Here's some of the playlists for this year:

Volume 1:

Youtube: https://music.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLmmIda7j9tCYnn-PNPuGBhzyZgKpP1_t9

WRITING RULES DEFINITELY MAYBE

I haven't written anything in a while, apart from some long-winded passages in my small journal. I've been doing exercises to try to come up with something: I'll sit in one place, facing one direction, and describe the scenery. I'll write automatically. I'll take a marker and cross out all the writing on a newspaper, leaving only the occasional word, in hopes to come up with something poetic, if not profound.* I take everything apart and deconstruct, but nothing comes. I kick the watering hole in my mind for being not unlike a desert.

Why is it that way? What is missing? I am challenging myself to put pen to paper, to think abstractly and outside-the-box. I am still trying to remain open to new things, still going downtown with no plans to find something or nothing. I am still looking at everything. Where did it go? Perhaps something needs to stir. Maybe I've been playing it too safe.

* On yesterday's front page of the entertainment section of the Toronto Star, I came up with Just the most beautiful way into the epic landscapes. Await peaks, themselves. Different subject provides steps through brilliant experience ideal. I thought it had it's moments.


I've been thinking about writing a set of rules for myself, a series of dreams and aspirations to which I will (try to) live by. I think you can get to know a lot about somebody from the guidelines they've cut out for themselves, or at least you can get to know what they want to shy away from. Can you imagine if we all had our own book, consisting of all our habits, fears, on-going resolutions, and hopes? I think that would be interesting. I once wrote a song called The Book of Me, maybe I'll bring it out of retirement. Anyway, my new rules will be both concrete and abstract, ranging from little things that can be easily applied to any day (eat lots not too much mostly plants) to more obscure, if-and-when moments (stop staring/do you like her laugh?). Once the rules are done, they'll have to be edited and aligned for the sake of coherence. Maybe then they can be turned into something that at least resembles art... a poster, an illustrated magazine, some songs?

I've been working on words for about a month and a half now for a piece that Jeff came up with during rehearsal. I thought up a subject matter that I thought suited the off-kilter musical arrangement we were playing. It's loosely based off a few encounters I had with some very nice people this summer, who seemed to be very genuine and friendly but unfortunately lacked the ability to say no when they really wished to. When people feel forced to positively respond to a situation when they feel the opposite, it can lead to a series of confusing misunderstandings and countries of embarrassment. It did for me. It's tentatively titled Definitely Maybe Positively Sometime, and it's gonna have moments of spoken-word. Yesterday at Value Village with Adam, I stumbled upon a volume of hardcovers that I thought might be inspirational to browse for the sake of the lyrics to this song. I didn't end up picking them up (volume five was absent) but maybe I'll go back. I still need a Halloween costume, after-all.

ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND WEBSITES, SOON TO DIE

Did you ever make a website, upon first having the internet, just to have a website? I did. This was much before any every-day-people-blogging came along, and certainly before you could get to know somebody over the internet by searching for a profile. Building a website, for me, was a way to extend your existence (as it still is for many people, of course). And even though I didn't really know what I was going to put on it, I was determined to have one.

Inspired by small independent Canadian rock bands (such as Svelte) to make a space of my own, where I could create my own scene and there was plenty of room, I made a website on Geocities in 2002, three years after they were bought up by Yahoo. If you're so inclined, you can go take a look at the old thing. It's un-cluttered, it's pretty clean. Looking back, it was the launch-pad for a lot of my current e-designing habits: I still love the minimalist white page with black lettering, I still post pictures at the top of articles for no-one in particular, and I still use song-lyrics as headlines.

Anyway, Geocities is closing it's doors on October 26th. I can't fathom why: surely Yahoo can afford to keep a bunch of hokey, old websites standing? According to some Q&A they have posted, the corporation has "decided to focus on helping [their] customers explore and build relationships online in other ways." Of course! Clear away all that self-expressing, amateur crap to make way for a new social-networking revolution, why didn't we consider that in the first place?

I don't know if I can find the right number, but that basically means that a bucket big enough to hold Mars filled with personal websites are going to vanish into thin-air in one month's time. Isn't that fucking sad? Sure, people have the opportunity to save their websites, to download all their old files and HTML layouts and put them up somewhere else, but who is actually going to do that? Nobody has that time. Most people, like me, have embarrassing, modest websites that they don't deem deserving of redemption. But embarrassing, modest things should be preserved, shouldn't they? Yes, one may argue that there are typically non-profit websites like Archive.org that spend time maintaining dusty or done websites, but they won't cover everyone.

Who will preserve our e-History when we're gone?

LET'S MOVE TO THE COUNTRY

It's weird to be back home after six days away on the road. I'm sitting back in my room, looking at all the junk I have around that I truly kid myself into believing I need. It feels to me like everything I needed was in my two bags, or somewhere else in the van. My backpack with 6 shirts, 4 pairs of pants, numerous under-garments and toiletries, while the other housed my books, laptop, camera, Rubix cube and various wires for media transferring. I think I could've lived like that for awhile, but by the end of the trip I was certainly itching to do some laundry.

I've started writing about the tour in spurts, when I remember certain details or how things went about going on. It was a really fun time, and taught me a lot of things about making music, being in a band, and doing it all independently at that. It was definitely a step that had to be taken, and it will be interesting to observe exactly what influences it will have on the four of us as a working whole, creatively and otherwise. It'll probably take me a solid week of writing-- whenever I have time-- to achieve any sort of coherence, to make anything worth reading from an outsider's perspective. But I'll get there.

THE FIRST TOUR

Though I have no doubt any of the places we're going to be this week will be as glamorous as to have dressing rooms such as the Isabel Bader Theatre, I'm ecstatic about the shows ahead. We leave tomorrow around four in the afternoon and probably won't be back until Monday. In that stretch of time, we'll spend about one day sleeping, two hours eating, and nine hours playing music. But we'll also clock in at twenty hours combined driving-time, which will be the core of the tour. The possibilities for how we'll spend that time are limitless.

ANOTHER DREAM

Back in June or July sometime, I had a dream involving a female friend of mine. For privacy reasons, I won't disclose her name. And she's not a close friend of mine, necessarily, though we've had a few fun times together. I remember this dream very vividly, and that's why I'm able to go recite it's moments so acutely. I don't know what it means, and part of me doesn't care. Maybe you can tell me more. We're on my bed, and... well, I guess we're having sex and I'm at her from behind or something. This is a crude but important detail. If you know my room and the way my bed is positioned, you'll see why this point matters.

My window is wide open without a screen. The blinds are retracted completely and the sky, from what I remember, is overcast. At some point I catch something coming closer and closer to the window. Something flying. A tropical parrot comes flying into my room and I catch it between my thumb and index finger. Instead of the bird squishing and subsequently squawking at me, it folds itself like an accordion, so it's as thin as a piece of paper. "Look Tina, it's a parrot," I exclaim at my friend. She just mutters something with a wide smile.

I looked behind her and on the bed were two turkey vultures, cocking their heads back and forth.

ROPES

ROPES
Like a spider I zoom in on your words
A piglet goes to dirt
Windows I’d like to gaze upon
Oh but not yet
(Think very carefully about
the first question he asked you)

Could you feel the weight was being lifted
As my attention drifted
Felt the shrinking it was all right
Oh but not yet
(Think very carefully about
my running around in circles
while trying to break some paper)

Been unsuccessful up to now
But you know some paths they bend just like a bow
And you know I’ll kick myself if I’m the cow
And you know has anyone ever spoken to you about very much resembling
Oh! Sinéad O'Connor
Oh! Sinéad O'Connor
Oh! And that singer turns me on
Oh! Of her I'm very fond

Like a ball I’ve been bouncing on your floor
Won’t be asking for more
Until you lay me on the table
Oh but not yet
(Think very carefully about
my making small advances
while asking an alarm to call)

Been unsuccessful up to now
But you know some paths they bend just like a bow
And you know I’ll kick myself if I’m the cow
And you know has anyone ever spoken to you about very much resembling
Oh! Sinéad O'Connor
Oh! Sinéad O'Connor
Oh! And that singer turns me on
Oh! Of her I'm very fond

Written by Spencer MacEachern
© 2009 Nosebleed Noise (SOCAN)