3/23/2009

Chicks hatch, you know.

Putting a band together is like dating. There's the awkward set-up, the stuttering emails as you clumsily attempt to arrange schedules. And sometimes, when you meet, there are creepy vibes. Really creepy vibes that make you want to never see that person again. Then there are the ones who you like and they like you but there's just not a real connection, you know, musically, which is close to the groin region.

I was exchanging emails with a cigar-box banjo player who also has synaesthesia. He seemed really excited but then got too scared. It saddened me as I really want to know what colors my songs are but alas, it was not to be. I exchanged emails with a few bass players and a guitarist but it just didn't work out. They want to co-write and I want a benevolent band dictatorship. There was a drummer I had a few sessions with but things just didn't fit and by that I mean to say that he dumped me. That's what my big announcement was going to be. Sigh. The drummer, not the getting dumped. It's hard to be out there again. It takes a long time to get things done and in the meantime, you're all vulnerable with your imploring advertisements and singing songs to strangers in one-on-one situations. Sometimes I get frustrated and want to ditch the whole thing. I'm too old. I'm too lame. It's too hard. I'm too scared. But I have these ideas and so on I go.

From the beginning, I've wanted to add a percussionist, not necessarily a drummer. So I've recruited a friend of mine to play percussion. She doesn't necessarily know how to play but as far as I can tell, she has a good sense of rhythm and a willingness to learn. So far, I have provided her with a snare drum and a tambourine. I got my ass out to the Richmond this morning to pick up some el cheapo stands. They're ridiculously rust-covered. There will be some scrubbing. She'll probably end up with a Frankenstein drum kit which pleases me. We'll see. We'll see what happens here. I want to have good feelings about it but I know all about not counting your chicks before they hatch. Anyway, I should talk more about this band forming process. I'll let you know what's up.

3/22/2009

Blatant, uncomfortable hints.

Thoughts. I have them. And I have nothing else to blog about but these little snippets. Consider:

1) The new Neko Case album, Middle Cyclone is so good that I am both impressed and bitterly jealous. Were it so that writing about random happenings outside my immediate frame of reference was what I do... but no. I keep it personal. I've lived a life, people. But her lyrics make the songs what they are and what they are is brilliant. I don't mean to talk shit but I didn't really get Fox Confessor. Or else, I got it and it was just a little too dark. Middle Cyclone is more relationship based and I'm pretty sure one song is about secret, gay love (Vengeance Is Sleeping... anyone care to discuss that with me? Totally, right?) so you know I'm into that.

2) School is going really well, both the furniture making class and the web development (HTML and XHTML) class. The ironing board I'm constructing has legs. Right now would be a good time for me to buy more materials but quite frankly, it's not gonna happen. School may be why I never have enough time to write but it's good to get learned.

3) There is so much going on with The Heated but you will not hear about it here first. My mailing list will hear about it first. That is a blatant, uncomfortable hint. Deal with it. I have been playing a ton lately and there are new songs that of course, are utterly brilliant and display my inner-beauty in a way that makes me glow from within, literally. No, not literally.

3/16/2009

Fey handmade is my new friend

Hi friends. Yes, things are still crazy busy in my world but I got off work a little bit early today to go to the dentist and happen to have a free half hour to do some posting before I scurry off to furniture making class. Let's do this.

Fey Ways: I've been trying to develop my wholesale for the tea towels a bit more as my own online retail has cooled. Leave it to the experts, that's my opinion. Please say hello to the latest distributor in The Heated's enterprises, Fey Handmade. They're not just carrying tea towels either. They've got The Heated's EP on there too. I'm sure it will fly off the shelves... ok, well I hope they sell some towels anyway. Their site is really lovely. Of course, now this means I need to update my own website with them and Two If By Sea listed as stores. More work! I love work!





Pick It: I've recently had this breakthrough in my guitar playing that involves me using the thinnest guitar pick I can find. It's opened up this new dynamic range that I've found limiting in electric guitar. But I was limiting myself with those thick, manly picks. From now on, it's all wispy, lady-like picks for me.

Scrape It: The dental hygienist I had last time I attended the dentist six months ago almost made me not go back today. Luckily, that bitch was gone and there was a much better hygienist with the greenest eyes I've ever seen. It's like that light blue face mask set those green eyes ablaze. Anyway, the last hygienist I had was not really a bitch but as she was cleaning my teeth, she kept wiping the instruments on the bib I was wearing, instead of a separate piece of gauze, which seemed intuitively wrong. As she wiped, she told me the story of plaque, which basically goes like this, "bugs shit in your mouth."

Then at one point, when my mouth was full of water and my own scraped-off mouth-filth, she asked me if I wanted her to suction it out but in order to answer, I had to swallow and she was all, "Geez, most people don't want to swallow that," and I was thinking that neither did I and that she should have just suctioned, not asked.

Then, before she started scraping, she held up a pair of darkened safety glasses and said, "you're going to want to put these on."

"Why?" I asked and as she struggled with a nicer way to say it, I asked, "splashback?"

"Yes," she said. I found it really strange and I had never, never, ever had anyone offer safety glasses to shield me from my own spit. I put them on but I really didn't want to. Once they were on my face, I could see they were totally spotted with dried liquid. Other people's splashback. Gross. After I removed them, I noticed that she just rinsed them off under the sink, very briefly. Ew. Ew. Ew.

Then at the end, she asked me if I wanted to wipe my face with my bib. Did she mean the bib that she had wiped all my mouth funk? Is that what she meant? Yes, it was. I did not do it. I did not give in to pressure and wipe my own face with my own mouth. She thought I was really weird. In short, it was one of the least hygienic experiences I've had in a while.

3/11/2009

Ever so sorry

Last night was specifically set aside to write a blog but instead I had a glass of wine and fell asleep. Ever so sorry. I'm having trouble coming up with topics too. Maybe some wonderfully hilarious things will happen to me in the next few days and I'll write the best blog entry ever.

3/02/2009

I almost forgot

Look, things are crazy around here right now. So, this actually happened two weeks ago but I'm just getting around to posting now. The Heated tea towels are being sold by their first physical store. It's a bakery in Canada! Dartmouth, Nova Scotia to be precise. Tara of Two If By Sea Bake Shop actually taught herself to bake, not unlike how I taught myself to screen print. We're goddamn kindred spirits. She did get our description slightly off as Jenny does not play an instrument in The Heated but since my goal was to get a collective going on under the name of The Heated, and she pretty much contributes to everything but the actual music, including roadie duties so...