Yesterday I had a very nice surprise… The new Seven Mary Three album–Day & Nightdriving–finally was released on iTunes. I’ll be working on a full review of this album soon, but I’m letting it sink in still. Of course, I’d be lying if I said that the first time I listened to it was then, but I have my sources like most of the other fans, and I had heard it a few weeks ago. We don’t talk about that, though. Whenever anyone mentions getting any album early, its like a giant male genitalia waving contest to see who got it hours, minutes, seconds first. Even still, that’s all beside the point.

The real point is, is the fact that it’s a really solid album. I’m highly impressed with it and as the guitar tabs come out from the album, I get more and more excited about my own songwriting. You see, most of these songs are 4-5 chord songs that are very simple pieces, and what makes them sound so “special” is the way the other instruments come in with them and the lyrical writing. The lyrics are key. Its why most of what I’ve been listening to the past few days has been Lucero and Seven Mary Three. There’s something in the songwriting that feels more story-esque and makes them right for me.

And that’s why I haven’t talked much about new songwriting from me. I’ve not really been writing too much in that light because I have a really bad perfectionist complex. Whenever I write lyrics, I hate to revise them. Its actually funny because a lot of my songs, I like a piece here, or I like a piece there, but I’ll hate a whole verse or half of a chorus, and because I “finished it” I don’t touch it. I’m trying to get better, which is why you haven’t heard anything new from me musically in a while, but even still. I sort of have one EP mostly written, but I’m finishing off those songs, and when its done the honestly, i’ve never felt better EP will be accordingly released. We’ll see, though.

But I’m working on writing exercises. I’ve got a few books of prompts and I have a composition notebook that I’ve been writing in every few days just with a free-write or two. And I’m trying to write more in a lyrical manner rather than my 4 lines, chorus, 4 lines, chorus. There’s nothing wrong with that, but I’m not using my 3:30 to really tell an effective tale or get the message I’m trying to across. Well, I guess I’m getting something across–sometimes better than others–but even still it doesn’t feel as good as it could to me and as right as it could. If anyone’s up for joining me with some of these exercises and workshopping them, either via phone or internet or over coffee, please let me know. Writing is a social activity, as much as people have that image of someone crunched over a typewriter with thick glasses, in a log cabin solitary overlooking the woods or good ol’ James Joyce locked up in his postal uniform.

Aside from that, I’m proud to announce the tracklisting for the CD which I’ll be recording as my “greatest hits” album. Okay, its more of a “retrospective” than that, because there are only a few songs on this one that are “great” and even less “hits” than that. And looking forward to any thoughts on the tracks because I know its an interesting collection there and some of those might be familiar as the dirt we walk on and others are titles that you might remember but possibly never heard. Enjoy, and enjoy your Wednesdays…

Five Years of Trying So Hard - Songs I Haven’t Forgotten To Play

1) Trying So Hard
2) Chasing Amy
3) One More Time
4) Entrophy
5) And I Said
6) In 2 Deep
7) Down (Alone Now)
8) Breakdown
9) Running Back To You
10) Second Rate Superhero

I know I’ve said it like ten different times, but last night my wife and I had dinner with her parents to celebrate my birthday early. We met up at a local Thai place called Thai Basil. Sarah and I had unsuccessfully tried to find this restaurant before because it’s in a strip mall and it’s off to the side around a corner near a Taco Bell, right where you think the complex has ended. But it’s one of those tricky places that once you find it, you’re happy to find it, and you’ll never forget where it is. As a whole, the food was phenomenal, and the saki that I accompanied my dinner with was splendid: very light, just like my father-in-law said.

On top of all of that, they gave me a nice dress shirt, sweater, polo shirt, and a nice pull over knit-shirt and a BestBuy gift card. And while it might be laughable to say that I really love getting clothes from them as a gift, I mean it in all honesty. Why?

If you take a look at what I’m wearing there (I’m in the brown sweater with the shirt under it, if you don’t know what I look like), it’s actually my birthday gift from them from last year. And its what I wore to my rehearsal dinner. My mother-in-law (here in Florida) has an amazing taste and style in clothes–something that shouldn’t surprise you from someone who’s a former Miss Oregon. They’re colors and combinations that I normally wouldn’t be picking for myself, but I’m happy that she finds them for me. Whenever I have to do shopping for business clothes, I might have to take her along with me. I was lucky enough when I married Sarah to end up with two amazing sets of in-laws, and I don’t forget it.

But that was a heck of a way to start off my week and kept me on a nice up note…

—————

And thank you to everyone who’s registered and downloaded music. I was surprised to see that I’d transfered half a gig worth of data this morning with downloads, and I’m glad that I have 10 gigs worth a month. So all in all, if I ever get too close to my limit, I’ll probably take them down for a few days. I doubt I will. But if it becomes so much, well, hopefully donations to the site via my PayPal button on that page will help me up my hosting plan for a bit more transfer a month. We’ll see.

So if you were waiting for the announcement, my music is live and available for download. I’m going to start recording the “greatest hits” album maybe on Wednesday this week, and from there, we’ll see how that one goes. Looking forward to it for sure.

This week is just a whirlwind, seriously.

I’ve been babbling about the back-end recently, so its only fitting that I finally found a solution… I think? See, I’m a bit slow in thinking of this one, and instead of messing around with CGI or PHP, I figured I should try this out another way. I mean, I’m running WordPress, so why not just find a plug-in for this sucker, eh?

So I’ve got it installed and I’m just waiting on some support from the creator. Very cool little plug-in, too. And it does similar to what I was trying to do with having to make people input an e-mail address for downloads. Actually, it goes a step farther than that…

To use downloads now, you’ll have to be a registered user on my site. So you might as well comment and join the blog over here too then. And once you’re all logged in, you’ll be good to go and right as rain on every single post that I make here. Kills two birds with one stone, if you ask me.

Also what’s cool about this one too is that with the way this Download plug-in works, let’s just say I write a new song too. Instead of just uploading albums, I can upload individual songs as well. So then, you could just click on through and get each song individually as I put up new EPs and the like…

I think that’s about it. I need to kick this furry orange blob from my lap and get some grub and take care of my homework and such. Dinner tonight is going to be Thai food with my in-laws to celebrate my impending birthday…

Today, my sister, Sarah, and I were at Target doing some weekly grocery shopping. At this point, we decided to peruse the cake aisle and pick up stuff for my birthday cake. That’s when the following conversation ensued:

Me: Oooooh… Caramel cake with a chocolate funfetti frosting!
Sarah: No, I won’t eat that!
Me: But baby, this is my birthday cake!
Sarah: You said you wanted funfetti cake in the first place.
Me: But I didn’t know that they had caramel cake! Fine. German chocolate cake with strawberry frosting!
Sarah: That’s all you, buddy!
Me: Meh. Okay, funfetti then.
Sarah: Well what about that funfetti angel food cake there with the strawberry icing.
Me: Ooooh! That’s it!
Sarah: What candles on it and do you want anything written on it?
Me: [grabbing an "Over The Hill" candle] And I want “Quarter Life Crisis” written on it.
Sarah: Ooookay…

I don’t like to eat things alone, I’m weird like that.

So we go home, and we bake two funfetti cakes: one angel food and one regular. I think I smell something burning and lo-and-behold, it was the edges of the angel cake. Ah well. I’m cool with it, but my wife wanted to do something nice for me for my birthday. And in my frustration, she went ahead and iced the square regular funfetti cake.

And this, is why I love my wife:

Now that is love, ladies and gentlemen… That is love…

Well, I’m slowly working on it, but the discography page is coming together… See, to let you in a little on the whole “behind the scenes” aspect of things?

I’m trying to install a Perl/CGI script called WideXL. Why? For the reason that if someone’s downloading an album of mine, I’d like to know who’s doing so. Not as much so I have e-mail addresses later on, but just so I have a better sort of tracking idea than the standard “X downloads” that I can get from my Webalyzer stats through cPanel. And also with having e-mail addresses that way, whenever I release a new album, I could very easily just e-mail everyone who downloaded a prior album and they could then come on in and download the new albums without having to worry too much about checking back often.

So finally my admin panel is working on the script that I installed, but for some reason or another, I’m having issues with the links working. It’s a small little thing, and something I’m sure I’ll figure out soon enough as is. Until then, I have two of the zip files online on my site, and I’ll be slowly working on packaging others over these next few days, and I’ll have everything “good to go” by the 31st, I believe.

Until then, though, I did put a neat little thing on there. I added a PayPal Button like this one:

for people who want to bypass the B.S. of putting in their e-mail address for each and every download. Yeah, it’s a bit of a bribe, but to chip a few bucks my way and get all of the downloads would help out this poor college boy/webmaster, and the cat on his lap could get a nice wet food dinner. The Wooster cat on my lap would like that, I know. Yes, yes he would.

So would Cassie, but she’s at my feed, curled up in a ball.

The more and more I do things on this site, the more and more I realize that I’ve never learned in the end. And all of these small learning things are great little pieces to put together as a whole later. Or so I keep telling myself.

The latest “issue” I’ve stumbled across is Perl and CGI scripting. See, right now I’ve been talking about these nice little downloads for whomever wants them of all of my prior albums. That being said, I’ve been sorting through code and trying to figure out what’s what with some handlers that I’ve found for it. I think I’ve got close to a solution and then whammo! 404 not found. Son of a…

So hopefully by the end of the next few days I’ll have something live on the site. It’ll be just my first two albums, which I think most people have, but even still, you’ll be able to hear me at my roughest and most unproduced ever… On a site where I’ve done some of my roughest and most unproduced work ever…

I’ve come across a chief problem of mine this semester right next to motivation to get up and get things done… And this chief problem has a name: Friday and Monday.

See, I have 4 day weekends every week out of the semester. And while on Friday and Monday I have lists of homework that build up that I could easily get done in a few hours? It takes me almost all day to get them done, just because I simply feel like having that time off.

Don’t get me wrong, by the time Sarah comes home around 6:45, I’ll have everything done that I could get done and I need to get done, but I could have had it done much much earlier.

I think they call this thing “time management”? Ah well, I call it cuddling with my cats and enjoying my day…

Funny. I don’t feel like I’m turning 25 in a week.

Seriously. My birthday is next Thursday and it hardly feels like it should be this soon. That’s the funny thing with my birthday each and every year as I get older: it becomes less and less of a deal for me. Its just another day out of the year. I mean, seriously, if folks want to celebrate me and being on this planet for another year? Call me up any day of the week and do so, not one damn day out of the year. Show me that love and respect each and every day and not just because its the day that I crowned from my mother’s womb.

I’ve been feeling my right hand itch, and I’m trying to keep a notepad nearby. I’m also deciding to listen to a lot more country and other lyrically intensive music. Seriously. Folks don’t give country the credit it deserves. All too often its laughed at, scorned, or just kicked to the curb. I think the truth of the matter is, when you find a good country artist or a good lyricist in general, there’s something to study there. For me, I put Big & Rich, Montgomery Gentry, Keith Urban, Alabama, and Radney Foster into that category. And if you look at a lot of this “country” you can see that there’s a lot of blues and rock right in the mix there too.

And let’s look at something that’s little considered and you’ll keep hearing me say it right up and through this next year: music doesn’t need to be complex. It needs to be comforting at some sub-etheral level. Sure, the complex stuff can be comforting at that level, but look at some of the classic tracks out there that make us feel good, it’s a simple hook on the chorus that we sing along to and that everyone knows. I mean, “Livin’ On A Prayer,” “Don’t Stop Believing,” and “Jack ‘n’ Diane” ? Simple as heck choruses that it doesn’t matter the words of the verses, you’re singing along. I can’t count how many times my old roommate Nathan and I would be heading here or there and blasting one of these in the car.

And if you don’t sing along, I’m sorry for you.

See, songs like this are the simple joy to our lives. Songs like “Rock and Roll All Nite (Party Every Day),” “Rock & Roll,” and “I Love Rock ‘N’ Roll” that the second you hear that riff or that intro that you find yourself singing along and turning the radio up louder: not just because the titles have the banal message of the music, but because it moves us. We have that urge because the lyrics are so familiar. They feel right. They’re what we grew up on and with. They’ve just got that… feel.

Its something that takes you on the inside and the second it hits you, you know its there. Even if it’s not your life, you know what its like. You’re in the scene. It’s a living music video in your mind that no matter what words or images you try to find, you have none. It exists because its everything you need and could ask for in that simple nugget just under four minutes that just is right. Decades of people try to put it into words, but no matter what words you look for, there really are none. When its right and its there and everything just works: it just does.

And now? I don’t hear that arena rock. That anthem. That one hook that just wins everything over. Occasionally you get it, but with the esoteric nature of song titles nowadays that are so far away from what the song seems to be about, well, its hard to remember what’s what from time to time. I can tell you the names of half of the songs on Brand New’s albums from time to time, just because of how much I’ve listened to it, but ask me what my favorite song is from Mayday Parade’s album, and I’d be struggling to tell you their names. Conversely, ask me from what I’ve heard from Seven Mary Three’s new album (samples can be heard here), and I can tell you via song name alone because of how the lyrics and the names fit together.

I’m not really going anywhere in particular with this. For me, I guess its just that everyone tries to do something different, but I don’t hear that hook anymore. I’m looking for that hook. And I’m trying to write the best one I can that flows as smoothly as some of those great stories I linked above.

I can only hope to find it in me.

I mean heck, I’m only at my quarter life crisis. I’ve got a good amount of time left, right?

The older I get, the more I feel that my memory isn’t half of what it used to be. I can attribute that to the glowing idiot boxes in my life. Think about it. All we do most of the time is find some TV shows on and watch them, then come online and read some webpages for our news.

Its hard to get away from the internet. Even when we buy an actual print newspaper, there’s a webaddress on the bottom of that sucker, driving us back to a place here online to read more stories, get video, interactive graphs, maps, hyperlinks, recreations, viewer comments, feedback, and immediate gratification with letters to the editors.

Its sort of sad, when you think about it.

And lord knows I’m not calling anyone out on this one because I’m one of the worst offenders of them all. Mindless flash games? Guilty. Refreshing webpages/boards to see if someone’s commented back or updated? Guilty. Wasting my time with social networking sites? All as charged.

Its hard to just “break away” from the internet, and even harder now that its not classified as a type of addiction. Just makes it another thing to worry about and wonder about, when you think about it. When will they define the internet junkies as such.

Until then, I can be thankful that they just installed our new microwave just now. Its slightly smaller and it doesn’t have the same speed cook and delay start functions the old one had, but its a new microwave, and the fact that it’s new is all that matters.

Tuesdays like Monday throw me off more than you could ever imagine. I feel like its the beginning of the week and as if there’s so much that could or can be done, but even so, its not a full week. Nope. Just a Tuesday.

But it is a morning. God, do I love mornings.

I’m a huge fan of breakfast, you see. Granted, breakfast tastes great any time of day that you make it, but when its bright and early and you’ve got the time to do it right, well, that’s the best time of day for it, if you ask me. And all this weekend, I was a breakfast machine while my sister was spending the weekend with Sarah and I. Hashbrowns, bacon, bagels/biscuits, and eggs any way you wanted them. My wife takes hers hard boiled without the yolks, my sister likes two eggs over easy with the yolks lightly broken and cooked through, and I take mine like a 4 egg omelete with bacon and cheese. For two days of the week to make that, its not too bad to have that cholesterol overload, I figure. Besides, I take fish oil and it helps me keep my cholesterol lower.

So I guess the irony is that I poured myself a big bowl of cereal after saying that I love breakfast so much. And not like Lucky Charms or anything. Nope, just plain ol’ Special K.

Let’s see, though. I’ve had some thoughts for things I’ve wanted to say, but I think I’m going to tackle those tomorrow… But welcome to whomever might read this over on my Facebook, seeing I just aggregated my blog in as notes over on that sucka. So we’ve got Facebook and LiveJournal, and sadly no, MySpace doesn’t allow for feeds to be pulled in. Though speaking of MySpace, my friend Ben posted this little piece over on Facebook which struck me as interesting. Makes sense that more folks are heading over to Facebook over Myspace… For me, its a no brainer. I use both regularly and I find that Facebook is just nicer, neater, and better put together as a whole. Even if it does mean that some damn werewolf or vampire is biting me trying to turn me into one of theirs and I have to be a slayer to stop them…

Yeah. Exactly.

And I think it’s about time that I go and finally update my about page. So I’m going to work on that now… More later always…

Martin Luther King Jr.’s Birthday, observed.

Holidays aren’t really what all they’re meant to be anymore, if you think about it. Birthdays, Columbus Day, New Year’s Day, Veteran’s Day, Christmas, Fourth of July… Do we really think about the meaning of what the day is and what the day is remembered for?

Not really. We buy a card, spend some money for some gift that will be sold or donated or regifted eventually, drink some beers, and just say “Ah, thank [insert deity's name here] that I have today off from work/school.”

Because for me, today’s about remembering my dream that I can have a family and love and spend time with them, and because I stepped to my computer just to finish off a little bit of homework, I’d like to leave today with someone else’s words about an individual who was assassinated just about 40 years ago…

MLK’s Complexity Largely Ignored - via MSNBC.com

I find it funny that while making dinner last night, our microwave broke. Seriously. Just a loud “buzz” for a good thirty seconds then blank. I went and I flipped the breaker and still nothing. Nothing at all. So to the oven it was with the spaghetti squash. Thankfully, the first one was done because it took 40-50 minutes to cook that sucker rather than the usual 20ish minutes.

And it made me really think about the food that was left to cook this weekend: some chicken, breakfast this morning, few quick meals, soups, etc. How honestly did we really think or live before we had the wonderful micro-radiation devices that we modernly cook in? Think about how simple it is to heat that Chef Boyardee or to nuke some ramen. Now, double that time on the stove, or maybe some more. You have to build the heat up before you can use it there. No instant gratification. If you’re not hungry, you need to start making food before you get hungry. It’s crazy, insane, human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together - mass hysteria, end of the world!

Or not.

Its a bit interesting to think about, though. And sadly, not something that can be fixed before Tuesday. Three day weekends are great for everything relaxing, except for fixing microwaves and other apartment maintenance.

It adds four minutes to my cook time of my mini ravioli! Oh woe!

And for anyone wondering about our kids as I posted in the last entry? They’re doing great. They’re very much relaxing, but personality-wise all calmed down and slowly getting back to normal… We all are. It’s just what the weekends are for: relaxing and getting back to normal.

This weekend is an interesting weekend, to say the least.

First of all, my sister is over for the weekend, as usual with most weekends. Especially because its a three day weekend with my wife having work off on Monday, it makes it a good time to just sit back, relax, and enjoy ourselves. So we loaded up and we’ve got some grilling for tomorrow night planned and then some spaghetti tonight too. We really cook up a storm when we can. But the second thing is the biggest reason why its an interesting weekend.

Yesterday was really a quiet sort of day around the apartment. Even with two cats, it was quiet, just because the cats weren’t at home. That’s right, we had taken them in to the vets in the morning and had laser declawing done yesterday morning. For anyone who might stumble across this entry from a random search and find me talking about this and think that I’m a cruel and inhumane pet owner and irresponsible and illogical and everything hurt and bad and wrong for electing to perform this operation, I’m sorry. I understand both sides of the declawing argument, and its the owners choice. Always a difficult one, and because we already made it, waste your time and energy attacking someone else before they make their decision because we can’t wave a magic wand and give them their claws back.

But as I see it, my wife and I made the decision to be pet owners, and we made this decision too. We figure that if we’re feeding them, loving them, giving them amazing indoor lives for as long as they’re on this planet, the least we can do is front declaw them. And for them, it’ll be better in the long run.

This morning, we picked them up. Wooster is a frightened little buddy and mostly just cuddling on the couch and following us around. Fairly normal behavior for him. Cassie? Hiding under a chair in the dining room, not really running much, just sitting there. They’re a bit traumatized because of everything. If I were in their paws, I’d feel the same way… I mean, first to lose a long time friend (even if by adoption), then to go to the vets, then to have the operation and all, and now to come home? It’s a lot to go through so fast. They’ll calm down, and I’ll update as they do and they get back to normal. Heck, my head is spinning after only this long back in school this semester. Just nuts.

All of this is just one thing after another. But that’s just how things are in life, you know?

We always look forward to some “ending” some “conclusion” or some “result.” The truth of the matter, its what you do along the way and not how that all ends, but how you learn along the way.

And just like blogging, I’m learning what I’m writing about along the way…

As always, more later…

Of course, part of it has to do with the fact that my birthday caps off the month on the 31st. And like every person in the world being big on presents, I always just was happy enough to have the present be the presence of friends at a show on my birthday… I first played one in 2003, then did it again in 2004 and 2005. We’d have the show, then the party would be back at my place afterwards usually. There were a lot of fun times had at those.

The truth of the matter is, I don’t play out shows anymore because it takes too much away from me. Weird to say, right? Well, there’s a difference for me practicing for me around my apartment or at the fountain or hanging out and jamming with friends, than there is for me to sit down and figure out setlists, promote, juggle around supporting musicians, promote, work out new arrangements, promote, etc. You get the drift. And with a full courseload, my wife, two cats, and just trying to live, its hard to do. Especially to get the grades that I want to get. I can’t make Dean’s List and rock out, and well, Dean’s List looks better on the resumé than “rocked hard.”

So for the past few years, I’ve tried to time an EP or some new tracks at about the time of my birthday. I need to reflect a few new EPs on my discography page, but even still, I’ve just kept some new songs coming around. My 23rd and 24th birthdays were documented in songs–”Derry” and “Fifteen (Emergency)”–so seeing I’m hitting that big quarter life crisis, in the words of John Mayer (”Why Georgia,” if your mind is forgetting), its only fitting to release something big for me.

Back in November 2002 or so is when the official end of Mindflux occurred. Sad to see it go, but that was just life and what happened and we moved apart. That winter break, I worked on some songwriting and old songs that we had never gotten to as a band, and I made the decision that come January 2003, I would be starting the new year off as a solo artist. Matter of fact, I have some of my first shows from February on tape as “proof” of that. Not bad, huh? Heck, I even have the first recorded version of “Trying So Hard”–the song that would become my staple song–from the night right after I wrote it. Talk about an interesting flashback on that one.

And standing about five years down the road from the first time I took the stage without Lorn Miller or Harry Ticer, well, I honestly miss my first brothers in musical arms, but I did what I had to do. For me, its funny to look at all of these lyrics I have on my computer and all of these albums I’ve released on my discography, and to see where I’ve gone, where I’ve been, and how many damn songs I’ve written. I couldn’t tell you an exact number, but I’ll tell you that the number I still play is maybe one-third of any number that I’ve written. And probably even less.

In keeping with the theme of an album as a birthday gift to my friends, I’ve got two things in store for everyone…

1) Soon, very soon, you’ll be able to go to my music page and download full zip files of each and every album I’ve ever released with cover artwork. And, I might even dig up a rarity or two. All you’ll have to do is put in your e-mail address on signing up for them, and you’ll be good to go. I’ll be watching my bandwidth, so I might have to take them down from time to time, but even still, they’ll be free for whomever wants them. If you don’t feel right just doing free downloads, well, there’ll be a PayPal button for those who want to make donations for bandwidth/site upkeep/my general health and sanity/whatever. Covers all bases.
2) I’ll be releasing a new album of classic oldies that you’ll also be able to find on the discography page then too. And this one will go live as soon as its done. Tracklisting will be announced soon, but I’ve picked out 10 “classic” tracks of mine and I’ve named the album: Five Years of Trying So Hard - Songs I Haven’t Forgotten How To Play. They’re a mix of some songs that you might recognize, some that you might have heard of, some you might remember, and maybe one or two that you don’t know. Consider it my thanks for all of the time you guys came out for this show or that show or just hung out with me.

Expect the latest its done to be the end of February. I mean, I do need to keep my grades up so I can be on Dean’s List, you know? Thanks friends…