11/23/2008

Last FM

I put The Pre-Teens albums up on Last.FM yesterday cuz why not? For those of you who are not aware, I used to play bass and write songs with them and sing... and over-sing (damn it, I did, ok?). I don't think my old band mates would mind and we have more plays than The Heated, I'll tell you that. I tried to lure listeners over promising them that The Heated is very similar to The Pre-Teens but Last.FM never does what I want it to do and so, there is no cross-promotion. I'm not ashamed to cross promote and we had good songs. Some are not but overall, we were pretty solid.

(I just went on a twenty minute journey into LastFm when I had only intended to pop over quickly and grab the hyper-link to The Pre-Teens and then found that we are also known as simply Pre-Teens. That's even more people that need to hear that I exist.)

I just realized that Last.FM never actually uploaded the tracks I spent an hour putting up yesterday. Please someone tell me what it wrong with them? Why are they so evil?
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11/25/08 Update: ok, now most of the songs are up. I guess they just had to process and I'm impatient.



11/16/2008

Ok, we can talk about it now

I'm upset about Prop. 8 passing and at the amount of time and money spent by people to ensure it did pass. I'm upset that voting statistics are being used as a wedge between gays and minorities. I spent a few days looking around distrustfully until I realized this is an opportunity to see which communities we are not reaching, rather than as an excuse for further division. Plus, it's those religious types we really need to hate. I kid. I kid.

I marched in the protest, slowly making my way up Market Street to the Castro, stopping cars in their path. Even though I'm uncomfortable with group chanting, I managed to join in on a few. Not those "hey, hey, ho, ho," chants though. That's just too much. But this vote has hurt me. It's hurt a lot of people and I'd hate to see that hurt turn to anger. The whole thing has me thinking that I need to be more involved in the gay community, especially the gay rights movement. My disappointment is gone and my anger has turned into a kind of resolution to try harder, to do more than talk. We are clearly being misunderstood and rather than continue on as we have with our demanding, perhaps we need to focus on common ground and take it from there. Agreed? My people? Can I get a "yes we can"?

11/11/2008

Those classes are really paying off

I've been working on some things in my intro to computers class. For your consideration:


That the color of my new website matches the color of this page is no mistake.

11/10/2008

Big country



This song has been stuck in my head for days. It is so good. The lyrics kill me. Please consider how heartbreaking:

I've never seen you look like this without a reason,
Another promise fallen through, another season passes by you.
I never took the smile away from anybody's face,
And that's a desperate way to look for someone who is still a child.

And in a big country, dreams stay with you,
Like a lover's voice, fires the mountainside..
Stay alive..

(I thought that pain and truth were things that really mattered
But you can't stay here when every single hope you had shattered)

I'm not expecting to grow flowers in the desert,
But I can live and breathe and see the sun in wintertime..

So take that look out of here, it doesn't fit you.
Because it's happened doesn't mean you've been discarded.
Pull up your head off the floor, come up screaming.
Cry out for everything you ever might have wanted.
I thought that pain and truth were things that really mattered
But you can't stay here when every single hope you had shattered.

I'm not expecting to grow flowers in the desert,
But I can live and breathe and see the sun in wintertime..

11/05/2008

Election night plus show review: Adobe Book

The show at Adobe Books was the lowest key show I have ever played. It felt like playing in my living room except with more books. Olen played like a champ and to those of you willing to play percussion, I salute you even if the only time you played was in lieu of clapping. Notable exception to my wife, who, by virtue of living with me, knows the songs more than most, even if she doesn't listen to the words. It's never a bad idea to play guitar for the ladies.

So the best part about the show being acoustic was that afterward, all I had with me was a guitar in a case. The election must have been called right at we were exiting the bookstore around 8:00 pm. A dive bar next door was standing-room-only packed with all televisions blaring and all patrons cheering loudly. My wife, my pal Regina and I went to a restaurant across the street (fancy pub with a beer list about ten times longer than the menu, if you must know).

We tucked into the back booth, guitar case easily fitting underneath and right before we ordered, McCain came on the television, perched in the pub's front corner, to give his concession speech. Yes, it was gracious even if the crowd was not. I don't like angry crowds, which I know, is a really strange thing to have an aversion to. The pub was cheering wildly as the speech began and even continued to agree with some of McCain's points, politely clapping because we can be gracious winners too.

Now, I have my deeply cynical moments but I was solidly on board during Obama's speech and resolved to do more in the community (yeah, we'll see how that goes. Don't count me out yet). I totally teared up and had an overwhelming urge to call eveyone I knew (which I ignored). There was such electricity in the air combined with relief. Like we had all just had one little orgasm together.

This was all before I found out about Prop. 8, and equally un-American measures passing in other states. I have more to say about this but not just yet.

11/02/2008

So nice, I did it twice.

Remember when I told you about how the power of laziness caused me to both record demos and videos at the same time? Well, what you didn't know is that I recorded more than one song. This song has been stuck in my head recently, mostly because it's called Ohio and with the elections coming up, there's been a lot of talk about Ohio. I actually wouldn't be surprised if I wrote the first part of this song near an election. Maybe eight years ago? It took me that long to finish this song.

The first draft of this song had a lot more city names, like I was trying to fit in everywhere that I've been because I have been many places. But I think you get the idea. It's less about where I've been and more about where I ended up.

If you watch carefully, you can see that I almost fall over at one point but keep going like a champ. Also, I like how the room is in total disarray because we had just painted it. Maybe next time, a little more attention to detail will be paid. I'm not wearing shoes either. That's unusual.