While looking at my doc here I noticed I have a lot of crap that I’ve written and not even posted. Perhaps the ultimate personal reflection has come. I only write this stuff for one person, myself. It doesn’t make me happy, but it lets me explore my thoughts and mind in a general sense while throwing it down the tubes of the internet. Basically I’m dumping all of my material that is gathering digital dust. Since I’m at work now, I see myself drinking a nice 12 abv Dogfish Head Santo Palo Ale as I pollute blogger.com.

Cheers!!

Live a little!

After exploding out of college last year with my PHD in astro-physics I held off working for Nasa and decided to make the trek down to Bonnaroo with three close friends. After the experience (and a long shower) I really never expected to go again but was extremely glad I did. I figured life would have provided me a direction at this point. Unfortunately I’m still that smuck working a shitty job barely able to swing a vacation.

So it came around this year and it seemed like the right thing to do. Perhaps I’m decent at pulling people together (or everyone just wanted to go to Bonnaroo but never expressed their desire to me) and now we have 8 people confirmed. That’s pretty sweet. I’m totally stoked for this year. We may have three cars, if more people sign on.

I’m trying to be more prepared this year and I think it will promote a even better experience now that I know what I’m getting myself into. After the essentials all you need are a pair of shorts, comfortable sneakers and a straw hat. I’m opting to get a bandanna this year for the sand and smoke that pollutes the air on certain days.

I wish wilco was playing again this year, but there are still tons of great other bands I want to see. Jenny Lewis is going to be there, hopefully I can invite her back to out camp ground.

There are also tons of bands I don’t give two shits about, and knowing that I’ll probably be falling asleep to Widespread Panic jamming away into the wee hours of the morning on Sunday night. Oh and Metillica is totally going to be the Tool of last year. I just don’t get why they have to have metal bands at a festival like this.

This was ultimately more of a hippie fest. Jam bands dicking around on guitar. Thankfully they started to diversify the line-up. More indie bands got on the list, even more electronic and rap got on the bill. Kanye is playing this year, wtf? So is Talib Kwelli and that’s kind of cool. I missed DJ Shadow last year… but did get to enjoy some of it on the walk back. My only use of the main stage was for Wilco… and that was almost a religious experience.

Anyways, I can’t wait.

Facebook can be mean.

Part of the add campaign behind facebook’s adds are finding things in your profile to market towards you. Example : I love Wes Anderson films and often I see adds for products from films or t-shirts. Clever, eh? Originally I thought “Wow! They are advertising cool things!” then I realized it was only because I liked said cool things and noted so in my profile.

Lately I’ve been seeing a lot of adds that target me and remind me that I suck at this entire dating game. Besides my sucking, I seem to fail even meeting people (see previous post). These adds seem to notice this trend and offers me a solution. “Hot 22 year olds!” with a picture of two girls with fake tits and 3 drinks too many down their gullets.

How wonderful… I don’t get enough of these bitches at bars and in everyday life now facebook seems to be trying to set me up with them. No thanks, oh and fuck you facebook for reminding me I’m single. Oh and maybe the meta tags are more screwed up then the girls in the adds, but sometimes I get offered to date men… thanks again facebook, my profile says interested in women…

I was much happy when you only offered me Team Zissou skull caps.

Hey buddy! / Meeting people ISN’T easy….

Dude, bro, buddy, pal, champ… etc… These are words that can make you smile, chuckle and sometimes contemplate bashing someone’s face in. I’d like to look at the third one with an example I just experienced.

This older gentleman walks in to the copy center. He’s sporting the very dashing balding monk haircut and a vintage ‘90s starter jacket. He goes “Hey dude…” He said it with as much enthusiasm as your old college roommate reveling in his accomplishment of smoking his 4th bong of the day.

He starts to fax while addressing me as dude. Eventually he picks up his cell and starts talking professionally until he calls the guy on the other end dude. Hell, I probably use man, or maybe even dude too much, but this sounded like this guys favorite word. The icing on the cake was his fax got canceled and he said “Fucking thing is too fucking slow dude” and walked out… a monkish guy in a starter jacket.. who talked like a angry stoner…

I wish I could relate to more people ultimately. Meeting people isn’t easy Thom Yorke! I have my friends in the area, and I love them all, but there is an obvious shortage of like-minded music obsessed individuals. I do also realize working my dead-end job doesn’t help much.

I used to put some effort into going out to be social. Bars seemed like the obvious first step. I like beer and people hang out at bars. Sounds like a winning combination. Well… it’s a winning combo if you like to be surrounded by d-bags and whores. Honestly, if a girl spends more then 1 hours TOTAL (shower et all) to go to a shitty bar and and also wears a really whorish outfit… count me out. I realize most guys would be all about it, cause generally these girls do look good, but ehhh so not my type.

This area is wealthier then I really like, so the people reflect it. I wish there was a cozy little brew pub that catered to a more artsy audience. I really want to get out of this town, or meet some new people....

Sex, Drugs & a Short Story?!?

Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs is one of my favorite books. I’ve recommended it to many a friend all of whom have all enjoyed it. (One of my friends is borrowing it right now actually) Fargo Rock City was an enjoyable read, but really didn’t cater to my personal music taste. Regardless I love reading Klosterman as he is always witty and worth a read regardless of the subject matter.

When I heard about IV, I was very excited because it seemed to be in the same vein of SD&CC. I think this is where it falls short unfortunately. Some of the chapters are extensions or other articles that were left out of SD&CC… BUT the chapter on Wilco is INCREDIBLE! And radiohead is also great… basically I still absolutely love Klosterman, but he bored me at times during the first half. I sometimes struggle reading about sports or Guns ‘N Roses just to get that self-aware whit.

One of the funniest chapters was his old account of FM-Alt Rock in Fargo. He basically has to put foot notes on everything because he is not satisfied with it. I relate to this somewhat and still personally feel I’m not a good writer. I have good intentions and ideas, but fail to execute it as sharply as I would like. My grammar also could probably be edited by a first grader.

If you don’t want to trek through the entire book, and only read parts, I highly encourage you to read the last chapter. It’s a fiction short story about a drugged out journalist. It’s hysterical. He should write some full novels that aren’t just about pop-culture.

I need a camera to my eye

I love photography. I really want to get a job in the field and am currently pursuing a career shooting for a living. I use a Nikon d80 and absolutely love it. I’m a strong believer that the camera is only a tool for the equation of a great picture. I’d love to have a D3 but I’ve seen some amazing shots taken with point and shoots. Some of my portfolio shots are from my old Lumix.

The price of DSLRs has hit an amazing low. You can pick up a Nikon d40 or Canon Rebel XTI for under $600 with a basic lens. Typically they give you something like an 18-55mm f3.5-5.6. That gives you a nice wide to short tele after frame conversion. I believe its about 27-82mm compared to a full frame 35mm.

This opens the doors for anyone to have full control while shooting even on a smaller budget. The low-end DSLRs don’t have as easy access to control, but still offers the basics. You’ll find greater depth in range of things such as ISO, shutter speed, shutter lag and start up time in high end models.

Picture a family gathering where your aunt has a point and shoot. It takes her about 2 minutes before she is ready to shoot. The lens has to open… then the zoom needs to engage… then the autofocus and exposure come into play. These are virtually eliminated in DSLRs. The d80 starts in under a seconds to shoot. Goodbye frozen forced smiles.

Disposable products for a disposable public

After my i-pod purchase I started looking into speakers for it. I hate to say it but after watching Jack use it in the The Darjeeling Limited I started thinking about out handy it looks. Having a portable stereo with all my music available on it? That’s pretty fucking sweet. So I started looking around at different products. At first I found a nice Logitech Pure-Fi Anywhere for about $85. It seemed to get good reviews across the board and had a rechargeable battery. I ended up passing due to the price. Staples doesn’t does not keep my wallet packed so I had to find something else for a quick fix. Basically I went to Bonaventure a few weeks back for BAM and I wanted something to use for tunes while we guzzle down PBRs in the DeSoto.

I looked around for something dirt cheap. I had previously owned some cheap speakers that I plugged into my discman for some outdoor relaxation at college. I looked for an under $10 price range. What I found was a $4 on amazon. Some company called DigiLife was selling them. I figured for $4 bucks who cares?

After reading the numerous positive and negative customer reviews one thing remained obvious, anyone with high expectations were disappointed, but those who took the price into account seemed happy. Comments like “you might as well get a few for when they break” and “if it lasts me 6 months I’m millions ahead of the game” were plentiful. Obviously I kind of jumped on this train with similar expectation.

As I thought more about it I realized the problem with this. It’s like shopping at the dollar store. Things like this shouldn’t cost so little. Obviously they are being made somewhere cheap that exploits someone. I think I have it bad, whoever Digilife out sources to must have it worse. It’s a sad fact of this world. We take things for granted. We can afford to buy 3 or four sets of speakers expecting them to break and to be replaced as we see fit. It’s kind of disgusting that we have such a lack of concern. The production and disposal of the products can’t be good for the environment.

In the afterthought I feel bad about contributing to this… between that and all my spent Canon ink cartridges that I have laying around my room, I guess I’m an asshole that isn’t solving the problem at the moment.

p.s. Ironically the speakers sucked and broke 20 min after I started playing with them. Spending extra money on quality products makes all the difference.

Who's got the crack? ... best buy does!

So I didn't reserve a copy of GTA:IV... I kind of forgot all about it and then found myself low on money. So then game day came and I finally saw the in game footage... I broke my piggy bank and sold my body to science (something about testing the short term affects of swimming nuclear waste...) After putting my body on the line, I took all my pennies (yes, they paid me in pennies) and set out on to see just how hard it would be to find the game with out a reserve.

Here is my journey:

GameStop : Brewster (sold out) The girl gave me a sympathetic smile, but here eyes hinted at my stupidity. A grown man argued with another
associate about his reserve not being on file.

Danbury Fair Mall : There are 2 GameStops, a FYE, Saturday Matinee and another FYE in the parking lot. I was able to find a deluxe edition in FYE but refused it. I'm on a budget here!


As I was searching the newly renovated mall (probably old news, but I'm no mall rat.) I almost felt like a crack head looking for a fix. I set myself up for repeated situations where I fully expected to get shot down. I became more interested in peoples reactions to me asking for the game and the questions I'd follow with... such as "Why didn't you order extra?" "Where can I find it?" "How come there are like 100 unopened copies behind you?" The most friendly people at gamestop engaged me in conversation and basically said that it would be useless to try any gamestop. Gamestop ONLY sells video games and they didn't prepare for the launch? Is there sales manager a fucking retard? (I visited three individual stores and got the same reaction basically)

My next plan was Best Buy, Circuit City, then swing back to Walmart before throwing in the towel. Best Buy had it... and I had a less then enthused employee sell me my copy. He didn't care about my epic journey. He was probably more concerned with my sweaty hands and jolty eyes.

On the way back I felt like Indiana Jones. My holy grail was next to me, but I was unable to enjoy it until I got back home. What would Indy have done with the grail anyways?

During my travels I thought about making this a story about our shitty economy. I don't have the figures but it was estimated to make over $400 million on yesterday alone. This game requires a system that costs at least $450... I kind of void my own point when put into the statistics. I wonder if I have enough in my bank account for a coffee tomorrow... hmm, guess I'll just go back to cruising around breaking the law in my own little virtual world. I wonder if Harison Ford is playing right now...

Sad Sappy Sucker

Yeah, so I guess that's me... I just finished watching Wristcutters : A Love Story. I've been dying to see this movie ever since I heard about it. It was very limited showing, and I never caught it... but now it's on DVD and I finally saw it. (I actually rented it, a HUGE mistake.. I need to own it)

Without ruining it... basically it's about this alternate reality where suicide victims go to live the afterlife. It's done in a very dark-comedy meets cute romance at first, then the best thing happens. Tom fucking Waits joins the crew. Waits is the shit, honestly he's one of the coolest mother fuckers ever.

His quotes are soo great. He carries all the insight the movie has. The last scene before the ending with Kneller is a tear-jerker.

Another great perk to the movie is Will Arnett as the Messiah. Fans of Arrested Development (probably anyone reading this... as 99% of my friends love that show... if anyone reads this...) will get a kick out of the role he plays. It's got all the style of GOB's magician act.

Basically, please check this movie out. If you hate it, I'd love to have a heated debate over it. I'm also currently enjoying heated debates over the new DCFC song, so bring it... that song kicks ass.

p.s. Dahl got me probably the best (very early) birthday present I've got in a while... Smoking Loon wine and a Moose wine stopper. I dare you to trump that.... in like a month... yeah, so I want to do something interesting for my birthday... Beer Garden??

... the aftermath

So this years art and media fair went without a hitch. The bands all played to their full caliber. The usual artists came by and always were welcome faces in the crowd. A few people at times looked offended... and everyone who ran it seemed to have the fun, manic satisfaction that the fair is all about.

It's great to have people who care about art and media. We had probably one of the best crowds that actually sticked around all day. I felt no speaker or band wasn't given respect and a chance.

I hope to see BAM keep chugging along. We had some great new faces involved and I hope they keep sticking it out. Providing people a safe haven for artist expression is very important especially in a community that often close minded community.

Thanks everyone who was involved, who showed up, who played, who read, who performed, who partied with me, and who were there for me when I needed it.

BAM 2009! here we come!!

Qu'est-ce que tu as aujourd'hui?

During my summer in NYC interning at AAM promo a co-intern was raving about a band called Beirut. After argument with the other minds on the validity of this claim I kind of had a headache. I heard a little bit and was satisfied with it. The first thing that kept coming to mind when hearing it was Andrew Bird. While my opinion upon this has changed, I still would use that as a comparison to the work. I received the Lon Gisland EP and really never gave it enough time. The song Elephant Gun was very good, so I never put him off, I just never got around to bothering to engage it.

This seems to have been a mistake. After a music-colleague of mine ranked gave the album a prominent place in her Top 20 of 2007. (Something that I fucked up by failing to notice a 06 band in my list… one of the many signs I need to get my head back in the game.) So I got my hands on the latest album.

The first thing that really comes out with the album is the elaborate orchestration. It hasn’t been since Ys that I was so engrossed in non-typical folk orchestration. The heavy French undertones really never go out of style. Think about it… Stereolab has always been totally awesome, the Arcade Fire is one of the single greatest bands of our time to touch on a small portion.

It’s accessible at a level that is typically hard to convey. At first the listener might be a little taken aback by the vocals and lush orchestration but soon it becomes very inviting. Typically I throw on a cd for background music while eating dinner with my mother. She always enjoyed Ryan Adams for some reason, I guess the universal appeal of some of his work especially off Cold Roses appeals to her. When I put The Flying Club Cub on at one point she asked me if it was Mexican music. While I found it odd, I do always enjoy it when she engages my music. This is where I think the accessibility comes into play. It’s such an interesting album that you can’t help but become somewhat engaged in it regardless of how much you are actually listening to it.

the Coal Mines

Currently I’m sitting on a shitty stool in the corner of West Danbury’s Staples writing this to keep my brain from becoming complete mush. It’s about 8:20 a.m. and the first hour and a half of my shift has been utterly pointless. Currently people are congregating in the self serve to make copies of god knows what. It’s almost sad because as someone approaches me, I keep closing this document as to not get caught. We lost our internet and are basically told we should be standing or cleaning in any downtime. I clean at night (if I close) and refuse to stand for my pitiful hourly wage. Basically my job is a pathetic joke. Ironically I do know that staples can log right into this computer RIGHT now and see exactly what I am typing. I assume if they read this they might fire me, but considering the lack of good employees who stay around, I feel pretty secure.

Some more smucks keep coming into the self yet none ask me for help, hilarious. They fail to realize the high prices they are paying for copies is letting me write a rant about their uselessness. I often wonder what they think of me, especially considering how harshly my mind thinks about their existence most of the time. I think one thing I have over all these people is they I know how to plan in advance. I think I fucking learned that in kindergarten. So many people save things for the last minute and expect miracles from me. Sorry, I’m not Jesus of the Copy Land, d-bag. Have fun listening to your boss rip you a new one.

Currently there is a lady in the self serve… she has basically set up her own little cute office. She has a cup of coffee, a laptop, she has been blabbing on her phone for about hmm… 30 minutes… and she is driving me absolutely crazy…. Where is my cover, I need fresh air and a coffee.

So moving on… I purchased some paper and ink so I can keep sending out my portfolio in the hopes of landing a job. It got me thinking about the dynamics of it all. There is a substantial amount of money that has to keep going into this process for printing, binding and sending them out, yet nothing seems to be working out, so partially my shitty job is fueling my failure to get a better job. Thankfully my mother helps me out with some of the cost to keep printing.

It's annoying because I still seem to be week to week, regardless of what I do. Honestly how do they expect people to live off this amount of money? If I didn’t have student loans, left for work 4 hours early to bike there, had no need for any sort of food, didn’t pay for insurance, ditched my cell, worked 40 hours a week …. I still wouldn’t be able to afford to move out and remain in this area. HOW PATHETIC IS THAT?! What is wrong with this area, or what the fuck is wrong with the economy? I’m making slightly above minimum wage yet the possibility of being independent is impossible… in my no-cost scenario then I could probably just swing it with a roommate. Too bad we need food to survive, eh?

I’m organizing a much more ambitious portfolio sending early next week. Expect to see my shots on the cover of Spin in the next month. I personally feel I’ve been incredibly pessimistic and harsh about things lately (I kind of feel bad)… must be the environment I’m surrounded in… Ha, yeahhh…. If anyone actually reads this… and if they actually got this far, I’m impressed, send me and e-mail and I’ll buy ya a beer next time I see ya.

Bonaventure Art and Media Fair 2008

This years BAM is right around the corner. I helped start and run the original version two years ago. With the help of Rebecca Dahl and Dr. Mark Huddle we were able to create something so out of place yet so perfect.

This years events will only be one day. Hopefully this will make things easier for everyone and keep peoples attention. The saddest part is this is almost marking the year anniversary of my graduation... time surely flies, even when you're not having fun.

I'll have a post BAM follow up no doubt.

fuck me up, steal my records

It was time for another fisherman's weekend, so I grabbed my ax, camera and picked up the essentials. Here are some of the highlights. . .

On Friday night Angel, Brian and I came back upstairs to find Alpaugh playing guitar. We were slightly messed up, but all about playing guitar. As silent as Navy Seals we closed the door, I took a drink of my white russian... as the glass hit the table we all chimed in together playing Ryan Adam's Come Pick Me Up.

Little did any of us know Alpaugh was recording it the entire time. Ha, it came out fairly cool if you ask me.

Saturday was mostly recovery and some production before stealing Alpaugh's brothers Rock Band and playing that all night. We also enjoyed some sick pizza.

Sunday we found ourselves in the studio for a live video session. We all had to get out shit together and relearn some old songs. I think it went very well, everyone had a blast.

Okay enough about that... check out www.boathouserecords.com and www.fishermansfavoritedreams.com

I'm off to the coal mines! (aka the copy and print center)

save me a pint.

So I finishing reading Tucker Max’s collection of stories after a recommendation as my initial chuckle at the title. So let’s start out with the obvious Tucker is an absolute ass-hole. The kind of scum that you typically laugh at and thank god you’re not like him. This said, he is one of the well-spoken & witty writers. I was hooked to the book.

The descriptions of his friends are hilarious and very relatable. SlingBlade is my personal favorite. The description of his apartment is killer. I also love his complete hatred of the average slutty bar girl. Things like this play a nice contrast to Tucker that lets the chaos of the book really take off.

I think part of the appeal of a work like this is the ability to get into a different mind. It's like watching people and wondering what makes them tick. This was my dive into the mind of an over intelligent arrogant closeted-self-conscious pompous jerk. And it was fun.

If I ever meet this guy, I don't know what I would do. He would obviously get internally nervous but then counter balance it with overconfidence and drink more. I'd probably think he was even more of a dick and regret enjoying reading his book so much.

I'm diving into Klosterman's IV now. Sadly I have yet to find a chapter that I've loved yet, but I just started it so I have faith.

Cheers!

Asking for seconds

Yesterday TRTL Soup played the student center at Suny Purchase. Health was the headliner, and probably were sweet, but I only stayed for the SOUP.

After getting to campus we (Little John and I) had to find this "student center." Once we stumbled upon it confusion set in. This place has old arcade games, some small skate ramps, pool tables, Q and Not U on the stereo, a sweet stage and the usual cluster-fuck of all various counter-culture socialites.

We had to wait around for a while, but the show was fun as always. A few of the usual suspects started dancing oddly by themselves to the music and eventually started examining a glowing paper ball item that Eric had. Two of them in seemed like moths drawn to the light in complete fascination. They just couldn't resist going closer to it and poking it like it was something from another planet.

After they finished there was a fairly decent amount of people standing around. Everyone kept asking Alex and the boys to play more, but they didn't. He said that was just their usual set. Regardless the Soup is awesome... people obviously fucking like them a lot, and that's pretty sweet. I really didn't expect random Purchase kids to be upset about the short set.

Coming soon : I explore my thoughts on I Hope they Serve Beer in Hell.

The Great Re-organization.

I own my fair share of cds… at least several hundred I guess. They reside on a cheap wood stand that bows on the highest level. The rest are scattered around in a mess. There once was a form of alphabetic order behind the madness…. Followed by greatest hits, live shows and bootlegs. Eps and singles were okay, but splits went at the end. (I mean where would my Bright Eyes/Neva Devona go? The B or the N section…) These problems might seem trivial but as a fairly compulsive individual it can be a nightmare. Not to mention my vinyls as well. It seems preposterous not to have some of the albums I only have on vinyl missing from my cd collection… The there is the old vinyls and new ones… it’s hard having Elliott Smith next to my mom’s old Carpenters vinyl with “Rosie” written on the inside cover… but it’s also hard to have The Velvets and Nico there as well…

Anyway, I started to reorganize my collection. Setting piles to re-evaluate and some to just donate to friends. I have a lot of shitty albums that I’ve collected over the years from working at WSBU. I have about 100 albums to re-visit and send to the cutting room floor or add back to my collection. This process will take a long time, but sooner or later I’m going to have it done. Hopefully….

So in the process I’ve noticed many inconsistencies between my computer collection and actual cds. I Then started the process of putting everything I own on my computer. I did this for one reason… I finally gave in and got an ipod. As much as I love my creative 1 gig… it was a complete pain in the ass to keep updating almost daily as my moods and musical infatuations changed. My tax return helped me out here. Living in NY but working in CT took a shit load of taxes every week. So I got a nice hefty return. Instead of saving it or putting to towards my loans, I blew it. I’m barely making enough to keep up with loans, gas and basic bills… so whatever, I can indulge once in a while.

I purchased a 80 gig version and am currently more then half full… and still copying CDs to it. I dubbed it Naomi after the Neutral Milk Hotel that seems to be haunting the stereo in my brain. Ultimately the thing that pushed me over the edge was now that I’m driving a lot lugging 2 huge CD cases, keeping them organized and protected became a nightmare. My CD deck has a 1/8 input on the front and the potential to run a cable from the back end to the i-pod while charging it. This is something I plan on picking up sooner or later. They also make a version where you can control it from the deck, but with my bootleg stand with my recycled fake leather case jury rigged into the dash.

So all and all I’m very satisfied with my purchase. It basically makes driving much more convenient. I doubt I’ll ever use the video feature, but it’s nice to have I guess. I put some of my photos on it, and pondered if it would be a way to show people my portfolio if I don’t have anything else with me. Hopefully mine wont break soon, I got the coverage for it. I was kind of disappointed when researching other mp3 players. There really are only the classic and the zune that have 80+ gigs without all the bells and whistles of a “media player” and the zune only works on Windows, while I do have it now sooner or later I might just get a mac.

I’ve also joined emusic as an alternative to itunes and compulsive music spending when I can’t find a cd or just really want to hear something again. It’s addicting, and satisfying. Basically I plan to keep up with more new music and also help get some back catalogue. … so some of my new finds.

I've also been enjoying stumbling on old classics like the Pumpkins that I so dearly loved with all my heart and weezer... ahh life was so much easier back then, and I kind of don't want to hear anything bands like that have put out recently. oh well... that is that and this is that... at least I have better headphones then the ones that came with it... the audio is a joke.. and I never really got the benefit of having white headphones, they get so fucking dirty... my creatives ones did from just keeping them in a bag when I'd sleep on someones floor and needed music to put my typically drunk mind to sleep (think about it, how often are you sleeping on someone's floor and not wasted?)

My obsession with Neutral Milk Hotel.

Note : This was written over a week ago. I'm finally just starting to post some of my collected thoughts.

I just finished reading a book about Neutral Milk Hotel’s In the Aeroplane Over the Sea. It was part of the 33 1/3 series. For myself personally, the album is one of my top favorites. A must own on vinyl as the cd/digital version just doesn’t do the recording style justice. Some of the most interesting parts of the book were the stories about the personalities of the members from Jeff’s unique personality to Roberts sound and production values that would have to be modified in order to suit the needs of Jeff’s less pristine vision. (I'm not going to go over this, borrow the book from me or buy it if you're really interested in the ideas.)

One of the best known NMH songs, In the Aeroplane Over the Sea, has a cool story behind it. The Elephant Six gang was hanging out on a spring day in the backyard. They mention some of them being on MDMA at the time. Jeff went upstairs to his favorite practice space, the bathroom. This is something I found odd considering I’ve done the same. Whatever material that showers and tubs are made of, plus the smallness of space creates a excellent acoustic sound. The waves must bounce all over the walls. Sam Beam (Iron & Wine) and Rob Crow (Pinback) both also have noted recording and practicing in the bathroom. So back to the original topic… after Jeff was finished he went back outside and played the song. They dubbed the song, "Beautiful Face" by his friends. Everyone else who isn’t cool enough to be part of E6 will have to stick to the album name.

I started listening to the album at almost obsessive level, as well as On Avery Island. As I drove to work today I got frustrated with Everything Is and went to the acoustic Jittery Joe’s performance. In the book they note some of the obvious differences between the songs lyrically and on Aeroplane. Fans would pick this up fairly fast, the one thing that really was interesting to me was that the sound of a baby crying was actually not a baby some punk-rock mother felt should see Jeff… it was actually a performance artist that the collective had done previous work with. Go figure.

The book is short and very easy to read. It gives a lot of insight into the band as well as the ascetics that shaped the album. It’s for fans who want more, but this book isn’t going to change your life… it just helps explain a record that just might have.

Intro

For someone with too much time and not enough drive, thoughts can tend to gather… then run wild in ones mind. My friends seem to at least humor me after a few beers when I start to ramble about this and that. Often times these go off on complete tangents that had no tie to the original subject or thought. This is ultimately a cheap way to organize my thoughts without having time lines or any suggestion of professionalism.