Bad wood underneath the veneer
Tuesday, December 27, 2005
That's one song in the bank. Next song!
The struggle against recording technology resumed today.
"Life After..." is up at my music site complete with banjo and finger snaps.
Hope you like it. I really need a recording engineer, because everything sounds like a mess. So I'm constantly putting the enclitic, paranthetical "demo" in every song title. "I know it's rough...I mean...I just threw it together really." Pft...I worked my ass off to get it to sound like that.
¶ 4:03 PM 0 comments
"Life After..." is up at my music site complete with banjo and finger snaps.
Hope you like it. I really need a recording engineer, because everything sounds like a mess. So I'm constantly putting the enclitic, paranthetical "demo" in every song title. "I know it's rough...I mean...I just threw it together really." Pft...I worked my ass off to get it to sound like that.
¶ 4:03 PM 0 comments
Sunday, December 25, 2005
Top 10 records I listened to this year
In chronological order.
1. Car Wheels On A Gravel Road - Lucinda Williams
2. Cold Roses - Ryan Adams and The Cardinals
3. Time (The Revelator) - Gillian Welch
4. The Woman King - Iron & Wine
5. Happenstance - Rachael Yamagata
6. You Forgot It In People - Broken Social Scene
7. Jacksonville City Nights - Ryan Adams and The Cardinals
8. Come On, Feel The Illinoise! - Sufjan Stevens
9. In Case We Die - Architecture In Helsinki
10. Speak For Yourself - Imogen Heap ¶ 9:28 PM 0 comments
1. Car Wheels On A Gravel Road - Lucinda Williams
2. Cold Roses - Ryan Adams and The Cardinals
3. Time (The Revelator) - Gillian Welch
4. The Woman King - Iron & Wine
5. Happenstance - Rachael Yamagata
6. You Forgot It In People - Broken Social Scene
7. Jacksonville City Nights - Ryan Adams and The Cardinals
8. Come On, Feel The Illinoise! - Sufjan Stevens
9. In Case We Die - Architecture In Helsinki
10. Speak For Yourself - Imogen Heap ¶ 9:28 PM 0 comments
Saturday, December 24, 2005
Hockey, etc.
Christmas Eve. 6:31 pm. A few degrees colder and it'd be snowing. Instead, a steady drizzle is coming down and is patiently melting the snow into slush, slush into puddles.
If it were colder, I'd probably be out playing pond hockey with my father. Pond hockey was and is the only form of hockey I can bear really. So it works out well when it's about 22 degrees out and no recent snowfall. Maybe some sunlight to warm you, but mostly just grey usually. Hockey was really a touchy subject with me and my parents. I love the game, but hate mostly what I remember of playing it. At least on the pond I don't have any expectations really. Except to trudge out into snow drifts looking for stray pucks (a difficult task, but rewarding with practice).
I don't know why I became distasteful of the sport. My father finds his solace from the everyday in it. Not that his life is particularly bad. Not that he truly needs it in any definition of needs. He thinks he needs it, and that goes a long way to elevating a passtime into something as elemental as breathing. He told me one day that if, hypothetically, he were to lose the mobility of his legs, he'd likely want to kill himself. That's understandable, I guess, though a bit dramatic for even my sensibilities. I don't think I'll ever understand the sport the way he does, though.
When I was twelve or thirteen, I was a great player, comparatively speaking. I had hit puberty a couple years sooner than most of my peers. So I had no trouble dominating for a while. It was probably the most gratifying time in my hockey career.
I was a smart player. I knew how to dominate players I had no business dominating. The execution of artistic passing, stick-handling, etc. - these were the mediums in which I worked and enjoyed. I could think ahead - know what the other player would do. I probably never realized my full potential in that time, however. I thrived on the communal aspect of the game. I always wanted other players to succeed as well. I would skate circles around each of the five opponents, up and down the ice, maybe twice, then dish the puck off to the weakest player on my team (largely to no avail). I'm sure my father looked on incredulously at the sheer talent and ingenuity that I possessed to beat every player on the opposing team, and my subsequent idiocy of giving the puck to an asthmatic, four-eyed chunk of baby fat, sure to be overcome in 2 seconds, tops. Who knows why I did things like that. It drove people crazy.
Sooner or later, I found I was no longer bigger than the other players. In fact, I was significantly smaller. I was 5'6" at 11, and I'm still 5'6" at 20. I tried to adapt to a more physical, less inventive, and less romantic game. I spent most shifts on my ass after being run over by 6'1" trucks. I would have feared those types more if they lacked braces and tubes of Oxy-10 in their back pockets. I gradually became less successful on the ice, and ultimately ended up a third line right-winger (with a left hand shot, no less). My job changed from scoring and being impressive, to chipping, hacking, grinding, bludgeoning and generally keeping the other team from scoring too much.
By this point, I lost most of my love of hockey. It was a different game entirely. Instead of relying on brains (or whatever you call what we thought we had), we relied on brute force and intimidation. As you can imagine, I wasn't very intimidating. So it went. I began loathing the game. Loathing it because of imminent injury. Loathing it because of parents and friends who remembered my glory days of artistic and cerebral domination, and who thought I was now a hack. I justified. At least I was getting exercise.
Practices were like bootcamp after awhile. We had all kinds of names for the drills. Suicides. Meat Grinders. Tunnel of Love. (That was a big fucking misnomer.) Yes. The Tunnel of Love I remember well. In practice, every player would line up single file along the boards, standing about six feet away. And you'd skate through the little corridor they'd created, getting blasted with body-checks by each player. Of course, this was a fun drill. Seriously. It was. You only had to go through once. And afterwards, you got to take a crack at every guy who hit you. It wasn't that bad really. It hurt. But not that much.
What I really couldn't take was the seriousness of the whole thing. We lost to our cross-town rivals one day. I dunno. I think it was 4-2. We were admittedly flat that game, I guess. We were a better team, but only a little better. So the rivalry was quite alive. Nevertheless, our coach was furious. The next day at practice, he came in, stony-eye'd and calmly ferocious. At first he didn't say anything. He dragged the bucket of pucks into the center of the locker room and dumped them out onto the floor. "If you need to puke, bucket's gonna be at center ice." Players groaned, spit, cussed. They took off superflous pads. They knew they wouldn't be needing them. This was a skating practice. Skating laps as fast as you could for an hour and fifteen minutes without breaks or water. Whatever you didn't sweat out, you puked out. Again! Again! Again! Just like Herb Brooks in Miracle. I remember some player collapsed from exaustion in the corner. Coach skated over, and - I swear I'm not kidding - he kicked him right in the stomach with his skate like, three times. "Get up, lardass!" He turned to the rest of us, mouths agape. "You guys are all heartless! Gutless!" Blah, blah, blah. All the same sports clichés. Pft. He even told us once, "If you lose this game, you're going to take it to your fucking grave." Another Herb Brooks line, no doubt.
I think we beat that same team the next time we played them. It was a blowout. 8-2. I dunno. Fights broke out towards the end. Players trying to keep what little dignity they had left by trying to kick your ass in fisticuffs. Whatever.
I miss the game. Of course I do. I miss when it was fun and I was good at it. I miss being in shape. I miss scoring and winning. What happened? I'm a musician most of the time now. A student otherwise. I keep playing my guitar. My dad keeps playing hockey. Both escapes, I guess. Probably keep doing both until we die.
Thought this was cool looking, though not germane at all. It's on my door.
Vic Chesnutt
¶ 3:51 PM 0 comments
If it were colder, I'd probably be out playing pond hockey with my father. Pond hockey was and is the only form of hockey I can bear really. So it works out well when it's about 22 degrees out and no recent snowfall. Maybe some sunlight to warm you, but mostly just grey usually. Hockey was really a touchy subject with me and my parents. I love the game, but hate mostly what I remember of playing it. At least on the pond I don't have any expectations really. Except to trudge out into snow drifts looking for stray pucks (a difficult task, but rewarding with practice).
I don't know why I became distasteful of the sport. My father finds his solace from the everyday in it. Not that his life is particularly bad. Not that he truly needs it in any definition of needs. He thinks he needs it, and that goes a long way to elevating a passtime into something as elemental as breathing. He told me one day that if, hypothetically, he were to lose the mobility of his legs, he'd likely want to kill himself. That's understandable, I guess, though a bit dramatic for even my sensibilities. I don't think I'll ever understand the sport the way he does, though.
When I was twelve or thirteen, I was a great player, comparatively speaking. I had hit puberty a couple years sooner than most of my peers. So I had no trouble dominating for a while. It was probably the most gratifying time in my hockey career.
I was a smart player. I knew how to dominate players I had no business dominating. The execution of artistic passing, stick-handling, etc. - these were the mediums in which I worked and enjoyed. I could think ahead - know what the other player would do. I probably never realized my full potential in that time, however. I thrived on the communal aspect of the game. I always wanted other players to succeed as well. I would skate circles around each of the five opponents, up and down the ice, maybe twice, then dish the puck off to the weakest player on my team (largely to no avail). I'm sure my father looked on incredulously at the sheer talent and ingenuity that I possessed to beat every player on the opposing team, and my subsequent idiocy of giving the puck to an asthmatic, four-eyed chunk of baby fat, sure to be overcome in 2 seconds, tops. Who knows why I did things like that. It drove people crazy.
Sooner or later, I found I was no longer bigger than the other players. In fact, I was significantly smaller. I was 5'6" at 11, and I'm still 5'6" at 20. I tried to adapt to a more physical, less inventive, and less romantic game. I spent most shifts on my ass after being run over by 6'1" trucks. I would have feared those types more if they lacked braces and tubes of Oxy-10 in their back pockets. I gradually became less successful on the ice, and ultimately ended up a third line right-winger (with a left hand shot, no less). My job changed from scoring and being impressive, to chipping, hacking, grinding, bludgeoning and generally keeping the other team from scoring too much.
By this point, I lost most of my love of hockey. It was a different game entirely. Instead of relying on brains (or whatever you call what we thought we had), we relied on brute force and intimidation. As you can imagine, I wasn't very intimidating. So it went. I began loathing the game. Loathing it because of imminent injury. Loathing it because of parents and friends who remembered my glory days of artistic and cerebral domination, and who thought I was now a hack. I justified. At least I was getting exercise.
Practices were like bootcamp after awhile. We had all kinds of names for the drills. Suicides. Meat Grinders. Tunnel of Love. (That was a big fucking misnomer.) Yes. The Tunnel of Love I remember well. In practice, every player would line up single file along the boards, standing about six feet away. And you'd skate through the little corridor they'd created, getting blasted with body-checks by each player. Of course, this was a fun drill. Seriously. It was. You only had to go through once. And afterwards, you got to take a crack at every guy who hit you. It wasn't that bad really. It hurt. But not that much.
What I really couldn't take was the seriousness of the whole thing. We lost to our cross-town rivals one day. I dunno. I think it was 4-2. We were admittedly flat that game, I guess. We were a better team, but only a little better. So the rivalry was quite alive. Nevertheless, our coach was furious. The next day at practice, he came in, stony-eye'd and calmly ferocious. At first he didn't say anything. He dragged the bucket of pucks into the center of the locker room and dumped them out onto the floor. "If you need to puke, bucket's gonna be at center ice." Players groaned, spit, cussed. They took off superflous pads. They knew they wouldn't be needing them. This was a skating practice. Skating laps as fast as you could for an hour and fifteen minutes without breaks or water. Whatever you didn't sweat out, you puked out. Again! Again! Again! Just like Herb Brooks in Miracle. I remember some player collapsed from exaustion in the corner. Coach skated over, and - I swear I'm not kidding - he kicked him right in the stomach with his skate like, three times. "Get up, lardass!" He turned to the rest of us, mouths agape. "You guys are all heartless! Gutless!" Blah, blah, blah. All the same sports clichés. Pft. He even told us once, "If you lose this game, you're going to take it to your fucking grave." Another Herb Brooks line, no doubt.
I think we beat that same team the next time we played them. It was a blowout. 8-2. I dunno. Fights broke out towards the end. Players trying to keep what little dignity they had left by trying to kick your ass in fisticuffs. Whatever.
I miss the game. Of course I do. I miss when it was fun and I was good at it. I miss being in shape. I miss scoring and winning. What happened? I'm a musician most of the time now. A student otherwise. I keep playing my guitar. My dad keeps playing hockey. Both escapes, I guess. Probably keep doing both until we die.
Thought this was cool looking, though not germane at all. It's on my door.
Vic Chesnutt
¶ 3:51 PM 0 comments
Thursday, December 22, 2005
Progress so far
"Rabbit Byrd"
Magnolia trees
Swaying in the Magnolia breeze
Blowing underneath your door
Grasping your chest
Grasping for breath
When the dirty rice hit the floor
Traffic lights hang
Swaying in the Magnolia breeze
Taking their time to turn green
Standing by your casket
You still looked alive
With your collar starched and clean
You never said harsh words
to anyone or anything
And you'd hear out every last complaint
And your wife you know
you didn't treat her like a lady
You know you treated her just like a saint
Quickly and quietly you left us alone
with a longing that only always grows
And if I could learn to love half as you did
I'd do the world good enough, I suppose
Currently listening to:
¶ 4:42 PM 0 comments
Magnolia trees
Swaying in the Magnolia breeze
Blowing underneath your door
Grasping your chest
Grasping for breath
When the dirty rice hit the floor
Traffic lights hang
Swaying in the Magnolia breeze
Taking their time to turn green
Standing by your casket
You still looked alive
With your collar starched and clean
You never said harsh words
to anyone or anything
And you'd hear out every last complaint
And your wife you know
you didn't treat her like a lady
You know you treated her just like a saint
Quickly and quietly you left us alone
with a longing that only always grows
And if I could learn to love half as you did
I'd do the world good enough, I suppose
Currently listening to:
¶ 4:42 PM 0 comments
Friday, December 16, 2005
Recording, Day 1
I fixed my guitar up some, put some new strings on it. Felt pretty good. Then broke the little bit of fingernail I'd built up. Started recording "Life After..." and it sounded nice. Three tracks: guitar, voice, and finger-snaps. It all worked so brilliantly...until, surprise cockfag! it won't mix down for you and you are left with each track individually exported, not mixed together like it's supposed to be. This program is not very user-friendly. Recording temporarily suspended until I can find something that doesn't suck in a big way.
Edit:
Mark came over and made my program work within 30 seconds. I feel like such a retard.
In other news, I think I'm getting a banjo for Christmas:
Currently listening to:
¶ 11:50 AM 2 comments
Edit:
Mark came over and made my program work within 30 seconds. I feel like such a retard.
In other news, I think I'm getting a banjo for Christmas:
Currently listening to:
¶ 11:50 AM 2 comments
Tuesday, December 06, 2005
What Ever Happened to TFNM?
I've always wanted to do this. It's like I'm answering fanmail.
Is TFNM still playing? jw...
- Big Mike, The Cartunes
No. Bax and Lackey are off at Michigan Tech, ten hours away from anywhere. Last I heard, they were making noises about a ska band. Lackey's family moved to Chi-town last year, but he still bums around Midland quite a bit. Mark has a woman and three jobs. He is also working here and there on his own solo project, "Z3R0." He's a great sampler and a burgeoning guitarist. Bax and Mark will probably play on my solo album, being as they are the best rhythm section I know. Matt's at CMU, planning his own solo project "Miles From Nazareth." We still get together and collaborate sometimes. All of us still keep in touch and are good friends. Bax and Lackey are committed to putting together the collective recordings of TFNM. I'm not aware of their progress, but I'm sure they'll do a good job with what they have.
Currently listening to:
¶ 9:48 PM 0 comments
Is TFNM still playing? jw...
- Big Mike, The Cartunes
No. Bax and Lackey are off at Michigan Tech, ten hours away from anywhere. Last I heard, they were making noises about a ska band. Lackey's family moved to Chi-town last year, but he still bums around Midland quite a bit. Mark has a woman and three jobs. He is also working here and there on his own solo project, "Z3R0." He's a great sampler and a burgeoning guitarist. Bax and Mark will probably play on my solo album, being as they are the best rhythm section I know. Matt's at CMU, planning his own solo project "Miles From Nazareth." We still get together and collaborate sometimes. All of us still keep in touch and are good friends. Bax and Lackey are committed to putting together the collective recordings of TFNM. I'm not aware of their progress, but I'm sure they'll do a good job with what they have.
Currently listening to:
¶ 9:48 PM 0 comments
This week in absurdities
I think I have bronchitis. My coughs are becoming increasingly catastrophic. Furthermore, I just now realized that Silliman and I have been using the same toothbrush for quite some time now. Full tracklist for recording is more or less decided on. I'm taking a nap.
1. The Last (song about Amanda...but not really)
2. Lunita (song for the kitten the Ault's have)
3. Now And Then (for Matt and Jonathan and the little time we have together)
4. Dear Sister (for Kate and an apology for being a bad older brother)
5. Only October (song about leaving the ones you love. Past: Grandfather died Present: Away from my immediate family; Future: missing wife and kids)
6. Life After...(song about being a ghost and looking on your lover moving on)
7. Michael's Song (Boy I knew in elementary school who died of a brain tumor. Pain, redemption, etc.)
8. (untitled song about my grandmother losing her faith. She grew up on an indian reservation. There was a convent there and she went to school at that convent. Late one Thursday night, a shipment of meat came in. If they didn't eat it on Friday, the meat would go bad. But it was lent. But it was also the great depression. She couldn't understand why a religion would put that before physical needs.)
9. (untitled song for my 2nd cousin Sherman, who just went through a divorce)
10. (untitled for Grandfather, who never said a bad word about anyone or anything)
11. VanCroft Steel (Story of how this VanCroft guy paid off other businesses to go somewhere else besides McComb where my mother grew up. the city is dead now.)
12. Poor Bastards I Never Knew (Song about how the best of times have past, but have they really?)
Currently listening to:
¶ 9:59 AM 2 comments
1. The Last (song about Amanda...but not really)
2. Lunita (song for the kitten the Ault's have)
3. Now And Then (for Matt and Jonathan and the little time we have together)
4. Dear Sister (for Kate and an apology for being a bad older brother)
5. Only October (song about leaving the ones you love. Past: Grandfather died Present: Away from my immediate family; Future: missing wife and kids)
6. Life After...(song about being a ghost and looking on your lover moving on)
7. Michael's Song (Boy I knew in elementary school who died of a brain tumor. Pain, redemption, etc.)
8. (untitled song about my grandmother losing her faith. She grew up on an indian reservation. There was a convent there and she went to school at that convent. Late one Thursday night, a shipment of meat came in. If they didn't eat it on Friday, the meat would go bad. But it was lent. But it was also the great depression. She couldn't understand why a religion would put that before physical needs.)
9. (untitled song for my 2nd cousin Sherman, who just went through a divorce)
10. (untitled for Grandfather, who never said a bad word about anyone or anything)
11. VanCroft Steel (Story of how this VanCroft guy paid off other businesses to go somewhere else besides McComb where my mother grew up. the city is dead now.)
12. Poor Bastards I Never Knew (Song about how the best of times have past, but have they really?)
Currently listening to:
¶ 9:59 AM 2 comments
