate for a moment here. Purchasing things in Mexican stores can be very confusing, especially if you are not well versed in the language. First you find someone to help you, and you tell them what you want. Then they take said item, and write you a ticket. Then you take that ticket to a tinted (god knows, bulletproof) enclosed booth where a phantom hand takes the ticket, and tells you how much you owe. THEN you take that ticket, and give it to a person in a similar, non-tinted booth, where they finally give you your item......You know, in the US, we just carry guns to deal with shrinkage.......

Anywho, once you get used to that, throwing your soiled toilet paper in the trash instead of the bowl is a cake walk......So then I went to Tierrardentro to grab another AMAZING soy burger (probably soy from a cow in reality.........) some fries, and maybe a little drawing.......in my fancy new handmade and drawing book.......And then, after a great Americano (I know, but here they are quite potent...It's more like
ordering you espresso "biggie size"), I hit the stones to join Kadd at Kinoki. After trotting this out, and finishing my mate, all the while listening to my favorite episode of the "Monday Night 80's" podcast (the Halloween episode, like *DUH*) I think I'll head into the little theatre to catch David Lynch's last film........."And finally I'll sleep-I'll sleep through the niiiiight!!"

The next time I come to Mexico I need a job and fluency

So.........now that I have this free time in Mexico, what have I been doing?.......Well, apparently spending alot of time on the interwebs.........

Today for example, I spent HOURS downloading killer music from download blogs that specialize in obscure, underground, and out of print music. Alot of these people meticulously research, rip (mostly from vinyl!), and upload alot of cherished music from their personal collections.

The reason that I am posting about this here instead of Auralsuppository is that John and I have an agreement to only talk about records we have actually purchased, which I totally agree with. However, most of these records are out of print (and Manowar does not need my money).

So, after sorting out two records that I already had on my computron, but not had labeled (an out of print live Iron Lung record, and the unofficial Fear of God discography (holyshitamazing!!1111)) here is what I spend my hard earned time in another country down loading:

Cruel Atake-Demo
D.O.N.D.O.N.-Skulls EP
Final Count-Flexi EP
Impaled Nazarene - Soumi Finnland Perkele
Korihor/Abigainl- Alkoholik Metal Blasphemers
Manowar-Gods of War ('07-The most Ridiculous yet. Like an Asatru children's record)
Nifelheim - Envoy of Lucifer (soooooogoooooooood)
Surrender of Divinity-Oriental Hell Rhythmics (Thai Black Metal1111)
VA Consolidation 7"-Rhetoric/Revulsion/Deviated Instinct
Gouka-Answer in One's Self
Gibbed-Demo (?) (Maybe members of Unholy Grave......)

And then I devolved into watching 3 Inches of Blood videos (Hey whatever, did you see the Manowar record?......)

Who knows, maybe if I stay in Mexico long enough I'll be the world's most well versed music nerd..................I'll get mad dates then................................

Not much new...

Just some photos:





Becoming a bit restless, but that's more of an existential conundrum................

The best laid plans of mice and men

Sometimes change a fucking lot:


So, here I sit, in an internet cafe, in my mind, miles away from the school in Oventic. Kadd and I, unable to overcome the "6th grade lunchroom" dynamic of the other students, and running low on funds, among other things, have departed early to advance our trip to the next leg.

The people that live in the Caracole were great, and many of the experiences will be forever important to my life, but for now, we got all we could from the most important period of our vacation.

It should be noted however, that we were all able to bond during a brief period a few nights ago.

Let me back up abit, and talk about last Thursday. April 10th is a huge holiday for the Zapatistas, what with it being the day Emiliano Zapata was assassinated and all. There were no classes that day, however there were rehearsals for a theatre piece we had split into three groups to write, direct, and perform in the cultural part of the celebrations. We worked on this off and on between eating copious amounts of wonderfully gross, state-fair style food, and watching the never-ending basketball tournament (holy shit do Zapatistas LOVE basketball. Like up at five AM on the courts love..). Beyond the food, and b-ball, there was music, and dancing, and a loooooooooooooooooooooooooooong speech read by the buengobierno (in Castillano, and then in Tzotzil. Which seemed as though, as Kadd put it, the guy read out a list of every word in the language..) Performing in front of all those people was great. Although it was funny when I said "Todos", referring to the people, and they THOUGHT I said "Torros," not so much referring to the people......Hey, you try yelling clearly and concisely in another language while wearing a pasamantana......

They might speak in a low, slow, monotone while giving speeches, but I'll be damned if the Zapatistas don't throw down when it's time to party. As the band struck up, the kids hit the floor like they were storming a military base. And I mean tight too. What in the EE.UU. we would call,"all up in my personal space." And with a tempo fast enough, and relentless enough to break through the space time continuum, we got it on for about two hours non-stop. I do believe these people could out last any well experienced DJ night hipster, oh, about five times over. I smiled long and large enough to broadcast my missing teeth in to space.

Well you know me. The band said good night, everyone scattered, and we all went back to the dorm. This would not be enough for Captain Junior Party Monster. About ten minutes into hearing some other EE.UU. peeps play the SAME GODDAMMNED SONGS THEY PLAY ON THE SAME DAMNED GUITAR, EVERY DAMNED NIGHT!!!1111, I got out my laptop and started the dj dance party. Soon friend and foe alike were shaking their asses like the olive branch never dropped. The entire experience was climaxed by a huge teach along of, believe it or not, the Soja Boy. Yes, it's true, for world peace to really occur, all that needs to happen is for the people of all countries to come together and,"super soak that ho." A more bizarre sight was never seen.

Which brings me back to the present. After taking a cab back into San Cris, checking into a hostel, getting a fantastic night's sleep, showering and shaving, we are now ready to take this city by storm (what an un-original idea....).

After a great breakfast, I suddenly felt a huge weight lifted off of my shoulders. I feel excited to be here again. I am so lucky, so fortunate, not only to be here, but after being here for a while, to have the privilege to be able to travel here and experience this place. A privilege not afforded to many people here.

I'm excited to be here for a while, excited to go to Oaxaca, to DF, and just plain, dammned excited.

For today at least, I am happy.....

PS

Joshua, who is here with me, has been posting a much more positive version of our experience here

And he is also making weekly videos of our time here; which he has told me I can totally rip off to post here (One of these is abit NSFW, and to my parents who will surely see these, I am heartfully sorry in advance....Just close your ears and pretend it isn't happening. You know, pretend you are catholic....):


Denman's Boo Boo from Joshua Stephens on Vimeo.


Chiapas Week One from Joshua Stephens on Vimeo.

Maybe my blog will be more chipper next week....(Start holding your breath now....)

Trying to find that place that I am already at...

So I made it to Mexico, and here I am, in a cafe with internet that flickers like an old lightbulb. And I can't help but feel abit like that constant flux myself.

I'm not sure what I expected this trip to be like, and I can't say that I know anymore now than before I left.

Let's back up a little. I do feel very lucky to be here, and I definitely think it is very important to listen to and learn from the Zapatistas. Even if people don't necessarily agree with them, everyone should at least learn about their struggle to overcome their place as a societally steamrolled indigenous peoples facing a certain type of genocide (as they have for generations), to a people who have risen up to make their voices be heard for their own dignity, liberty, and justice, and by doing so, create a new type of community devoted to the acquisition of these fundamental rights, for all people.

I must admit there is nothing more vicerally moving than watching footage of a group of girls, all around the age of fourteen, tear through a barbedwire fence, and screaming and swearing at the top of their lungs, attack a heavily armed group of soldiers, with only their voices and their bare hands. The disconnect between this and the average act of the short minded US activist is that this is a direct action to merely attain survival. There is nothing symbolic, romantic, or cavalier about this. The Zapatistas rose up because they were simply tired of dying, and dying in total silence. Therefore, this is a totally justified act with a direct effect on these peoples' lives.

It has been painfully difficult to get the information that the people running the school have been constantly trying to inundate me with, because it is all in Castellano ("Spanish" in the colonial). Now it's true that the reason I came here was to learn this language, and there is plenty of hand holding in certain classes, but when the Zapatistas really try to drive home their experiences and struggles, and then use their answers to challenge you to recreate your own world, it is completely in a language I am still painfully rudimentary in understanding.

Normally it would be up to others whose Castellano is in a much more stable place to translate this tantamount aspect of our being here, however, often there seems to be much resentment about having to carry the weight of the "slow" members of the group. Which is where my only conflict in being here comes into play.

Now I can't really say that the promontories and I know each other well enough to get along, since at the moment we have no shared language. But they have all been nothing but nice, and patient, and generally pleased that I have come to learn from them. No, my problems come from the typical place: gringos. I have never felt so pre-judged and constantly persecuted by such a hyper-"radical"-political group of people in my life. And because of this two things have happened: One is that by day two I had a serious depression trigger that I am still feeling the wounds from, and two is that since I feel so marginalized in the group, I don't feel like I have the right to be participating. For someone like me who runs the spectrum from "Doesn't get along with many people" to "Fucking hates everyone," it's very difficult to over come this jagged wall of Jersey Barriers in order to listen to the people I truly do want to interact with. This is something I hope to remedy next week, as it will be an impossibly long, and heavily hearted, fruitless month here without this personal reconciliation.

Being in San Cristobal for the weekend has made me realize how murky and unreadable my feelings about this trip are so far. The good news is that this gives me sometime to get a hold on things before, in typical style, my depression takes over. The bad news is that there is that slim chance that the horrifically later will win out. Of course, losing my ipod, which is a constant source of maintaining my frail sanity, will be a serious blow that I don't know how I will deal with yet (and yes, this means I lost my ipod here, week one.)

I can't really embrace some black metal, luciferian dogma here, and become an isolated stoic with a potential will to power. I am just going to have to figure out how to suck it up, and move on.

Once again, my mind works in such bizarre ways. One would think that being in a place where the toilets have no seats, there is only one place to get drinkable water due to amoebas, only being able to shower, wash clothes, and shave once a week, and die in the heat of the day, only to freeze in the cold of the night, would bother me. But these things really haven't (yet). I just take this part and parcel as part of the experience. No, it's my necessary interactions with spiteful people who come from the the same place I do, that are trying to tear this experience from the seams for me, who shatter my stability.

I suppose I thought I would be able to use this escape from my environment to help me reflect on finding the path where answers may lay, to a time in my life when I am beyond lost, confused, and frustrated by where my existence is at. Of course there is such a child-like naivite in that type of logic. I have neither left reality on this trip no more than I have put my personality on hold. Which is another reason that I feel my sentiment is too in flux right now to get even the simplest hold of.

Well, well, well...While I try to piece things together, here are some photos that chronicle only the positive aspects of my trip thus far:












So, yeah, these are the people I am staying with, and learning from.......

blogging from my phone...

Fuck you guys; I'm going to Mexico.

What have I-What have I-What have I done to deserve this....

Even as I write this, I am in, I assure you, excruciating pain. Leaving off all the other problems in my life at this moment, let's just focus on the one that is the super funnest:

My 6mm kidney stone

So I'm technically what one would call "straight-edge." I still use the term, but don't follow all of the rigidity of the dogma. I don't drink, smoke, or do drugs. I do drink coffee, so I guess I'm out as a hardliner (poor me, no pro-life homophobic boneheaded-ness). I have huge problems with taking prescribed drugs, however when dealing with a condition that Wikipedia explains as:

"Colicky pain: "loin to groin". Often described as the "the worst pain I've ever experienced"

One quickly finds a balance between the need to stay sober and pure, and the need to sleep and eat and have horrifically gutwrenching pain subdued.

I held out as long as I could, but after four miserable days, I finally checked myself into the ER on Saturday. I waited four two hours before I politely told the receptionist that I could no longer take the pain. Soon I was lying on a bed being whisked into an ER room. A doctor ran down a list of questions, and then a nurse sprinted in and hooked me up to an IV. I believe I was saying,"Um.....", as she said,"This is morphine; it will kill the pain." And as much as I detest the idea of something like that ever going in to my body (I didn't sleep for two days after I had a resection operation five years ago, and they gave me a button to push for morphine. I had to be long-windedly talked into it), I was soon at a calm I had not felt in four days. That night I actually slept, and I was really hoping to do the same thing tonight.

Before I left the ER they gave me two percocet to get me through the night, and a prescription for vikodin. The morphine finally wore off midday today, and so I quickly took a percocet once the stabbing began. Well, really I took half a percocet, as I still feel uncomfortable about all of this. Within a few hours I soon realized that this was not going to do it, and so I took the other half. A few hours into this a realized that all this had done was make me loopy, and not affect the pain.

As soon as I got home I popped a vikodin. Ahhhh, but really I popped a generic vikodin, as I could not afford the "real thing." I slid right into bed, finally happy for this misery to be over......or so I thought. An hour and a half into it, and I might as well have taken a Flintstones vitamin. I checked the bottle, and it said to take "one or two for every six hour period." After a brief debate, I decided to opt for round two. So now, here I sit, waiting for any of this terrible, degenerate, over-priced medicine to actually do anything, and I fear that wait could be all night.

I understand the process of passing a kidney stone, and I'd much rather pass it on my own without any procedure, however one cannot function under this sort of pain. As a normal, non-privileged amerikkkan, I do not have the luxury of talking to a doctor about proper medication, and then a long day of rest. I have to get up, and go to work. Which is not really something I will be able to do with no sleep.....due to unbearable pain, which magical phaeries will surely not have removed in this time period...........

When does this become worth it?

Curious how all this feels? Just watch this Discordance Axis video; it will explain:

Hooray for life

Life is that moment between death and birth where we get to experience pain......

And then some days........

Well, though I have a few more post to edit and homogenize, I have nearly moved all of my musical content over to Aural Suppository. Why all of it you ask? Well, the reason that I started doing the minterviews was because artists I talked about in this blog started finding and reading through google, and while that's great, I want to create a proper platform for that outside of this more personal blog.

And on that note.......Today was the odd kind of day where you can go from Suicide, to New Order,(and I mean Get Ready, yeah, the "car commercial" album....). Maybe therapy is making my mood and emotions yo-yo, but I think it's moving in an "I-think-I-can" positive direction.

So, this morning I woke up in a distant, depressive mood, and plodded through my day with a typical melancholy. I got home, once again, totally exhausted; I have still not recovered from NCOR. I had no time to rest however, since Dan and were meeting to continue the writing process for our next theatre project, and since we did not find any concrete solutions in the last meeting, I wasn't really looking forward to it. However, once I got to his place I felt this strange energy start to rise up in me. And soon enough, I was frantically pacing around, gesturing wildly with a coffee cupped hand.

We still kept hitting a very, horribly, frustrating wall however. We kept talking about meaning, after meaning, after meaning, and in the end two things happened: we meaned ourselves to death, and I don't think either one of us had any clue what we were talking about anymore. At some point I just broke down and said "stop!" We both had researched this project, we both had written mock mini pieces to work from, and we both knew what the hell we were doing. I suggested we acknowledge this, and then forget everything. Throw it right out the fucking window. We just needed to trust our ideas, and write them without analyzing them. And what do you know, we wrote an entire skeleton to work with the group from, in about one simple hour. Good fight; good night.

Which brings me to what could potentially be a slight retraction. I may not totally quit theatre next year. It turns out that Dan is not going to grad school next year, however he is still planning to create his own projects. And while I see our theatre company experiment alot like history views the great communist experiment, I would be willing to keep working on projects with only Dan. This would mean two things for me, one is that I would be less involved with the productions themselves, and two is that most of my creativity would be spent writing. As opposed to holding up a taped together knife, while reciting lines from Hamlet, with my own drool and snot running down my face, wishing I could use said prop to slit my own throat.

Which brings me to my final argument (I don't know either..), how can I do things like this and make a living? Neither Dan nor I want to compromise our work with the commodification required by the mainstream theatre community. Work theoretically equals income, and Dan and I would be working ourselves into the ground. However I'm not sure where the income would flow from. The job I have now is a fantastic model. An LLC, collective, where everyone is an equal partner, who has equal access to all commerce, and also equal responsibility to all duties. We have an accountant, a shared bank account, benefits, paid vacation, an amazing website, business cards, palm cards, and weekly meetings to keep on top of everything. The problem is that we are providing a service; the service of dog walking. Theatre is not a service, and therefore the income source would not be the same. I know for a fact that the model works, I just need to find out where the money comes from. Sure, it would be easy to charge money for the shows, and then use that to fund more shows. However, while I need to be able to do that, I also need to be able to provide a living wage. I'm an anticapitalist, and this is way out of my territory. I've thought about grants, but where can you find someone crazy (I mean, crazy amazing...) enough to fund your projects, plus give each member about $30,000 a year to cover living expenses?

Fortunately I have my current job, and it's quite stable, but I need to start figuring this problem out (you know.....before I turn forty)

Well dear reader friends.....Ideas?............

Back to basics

Okay,

So I am officially about to delete all of my music blogging on here, and move it to the new fangled blog that John and I have put together called Aural Suppository. I decided that blogging with John would be more fun than me talking to myself about rando records on here. No, no, no...I need this blog all to myself to complain about petty comings and goings in my life that are surely worse than those of a starving child in a third world country. Well, let's do the short list in the interim:

1.I started therapy
2.I survived NCOR
3.I wrote a new short piece that I am using to help write another piece for theatre
4.I am very close now to jumping the border
5.I am about to go back on health insurance
6.My phone broke, I bought another one, it never came, I bought another one, the other finally arrived, I got screwed out of $200. Fuck ebay.
7.As usual, tumult, tumult, tumult..........

But hey, I bought alot of new Martin Deny records with money I don't have, so that's good right?.....

More to come I swear.....

And speaking of winners, mailorder customers Kraig Keller and Denman
Anderson were the two lucky recepients of $25 AQ gift certificates,
randomly selected from the pool of peeps who sent in their 2007 Top
Ten lists before our deadline last month. Thanks again to everybody
who shared their lists (often with more than ten items, and often
with interesting and/or entertaining commentary). You're all tops
with us. You can view the collected 2007 Customer Top tens here:
http://www.aquariusrecords.org/2007customerfaves.html. Check it out.


DENMAN ANDERSON


1.Ammo)(omma-Go to Hell cd-r
2.Caacrinolas-Vargtimmen cd-r
3.Wolves in the Throne Room-Diadem of 12 Stars 2xlp
4.Harvey Milk-My Love is Higher Than Your Assessment of What My Love
Could Be (re-release) cd
5.L'Acephale-Mord und Totschlag cd
6.Bone Awl-Undying Glare 7"
7.Time of the Wolf-s/t cd
8.M.I.A.-Kala
9.Xasthur-Xasthur mlp
10.Yelle-Pop-Up cd
11. De Magia Veterum-Spikes Through Eyes Demo, Clavicula Salomonis,
The Blood of Prophets and Saints

Ring-around-the-rosy....

Sorry, for the week + delay on the OvO minterview; I appear to have contracted the plague............All of it will be up as soon as I get caught up with the NCOR work that got back logged last week when I was playing chess with the grim reaper......

Also, it might be noteworthy to both of my loyal readers that my friend John from Mundane Arcana and I have talked about joining forces to create a music blog together. Hopefully that will work out so I can have this one just for crying every time I skin my knee..........

A funny thing happened on the way to walk your dogs.....

Well, I guess it's a two for Tuesday...When it rains it pours, and god knows I can make it rain!

Anywho, here's a funny bit of a story. I was walking these two shoebox sized yappers deep in Petworth today, when I rounded a corner and came across a group of guys slowly making their way towards a car. As I drew nearer one of them gave me a strange wave, and they all cracked slightly crooked smiles at me. Oblivious to anything they might be saying due to my earbuds, I slipped them off and said "hey" as our paths met. One of them slyly says to me,"Ey man, you cuz?" (at least I'm 99% sure that's what he said....Ah my rock n roll killed 1K....) A little thrown off I repeated,"cuz?" Then came the moment of clarity in so many ways,"I see you slinging that blue back and forth in your back left pocket." My brain, and mouth both went,"oh!" (as in ohmygod, that guy wasn't waving at all, he was throwing up gang signs!) "*shaky laughter, shaky laugher* No..." And with that I casually went on my way....all the way to the Giant where I got a black bandana to replace the blue one that previously called my back left pocket home. I should have been tipped off to the intelligence of this move when several months ago, late on a Saturday night downtown, an suv pulled up, and excitedly out of the back window popped a head and yelled,"We're crips! we're crips!!" I suppose live and learn.....don't and end up on the wrong side a bullet. How man times must that nearly have happened to me in this neighborhood ?(or not for the same reason.......)

Well, I'm off to take care of some drive by's......

Stuff and Things....

Okay, so first let me just get it out of the way: Last May my grandmother on my fathers side suddenly succumb to medical complications. It affected me deeply, and I hopped a plane to MS for a very dreary couple of days.....Yesterday I received a text message that my grandmother on my mothers side was in the ER with serious breathing problems. This grandmother has been in shaky to deteriorating condition for quite a while now.........Let's not have a repeat quite so fast.........

Alright, with that out of the way let's get on with it.

I finally got the last record in the mail from my recent ebay binge. It was the original 7" version of the Furze "S" record. It's not amazing, but it is good. I am glad I found it, and I only had to order it from Italy.

I ordered a couple of new records from Aquarius. Of course I waited one day debating whether or not I should be spending more money on records, so they were already sold out of the majority of things I wanted. But I'm fairly sure I was able to get this:
MINORU SATO (M/S, SASW) + ASUNA Texture In Glass Tubes And Reed Organ

Listening to the samples provided it's very hypnotically enchanting. And rightfully so when you read the description:
For the first track, five harmonic states were recorded separately, using a chord organ to cause sympathetic vibrations in glass tubes, or something like that. Regardless, the result is a dense, subtly shimmering near static drone. Five tones, each layered upon the other, woven into a reverberating tapestry of sound, a glistening dreamlike blur, very Niblock like in it's swirl of subtle overtones, the various tones beating and pulsing almost imperceptibly, 38 minutes of pure glimmering sun dappled soft static bliss.
Anywho, I'm super excited to listen to the whole record.

The ones that I didn't get to in time (ah super limited cd-r's) were from Faunasabbatha records. Both records were eerie, ambient, and swirling in thorny ambient noise.
SORC'HENN Harmonium Pieces & Dead Reveries was the first album. The webstore says, Sorc'Henn are from France, and their particular brand of heaviness, as the title of their disc suggests is all about the harmonium, the piano, and lots and lots of drones. The opening track is a thick cloud of piano overtones, lots of sustain and reverb, a single funereal chord, struck over and over and over, the tones blending into each other, the overtones building up until it's some sort of doomy sonata. And indeed the samples provided sounded something like that.

The other cd-r was WAVERLY HILLS The Nurse Aquarius says, But sonically, Waverly Hills don't so much resemble funereal doom, as they do, modern noise rock, or Japanese ultra psych. The guitars are caustic coruscating streaks of blurred buzz, unleashed in heaving waves, while much of the band's time is spent crawling doomlike through a field of sonic broken glass, the guitars spend most of their time erupting in squalls of near white noise that sound like Keiji Haino fronting the Dead C. Thick clouds of whirling buzz, deconstructed riffage, super abstract percussion, the vocals a subsonic rumble, a blurred low end gurgle (except when it's a haunting ghostlike falsetto!) underpinning the soaring and drifting slabs of buzz overhead. Imagine doom metal being pulled apart, the notes and chords and riffs being rent asunder, the resulting squall still dark and doomy, by way more tripped out and damaged. And the description does not quite do justice to the crushing wall of complex noise that the excerpts held.

At any rate there is a fifty-fifty chance that a few more copies of these will"pop-up" at Aquarius.......

Though I'm trapped in a nightmare scenario where I don't get out on the weekends until one in the AM, I was able to catch some killer djing this weekend. I caught the tail end of the insane Sorted last Friday. It was with the Wasted Youth Crew dj's who turned out to be like ten of the most respected dj's in the area.......I was able to catch two.......It was all the jams and bangers you'd expect from a night like this. It was all really tight, and the crowd was definitely feeling it.

Saturday night I was able to see the majority of the Tittsworth set at the 9:30 (where I never go...). While several dj friends of mine and I have debated his musical selection, I had a blast. Say what you will about a guy who remixes the Cars (who I love) and Milli Vanilli, but no one can argue about his proficiency. Everything was tight, calculated, and smooth. And while I would have liked to hear some gun shots, he did hit several stints of the total crunk that I am so into right now. Go figure, the twenty nine year old straight edger is one of about twenty people still dancing when they force the dj to stop at three fifteen (and yes, at that point he was playing the song from Dirty Dancing, but I think it was his way of clearing out the crowd..)

As for this week, all I have to really look forward to is the Misery Index/Time of the Wolf show on Thurs, as my weekends still are (and still will be, all the frikkin way through the very first night of "Kicks" my friend Kim and Sara's post Pow-Wow dj night of pop, garage, first wave punk, etc. And I'm pissed about missing all but the last hour of this...) still killed for nearly the rest of the month....

In the meantime just keep pushing further into 2000-hate, the year of vengeance

Well.....

It's Sunday afternoon, shouldn't you be at brunch?........

Two quick things...

First, for the love of god will girls between the ages of nineteen to twenty one, who are REALLY hot, please stop trying to pick me up in the club. There were THREE last night alone. Every time I say no it feels like taking a rusty pair of garden trimmers and clipping one of my fingers off........

Second, I normally never remember my dreams, but I had a kinda strange one last night that just stayed in there. I was at a party that was, I believe, outside somewhere? Anywho at some point I got really tired (I know right....), and decided the logical thing to do would be to go take a nap in a random car. At some point the people who own the car start to get in, but I'm so worn out that I can't open my eyes. I ask who is it, and a girl says,"Who do you think it is?" I guess I was supposed to know, and somehow I thought maybe I did. The next thing I know, we are driving up a winding path on either a large hill or a small mountain. Suddenly they stop the car, and though I don't remember what they said, it was alluding to some sort of ominous plan. Suddenly I am able to open my eyes again, and I see that they have walked off of the road, and gone part of the way down the hill. Um....then explosions start. I dazedly think,"I have to get out of here, but casually so as not to attract attention." At that point someone runs screaming past me on fire. I get halfway down the road, and remember that I've left my bag in the car. I see the cops coming, and debate going back for a second. But if the authorities find my bag then they will link me to this....um....bizarre bombing event....So I calmly walk back, and not only get my bag, but wipe the car down to eliminate any fingerprints that I might have left. After that I casually walk back "into town," and end up at some random house for safety....Where I have to keep this young girl from hooking up with me!.......

christ, that's it I'm going to brunch.......

2007: The year of 365 days

Really, what more can I say? Not all that killin much about this year. There were some personal highlights: 1. After four years, I retired from baristadom; now I am just a coffee snob. 2. I started listening to both real black metal (all the fvcking time..), and real DJ's. Thus falling further down the slippery slope of friendless music jerk (and that's fine with me....) 3. I finally got my own frikkin theatre company. (more on that later) 4. I finally nailed down a serious relationship with an adorable girl who I really get along with. (HAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!! Fuck no that didn't happen....Maybe '08 will bring a worthy opponent.)

I'm already on the bandwagon for resolutions, or, more to the point, I should say proclamations. I've had it, in general, with everything. 2008 (incidentally, the year I hit the big three-oh) will be the year of massive changes. I finally feel like I've been owed alot more, and I'm cashing in my chips all at once.

One big thing that I'm toying with is taking a year off of theatre. For the past ten years it has brought me nothing but frustration. Few and far between projects that I have worked on have really felt fulfilling. It's very hard for me to straighten out what in my brain, I personally could do, and maybe a year or so off would give me clarity in this. Even the company that I helped found, under the very clear vision of Dan VanHoozer, will A. only be around for one season. and B. Has put itself into such a situation right now that is making me want to pull my teeth out one by one. I've been thinking about what I would focus on instead (because I am not capable of just taking time off...) and I think maybe music and/or other art is the answer. I have recently started a band, and though the timing has kept us from practicing alot lately, when we do I feel the kind of excitement that I so desperately look for in theatre. I would also love to toy around with learning how to DJ. Beyond that, I'd love to start screening my own shirts and hoodies, and beyond that, maybe dabbling in the plastic arts some. Who knows, maybe Kylos can start filming that movie that I'm supposed to star in......Whatever I do, at the very least, it will need to be arts related, as I do know that makes me happy.

I'm always broke as hell, but maybe I'll travel more. I finally got my passport in the mail the other day, so the rest of the world can no longer keep me out. First stop: Chiapas, Mexico, which is where I will hopefully be spending most of my April.

Alright jerks, that's it. I need to get ready for the typical lame new years in DC. Tonight I will be going into battle, and then going to a hopefully small but rockin' DJ party at Pharmacy, and then off to the Cat for the aftermath.

As for you: crush it, kill it, destroy it, and get the hell out of my way......

Well here we are again....

So, here I am am with another seasonal, I suppose, blog. One day I will make myself write at least one small paragraph a week, but until then.........

So, what's new, you don't ask? Well, alot, and nothing.

Currently I am writing on my brand new computron. My poor, sad, old computron put up a good fight, but sadly, went the way of Chrystal Clear Pepsi. My new fangled Mac (hey, I did say it was a computer...) is not a "pro," like it's predecessor, but it is quite amazing. I got the high-end macbook (wait for it......yes, the black one....). Let's see, it's black, everything goes together with these adorable magnets, it has a camera built into it, and jesus christ on a blind date with the holy ghost, it has a REMOTE CONTROL!?!? (omgwtfbbq right?!) So, this should placate me for a while.

Which, I suppose takes us right on into music. Since my life is a perfect concoction of pink cupcake surprises and happy pony hop along dances, I would have no need to fill the void where, surely, a large red heart is embroidered into my white circular belly. In which case I would certainly not need to do anything like, oh say, compulsively bid on black metal albums on ebay. I would never do this, but if I did need this distraction from mortality, I would certainly grab gems like these:

1. Furze-Trident Autocrat MLP (!!!!!!!) (Go find a copy yourself, oh wait, you can't!!)
2. Furze- "S" 7"
3. Bone Awl-At The Ellipse's Arc 7" (What, not cassette you say? No indeed, a 7".)
4.XIBALBA-Ah Dzan poop Ek Double LP (Whenever this comes in......I'm getting worried.)
5.Nachtmystium-Reign of the Malicious PicLP (Awesome.....Just awesome...)
6.Xasthur/Striborg Split 7" w/shirt (maybe not so awesome...I need the new Striborg 7" split on Southern Lord....)

I mean, hey, if I was to do this sort of thing it would be okay because I certainly wouldn't pay say, over $40 for a 7". And even if I NEEDED to, that also would be okay, since I have all this money.......

Beyond that, I've gotten some old (for me) records out and can safely say:

Time Will Fuse It's Worth is a frikkin killer record; 100% solid.
Flowers in the Attic may well have been one of the most underrated bands on the entire east coast. I believe, with (forgive me) trends being what they are now, had they been a west coast band, every kid with the word "doom" on his tongue would own the entire discography (and no, they were not, per se, a "doom" band.) I don't know how many people actually bought their last album, especially considering the problems that the band was having, but it's a solid hell-stomper.

There have been a ton of year end lists floating around, so here is my super ADD, top ten songs of the winter:

1.Agalloch-"Falling Snow"
2.Furze-"Witchboundator"
3.Urfaust-"Der Halbtoten Dichters Schein-Existenz"
4.(DON'T EVEN, EVER ASK!!!) Tegan and Sara-"Dark Come Soon"
5.Bathory-"Die in Fire"
6.Joy Division-"Digital" (DIE YOU HIPSTER SCUMFUCKS DIE!)
7.Saxon-"Denim and Leather"
8.M.I.A.-Paper Planes
9.L'Acephale-"Book of Lies"
10.Weakling-""Dead as Dreams"

Also, I'm still trying to help out Time of the Wolf . I gave their full length another listen the other day, and even with all the insane black metal that I have been listening to these days, it's a solid album. I just need to find more places to send it to. Since the Wargoat radio information has not been updated on the website, I have no idea if Dimitri ever played it there, I never heard back from blackmetalradio.com, and Aquarius is knee deep in both records to review and holiday sales to mail out (mine included!). I wish I knew where to send it to get it reviewed for play on XM. God knows I used to live within walking distance of their DC headquarters, and TOTW beats 99% of the crap they play on "liquidmetal." I should also just suck it up, and send a copy to Oaken Throne. I mean, the chances that it will get reviewed are slim to none, but I suppose it's worth a shot.

It is also worth mentioning that I myself have formed a band. No, it's not black metal, but, shock and surprise, it is droney, doomey, metal-cuspy-and heavy as fvck. It has two basses and no guitars. It's an allstar lineup as well. My friend Adrian, who plays in a noise driven two man piece called Brontosaurus, as well as his awesome solo project Stymphalian Birds & White Stags; my friend Rusty, of Twats fame, now with rock joint, Sons of Guns; and John "Hellhammer Junior" Seager, who drumms for the ever blazing DC crust band Aghast. Truth be told, we have only practiced twice, once to figure out what we were doing, and again, to lay down the beginning of a track. Whatever this beast turns out to be, it will be crushing and epic. I'm excited to say the least.

Theatre: Don't get me started on theatre right now. Except to say that, in true DC fashion, even my own company is trying, with it's own strong breath, to force feeble mortal air into the long dust encrusted lungs of the dead in a pathetic attempt to bring life back into them.

Beyond that, it's alot of biking, and walking dogs. God, I just hope my passport comes through so I can go to Chiapas in March...........

Dear dark-lord, please help me think of a better name for this stupid blogggggggg