thursday night jazz hell or wednesday night neighborhood noise horror

yesterday evening, me and tommi played with mikey on bass, and eventually daniel showed up on keyboards. mikey on bass, hmmm, well it wasn't too promising unfortunately. we did have some reasonable improvisations, but he really struggled at listening and consistency, but i suppose if he really worked at it he could be more than our drunken sid vicious. though there was one inspired moment when i took up the synth, and mikey basically just scraped his strings quickly back and forth as tommi busted out the hot shit disco rock beat, we were so no-wave, it was rad. but when i tried to show him a riff to a song, maybe he was too drunk and or stoned already, anyway, it just did not work. anyhow, daniel showed up and added to the racket, and that was all good, as we hit our stride as i took over on bass and mikey hollered into the microphone, we were rocking the disco dub noise shit talk poetry crap, i liked that. i think we did three pretend songs that way, maybe i'll remember some of the bass riffs later. anyway, we all proceeded to get drunk off of kirin beer and sake, ate some improvised burritos and cruised on down to sadlands and the cafe. on the way we realized our childhood favorite ninja turtles all correlated up, as daniel was donnatello, mikey michaelangelo, tommi raphael, and me as leonardo, cuz i'm a dork. i don't think mikey will work out on bass in the end, cuz i think his higher priority is fucking boys, but who knows. daniel is showing a lot of potential, following me while improvising quite well, so if we can just get him a bit more learned and experienced with playing, we'll have a cute little keyboard whore. anyways, plan b for our supposed upcoming show at the semi-finals is for the four of us to get drunk and play improve noise jams just for the fuck of it, could be some hot shit.

monday night jazz destruction or poperratic

another monday night at the fucking jazz club, bored as fuck all, ugh. so my wallet got stolen over the weekend during pink saturday in the castro, or i haven't found where i drunkenly threw it while, err, drunk. pretty sure though it was pinched out of my back pocket, perhaps by the kid i momentarily disappeared and had a brief tryst with, but he was lame, as soon as he came he was like, oh my god, where's my hat, and i'm like, who cares! pay some attention to me now, hello? my turn! fucking douchebag. whatever, i even got him his fucking hat back the next day. he had an interesting cock, one of those upside down umbrella thingys, neat. anyways, nobody used my credit cards or nothing, so i'm just down the $20 i had in there and the $20 i had to spend at the fucking dmv to get a new ID mailed to me in 2-6 fucking weeks. lameness, i shalln't be able to play at bars where i am not known and am sometimes carded, oh the curse of youthful looks!

of pleasant surprises over the weekend, yesterday after pride i received an email from JBL of poperratic in LA that she had finally completed her album and including a link to sneak preview mp3 of the record for her friends. promptly i downloaded it and have thus made a copy for my car. i have listened to the album one and 2/3rd times, so i can not yet write a proper review, but aside from some small criticisms, i am very much blown away by the final mastered mixes. really my only complaints are that some of the material sounds a bit over-produced, and some of the vocals are too multi-tracked for my tastes or a bit undersung. otherwise the shit rocks and it's great to hear so many tracks with a real drummer, and the electronic interludes are fun and cool, and even the songs with drum machines sound so much better now that they are properly mixed. really the only thing that i don't particularily like is the album cover, haha. oh, and my favorite song of hers, prowler, is not on there, which is a crime, as it has one of the best bass lines ever!

saw the new episode of the venture brothers last night, and fuck, there was just so much crammed into there from references and jokes that it was really hard to follow at points. but the new opening sequence was great with the new venture brothers in action! also the whole opening montage of dr venture finding himself, the monarch eating a butterfly and later the gorilla attempting to ass rape him, and the grieving dr orpheus were all killer funny. one of the best shows on tv, wish the guy who had encoded it and put it on the internet had done a better job, really his shit was hella sub-standard, gonna have to re-download it once a better rip becomes available, which is probably already.

me and tommi made some noise with daniel this afternoon, it was interesting, i guess. we basically just jammed, and there were some moments i suppose. i mean, it is really good for me and tommi to play and improvise with other people, and daniel does have some natural skill, but i'm really not sure if it's gonna be enough with him having no training at all. i guess i'm willing to give it some time if he takes the initiative to learn some basic theory and shit, cuz tommi started off on the drums the same way with no skills either and that worked out well. but it's gonna be up to him to push himself if he really wants to do this. jessica if yr out there, we'd still like to play with you!

volunteers?

so daniel wants to be our keyboardist. we tried playing with him the other day, it was really difficult at first, cuz he has really no training and was all wanting to explore all kinds of ideas and was a me a bit of the, "well i think the song should be like this" routine, but once i showed him the basic outline of a song we all kinda jammed a bit on a G chord and he figured out a few melodic ideas and stuck with them, and that was pretty promising and fun to do. he definitely has natural talent, and he seems enthusiastic so far, so we'll see.

on the bass player front, mikey has picked up on my hints and expressed a desire to give a try on bass for us. don't really know why we never really did nothing together the whole year and a half we lived together, but he and i fucked around a bit with some noise about a month or so ago, and that was pretty cool. he also doesn't have a whole lot of musical training, though he has played bass before, in a band no less, back in san diego, and he can play slopply some iconic metal riffs, so yeah.

so almost a band, maybe? i'm gonna try and keep a lassei fair punk rock attitude about it all i suppose, i guess we'll see if it all gels together or not.

anyways, yesterday me and tommi worked on seven new songs (to do live), so hopefully that will all come together. i have a couple new ideas that i need to work out arrangements and lyrics for, lyrics and subject matter being the particular challenge, as i'm not really inspired, and don't like repeating myself with motiffs and themes already expressed elsewhere. we'll see.

inexplicably, we won

so we played a show last night, and it didn't go all to perfectly. we had trouble hearing each other, tommi had trouble seeing the notes. tommi usually follows me to a degree, instead of the other way around, ya know, how yr supposed to follow the drummer, not the shitty guitarist. we learned that we really do need to be facing each other, and that if and when we get other band members, we're gonna copy the boredoms and stand in a circle, cuz that sure as hell works for them. so we fucked up the starts to a couple of the songs, but didn't stop, always push ahead, no do-overs, cuz that's tacky. and the PA was sketchy as fuck, it cut out half way thru failed musician, so i kicked over the mic and walked directly into the audience hollering the words, cuz i also don't stop songs for shitty PAs, no fucking do-overs. because i felt contrary, i decided to start us off with the pretty melodic ballad type thing, count the days. this scared off the goth girls in front pretty quick, oh well. pretty much the whole set was rather confrontational lyrically, my current subject matter being as it is, failure and the self analysis of sucking. we kept the mood light though, cuz as we fucked up like half the songs, i pretty much took the piss out of us consistently throughout the night. it was not our best show. tommi described it as exactly how he nightmared it to be. inexplicably, we won! why? because all of these people from tommi's work came! and they were all awesome and super nice, well except for the kid all twacked out on mushrooms and that got kicked out of the club and then passed out on the sidewalked and initially refused to get into a cab and gave me attitude. but everyone else was really cool. mikey came, so yay mikey! and so did daniel after he got off work. so i made sure both of them stayed drunk on shitty $2 pabst. anyways, even though we sucked to a degree, i felt that we did come together on the 2nd half of the set, other than the fact that the god damn drums kept sliding away, cuz we didn't have room for a carpet rug in my shitty corolla.

what we played was: count the days, my self doubt (fucked up the intro cuz tommi got confused and didn't realize i had actually started when i was pretending to talk the lyrics to the audience), corporate rock, i hate music, jazz (which we fucked up cuz i sped up at the beginning and wasn't listening to tommi), the failed musician (where the PA cut out and shenanigans ensued), ambisexual (went really well, i broke a string!), i got a mental block (i think tommi broke a stick on this one...but i'm not sure which song exactly), hack, and another dead queer boy (which featured tommi doing an extended drum solo at the end even after i unplugged my guitar and turned off my amp, i was so mark e smith, haha, but mainly i was like what the fuck are you doing tommmi?! but the audience of his friends really dug it). we pulled the new song charisma from the set, which we were gonna do during the middle of the set, cuz as i said, the first half was pretty fucking shaky, and i figured i'd just fuck it up real bad or something and forget the words and shit.

the other bands:

afekt went first. they're this industrial goth duo, playing guitars and screaming emotionally over pre-recorded beats and synths. i like their influences and they have potential, but as they were, i felt they regurgitated their influences just a bit too heavily with not quite enough originality. but i did have one of their tunes stuck inside of my head all day. i talked to the singer afterwards and told him i enjoyed their set, he was really nice, said that they were bummed that the mix sucked. the goth girls that came to see them got there late and missed their set, which was a bummer for them. one of the guys from the band told tommi later on that they'd really like to play with us again, so they were cool kids.

fighting the villian were second, and were pretty much faceless emo-punk pop, and a lot of their songs were in 3/4 time. with an actual front man they could be really good i suppose, but their lead guitarist just could not sing, as he was way too far from the mic, all chipmunk-ish like the guy from superchunk, not that i don't like superchunk, they're great. solid rhythm section though, mikey really liked the bass player. their sound check was like 15 seconds of raining blood, always love to hear some of slayer.

triangles went third, and i missed most of their set cuz of mushroom boy out on the sidewalk. they could have been really good if they actually sang into their mics instead of like six inches away, fucking hell. bartender slash soundguy was like, what the fuck else can i do, shit was feeding back if it got any higher, i was like ain't shit you can do dude. anyways, like the electro hip-hop was interesting and totally different from the other bands on the bill, but it would have been cooler if the chick did more than just stand their while the guy did all the work on the synth. would have liked to have seen more of their set even though they weren't quite performance ready.

so we were fourth, told y'all about that already.

cervantes went fifth, and they were honestly the best band, in a performance sense. solid musicianship, a singing drummer, cool influences, pretty much solid classist dischord style hard rock. a real strong jawbox influence, one of my favorite bands. i got a copy of their demo afterwards, they seemed like nice guys.

so as we were breaking down at the end of the night, kristen, the girl i guess mainly organizing the event, informed us that we had received the most votes and that we would move on to the semi-finals. semi-finals? hadn't heard anything about that...she said it was in three weeks, and i was like, nope can't do that, cuz we got meshell n'degeocello tickets, and so she was like, how about the week after that, and i was like sure. the sketchy thing is that we never knew that this was an on-going competition. instead the previous dialogue had made it sound like that each week the winning band would receive $300, 2nd place $100, the rest a cut of the door. as far as i know, nobody last night got paid shit. now i ain't about the money, but part of our method of getting peoples to come down and hang and buy drinks and vote for us was that we'd get them all drunk afterwards or at later time with a portion of our winnings, cuz we're such swell kids, ya know? so clearly, this chick very much mis-represented herself and her event, but i didn't make a big thing about it at the time cuz i'm not gonna make a scene, i wasn't there for the money nor necessarily win. but at the same time a cut of the door however meager would have been nice, especially being that we brought the most people in, be that only 15 kids, but they all did drink, why we each spent over $30 on drinks. so some clarification is very much in order. obviously they probably didn't even make enough to cover the cost of renting out the space, so whatever, they need to work on their promotion aspect. hundred people my ass, not on a sunday night at a venue that is usually closed that day. the other sketchy aspect is that tommi and daniel both felt that the event was set up for the last band, cervantes, to win, as daniel observed kristen hanging out with them throughout the night and it appeared that they were friends. now in all honesty, i'll be straight-up, cervantes was the best band last night, they played a solid set and had their shit together. but hey, we somehow got lucky and tommi managed to get people to come (i failed miserably, all my friends are on notice as of now, haha). anyways, whatever, so we move on to the semi-finals, yay for us, whatever. hopefully we'll play better next time.

as for some changes, daniel has declared his desire to be our keyboard player, so i'm like ok, lets give a go. we're gonna give it a serious try tomorrow. i guess we're also gonna try and find a bass player again too, cuz we might as well have someone to fill out our sound, so we'll see if we can find anyone. no straight boys. unless they're really cute. and nice. and can play. yeah.

our show on the 18th

so like we're not quite sure what is up with our show this sunday the 18th. last night me and tommi stopped by club lamia to check out the event, bandstand as they are calling this weekly thing, and it was dead as fuck, no stage monitors, yeah. kind of a neat space, hella small stage though. of the bands we saw, the avenues were run of the mill emo-rock, boring but they were tight. the bad hand had an excellent drummer that completely over powered the guitarist and electric fender rhodes keyboardist, who bored us after the first two songs with tunes that meandered and all sounded the same with no low end. the last band were just awful, hippie jam rock fusion prog, sub-mediocre vocals and untight wankage, we bailed after two tunes. anyway, there were like ten people there, it was pretty tragic, basically the bands still waiting to play, some girlfriends, some cute breakdancers who were just hanging, and us just scoping it all out. anyway, as we were leaving, tommi ended up chatting with a guy named moose who is one of the people putting on the event, and basically he said that they had been having a lot of problems with the owner of the club and that everything was a total failure and that they were moving the event next week to a new venue where there would be more foot traffic and people, like something like a hundred people! i take all that with a large grain of salt, a hundred people, right... anyways, as of right now we're still waiting to hear back from the event organizers as to the new location so that we can get the proper word out to all five of you that are jonesing to come see us play. speaking of which, we will be more sonically enhanced, if not playing much new material that differs from our last performance. basically, we're using the drum sampler thing on about four songs, and the bass octave pedal on about three, i think. so we're still pretty minimal, cuz using too many samples and changing the arrangements too much just wasn't working with our two person line-up, as we really could only play with ambient drone samples for the most part, as playing into a locked time or with too much pre-recorded stuff just sounded too artificial and was sucking the energy from us ever so much. also the bass pedal only works within our context for the most part on the uber distorted setting, and that has so far only been appropriate for a few songs. as for the tunes that are just guitar and drums, i will say that my playing has gained a somewhat more fuck all noisyness, a bit more no wave, i suppose. the new song is coming along rather well, i just need to nail down the words and get them properly memorized and improve my vocal delivery. i've been fucking around with another new thing on the synth and trying urge tommi that we can throw another tune together in just a few days, though i'm not sure i can come up with acceptable words, as that's been the major creative block that i've had lately, words that don't suck, and any topical manner of interest at all. was toying with the idea of busting out an old tune or something, such as edge of california, which has always been a song that certain people responded quite strongly to, but it just seems so cheesy to me now, from chords to lyrics, and i'm not sure i have the desire to pull it off without dramitically changing some aspects of the arrangement. oh well, whatever.

i had a post from a couple days ago that blogger ate, cuz blogger fucking sucks, but basically, if someone throws a rock thru yr car window while yr at work, don't take yr car to STAR AUTO GLASS, they will STEAL YOUR CREDIT CARD and brazenly call you to ask for your zip code and use it to buy gas. so lesson learned, FUCK STAR AUTO GLASS and FUCK YOU JOHN AT STAR AUTO GLASS, vengeance shall be mine, oh yes.

coke-heads annoy me

they're so falsly alive, streaming their bullshit from the tongues, from their mouths, all hyper animated looking, oblivious to ridiculousness of the appearance. it's a marvelous feeling until you come down, but white yuppie coke-head fucks are so disgusting to witness, especially in an environment such as the jazz club at which i am presently trapped. one of them is this fake blond female, spewing forth narcissistic banalities, much like this blog, over a glass of cheap white wine. she is with sleaze bag mid-thirties wanks, the one formerly animated whom initially caught my attention, err tweak redar, is now sitting silently, attempting to appreciate the musical performance. he down's the remains of his wine drink with an overly stylized hand movement, a display fully lacking grace. a brief pause in the music for dramatic effect, he voice rings out clearly at the moment most opportune, "what?" oh oops, dumb bitch, haha. i noticed them when they first came in, they were like the first arrival, this trio of tweaked out classless terror. oh the sickening, they just won't shut-up.

the artist

so saturday night was pretty cool. went to jamaica's 25th birthday party with mikey who was unfortunately kinda feeling sick but came out anyways. drank like four margaritas and danced with jamaica's mom, susana, aka one of the coolest people ever, to do ya think i'm sexy, it was pretty rad. saw a few people from work, they were mostly pretty cool, so, it was fun, yeah. anyway, around midnight me and mikey hitched a cab back to the castro (or the disastro as i have now heard it called, haha). we hit the cafe first, were like this is ok, i guess, so then we were like, let's hit the sadlands, and we like walking there, and there in passing i saw the artist, this boy i keep seeing around everywhere, and i'm always like lets hang out or something, but it never happens. he blows me a kiss, i'm like that's all i get? he's like, yeah, for now, or something. badlands has a huge line, and we're like fuck that shit, so we up at the bar, drinking a beer, and there's the artist boy, and i'm like come over here and talk to me, but he's like smoking with some friends, i'm like, shit it looks like he's on a date, uh, that sucks. so we down our beers, and we're leaving and i work up the balls to go up to him from behind, from the outside sidewalk area, and i'm like hey, whatcha doing? well we're going to the cafe, and he's like, hmmm, ok i'll think about that, and i'm like, ok, well, hope to bump into you again soon. so now we're back at the cafe, and i'm like trying to use the bathroom, coming out, i run into some guy named alvin who seems really sweet who i guess i talked to once before, like probably the last time he came out, he said, cuz he never goes out, anyways, then edgar fucking shows up and who does he have in tow, oh nasty fat black guy with the toliet bowl mustache. so i'm like edgar, come here, i wanna talk to you for a second, but he's too much of a fucking pussy, so i go up to him i'm like what's up, and he's like, hi eriq! oh i lost my phone last night (good, so he didn't get my text message, thank god, now in hindsight) and i'm like, well that's not surprising, you're were fucking drunk as fuck. and i'm like, ya know, i got something i gotta say to you, and like nasty sleezy black guy is like kinda in my face, but in a non-threatening way, and i'm like hey dude, ya know what, i ain't got no personal problem with you, whatever your deal is with this kid, that's cool, that's fine, it's not my issue to get involved in that kind of shit. and he's just like, you need to understand, me and edgar go way way back, and edgar is everybody's lover. and i'm that's awesome, well ya know what edgar, you ain't ever gonna be my lover. you might end up a friend, but you will never ever be my lover. and i was like fuck this i'm off, diva, fuck y'all, so over it. and thank god i never hooked up with him, cuz mikey was sooo right, not only is he a total douche, but the boy is without a doubt COMMUNITY ASS. and i don't hit that shit, cuz i ain't trying to get no god damn vd. little bitch probably gots hiv, fucking hell.

so i'm back out in the center smoking area, just chillin, all of a sudden here's alvin again who never goes out, and he's like being really sweet, and i'm like how did the bathroom work out for you, and he's like, oh i never went, i was just in line so that i could talk to you, and i'm like that's really sweet. he's really quite cute, seems like a real nice guy. anyway, all of sudden mikey is hollering at me, holding his hands around his eyes in the shape of glasses, pointing, over there, yr artist boy is here. so, up, uh later alvin, the boy i really wanna talk to is here now. so i go over, i'm like hey, he's like hey, he's drunk, i'm somewhat still, we decide to bail, they're kicking people out, we go get a six-pack, and hop in a cab (in the cab the radio is playing a bootleg dance remix of crazy by gnarls barkley, it's awesome) over to his place in the mission and chill and listen to some nina simone, who is his favorite. he plays me this awesome song i hadn't heard by her before called turning point, and that song was some shit. anyways, i pretty much crash out there, and being the dumbass that i am i tell how excited i am to finally be hanging out with him and how i've totally had a crush on him since i first seen him months and months ago, and he's like, but i'm a dork, and i'm like well, i guess i tend to attract dorks or something, but that i really like him. pretty much we pass out, and for whatever reason i fail at generally being a slut on this occasion, which is probably a good thing. in the morning he's singing crazy, all like the whole song, in the shower while covered it soap, and it's totally hot. pretty much the whole morning i'm just too damn shy all of a sudden, i don't know, i just am like, i got really shy and was like didn't know what to say, act, or do, as this kid is clearly way cooler than be, and gorgeous. so i'm a dork. anyway, he had to leave to go sell a painting or something to some rich fuck in marin county, so i'm bummed, cuz i wanted to spend some more time with him, but at least i ended up with the whole afternoon to work on music and programming my sampler thing, which i did end up doing, yay for me! oh well, i hope very much to see this artist boy again, uh yeah.

oh the brood

i've probably lost my initial inspiration by this point, but i still feel disappointed and sad. i just come back from club, from big new gay party night, with new boy, new friend, boy i like, gorgeous boy, trouble, been warned, stay away, my friend says, "he gave me an std," he gave someone else an std too supposedly, but i don't care, i like him, i'm incredibly attracted to him, always have been, seen him around for years and years and years, and i give him all of my attention, dutifully, following him around, holding his hand, on display, respectful, cuz i'm a nice guy, really, ever so, but there is only so much bullshit i can take. it was a date, maybe it wasn't a date, maybe not exactly, i don't know, it was like we're excited to see each other, the first two hours wonderful, the club sucked and then you showed up and everything was ok, it didn't matter, i had this beautiful boy, a beautiful boy that perhaps the whole club has already fucked once or thrice, but for now he was into me, i was validated, i'm not an ugly wretch, and even if i am, there is something, many things, special about me, that this beautiful alcoholic boy can see. i know i am special, i know i am a nice guy, i know i'm one hell of a unique androgynous messy catch of not like all the other faggots. why are you liking me back, why are you making my life difficult, good thing i don't care. but why now, these sleazy fucks show up, oh their you friends, ugly and fat, and lame, and you're giving them all of the attention you were just giving me. do you want me to rescue you, no. you want me to stay, to hang, maybe i can't hang anymore. the way this ugly fuck is holding you, touching you, the way i was not less than twenty minutes ago, this is ok with you? we are on the same level? i'm just another mediocre loser in line to validate you with all of my attention. i'm trying to be respectful, i'm trying not to be fucking jealous, but there is only so much i can take. everyone can see me, everyone watching paying attention, no one really, but just in case, well they can see me for a tool, a douche, a fucking retard, i've written of my experience before, like a shadow to tony voong, god damn him, all of his world, and then one "busted nut" later and i'm just another boy, another kid, another person to know. i'm very up front with the matter that at some times i don't know what the fuck it is i want, but i know quite clearly that it is to not be treated like shit, to be forgotten. making out with a stripper now, fat ugly black guy even abandoned, i had to wave goodbye, lesser retards would have already walked out, but i had to give you the gift of the disappointed look you gave me, if but for an instant, oh the guilt, yeah right, yr so damn drunk you've already forgotten. so i walk home, call my god damn bestest friend mikey, he's like "what, i'm fucking some boy, call me tomorrow," i'm like ok, whatever, it's not important anyway. so i walk home, and i send you the most sweetest honest text message, cuz i'm that kind of guy. it doesn't matter anyway, i probably won't fuck you. i probably shouldn't. i've been warned. you'll call me tomorrow. maybe you'll apologize. it's doesn't matter anyways, it's all a pet shop boys song at this point now anyways. but i will not be a fucking mirror.

sampler thing

so tomorrow i'm gonna spend most of the day putting samples into our new roland spd-s thingy that i dropped $640 on the other day. so far, tommi seems to really like the thing, it's actually been really annoying cuz i can't get him to stop fucking around and hitting the damn thing when we're trying to rehearse. but as of now it seems to have been a worthy investment. it actually has some cool 808 and 909 sounds in it, which is stuff we'll probably end up using on some new tunes whenever that happens. anyways, the show is gonna be $5 to get in. apparently the competition is judged by the ishta music company panel of judges and the audience, so uh, yeah, whatever. first place is $300, second $100, everyone else gets a meager cut of the door depending on turnout.

i was hoping to have some new or different songs ready to perform for this thing, but it's looking a bit unlikely, as were somewhat resting upon our laurels over the past couple of months. really, just reorganizing the songs with our newly expanded sonic palette is proving to be somewhat challenging, as through trial and error we're having to figure out what works or doesn't work, which basically consists of tommi telling me if something sucks or not.

anyway, i'm at the stupid jazz club now, it'd boring and tepid as fuck. rehash a plenty.