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The USA vs. Canada hockey game was easily the most entertaining hockey event I’ve ever seen. Second place goes to last Sunday’s match-up of the same two teams. It made a hockey fan out of this non-hockey fan. High five, Team USA. You did awesome. Maybe some more people will watch the NHL now.
But probably not. See you in four years!!
I have neglected this blog. I didn’t even stop to check the date of my last post, because I’m sure it would be embarrassing to me. I have been not writing here because I’ve been writing like a maniac to catch up on Independent Clauses work. And it’s working! As of today, I have no albatross albums hanging around; I finally reviewed Inner Surge’s An Offering, a year and a half after it came out and a year after the band broke up. But I reviewed it, because it was haunting me. Distressingly, it was an awesome album. Why did I not get to it sooner?! There are no good answers.
While I have no releases clouding my mental happiness, I do have four more releases that came in the door before February started. Once I finish those four reviews, I’ll be working on current stuff. And that will be a really good feeling. I can just feel it.
I’ve been slowly decluttering everything in my house. I think this is the optimist in me determining that if I do spring cleaning, that will force it to be spring. So far, my will has not changed the weather. Washington, DC, would know.
Either way, I’ve got my junk down to a closet and a dresser top. Almost everything else is squared away or thrown away, which I’m fairly proud of. I like trashing things. Makes me feel accomplished. I don’t, however, like it when I realized I’ve trashed some important paper (which is the inevitable outcome of spring cleaning). It’s just a matter of degrees to see how bad the damage is. I haven’t done it yet (that I know of), but I also haven’t attacked the paper monster that is the top of my dresser. Perhaps that will be this weekend’s job. Perhaps it will never get done and the paper monster and I will live a peaceful coexistence among the hills and valleys of my house’s foundation. Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps.
There was a time in my life where I had access to not one but two free sources of Red Bull energy drink. I had assumed that this meant it was a rather unhealthy and potentially dangerous time in my life. Thankfully, I found this helpful website that makes me feel a bit better about my past energy drink consumption. Introduced to me by the fantastic Mr. Jeff Hinton (not to be confused with the Fantastic Mr. Fox, which I have sadly not seen yet), Death by Caffeine is a website which tells you exactly how many cans of that energy concoction you’re draining it would take to off you.
The creators list an astounding amount of energy drinks. Unfortunately, Drank (the semi-official drink of Stephen Carradini and the Midnight Sons) and Old Glory (the campiest energy drink to exist — the can is an American flag!) are unlisted. Even so, I was surprised to find that the average amount of drinks that would cause system overload to the point of death is about fifty. And even if I did decide to test my Red Bull mettle, I don’t know where I’d get the money to score 136.5 cans of it (death point for my weight, as reported by DbC). The math is 35 dollars per case (24 cans) times 6 cases (needed to get to 136 cans) equals 210 dollars. It also equals more than a month’s worth of gas. So unless I decide to make the worst decision ever and go on a weekend-long energy drink bender (no! sleep! till! Broooooooooklyn!!), Red Bull will not be my demise any time soon.
Thus, feel free to imbibe Monster in peace. You will (most likely) not die, unless you’re just knocking them back like so many bowling pins.
Here’s what I got, folks: Hype Machine. Pretty much the only way to find obscure tracks semi-legally. I’ve been using it aggressively lately, because I just linked it to my Last.FM, which takes care of about all of my OCD music listening tendencies (I’ve listened to “Matinee” by Damien Jurado only 63 times, as opposed to 81 times for “California Skies” by Novi Split?! How is this possible?).
Maybe soon I will have thoughts.
So, my good friend Adam Howard has enlisted a percussionist to accompany his mad guitar skills. With Jordan Weeks in tow, Adam is going to write a song every day and post it on YouTube. This is gonna be awesome, guys. They’re only two songs in and they’ve already busted out pedal looping, weird synth-like instruments, sung rounds (no, seriously!), djembe, struck poses (okay, that is a little ridiculous) and more awesomeness.
In short, GO HERE AND LISTEN. Cause it’s goooood.
All Texas fans will be directed to the, “wow, see how much it sucks when that happens?” aisle, where a tape of the 2009 OU/texas game will be playing.
I cheered for you, though. I wanted you to win a lot. I hate the SEC that much.
I’m impressing myself with my prolific songwriting abilities. As I’m on the verge of releasing How We Lived (December 26, get ready!), I notice that I’ve already written eight full songs and about a dozen song fragments for my next Stephen Carradini and the Midnight Sons album. I decided to go back and look at my songwriting by the numbers.
41 full songs
8 releases
5 albums (as Jacksonism: Image is Nothing, Living is Everything. With Tragic Landscape: Jessica Brown Was Here, Job. As Stephen Carradini and the Midnight Sons: How We Lived, Unnamed future album)
2 EPs (Jacksonism: The Sea In Us Will Ever Breathe. Tragic Landscape: The Great War.)
1 Single (Jacksonism: Tell Your Kids.)
11 people played/sang on my songs
7 years
That’s a lot of songs.
I finished my last final today. This is unnecessary information for anyone but those intimately acquainted with the disdain I feel towards most homework. And maybe those who feel like donating to the “Stephen Carradini is poor” fund.
Latest: Skyline Circle review.
Upcoming: Jenny and Tyler review.
This evening: Finishing the recording of How We Lived with John Calvin Abney III engineering.
Forthcoming: MFA applications.
Hanging out at the back of my brain: Graduating/getting a job.
“Oh life, with your colorful surprises.” -Sufjan Stevens, “The Henney Buggy Band.”