documenting our world domination (by parae)

ciao jerry!

2008-12-29T11:49:00.000-08:00

jerry has left the band. it's all very amicable. both he and the rest of us had come to the decision that it was time to move forward as a four piece without him. we all value his contributions over the past year and wish him well and all that shit.

anyways, we're super excited about moving forward as a four piece. figure it'll be easier keeping everyone on the same page and also aid in having a more coherent live sound with less shit going on the whole goddamn time. jimo and i will be splitting keyboard duties as necessary rather than try and find a replacement. we reckon that four people is a good amount for a band to have, as it was, five just seemed to be a bit too much noisy sound. we plan to be A LOT more productive, with writing and recording, primarily getting the 2nd half of the new record figured out. we have like a half dozen songs that have just been sitting around, so we're ready to move!

videos up!

2008-12-23T22:44:00.000-08:00

videos r up from the show last friday!

post-partum bloody xmas

2008-12-20T15:33:00.000-08:00

so we did a show last night at el rio here in san francisco. we called it our bloody x-mas. there were 3 and a half bands, and there were supposed to be drag queens, but that didn't work out, unfortunately. tommi and i did bake a cake. a red velvet devil cake! anyway, we played with 123picnic, Deeper, and Corey's side band the Wildmen, with Walter Crasshole DJing.

123picnic and Deeper were really really good. Super glad to have played with them, hope to do so again in the future! we really tired to make the event a real party, Kristy from Deeper even brought balloons. unfortunately they ended up tied down due some policies at the venue or whatever. i dunno, they seemed unduly strict at the club last night, but whatever. like there was some drama at the end of the night with an ID, and it was just retarded. i really did not have the patience to deal with it.

anyway, we played:

do you wanna mess around?
birthday suit
don't you wanna play with me?
the escapist
persona
fear of death
undercover lover
fem politique
mongoloid (devo)
anal fixation

highlights included, my beloved pink furry guitar strap breaking after the first song!, constant electrocution from Corey's vintage Vox amp which isn't grounded!, Corey striping down into his underwear!, and the random dancing underwear guy in the audience! yeah, you missed it...boo! however, we did get the whole thing on tape. Nick was kind enough to film us, so all that good stuff will be going up on youtube so you can see why you should absolutely come to our next show - where we may be an even better band!

until then, we're taking a break until the end of the year, and then we're gonna finish recording the new album in January and get some more shows line up shortly after that!

112808 show

2008-11-29T21:48:00.000-08:00

so we played the retox last night. it was kind of a fiasco. the Gibbs invited us to play and they were awesome. so were the Prey from san diego. anyway, we played:

fem politique
the escapist
don't you wanna play with me?
persona
fear of death
undercover lover
do you wanna mess around?
birthday suit
anal fixation

i thought we played pretty good. anyway, afterwards we had a bit of a band meeting in the van outside and it was decided that something is missing, as we still tend to frighten off audiences back to the bar and incur quite a bit of bewildered looks. is it that we are too loud? too noisy? not catchy enough? all of the above? do we try to make ourselves into something we think an audience wants in order to seek out an audience? well whatever we do, we've decided to get more aggressive with the marketing of our live performances, or something...

that nov 4th show

2008-11-10T21:50:00.000-08:00

so like we played at el rio last monday. a fair amount of people came, but we didn't make any money, haha. we played:

persona
fem politique
don't you wanna play with me
fear of death
you don't love me anymore
369
the escapist
undercover lover
birthday suit
anal fixation

we played pretty damn well i think so thank you very much. the power was cutting out for the first third of the set due to power strips foolishly plugged into power strips. it was pretty fucking retarded. but the sound overall was pretty good. people said it sounded perfect from outside, haha. anyway, we played with Street Pyramids and the New Agents, who were both pretty cool. unfortunately everyone who worked the door let all the friends in, so not enough money was made to pay the sound guy, so we were like - gotta go! when it's our event, we at least break even, haha.

anyway, we're playing next on black friday, nov 28th, at the goddamn retox lounge with our buddies the gibbs, and their buddies the prey (from san diego). we're trying to get 2 or 3 new songs ready by then, hopefully they'll be good to go!

seven

2008-10-23T23:10:00.001-07:00

so we got seven mixed now. they sound pretty good. at this point we're just rehearsing a bunch for this show on nov 3rd. after that, full speed ahead on more new tunes.

six down

2008-10-16T22:33:00.000-07:00

six songs mixed and done so far. three more of this batch to finish. jimo and i got more, just need more time for the band to learn them...wish we had more time to do this stuff.

recording and mixing

2008-10-08T14:53:00.000-07:00

so we've been recording. a lot. we have 3 songs completely done (which are on the myspace page), and 6 more almost all done or done and ready to be mixed. i've been procrastinating a bit on mixing, cuz it is just such a tedious process. having jimo help is really good, but it's still painful trying to figure out how to fit everything together sonically. especially with the song 369. so at this point, we're kinda stuck for recording anything else, cuz we don't have anymore songs ready that the whole band can play. we have about 2 1/2 half that we've been working on, but they've still got a ways to go, and while i've got like 3 or 4 more that we could start doing, and jimo's got a bunch too, it's just a matter of finding time work them out and still rehearse the ones we have so we can play live and sound decent. probably we're going for more than we're able to do, oh well! hopefully we can get the next 5 or 6 sorted out over the next few weeks and start recording again by november. our goal is to have a 7" by our show in december, and the record done by january or february, and try to do some kind of southwest tour that hits las vegas and los angeles around then. also gonna try and get us into SXSW and Noisepop, cuz we're like noisy pop...sorta.

nick's palace or worms cd is now available at amoeba and aquarius records here in san francisco. so yeah...i'm credited with recording and mixing, but let me also say that i produced the fuck out of that thing.

should have some pics up in the next few days of our latest drunken adventures.

sept 4th @ the stork club

2008-09-09T20:58:00.000-07:00

gonna make this short cuz i'm not feeling to good right now, kinda sickly. anyway, we played:

fem politique
don't you wanna play with me
inspire
birthday suit
fear of death
the escapist
persona
anal fixation

thought we played more than that, but i guess we decided to quit while we were ahead. it was really hot and sweaty, i even took my shit off. we were getting electrocuted by the stage equipment like a motherfucker, i could feel current going through my arm whenever i held onto the microphone, and corey got shocked real bad a couple of times when he bumped into me. good thing we were drunk! i thought we played really well, consistently full of energy throughout, no trainwrecks. balanced sound - not so much. i was really unhappy with my guitar sound, way too trebly. i had just gotten my amp back, and then i let the other bands borrow it cuz their amp blew a tube or something. so my settings were all fucked for a club. we ended up with a soundboard recording of the show. turns out i was over singing again, but at least mostly in key. there were no stage monitors to speak of, so we could barely hear vocals on stage. anyway, we ended up playing last, cuz the bands that invited us wanted to go first. none of their people stuck around for us. and my coworkers and boss that came all had to leave before we started playing around midnight. fortunately corey's gang of richard, gilbert, and david were with us and they were a lot of fun!

anyway, since the show, me and jimo have been doing a shit load of recording everyday. we're moving full speed ahead on the record, so perhaps it might actually be close to finished around my birthday after all! we now have five songs pretty much all recorded, and just did drums last night for two more.

new song up

2008-09-01T14:11:00.000-07:00

at the myspace - don't you wanna play with me? pretty good, maybe almost final mix. oh i hate mixing, thank goodness jimo is here to help!

oh and we're playing the stork club in oakland this thursday sept 4th!!

assorted recordings

2008-08-09T13:46:00.001-07:00

so we're recording our record thing. right now, we really only have six new songs that we can play. we each individually have enough material, like another six or ten songs...just getting everyone on the same page is kinda tough. it's really kinda hard to focus on new material with five people in the band at once. anyway, as for the recording, it's going pretty well i guess. drums are done for five songs, synth for three, bass on two (we were gonna do more bass the other day, but corey fucked up his finger somehow while wrestling with his friends...i don't know either...) i did guitar and vocals for don't you wanna play with me on thursday, so that one just needs lead guitar and it's totally a hit single.

nick's black metal record is still being mixed. i've got rough mixes for 6 out of the 7 songs, though they all still need more work, mainly with getting the drums to sound right at the proper levels of compression. basically, he wants the guitars to be really fucking loud, so that's what i'm trying to give him, really fucking loud guitars. but i don't want the drums to be completely buried, otherwise it'll just sound like total guitar wankage.

also on thursday night i started recording four songs for two star spark, my friend charlie's pop rock band. this went really well, we managed to record all the drums in 45 minutes, cuz elliot was able to do each song in one take, with just one overdub of a section total. he really had his shit together and impressed me. and he's a very dynamic drummer too. after that we did all of the bass, and then a few flourishes of keyboards. so all that's left to do are charlie's guitars and vocals. i think it's gonna come out really nice. i honestly wasn't terribly impressed by the tunes from the scratch demo tracks we had done, but once we started tracking the drums and bass, the songs really came alive and are definitely gonna sound really cool.

first song done

2008-07-24T20:58:00.000-07:00

so the first song recorded and finished for the record is now up on the myspace. it's called Anal Fixation, it's the one corey inspired, haha. we recorded it on sunday and basically played it live and over dubbed the vocals. i think it took about four or five attempts before we got a clean one without any mistakes. we wanted it to sound live and full on energy, and i think that was definitely captured. so even though it's somewhat muddy sounding, it sounds real and fast!

we've done bass and drums now for two other songs, and are well on our way to making a record. the god damned jazz club is closing in a week, so me and jerry are gonna hit up the piano at the club before it's completely shut down early next week and record as much as we can with what has already been demoed and requires piano, cuz fake piano sux.

currently mixing nick's palace of worms black metal record and started recording some songs for two star spark. buy mainly focused on making our record and getting a bakers dozen of songs done by my birthday at the end of october.

started recording

2008-07-21T16:06:00.000-07:00

so yesterday was the first day of recording some of the new tunes. started with tommi doing drums for two of the tunes, don't you wanna play with me, and you don't love me anymore. of course my damn computer software was still refusing to work properly, at one point the entire OS X operating system failed and the computer insisted that it had to be restarted. it was pretty fucking retarded. and all my plugins for mixing weren't working, but i got that fixed finally this morning by pulling off all the various version of digital performer on my computer and doing a clean reinstall of the software. so unless it starts crashing again once i start piling the effects on, we should be good to go.

as for the recording of the drums, for once, (once!) we got the mic placement just right in all the sweet spots. of course after we had broken down all of the mics and run through one of the songs we did with the band, tommi was like, oh i played that chorus part wrong, i actually do it like this! so now we gotta redux it. anyway, hopefully i can get it all to match up soncially! damnit! anyways, the drums were sounding really good, jimo was with us for most of it and said that they sounded really professional. they definitely sound better than the stuff i did with nick's black metal project (!) i think i've just finally really found the proper spots for the overheads and the bass drum. it's like the overheads need to be about 2.5 feet above the top of the cymbals (about half way between the drums and the ceiling (which is only 8ft high). and then the main bass drum mic just right at the edge of the tip of the hole, with a 2nd mic on the back end by the beater (to get more of a popping sound, or nail in the hammer). suppose we should get some grease for the beater at some point still, since it does have a tendency to squeek a bit.

anyways, once the rest of the guys showed up for practice, we did a few live takes of anal fixation, and overdubbed the vocals on top, with everyone doing the chorus part. it sounds pretty raw, but is full of energy. gonna have jimo help mix it, i think his ears are maybe less damaged than mine, and he's got a good sense of tone and how things should sound and fit in a the mix. we also attempted to record our band version of fem politique, but i don't think any of us were too happy with what we got. it wasn't bad, but there were some minor mistakes. it might still be usable though. recording five people at once live in a small room was definitely a first, and it's really not a technique that i see us doing too terribly often. really only for the songs that seem well suited for more of a live type feel. anyways, hopefully we'll get that song mixed and posted up on the myspace within a week or so. it's ridiculously short, at under 1:15. i suppose we should do more minute long songs! maybe that'll be my new thing, ha!

the retox show

2008-07-17T18:59:00.000-07:00

well, we'll probably never play there again. four bands, no turnout. it was pretty ridiculous and pathetic. at least we brought our own booze to drink in the van this time, rather than give the damned bar all our money. they made us go last, so that all the people wouldn't theoretically leave for the out of town bands, ha! i was like, ok, but we'll be drunk, ha!

mountain animal hospital from santa cruz played first. they were really cool, like a mix of mew, sigor ros, and a little bit of the mars volta (but in a good way). they all had a mountain of pedals and the singer sang really high with lots of reverb all castrato like. plus they're drummer was really fucking good.

martyrs of the apollo guild from seattle played second. they were about what i expected. everyone liked the cute girl on keyboards. i think they'd have a lot of potential if their songs were half as long and consisted of more than one riff or groove. i left to go drink after two tunes.

light leaks actually did get people to come, about 5 or 6, ha! that's 4 or 5 better than us. they were really good, a couple of our guys had a little crush on their drummer. anyways, i'm biased, i think they're a really good band and i like their angry style of guitar rock.

so we played last, and we weren't too hammered. some of the other bands had already taken off, so whatever. we played decently for the most part. we did fem politique, inspire, busriding, popstar (jimo ran to the bathroom), birthday suit, anal fixation. and then we were gonna stop, but the four people in the audience were like, play some more, so we let corey go get a drink and played the gwen stefani cover and charisma. and they were like play one more, so we attempted to do i don't love you anymore, and it totally fell apart after the first verse. it was pretty annoying, so i was like, that's it, fuck this shit, let's get the fuck out of this dingy ass basement bullshit. the joke was that we were having band practice at the retox, ironically enough, last night at band practice, about the same amount of people stopped by to hang out as those who sat through our performance on monday night. anyway, regardless, no one in the group seemed too bummed out about the show. we just came to the conclusion that we probably shouldm't play on monday nights where we are expected to do all the promotion for two out of town bands, and where we didn't do shit to promote, cuz we were too elated over having actually played in front of people the week before, so like fuck it. it's not like the bar didn't make money off of the 15 people in the bands that played, so like whatever.

anyway, got one more day of black metal record, then we start recording stuff on sunday. gonna try to do a couple of tunes mostly live in the studio. and now my buddy charlie of two star spark has asked that i record his band a demo with their new bass player, so i'll probably start on that next week and hopefully hammer that out over 2 or 3 days.

repot on the transam show

2008-07-07T22:38:00.000-07:00

it went really really well. we played: fem politique, birthday suit, inspire, charisma, busriding, what you waiting for (the gwen stefani cover, ha!), and anal fixation. we were pretty damn solid for the first five tunes, a little shaky on the cover, and finished loud and quickly on the last tune. billy and george, the guys running the party were really cool, and the drag performance by kegel kater (i think that's how it's spelled...) was really amazing and disturbing performance of terminal hiv set to a horrible killer song. it was pretty fucking hilarious, though i think jerry was a little spooked with his recent drama at home. anyway, we all pretty much proceeded to blow the $200 we earned at the damn bar after our drink tickets ran out, but hey whatever. it was a rather light turnout for the party, i guess they were competing with another event, but a lot of our friends came out (although about a dozen of them were on the list, ha!), and i left out a big stack of cds that mostly disappeared. at the end of the show i was like, hey if you took a cd, cool, if you got ten bucks to spare, even better. i think around $40 was collected, so that all went in the bank for the next cd. anyway, it was all a good time, i don't think anyone got laid, haha, but aside from a little crying and hugging at like six in the morning (not me, my bitter heart don't make no tears anymore), it was probably our best sounding and most consistent show so far. and jimo was definetly the missing piece in our gang. we got our next show a week from right now - next monday - over at the retox lounge. i doubt anyone will show up, but it should be alright. we'll be playing with three other bands, so we just gotta get a couple more songs together and just bash through our set again.

i got about maybe 4 or 5 days left of recording on nick's black metal record, so i'm gonna try and just bang that out as quickly as possible over the next week and a half, cuz i'm ready to start recording our new record. gonna try and drag tommi down to the studio friday during the day and hopefully band out the drums for one or two of the new tunes and pretty much take it from there.

this saturday

2008-06-30T21:18:00.000-07:00

ok, so like this saturday we're doing the transam party, and we're desperately trying to get our shit together. we tried to practice yesterday after gay pride, but it was a drunken disaster, so we ended up going back out and drinking some more. we were downing beer the whole day. well really all three days. i even managed to keep up with the shenangins. me and jimo did get together and practice down at the studio saturday afternoon for a good three hours or so, and we're gonna get together again tomorrow night, so we might not be totally doomed. the real wild card is gonna be getting corey on board for the cover song. anyway, the plan is to rehearse as much as possible between now and saturday and then not get too drunk and blow it when it comes time to actually play, ha! and then we gotta keep pulling our shit together for the show july 14th at the retox. no resting on our laurels, that's for damn sure.

practice practice practice

2008-06-26T20:28:00.000-07:00

so we are desperately trying to get our shit together for the july 5th show at transam, and the july 14th show at retox lounge. me and jimo have been getting together and working on tunes and stuff, and we had a good long rehearsal last night (sans corey - who had to work), and i think we've pretty much got it figured out as to what we're gonna play at the Transam gig. i figure we only really got about a half an hour to play, so we really only need about 7 songs to do, but jimo is such a quick learner and incredible creative force, it's really awesome having him in the band, we might have more stuff ready. the two of us are singing together on some tunes, and we're throwing charisma back into the set. i'm really excited to bring in some of the songs from his catalog into our repetoir too. and we've started with this really amazing cover that he has posted on one of his myspace pages. all i have to say is that it's pretty funny that a gwen stefani cover has me WAY more excited than a devo or t.rex cover, haha. but i think what i like best is that we're finally doing a cover that sounds different from the original and more infused with whatever our collective sound is. i mean, jerry still has to figure out what to do exactly, and coreycakes wasn't around last night, but me and jimo and tommi got our shit locked down tight on the arrangement. it's gonna fucking murder them faggots next week. at least, i hope - if we don't blow it, ha!

so we got a 5th

2008-06-23T20:12:00.000-07:00

so there are 5 of us now, and we're like five times louder, fuckin' a. this kid JIMO has done been co-opted into the band as our new guitarist and vocalist and whatever else he wants to do. he's really cool. tommi met him at the bar on castro about a month ago, and then he came to our summer party a couple weeks back, and then he ended up at band practice last sunday, and we're all like join the fucking band already. i had heard some of the songs he had recorded, and they were really fucking cool. i mean, when i met at our party, i was like within five minutes, do you wanna join my stupid band? he's that cool. anyway, somehow he decided, sure why not? so yay! it seems like his two main influences are post punk DC dischord indie rock and singer songwriter folk, and he has a fabolous voice. so we got together last friday and hammered out a song together. i'm really excited, hopefully doesn't quit, haha!

so we were originally supposed to be playing at the RETOX lounge this wednesday, but then we disappeared from their calendar, and i emailed them and was like what's up, and didn't hear back from them, so i was like, fuck it, we're not playing that show then. we just got jimo in the band and he needs to learn the set and we got a way more high profile show coming up on july 5th at this transam event. anyway, i finally hear back from the retox guy today, and he's like, oh yeah, oops, i "accidently" deleted you from the calendar, yes come play on wednesday. so i'm like, yo dude, we just got a new guy in the band, haven't promoted the show for shit cuz we thought we were off of it, so like we'd rather not play. supposedly we're going to be playing there on monday july 14th, so i was like, hey, you got 3 bands already for wednesday, so unless yr really counting on us, we'd rather bow out and get our shit together and come do it next month. supposedly, we're getting to pick or help book the other bands for that july show which we're doing with a touring band from seattle called Martyrs of the Apollo Guild. so my goal is to get some other bands to play with us where we can all collectively get a decent turnout, like when we've played el rio, and not like when we played Kimos. speaking of kimos, the sound guy recorded the show off the board and sent me a recording of it. ironically, it's all mostly bass and vocals (with some drums), highlighting the two members of the band who happened to have colds. it sounds pretty fucking horrible. lots of flubbed bass notes and off-key vocals. i'm confident it sounded relatively decent from the audience, but this recording - ain't no one gonna ever NEVER hear, haha. anyway, aside from the distraction of gay pride this weekend (which i'm disapointed we're not performing at in some fashion), we're gonna be getting our shit together so as to totally level the ear drums of all the kids at the TRANSAM party on july 5th. that shit is a really big deal, and i'm really excited that we're playing it, and hopefully we won't blow it too badly, ha! fortunately we got corey planning to get pretty naked, and a cute new guitarist, so yay!

finally, things are going well recording nick's black metal album. we have guitars now finished for 4 out of 7 tracks (bass and drums are all done), leaving just vocals, synth, and any post production effects to be added. it's not seeming like it will be too difficult to mix. the drums are bright and clear, the bass real low, and the guitar tinny and razor sharp. i actually feel like the guitars are a bit too trebly, but nick says he wants it to sound sonically similiar to black flag and greg ginn. regardless, the guitar playing really sounds fantastic and the musical arrangements and songwriting with the guitars and bass is very very strong with some excellent melodic and dissonant interplay between the instruments. i really think that all them black metal poseurs on internet message boards will really like this record (if they ever get a chance to hear it).

post mortem on the june 10th show at Kimos

2008-06-12T20:08:00.001-07:00

ok, so Kimos was a fucking rad place to play. wish more people had been there tho, ha! the sound guy was really really good, and the guy who booked us, chad, was super nice. the first band was the girl with violent arms, and that was just one guy. but he was really really good, i totally enjoyed his set of bass and vocals and drum machine with keyboards and lots of loops. metroid from southern california were second, and they were as i predicted. radio rock or something. they played with precision. i kept hearing keyboard, yet there was no keyboard on stage, and it seemed like the bass player wasn't actually playing about half the time. plus they a big fat guy sitting on stage holding a shot of liquor hollering backing vocals. later on, after our set, apparently he puked all over tommi's arm at the bar. douchbag. before we played, the bass player and his afro came over to talk to me and a very sick corey about how to properly pronounce our band name. corey explained that it's like, you say, "part gay", parae! i was like say it a la espanol! and he was like are you guys gay? and corey was like, i'm straight, but the other guys are, yeah? and then after an momentary awkward pause he was like, oh we're all gay, hahaha. douchebag.

so we played. cheryl brougth me some colored lights to put on my fingers that she got at a party store in the mission. me and jerry split the four pack. fucking brillant, really! i put them on my right hand, so my strumming was like lightning bitches! we played: fem politique, persona, inspire, popstar, busriding, you don't love me anymore, don't you wanna play with me, fear of death, birthday suit, anal fixation. i only fucked up during the first verse of popstar of all things. tommi felt that the drumming was too slow on many of the songs, but while we were loose and full of energy, i thought we had hard shit locked down pretty tight. especially with corey being super lethargic from being hella sick, and myself having had a runny nose all day trying to recover from a cold. we some issues with the keyboard amp. i guess we gotta upgrade jerry pretty soon, not sure how i'm gonna finance that, been buggin him to save up some money instead of buy $80 import cds and such! as has become the pattern, yet again we lost something at this show. this time, instead of equipment, it was an article of clothing belong to tommi. yes, some asshole stole tommi's perfectly fitting jacket (the kid has long alien arms). and in the jacket was tommi's id, bank card, and money. it was really fucking lame. and we got into a huge fight at the end of the night that involved my hot dog getting doused with whiskey because i didn't wanna hear it anymore. fucking girls. oh well, the show was cool, cuz we won over a random ass 80 year old man. he was like, i just turned 80, and you kids were awesome, all full of energy and such. that made my day! i gave him a cd, he was really genuine and nice, so i guess we must have been doing something right!

anyway, our next show is in just under two weeks at the Retox lounge over in the dogpatch neighborhood by potrero hill. not sure if we'll be able to coerce anymore people into coming out. but i guess the new plan is PROPS PROPS PROPS. gonna go hit the party store for more low-tech pyro, haha. and hopefully this time corey will be well enough to sport those tight red short shorts he promised he'd wear before he got all sick and shit. i'm trying to finish the words for a song idea i've had gestating for like two fucking years, so tomorrow's my day off, and i'm not recording with nick, so hopefully i can not get distracted and get all my shit together proper.

general retardedness

2008-06-05T22:49:00.000-07:00

so there was this big ol fucking misunderstanding drama thing between us and the guy who organized the Magnet show, all due to a stupid Yelp review tommi posted. it was so fucking dumb that i'm not gonna go into it at this point, cuz apologizes have been made, bridges mended, and whatever, fuck it, moving on! so unless it gets stupider, we're gonna leave at that.

and on that not, last night while getting ready to record some guitar tracks with nick, my fucking two month old b52 amp totally fucking died! our theory is that i blew a fuse. basically i was fucking with the line out while the damn thing was turned on, not sure how or while this would fuck it up, but basically a horrible noise started generating on the distortion channels, so i turned it off and then on, and then when it came back on both of the overdrive channels made barely any volume and sound at all. strangely, the clean channel still worked fine. so we tried out the orange boss distortion pedal on it, and while it was someone decent, we decided that the overall sound was too thin and wasn't as heavy as what we were getting from the solid state setting on my amp - before it completely crapped out. basically, i had remembered something about how bob mould would record his guitar back in the husker du days with a mic on the cab and a line out going direct, so i was like, let's give it a shot. anyway, the line out on the amp was really fucking noisy and was giving off an awful hum, which in trying to deduce the cause (which was the amp, not the pedal, not the cord, probably not the xlr to 1/4" converter), the amp just fucking died. so, i took it today during one of my worst days ever at catering hell to a guy over in oakland (powerage). hopefully he can figure my shit out and get it fixed. i mean, the fucking thing is still under warrenty (and the reverb is hella busted) but to get it fixed under warrenty i have the pay for shipping the 62 pound fucker to fresno of santa monica or wherever, and that really ain't happening. i figure i might as well find someone in the area that can work on it and maybe possibly even mod it up into something better. and we were actually getting a fucking sick metal sound out of the damn thing, i don't know what nick did to turn the nobs, but it was sounding really fucking good, better than i ever tried to get it to go, i gotta get him to show me how to get the razor sharp metal sound, cuz the best i was getting was a sludgy grunge sound out the damn thing. anyway, i hope this shit works out, cuz i've got $1200 in credit card debt on the damn thing. and i probably won't have it back for our show on tuesday, which sucks, cuz i don't know what i'm gonna do necessarily for a back up, but i'm thinking i may use my PA mixer and attach it to my cab, hopefully that might work out...we'll see!

anyway, i have no idea how to get anyone to come out to the show on tuesday night. it will probably be an empty room. and i have no idea how to entertain them, cuz being a competent band with semi-original musical ideas just isn't enough. guess we gotta try and win over the local drunks and bartenders, or something...we're so doomed, haha.

report on may 31st show at magnet

2008-06-02T20:12:00.000-07:00

it was retarded. so we find out late in the afternoon the day of that there's no PA at the Magnet place, cuz jon sugar, the guy organizing the event, didn't do shit to acquire one. so i was like, JC, let's use your PA speakers, and my PA mixer. too bad they weren't terrible compatible. i mean we were running hella late and didn't show up til 7pm which was when the event was supposed to start, cuz it took longer to coordinate getting JC's PA and shit and the load out of my equipment. plus i got off work late too at 5:30pm. not that we had any idea that there was a time limit as to how long all three performers had to perform. 3 bands and 2 and half hours? how fucktarded is that? not realistic at all. so it took me about 40 minutes to get the sound up and running for JC's Violent Vickie performance, and even then, it sounded shitty. i did not need the added stress of having to be make-shift sound guy. so halfway thru her set i cut out to the parking lot where corey and his friends were shotgunning cans of miller lite. never in my life did miller lite in a aluminum can taste so god damned good, cuz by that point i was fucking over it. anyway, i assumed we were gonna go third instead of 2nd, cuz the other band had there drums set up, so i was like, whatever, fuck this i'm gonna relax. but then jerry comes at me and is like, they want us to go on now. and i'm like, oh shit, ok, whatever. but then it's like, where's tommi? oh, still at the house getting dressed up! so i'm like calling tommi and my roommates trying to get word that we need our drummer down here setting up the drums, stat! so tommi finally, after about 20 minutes later, runs down and we start setting up, and jon sugar is like, ok, so you guys got a half hour, and the next band has a half hour. and i'm like, what about set up time dude? we need at least 15 more minutes to set up our shit. now i guess i should talk about the crowd at this point. the crowd was pretty geriatric. now i don't want to be a bitch, cuz everyone was polite, but the energy inside that room was weird. it was basically this guy jon and his movie going friends supporting him on his attempt to put on a rock show somewhere where a rock show should never happen, because the space is ill-equiped, in that it is not equiped at all. so along with his friends staring at us from the corner seated in chairs like little penguins, there was the staff of the community center, and the other band hogfather and corey's cadre of friends, and a crazy homeless dude. we weren't getting paid, cuz this was a free event. but was it a fundraiser, or a benefit, or anything at all? what the fuck is GAWK (gay artists writers kollective) in the first place? it was retarded. i mean a forum for performers i guess is great, but no real planning went into this as far as i could tell. so we played six songs. cuz i'm fucking polite and i was like, dude, i know we're running short on time and i don't want to cut into the last band (who got to play for 40 minutes anyways - so much for being nice!) basically, we played - fem politique, persona, inspire, busriding, anal fixation, and birthday suit. i mean, after four songs, he was like ok, one more, and i was like fuck that, here's two short ones. so i went thru all this stress and effort to play for 18 minutes to a mute and unreceptive crowd of whackos and a homeless dude, wtf? i took two days off from the jazz club so that we could adequately get our shit together, which we very much did, as we fucking played very very well. i mean the only point to doing it was that i think it gave us all more confidence and experience with playing in front of people, especially since our first couple of shows together were kinda rocky. so we all know now that we can fucking kill as long as we're solid on the song and can hear each other, so that's the only good thing out of the whole fiasco. hogfather we're cool, they were more fun and accessable and visually entertaining to watch and did a pillow fight thing that i missed cuz i went to go get the van so that we could load out as fast as possible. one of their guys expressed reservations about having to follow us, so that was a nice complement i guess, haha. anyway, the whole ordeal was really draining, and then today i'm still getting these ass-backward emails from jon sugar, where he CC's people in on conversations that he's having with other people, and basically he backhandedly complements us, or disses us, i'm not sure, and says, "oh well Parae was better that the first time i saw them," and that was it. i mean, i'm not sure what he was trying to accomplish. i wouldn't say it's was a mistake to play his event, i just wish it hadn't of been so disorganized to the point where i had to carry most of the impact. so whatever, fuck it. oh yeah, corey unveiled his surprise - he dressed up like a fucking cowboy, haha. as long as he rocks a yellow bandanna around his neck, i'm happy, it's the cutest thing, ahaha. and he had a big fake mustache and everything.

as for this blog, i'm going to try to keep the shit talking to a minimum. i had a post up from about a month ago (since deleted) that was very inappropriate and unprofession and passive aggressive and it came back and bit me in the ass and i feel like a total asshole about it. so while having a band is really difficult sometimes, i'm very thankful to have tommi and corey and jerry doing this with me and hopefully we can attain something worthwhile with it as the entire music industry implodes, cuz i hate my jobs.

learning new songs

2008-05-22T22:35:00.000-07:00

so we're working on adding some more songs to our set, more songs from the damned cd, that is. jerry ended up getting hella stoned and listening to the cd after our disasterous point arena show and decided it was pretty really good or something, and has been taking the time to learn some of the songs of it. he says he likes hack a lot, which is a good song, i like that one alright, haha. so we're working that one out. we're also working on bitterlust, which it really surprises me that people respond to. i mean, it's such a schizophrenic suite, not really a pop song or anything, it's just this collection of six or seven short bits strung together that after a few years i managed to make work as a recording, at least relatively well. anyway, the guys have learned about half of it, and it sounds fucking amazing. i mean, i'm really shocked at how good it sounds, but it's like this huge psychedelics blue and purple behemoth of color and sound, so yeah. it's always been one that tommi has enjoyed playing, cuz it's so varied, but it sounds so huge now with corey and jerry, so that's pretty cool. we're taking it at a one section per practice learning thing, cuz each part is completely different from the other.

we all decided that we have to rework age of irony. i'm still convinced that it's a great song, but our current arrangement just hasn't been working. basically, corey and i have agreed that we should be playing the same thing, cuz that's boring. so i gotta work out a new guitar part for the verses, and i can hear it in my head, i just need to make the time to work it out. that way corey will be free to play the riff but then also fuck it up in a fittingly fashion. then i want tommi to pursue more of a blast beat type of thing, which is of course influenced from nick's black metal project, but this is the song for it. then i've kinda change the chorus guitar part to almost this reggae sounding riff thing that sounds a bit like the clash for part of it. anyway, i think once we get the arrangement right, corey won't hate it anymore. the song is important to me too, cuz tommi kinda accidently wrote the music, which is a first!

then i got this song that i haven't really introduced to the guys yet, cuz i haven't made the time to finish the words or the synth bass riffs, but it's called the dichotomy, and it's all fucked up. i guess i see it as more of a electro hip-hop type thing, i just have no idea what corey is gonna do on it, or even how it's gonna sound with the four of us. i but i think if i come into it with a clear structure of the words and the riffs, the four of us can work something really good out that will probably be totally unexpected.

anyway, we're playing saturday the 31st at MAGNET in the castro. it's free and it's all ages, so come if you care! then we're playing on june 10th at kimo's with some band from down south called Metroid, and who the hell knows else. and then on the 25th we're at the retox with a instrumental guitar and drum duo from portland and a rock and roll band from berkeley!

no time

2008-05-19T20:10:00.000-07:00

to do anything at all really. i've been working way too much, and it sucks. the only good aspect is that i'll be able to pay off some of the stuff i've bought recently a little sooner than i thought. but still, i have very little free time to just lay about, and everything i do is very compartamentalized at this point. my cute little whiney bass player has a hard time comprehending this sometimes. anyway, i spent my one day off yesterday recording all day, doing drums with nick for his evil black metal record. he insisted on smoking weed before hand, and surprisingly, it may have helped him drum better. although he's been practicing a bit more intensly lately, sooo...that probably played a part in it going smoother too. but regardless, he's getting a bit better at that damn double bass drum, that's for sure. we managed to lay down tracks for almost all of two songs, just ran out of time and steam right at the end. there was one part where he was kind of unsure of what to do and i suggested straight disco, unfortunately he foolishly vetoed that request. i mean, shouldn't every black metal album have at least one 30 second disco beat break? i mean, c'mon! anyway, i guess i had a little bit more input that i've had previously as to some of the drum arrangements, which was pretty cool. one of the songs we were working on was one of the ones that stands out to me. it's weird that right now only a couple of his tunes have parts that stand out to me, whereas there are a couple of songs that i have absolutely no recollection of at all in any way. which is not to knock 'em, just nothing about the scratch guitar or drums has a hook that grabs me. i guess this particular one is a bit more melodic than some of the others. i'd like to encourage him to develop his melodic/dissonant arrangements a little bit more, but i'm still not even sure what he's got in mind. but i guess he's got a pretty clear vision of what he wants. either way, i've warned him that i will mock him endlessly if his lyrics suck, haha. anyway, at this point we've got just over one song left to record drums for, so thank fucking goodness for that!

some thoughts on CA legalizing gay marriage

2008-05-15T22:17:00.000-07:00

basically, for all the people out there on the wrong side of the issue, because it's shouldn't even be an issue, i say - HA! na na na na na naaaa, another score for us, the good guys, in your stupid fucking culture war. y'all better pray a little harder for the rapture now =P

report on the show may 8th

2008-05-10T15:25:00.000-07:00

so we played at the Stud last thursday night. it went pretty well, for all intents and purposes. sound was an issue again, in that i was too fucking loud. basically, i fucked up, in that i was kinda insecure in our ability to play good, so kinda subsconsiously i cranked my guitar up so that if jerry or corey fucked up, they'd just be drowned out. a dumbass thing to do, cuz they were fine. people were like, oh everything sounded good once we stuck our fingers in our ears. i dunno, i guess i just haven't quite figured out how to deal with my new amp properly yet. plus, everything sounds to quite when i have earplugs in. plus, i like loud guitars! and i think the three of else all sort of end up kind of competing with each other, not to be the loudest overall, but to be loud at our own comfort level...which is way too loud for a small club. plus, when tommi can't even hear the drums, it's not really a good situation. so i think we gotta learn to play quieter and balance things out better. but overall it was a good experience, we didn't fuck anything up, other than being too loud. i thought it was kind of low energy overall, but it seemed like some people enjoyed it. we even sold a couple cds! shocker! and i gave some away too with our fancy new stickers.

anyway, the first band was the switch, who i guess one of their members flaked out at the last minute, but then instead of the two remaining people performing, it was just one guy. it was actually really good too, jerry totally dug them, i'd definitely like to see them play again with their full line up. after that we played. we were supposed to go last, but after coreycakes had some issue with his ID and the bartender, we worked it out so that we went second. we played:

birthday suit
inspire
popstar, for sure
busriding
don't you wanna play with me
persona
oh tyler
fem politique
anal fixation

anyway, as i said, we didn't really fuck anything up too badly, so yeah. after us was pink swastika, they were pretty cool, even though drummer expressed to me that he had some misgivings about playing after us. but naa, they were actually way cool. i caught about half of their set and then retired to the van out front where everybody was drinking beers inside. yay, catering party van! anyway, my friend qi kang was a big help the whole night as he kinda got drafted into being our roadie. he was actually a total sweetheart and a good sport about everything. he even handed me my guitar and then took it right from me right after we finished - now that was some rockstar treatment right there, haha! we did lose all of drumsticks somehow though, sux.

our next show is may 31st, so we're gonna keep working on new songs, corey even wrote some lyrics to something we kinda jammed out a week or so ago, and it's good to have the little bastard back.

other than that, i've been recording drums for nick's black metal album. everything is going smoothly other than he decided that it would be acceptable to cheat and record the double bass parts separately, and lo be it for me to be a purist and deny him the use of double bass just because it's really really hard to play them while hitting things very fast and such with your hands at the same time. anyway, the drums are sounding really good, i think we're building a really solid foundation for all the evil black metal goodness to slurry up on top. the new laptop computer kicks ass too, yay! we'll probably start recording our new record in a few weeks once nick's project is a little further along and we've got our new songs tightened up a bit more.