Thee Garage Inside My Brain

 
Number Line Records Class Picture

Meiday was a total blast as always, and all of the good vibes and compliments I've received from people made me giddy. It's nice to know that people are responding to what we're trying to do with my band (The Strangeness). It's not a conscious effort to do something different... this is just music and songs that I personally love. It's moments like those that make me want to continue what I'm doing. It's that feeling of inspiration, that knowledge that people actually listen, that pushes me to make more songs. It makes me want to get better at this. Another thing that makes me want to get better at this is being in the company of such talented people.

I got the chance to share the stage with Allan (aka Multo), and Mike (Outerhope), and Selena (Ang Bandang Shirley, Slow Hello). It was an awesome moment that was hampered by a bit of minor technical difficulties, so minor that I just shrugged it off and basked in the good vibes all around the stage.

 

This picture perfectly sums up the past couple of months. I've been in another one of those potentially heartbreaking situations, but I have managed to come through and I have handled it perfectly well... I think. And it's all because of these guys. The past couple of weeks were especially shitty, but the thing that made me happy the most hanging out with all of ya'll. Shine, Shinji, thanks for channeling my rage or whatever. I know I should be angry, but I'm perfectly okay. Nan, I will treasure that talk that we had regarding maturity and love and life and all that. "Kindred Spirit" is an understatement. Your are way more than cool in my book.

Erwin, Jayme, Fatima, yeah... your perspectives regarding the matter were more than welcome. In the immortal words of Big Star, "Thank you, friends". Kathy, Selena, Bobby, Mike, Mick, thanks for throwing an awesome party and for being all-around awesome people. 

So yes, pardon this cheesy post. It's just nice to be in touch with my emotions every once in a while. Must be an Aries thing.

 

I don't really follow trends, but Witch House caught my attention because of the music. For something hipsters thought up, the music is actually good. Taking cues from dubstep, black metal, hip-hop, and the chop and screw ethos, Witch House comes across as a welcome twist in ambient/experimental hip-hop which is something I am a fan of. These bands wouldn't sound out of place in an anticon. records compilation and that is a good thing. 

And for your listening pleasure, I present to you "Let Me Shine For You": a Lindsay Lohan tribute mixtape courtesy of Tri Angle records, purveyors of Witch House/Drag music.

01 Babe Rainbow: "I Can Try to Run (Stuck)"
02 Laurel Halo: "sinh (Something I Never Had)"
03 Autre Ne Veut: "Bossy"
04 oOoOO: "I Live for the Day"
05 Stalker: "Disconnection (Disconnected)"
06 Oneohtrix Point Never: "LL (Stresswave Edit) (Something I Never Had / Over)"

Woke up in a cold sweat about a week ago. I'm currently contemplating moving out, finding a place to stay, and getting a serious job. So this is what it feels like. 

Watching FRIENDS all over again because it helps with the anxiety that comes with realizations such as this. 

 I found out that a mix of mine has been making the rounds over at Tumblr, and a lot of people have been digging it. This is not the best mix I made. That title goes to that "Sunday Afternoon" mix I did a while back, one track with crossfades and shit. Did that mix cassette style. This mix is pretty decent though, so why not post it here?



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1. Camera Obscura - “The Sweetest Thing”
2. Girls - “Lust For Life”
3. Lucky Soul - “Struck Dumb”
4. Neil Young - “Lotta Love”
5. The Olivia Tremor Control - “Jumping Fences”
6. Blitzen Trapper - “Furr”
7. The Skygreen Leopards - “Marching Band”
8. Masters Of The Hemisphere - “The Sun In The Afternoon”
9. Belle And Sebastian - “Is It Wicked Not To Care”
10. The Bats - “The Rays”
11. Circulatory System - “Joy”
12. Jellyfish - “Bedspring Kiss”
13. Electric Light Orchestra - “Livin’ Thing”
14. Holiday - “All I Want”
15. Archaster - “Kissing Ballade”
16. Blur - “The Universal”
17. The Replacements - “I Will Dare”
18. Otis Green - “There’s No Need For Paracetamol”
19. Beulah - “Gravity’s Bringing Us Down”
20. Why? - “Gemini (Birthday Song)”
21. The King Khan And BBQ Show - “Invisible Girl”
22. Park Ave. - “Lachrymose Obsequious Vehement Elated”

Last night I went to Tomi's place to hang out and talk and write music. We ended up discussing tattoos and let's just say that it's almost time for me to get my first tat. 

"Bury me at sea where no murdered ghost can haunt me." on my right arm and "If I rock upon the waves, no corpse can lie upon me." on my left arm. I also want to use that for my tombstone. 

I also want to get an Ashley Wood tattoo on my back, the Elephant Six Recording Company logo on my left arm (near the elbow) and the Spacemen 3 logo on my right arm (also near the elbow). 

Went home at around 6 in the morning, slept until 2 and met with the guy who was selling his Spacemen 3 "Perfect Prescription" LP. I got to the mall and it turns out that the guy was actually Erick of The Sleepyheads. I got drunk with him once, and he's a pretty cool dude. We got around to talking about music, the industry, DIY, Spacemen 3, and The Velvet Underground. I paid for the LP and bought a Sleepyheads CD from him.

I LOVE the Sleepyheads CD I bought. It's like a mixture of Dunedin sound and garage rock and it kicks ass. 

On the bus ride home, I listened to The Clean's "Anthology" 3 times in a row (and some of The Jesus And Mary Chain's "Psychocandy" for good measure) and I was struck by the sudden wave of inspiration. 

I sense good things. Something involving my solo project to be exact, but I won't say anything more because I'm afraid I might spoil it. 

END OF RAMBLE

If you've been on the internet for the past couple of weeks chances are you know what I'm talking about.  Mel Gibson's hate-filled phone call to his ex-girlfriend. And holy crap, that shit was so wack. But then again, some people don't age gracefully... physically and mentally. Clint Eastwood is old... and I mean "GET OFF MY LAWN" old, but you don't hear him calling people "niggers" or making anti-semitic remarks. Or maybe he does, and I just block it out mentally. But, fuck you, Clint Eastwood is a gentleman, a brilliant actor, and a more than capable filmmaker. 

Mel Gibson will always be the man responsible for making The Passion Of The Christ.

When I get old, I want to be more of a Clint Eastwood rather than a Mel Gibson. Because turning into a Mel Gibson is just fucking sad. And I'm not making sense anymore. Incoherent Blog Post alert. 

But yeah, I don't doubt being all "GET OFF MY LAWN"-angry-old-man when I reach my latter years, but being "GET OFF MY LAWN... YOU NIGGER"-angry-old-man is just not my style. 

My parents raised me to be classy. 

Also, Mel Gibson died after making Payback.


Fuck you, Payback was a brilliant film.

NOW GET OFF MY LAWN

 

I first came across Nick Cave and his music not through listening to The Birthday Party, but believe it or not, from MTV and Kylie Minogue. Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds did a song with Kylie Minogue called "Where The Wild Roses Grow", and it was haunting and beautiful and not at all what I'd expect from Kylie Minogue. I wasn't aware of Nick Cave's work and The Birthday Party at the time. 

My next Nick Cave encounter was when I first watched Wim Wenders' "Wings Of Desire", one of my favorite films of all time. That scene with Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds was bloody fucking brilliant.


"One more song and it's over. But I'm not gonna tell you about a girl... I'm not gonna tell you about a girl..."

By that time, I had enough common sense to LOOK for their music. A new world opened up to me. A world of smoke-filled bars, crooners singing about love and life and death... the band, cigarettes hanging from their lips as they take command of their respective instruments. 

I wanted to be a part of it. 

It was also the time when, looking for more Bad Seeds stuff, I got interested in The Birthday Party. It was in stark contrast to the cool intensity of The Bad Seeds, but it achieved the same effect. 

The music: primal, thrashing and thumping. The words: cryptic and dark. The musicians: hedonistic, bad-ass, cool. Not a care in the world, and a "fuck you" to anyone who says otherwise. 

The Birthday Party - "Junkyard"

Nick Cave is also responsible for one of the best songs ever written: The Mercy Seat. 


This song perfectly conveys the final moments of a man being sent to death on the electric chair. With every verse he moves inches closer to death, and with every verse the band swells up into an almost cacophonous wail of sound with only the piano holding them together. It also has some of the most brilliant lyrics ever, encompassing most of the themes of Nick Cave’s songs (god and death).

This is a man with a twisted idea of justice, heaven, and religion. He is not actually well-versed on religion, admitting on one part of the verse that most of what he knows about heaven and christ are based on hearsay. And yet he remains faithful, hopeful. Death brings confusion and fear… and this song captures that perfectly, both in the music and the lyrics.

 This one here is a bulleted list of things you may or may not know about me. 

• I used to be an altar boy. 
• I got booted out within the first week.
• I hung out with bullies back in grade school.
• 2 teachers cried on our class because we were rude motherfuckers. 
• I had two girl bestfriends.
• We've had no contact with each other since they moved.
• I used to have a crush on Ana (girl bestfriend #2)
• That was back when I watched The Wonder Years A LOT. You could say she was my Winnie Cooper. 
• I cried the first time time I watched The Deer Hunter.
• I hate Al Pacino. Well, hate is a strong word.
• The first comic book I ever read was Gen 13.
• I still have my Gen 13 3D issue, with the 3D glasses and everything.
• The first cassette tape I ever owned was The Beatles' "Please Please Me". 
• The first cassette tape I ever bought was the Mortal Kombat OST. 
• I acquired my taste in films by hanging out at this small video store near our place. They let me hang out in their backroom and watch Kung Fu films, and weird arthouse shit. 
• I've had aspirations of becoming a Stand-Up comedian, even crafted my own Aristocrats joke. 
• I do not advise writing jokes when you are drunk. 
• I keep calm when I'm with my friends just to even things out. 
• But I really hate a lot of stuff, I'm just not vocal about it, especially with my friends. (I may not be vocal, but I sure as hell am cynical)
• And that's why god made the internet.
• I used to frequent a Final Fantasy chatroom while the others hung out at mIRC. 
• My first exposure to pornography was when I saw my father's old Playboy issues in his room. 
• I want to grow old in a farm somewhere, preferably in Canada. Armed with only an acoustic guitar and analog recording equipment. Wife and kids are optional. 

So much truth in that scene right there. But the thing is... while I can be shy, I can be quite shallow. An asshole. A bastard. I've been that way to a couple of girls, and well... no results. So where do I stand, attraction-wise? And why is it so hard for me to sustain even the slightest hint of a romantic relationship with the opposite sex? And on that note, why are girls so hard to read? Is it out of retaliation, because I tend to put up my own barriers emotion-wise? I mean, I don't really talk about my feelings a lot to anyone. There are those rare days when I do feel lonely and I ask myself those questions and sometimes I even pester my friends about it.

Emotion is such a fickle thing. While not high on my list, I do want to be in a happy committed relationship. But I'm alright as is. I am not in a hurry. These are just questions that confuse me regarding the opposite sex. I'm kind of resigned to the fact that whatever I do, I'll always find something that makes me happy. Yes, I am obsessed with my own happiness. Whether it be the simple days when I'm alone in my apartment drinking something, smoking cigarettes, watching "Bring Me The Head Of Aflredo Garcia" again and again without a care in the world, or the days when I'm out drinking with my friends, or when I'm on a date with a gorgeous woman who shares the same interests as me, it is my own happiness I think about.

Am I actually happy? 

Call me selfish, but that's the truth. And you're a hypocrite if you don't feel the same way. 

I guess, right now, what I'm DYING to know is:

1. Do the girls I've been attracted to in the past feel the same way about me?
2. Is there anyone that I know of that has been attracted to me, and yet I was all oblivious about it all?
3. Is the girl I'm attracted to now showing the least bit of interest?

And don't think of this as being a "feel sorry for yourself" post. I don't feel sorry for myself. I have the wit of a curmudgeon, the humor of a british comic, the taste of a certified snob, and the charm and rugged good looks of a mountain man (that last one was a joke btw). And I have no reason to feel sorry myself.

And now look at this cute fucking baby.



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