Pre-summer boring-blog wrapup for my records and your feed reader. I couldn’t be busier. Here’s the what’s what rundown.

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Monday, Tuesday, Thursday

So yeah. I’ve just been out cruising the old roads, rolling around in my 1995, cruising hard with my hair blowing in my 2003, overdriving a pitched up White Album through some kid’s Peavey in Savannah while my friends think it’s funny to pretend to open the jar they keep their pet Black Widow in. This is a long one with pictures.

Dali king, Tufts Library

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Marking time and growing my hair for Sunday the 17th of February of the year of our intuition and bewilderment 2008.

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Especially boring version of the weekly lump for Sunday January 13th, year of our wonder and sorrow 2008.

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It is currently Wednesday, January 2nd, 2008. On Sunday, December 30th, 2007, I ate, did and thought the following.
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On Sunday, December 23rd, Year of Our Lord 2007, I ate, did and thought the following things.

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Placeholder entry until Yoko Ono sends me the blog about what I’ve been doing that she promised she’d write for me

Outlife shits after the jump = 50 totally different inserts I drew/colored for the Ospreys tape on BTH. Godspeed these mugs to new bruns.

I finished CX Asylums aka How Can I Hand You a Diamond = if you have Phil Todd’s email address send it to me, scans coming later or whatever

I signed up for a Facebook account, my account is the one of me in the Ecuadorian mask L+K brought back for me from their recent trip down that way, not the big question mark, which is my dad.

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Part 3: the usual story told in order from start to finish.

Left late on Wednesday from Philadelphia. I didn’t complete any of my projects on time and brought them to Mike’s. Amber helped me fold and staple two zines while Mike burned CDs. We practiced in the basement for twenty minutes, power feedbacker in the good way and loaded into the car.

In Pittsburgh we found Carly and her boy John (who does exist). Drank beer and ate chili and brought our stuff up to their apartment. Out to the car and to karaoke, Stuey met us, sang war pigs. Left to go to a bowling alley, it was closed, we went to Ryan’s house instead and played Risk from 1am-5am listening to a five disc changer on random. Drank budweiser tallboys and mystified by clear smoke. Six person game, ended with defeat declared by Carly and I as Asia and Aus were well contained. Slept on the futon and woke up late and ate eggs and bullshitted and on out. If you are in Pittsburgh I recommend staying with Carly. Jeremy Hedges and co were unavailable, bummer. Next time dudes.

Afternoon drive to Columbus through light snow and rain. Went to Meg Buzzi’s house and rolled in with hangover faces and raw voices to a little dinner party. Meg gave us beer and delicious food and we sat and talked about Barone things and Susy things and music and we riffed for a while. Brian Harnetty was there, asked us where we were playing next, Kenyon, oh, I’m a music professor there. Awesome dude - listen to his music, drink beer and hang out with him at Meg’s house if you have the opportunity.

The Columbus show was a total disaster of a mess. Was a franz ferdinand bands show, some of the dudes were friendly, one was being a real dick about us playing. We drank a few beers and decided to peace out and spend the rest of the night working on CD packages. Giant bummer but whatever. In the morning I poured a bowl of grapenuts and went to put sugar from the sugar bowl on them, but the sugar turned out to be salt. My car had snow on it when we left.

Kenyon College is our favorite place in the continental US. Highest concentration of hilarious, motivated and fun young guns anywhere. When we left last time, it was after talking about drinking mimosas for hours and then not doing it. This time we went for it. I think we got there around 1PM. Sat in the coffee shop for a while, went to the liquor store around two, sat outside and drank two bottles of champagne watching the classes change. We opened them in the graveyard and didn’t recognize anyone until four, when all familiar faces appeared at once. Richard and Mirra and Mariana and Nora at the shop and we sat there for a while and went to buy more champagne. Went to Nora’s room where we drank white wine and then red, then to Richard’s house where we drank more champagne then Rogue stouts and eventually a “gin bucket” which is pretty much what you’d expect. Steffen and Tucker and PEEPS extended crew were all in attendance and we listened to pitched down Boards of Canada and I sprawled on the floor thinking about their labyrinth. We eventually went to a party and danced and danced drunk and loud, I met and talked to Andrew for a while, Mirra split her knee open and we worried that she would never dance again and Nora choked Mike.

Second day hungover piled out and had dust-stomach eggs for breakfast, same crew reunited and proceeded to get more champagne. Mike and I made our slow stagger to the Horn Gallery where we loaded in and played for maybe three hours. Cafeteria stomached only apples and oranges, still too exhausted and without appetite. Drew some t-shirts and worked on CDs for a while. Mimosas, mimosas and tallboys leftover from Pittsburgh. We played with Ed’s band Sushi Girl(?), Liesel danced perfectly, Mike and I watched it all from the shadows and I felt golden hexagonal energy spinning inside. We played three songs for maybe forty minutes, Mirra projected video and drummed super minimally. Incredible show, near perfect realization of the new material and so many good vibes. Afterward we went to a dorm party, drank a guy’s beer, I played Washing Machine and School of the Flower on his computer jukebox, got into an accidentally super heavy conversation with Ben (ps: if Ben or associates reads this, dude, email me - also Richard should email me too, tom at dog chirp), put on the Grey Album and moved drunk through many shoulders. Mike decided to party in the elevator and got everyone in trouble. We went back to the cottage and watched True Stories projected mute on the ceiling. In the morning snow covered everything.

Pulled out into Ohio clouds and got lost on the way out. Ice windshield and we listened to our set from the night before. Saw five cars completely flipped over on the way to Lexington. Perfect gray white day skies and seas one. In Lexington we loaded in and hung out. Ben and Daryl were good hosts and their cat Francis was huge. Listened to dub records and watched muted tv, ate pasta with srrachi, worked on merch for a while. Watched the Exorcist and time stretched and it was 10PM and we went, oh whoa, I guess we should play? Ben plays as CAVES - his shit was intense double bass manipulation, super low and brutal. We played a short chirp set, satisfying and sweet slow, only mics and cello - no bass or guitar. We went back upstairs, watched Adult Swim, drank whiskey and Tony came in and riffed for a while and we went to sleep. Ben took us to the Tally Ho in the morning for breakfast.

In Atlanta we stayed at Katie Bug’s. Drive was sinister - Tennessee cops everywhere, speed limit changed every five seconds. Her mom was hilarious and her dad (who has played 200 date years as Smoke Rise) told us we should cover the lick at the end of Dodge Ram commercials in our set. We watched those Different Drummer videos of Jesco White and Amazing Delores - highly recommended. On the way out we left a bag of muffins on the trunk and a guy beeped his horn at us a million times, rolled down his window, and yelled You gonna lose you muffins!

Was up all night working and being stressed and slept only four hours. Drive to Savannah was fast and easy. Savannah water still tastes like standing pond water. Met up with Amber and Michelle and bought champagne, ate a croissant and went straight to the space - burned out abandoned building without a front facing an art gallery. Celebs + Rowan and Hastings were in effect, super good vibes from the show, great to see Patrick Parker and John again. Played maybe twenty minutes, drank three Andre bottles and some beer, went to John and Patrick’s and listened to the Beatles until. Michelle’s dog Hobbes big and beautiful and well-behaved. Esteban gone and not forgotten. Mike and I went to Tybee in the morning and I walked fast and far and could hear the drums of death.

Columbia: Carlene’s dogs destroying everything, Dino still the best dude in America. Jeff’s house dark and strange - gave us presents, played us records, great dude alone in the wilderness. Played a smoked set for twenty minutes, bad feedbacker but heavy as hell ending, real slow burning meditator… no sweat and screaming, no chokes, but still up and out. Recorded this on video and haven’t played it back yet. Ate the best sandwich I’ve ever had for dinner, drank wheat beers, watched trailers for on demand movies until early morning. I’m fading out and am not doing a good job of telling this story anymore but I am going to finish it and supplement it later.

Durham yesterday fucking TEMPLE OF BON MATIN most killer set! Zach Kouns in his underwear absolutely annihilating to the audience of four - cafe owner’s mind blown - recorded it and will post it later, so, so, SO good. Our set was twenty minutes again, good stuff, Mike had problems with his vocal setup which was a bummer. Recorded it and will listen to it in the car today. Slept at Jonathan’s house and his kids in the morning staring at our wake-up. One asks, What are you doing in my house?

Charlottesville tonight and we’re done. So much left out. So much more to report that defies reporting.

…New year haze…

Year started with tinnitus and waves of Jersey sweat from shoving crushing shoulders and backs. The saddest $30 lesson: not 20 anymore. Couldn’t get drinks, couldn’t dance, they didn’t play Helter Skelter. There was a Nazareth video playing, which may have been a good sign.

Everything Is Always Getting Better Always. Where my year of the pig bros at?

Woke up from a dream with saliva running from my 3AM mouth. Earliest I’ve been to sleep in weeks and up from dreams before I’m usually done to begin with. I was in a bathroom of a giant hotel that was hosting Jesus Lizard and Butthole Surfers in the back by the pool. I took a break to get outside and had to wear a white sticker on my hand; I had lost the pink bracelet and my shirt. Walking out down the tiled mosaic floor behind an older man, totally drunk and wearing a ragged suit, walking very slowly. I went upstairs instead of outside. I thought the line upstairs would be shorter and it was empty. The doors were made of polished wood and the floors were clean, the toilets ivory and gold. I had diarrhea and a man looked over the top and I dove out on him, he said what’s wrong with checking to see if you needed extra toilet paper? I told him I had caught him checking to see if I had extra toilet paper earlier in a different bathroom too, and that he was following me. He said well what if I shoot you.

Earlier I had tried to throw tennis balls to my brother and my uncle waist deep in the river. I could only throw them a few feet and the tide kept carrying them back. Earlier I asked my brother if my grampa was in the mob and he said he couldn’t say I and cried. Earlier I walked on a wall past oldest trees at the furthest reaches and up through a cone mouth of wooden stakes that only opened one way, pulled myself up and was on the top of the hotel, out in the city night above everything, and a woman below said “This is all you get.”

OSPREYS tomorrow in Wilmington delaware at that jawn MOJO13. Playing with bad-weed and harshed mellows noise bro Wether, Pink Deserts doing that ugly swirl and Northern Valentine playing the “rock?” sounds.

Wilmington is only 10 minutes from south philly. You can stop to check out Jesus With the Eyes and still make it in 20. Show is at 9:30.

We jammed for an hour today - Bonsky told us to turn it down. New shit with the cello and new tricks is way nice. Incredibly psyched for tour, tell your far flung bros to check it out.

january 18 columbus cafe bourbon st
january 19-20 gambier oh kenyon college
january 21 ??? lexington area ??? anywhere between columbus and nashville - get in touch if you can help this happen
january 22 nashville chris cherry blossoms’ joint
january 23 ??? atl / athens region ??? same thing holler
january 24 columbia sc the whig with KGB graffiti bros + stoked to see k sheild after not returning his email
january 25 durham nc broad st cafe with temple of bon matin
january 26 charlottesville the tea bizarre with matthew playing drums, going to project shogun assassin and play three notes for the whole thing then fall on a sword.

All weirdness and heavy-headed… serious deja-vu in the club last night. We played a tough set, ragged by technical problems throughout, continuing curse of the p.a. = can’t get the right levels, can’t hear anything, bad feedback, emboldened by borrowed amps = falling on my face. Played an old-style guitar thing that didn’t work too well, couldn’t hear mike at all; second one was mic tricks, not bad, would’ve benefitted from the jug’s presence. Third one was key, cello on his side and I played the new march with crushed bass… in all it was nice to play and good to get difficulties sorted before heading out. Naturally we knew the dudes - recognized Wether from somewhere, knew Pink Deserts bros from the church. Jason and the Argonauts was playing on loop at the bar, saw the skeleton warriors rising up three times.

Couldn’t get out of bed this morning, woke up completely terror-domed. No food in the house but not too hungry… genghis dudes practicing new riffs downstairs all morning, probably laid in bed and listened for an hour before I finally got it together to climb down to the dirty floor. Toenails and paper room grit stuck to the bottoms of sweaty feet, a room feeding back. Dreamed I could just sleep through it all and not ever have to get out of bed, perfect stasis up there in the loft, nobody would come to check or bother, I’d never get hungry, just keep slipping in and out of sleep while the genghis dudes riff and the light comes and goes, distant smell of Clay breakfasts and drug cavern classic rock sound, carpet growing longer and thicker, buckling under my loft like a crushed caterpillar, a leech on an arm under squeezing fingers. Found Nutty Steph’s christmas pres while I was cleaning, was my late breakfast from far hills, and I was in that tower and the sun was setting again and again:

Spent the afternoon re-sorting it all, clean paper here, half-dones here, dones here. 2007 marches on and I am packing that ship. Tonight going to trade noise musics with Pink Ds, hopefully check out Jared’s band after missing it too many times. Recorded an hour yesterday, sent four emails, played and still went to bed thinking, What do I have to show for my day? Unbelievable.

Okay the tour story in one sitting, now or never, here goes.

In DC I was five seconds away from standing in Mike’s friend Alan’s toilet when his roommate Jacob knocked on the door and stopped it. That was the beginning and end of the zine Toilets I Have Stood In though I have threatened to resurrect it many times since. It is useful, too, to stay at someone’s house and for them to think that this is a thing I will do while I am there. I haven’t tested this theory at all, but I vaguely suspect that those who have heard of Toilets I Have Stood In have made an effort to make their toilets as presentable to the camera (and ultimately to the pages of that publication) as possible.

We got back from band tour this morning at 6AM, after leaving Poughkeepsie around 2AM. What a lame drive. Some blown out weird pop was playing for the first while and then that faded and I dialed into some good afterhours rap show. Mike slept through Bahamadia and I almost made a hundred wrong turns.

There were fifty million amazing characters on this short trip. We listened to bootleg Brawlers + Bawlers + Bastards instead of the usual Jay-Z and usaisamonster. It was a more cerebral tour, instead of the previous bacchanals - there were no real hellion moments. On two possibly-related notes, our shit was way more together, and we actually broke even. Thanks for the donations dudes!

We fought traffic for seven hours in New York and ate taco bell only once the entire tour. When we got to Amherst, a couple of dudes came up to me while I was finishing loading my stuff into the Hampshire cafeteria.

“Hey man,” they said. They were big hoodie dudes.

“What’s up dudes?” I said. I was wearing a peace sign shirt and a stupid hat.

“Do you know where we can get mushrooms? We’re from U-Mass and we heard this is where we can do it.”

Awesome. In the cafeteria we made secret sandwiches and drank pabst blue ribbon beers from a 30-pack out of little coffee cups, incase security were to show up and yell. Cats from Providence played a five minute song and Etienne’s fuckin band Cave of Time ruled it. Total Mainliner destructo blasts and booming string whacked out psycho shit. After the show, Etienne said to John and Matt, “Dudes, what do I keep telling you, I need more solos, I only got one tonight, I need at least three.” The dude ran the show so hard John couldn’t switch to electric sax, and god knows what the shit that would’ve been like. I want to watch these dudes play twice weekly. When we went back to their house I asked if we had to bring in the amps and they said, “Nah man, you’re in Massachusetts, it’s cool.” I watched Flesh Eaters and fell asleep and in the morning me and Mike ate at a diner in a traincar in Northampton where the proprietor cooked the food on the greasiest ranges right in front of you and right under a huge, booming exhaust fan. You should eat there if you aren’t strictly vegetarian.

Then we drove to Burlington Vt. In Burlington our show was cancelled but the promoter Joseph said on the phone to Mike, “I try my best to make everything awesome even when the situation is the absolute worst.” He said this while I was outside taping a mirror that fell off of my car back on with painter’s tape and when I got in and Mike told me that he had had this conversation the mirror thing felt like a metaphor. Also I was hung over. Have you ever driven to Vermont? It is the most beautiful of the northeast states and it has wicked mountains.

Joseph met up with us after we walked around for a half hour in the cold trying to find him. He bought us sushi and gave us money and took us to a show where a woman sang a cover of You’ve Got Another Thing Comin’. I was super bummed all night and wanted to lay down serious jams but our show was cancelled. Back at Joe’s place we caught up with Susy’s old roommate Jake and eventually went back to his place, where we slept. In the morning we made zines and waited in line for an hour to get into the only diner in town. We listened to Bawlers and went to the Magic Hat brewery and got growlers and drank them.

We loaded into the death metal show we were “invited” to play on and the dudes said, yeah, you can play, but nobody will be here and you won’t get paid. We got paid and we played to maybe 25 people, so it worked out well. We drank whiskey from coffee cups, again in case security came to yell, and played pulsing fever music in front of an intense mason logo. Our drummer needed more direction than we were able to give. He asked me if I wanted fills, and I gave him the come on man, just do whatever answer because I didn’t know what he meant. Someone leave a comment with what fills are please. Other bands that night were of a more technical or seriously metal variety. The promoter Frankie’s band Portugal Towers was tight and somebody bought a pile of Domino’s and a slice of the sausage pie made me sick. We sold some CDs and one dude said “I was surprised by your band, it was interesting, but I’m not sure if I liked it.” Also, apparently nobody knows what metal riffing fingers are, up in the northeast? We went to a party after this show instead of going to Jake’s. There, a girl said to Mike in response to our band and general behavior, “I want to start a noise band where when I play people [do metal riffing fingers],” and that was the only good thing that happened. We had a convoluted, terrible time finding a place to sleep and ended up letting ourselves into Joe’s apartment at 5.30AM, after a guy woke me up and kicked me out of his house, the dirty floor of which I was sleeping on while Mike was drinking his way through about a liter of vodka. Also after trying to sleep in the car and after two people who offered us places to stay reneged. Shittiest night / funniest morning: special thanks to Joe’s roommate who didn’t want us there when he inexplicably found us in the morning, but didn’t feel strongly enough about it to kick us out. When we were rolling into Joe’s we got out of the car tired and smokey and ruined and across the street fifteen frat dudes were strolling down the street with cups in hand, still rolling hard.

Montpelier was amazing. Everything there was perfect. We ate more sushi at a by-the-piece joint and overheard a woman from the DNC talking to the proprietor about how Kerry was going to be running for president, but not anymore. Heavy election worries. We walked on train bridges and up a crazy hill through the woods (where a guy named I think Andrew had carved “I am the ruler of my domain!” on a lot of benches) and there was a castle at the top. Go to Montpelier, everything there is exactly like that, you go to do something fun and it turns out even better than you’d have thought. Mike scheduled us a show at an open mic night at Langdon St Cafe and I was more apprehensive about this show than any other. Nutty Steph rollerbladed right up to us when we were sitting down inside and said, “Oh hey, are you guys OSPREYS? You’re staying with me tonight” and that was that, we knew we’d be good. The Cardboard Tech Institute people were there too - Thor + Brian + Amy. Amy took pics. We had breakfast with them the next day and Nutty Steph gave them jobs. Bo screened Michael Franti’s movie, said a million hilarious things, and gave us presents just because we were touring and he thought we were good dudes. Montpelier! Our set was bad-feedback-laden at first and I had serious problems getting my mics to work the way I wanted and it took a while to clear the crowd of hecklers (first ever time we got seriously heckled, and by old dudes who played real guitar, so funny), but it was cool. First piece was a nine minute Glass Throats creep jam for staring into windows at 3AM. Second song (Mike introduced it saying “Okay we have one more short one”) was supreme two-note plodding doom sinister for perfect opium sickness. Slit throats bleed distorted bass, fucking shit, man! This was so inappropriately loud and barked into my little mic the recording is so shitty and I still way feel the level six hundred sixty six head nod vibes relistening to it. Afterward the Cardboard peeps cheered enthusiastically and everyone else was gone and I was liquified adrenaline lightning rod FUCK man! playing shows! …!! and we went back to Nutty Steph’s. She wasn’t home and when she got in at 12.30 she said “Oh man I don’t have much food, only cucumber and tomato and feta sandwiches!” MONTPELIER!

Mike claims I said “Play scrabble with me… PLEASE!” toward the end of our night in Worcester. We played with Jake’s band Phonebook who were the best shit rock duo of them all. Mike has pictures of this show that he will undoubtedly never show me. A dude there was telling us about his band RIFFTIDE, the funniest all time band that will be remembered through the ages. The premise is “I will riff over your project.” Stay tuned. Forbes St trickiest hill most baroque system for regulating how co-op members are accountable for their dishes. Thanks Lilah for trading me a six pack of Wachusett Blueberry for zines! Thanks Kelley for cooking us delicious food for dinner! I accidentally got very beer drunk at this show and don’t super remember it. Our set was plagued by the same problems - contact mics breaking at a sad rate, little chirper barking too hard, shit just generally not working - but our second song was an ultra-heavy melter. Mike claims I played on for a good two minutes after he stopped, and then he decided to start back in again, and I stopped thirty seconds later. I told him I need more solos. Andrew made us waffles in the morning and we wandered Worcester for two hours looking for falafel in the afternoon, and the dude who provided it showed us his pictures of him with Gwen Steffani and Al Pacino and he told us a bizarre story about Limp Bizkit. Beware: in Worcester, the Mediterranean Foods Market only sells Italian, and the Italian place only sells falafel.

We stopped at Susy’s mom’s house but this is the tour blog so I’m not going to get so into that. She made us provisions and we watched Kung-fu Hustle and I was very glad we punctuated our tour with this stop.

Victory lap and happy returns in Poughkeepsie, last show. Spent most of the day on the couch zoned out wanting to play super bad. Interneting but my email wouldn’t send. Wandered campus, deja vu’d, got totally Box Eyes. Slept on the smallest couch and woke up to Brawlers. Mike went to look out a telescope at ships vanishing behind the sun, with Ellen who has access to these things, but I stared out the window for a full hour instead. Growler hangover + tour ending tear brushed away. We loaded in and played in Ellen’s living room for twenty or thirty people - totally awesome show, perfect tour conclusion. Little chirper gave me total hell by reacting on the super strange to my distortion and amp settings, and I was sure my amp was blowing at certain points. Once feedback was harnessed we stuck with the same set, but worked in a whole lot of triple space guitar bloom. Second song was a huge departure, big melancholy opener, slooooow beautiful birds singing hell-song. When we ended people clapped and asked us to play more for the second time ever. Ellen joined on electric violin with Zach who had played drums and Christina who took over the mic. We played one long, long jam, true sky-cracking and blood-pouring-in end to it. So good. Tour.