• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Crushing Krisis

The Newest Oldest Blog In New Zealand

  • Archive
  • DC Guides
    • DC New 52
    • DC Events
    • DC Rebirth
    • Batman Guide
  • Marvel Guides
    • Omnibus & Oversize Hardcover DB
    • Marvel Events
  • Star Wars Guide
    • Expanded Universe Comics (2015 – present)
    • Legends Comics (1977 – 2014)
  • Valiant Guides
  • Contact!

Archives for November 2009

Daily Demo: Kick Me

November 3, 2009 by krisis

Song #238: Kick Me (live demo) [“Save As” to download from that link]
Never before recorded.

Not all Fridays are not of the TGI variety. Some of them leave you bruised and battered, wondering if you can really make it through another week – or even through the weekend.

That was the sort of Friday that spawned the chorus of “Kick Me” this spring – a day of intellectual punishment resulting in that arpeggiated major-chord melody spinning in my brain on my walk home. I sat on the bed with Elise in the afternoon sun and worked out the chords on my guitar. They seem simple now, but at the time they made no sense!

All I had for a week or two was the chorus, until one night I was waiting on the bus at 18th and Market. No bus was evident, but urban hipsters kept whipping by on road bikes with their skinny jeans and iPod earbuds. Probably listening to something obscure, I thought. Or, jazz.

In my head blossomed the phrase “You’ve got your skinny jeans, and your Love Supreme, you left me dying on the vine while you were out on the scene.”

The rest came quickly, but in bits and pieces. Somewhere there is still an extra verse of castoff lyrics floating around that I cut while sitting at the piano. I knew it was done when I tweeted the “#1 vulture in line for my body” verse, because it sounded so right once I wrote it down.

“Kick Me” was so thoroughly composed for piano that it took me months to learn the chords on guitar, especially around the key change. I’m still much more comfortable playing it on piano.

Filed Under: demos

Daily Demo: Crashing

November 2, 2009 by krisis

Song #77: Crashing (live demo) [“Save As” to download from that link]
Last recorded for Blogathon 2002.

10 years ago this weekend I went to my first college party, still very much a purposefully-naive, dewy-eyed teen.

I came home having had my first vodka cranberry and my first inklings of adult romance, drifting to sleep wrapped in the blissful denouement of each.

The following Monday morning was a decidedly dreary day, and I found myself locked out my dorm room in my pajamas. Instead of heading to French 103 I sat down in our common room – five stories from the ground with a two-story windowed wall staring out into Center City Philadelphia.

I pulled out a pad and wrote “Crashing.”

Later that day, having been let back into my room, I recorded its first rough demo and transferred the lyrics to the first page of the crisp new book I bought for my collegiate songs. Up until then I wasn’t sure how I would know it was time to start using it, but I suddenly did.

“Crashing” made frequent appearances at parties and late night hangouts throughout my Freshmen year, resulting in the first complements on my voice I had ever heard. They came as a great shock to me, as they still do. Later that autumn I recorded it for my first full length demo, Other Plans – shakily, in the middle of the night, trying not to wake up my mother in the process.

As a dreary fall turned to winter I moved on to add other songs to my slim gray book – many of which I still play to this day. Yet, it was “Crashing” I would play between classes as I sat at the dinged, old upright piano in the theatre green room. I would hypnotize myself with the rolling two chord verse, learning how to play piano in increments (and maybe a little bit about what the song really meant, as well).

It took the entire intervening decade to learn how to play piano well enough to demo it that way, and it seems apropos that it wound up recorded just as shakily and late as its original demos were, respectively.

Filed Under: college, demos, identity, memories, self-critique, stories, theatre, Year 10 Tagged With: rain

What I Tweeted, 2009-11-01 Edition

November 1, 2009 by krisis

My best and most-interesting tweets of the last week.

Quotes of the week:

I've come to realize that the reason I must acquire so much new music is so that I can continue to make bitchin' mix tapes. #

#reasonsIlovemyjob = My entire main client group likes all of: Kelly Clarkson, Rufus Wainwright, Lady Gaga, and Sia. And more! <3 you all. #

@amanda_nan Apparently you have much to learn about me if you think anything ranks "more appealing" over an activity involving Madonna. ;) in reply to amanda_nan #

Can the insane people just back away from their communications devices today? I feel like I'm in a Web 2.0-enhanced zombie flick. #

I think I am making a Twitter list called "So-Called Experts Who Are Really Just Follow Junkies That Will Never Read My Tweets AKA Jerkwads" #

Pics or it didn't happen @PhillyWeekly NOT A JOKE: A-Rod has self-portrait of himself as a centaur above his bed http://bit.ly/2WebML #

@deestbie My hairdresser encouraged me to do some facial hair: so far it seems to contextualize my music better, in that I don't look 15. in reply to deestbie #

Last night I learned @Amanda_nan gets a text EVERY TIME I tweet. That's BFF-level commitment; not even my wife would subject herself to that #

Highlighted topics/conversations: U2’s YouTube Webcast, Open Mic @ The Fire / National Mechanics, Webcast Fail / Phillies Game 1 Live Tweet, and Twitter lists as B.S. detectors. Plus various Halloween and recording fun.

You should follow me on Twitter so you can read my tweet action as it happens.

[Read more…] about What I Tweeted, 2009-11-01 Edition

Filed Under: Twitter

Our Battlestar Galactica Halloween as Baltar & Head Six

November 1, 2009 by krisis

Last night E and I dressed up as Head Six and Dr. Gaius Baltar, respectively, from the cult Sci-Fi hit Battlestar Galactica.

Head SixDr. Gaius Baltar

E is not in Six’s standard spaghetti-strap dress, but Six can be spotted in this style at least once in the series.

Baltar & Six

Also, note the spot-on bracelet and ring, which E made herself.

Six & Baltar, enamored

My costume was much more subtle, as I was effectively E’s accessory for the night. I simply grew some scruff and slicked back my hair. For fun, I carried two corner-cut Vice-Presidential memos (as we were ostensibly circa seasons one and two – post appointment to VP, but pre swearing-in as president).

Six, hand of God

One memo was the results of tests with the Cylon Detector. The other was a draft of Gaius’s inaugural speech, complete with parenthetical asides to Head Six (presumably floating over his shoulder in devilish fashion as he wrote it). Writing in the Dr. Baltar voice was very fun.

Out of two parties four people knew who we were. The best comment we received was by far:

I’m not sure who you are, but you both look really sexy. You should introduce yourself as, “Hi, I’m sexy.”

Oh, and SyFy – né Sci-Fi – the purveyors of the show we paid homage to, thought we were “Awesome!”

‘Nuff said.

Filed Under: elise, memories, parties, stories, teevee, Year 10

And you are…?

November 1, 2009 by krisis

There is a chance you are arriving here for the first time, launched from Twitter or NaBloPoMo.

If that’s the case, hi. I have an extensive series of bios linked off in that other direction. Oh, and for my first NaBloPoMo I spent the entire month re-telling my personal origin story, so be sure to read that too.

That said, I know we are all couch potatoes on the great lazyweb, so you aren’t likely to hustle around clicking those things. As such, allow me to summarize the current state of me:

I live in Philadelphia and am relatively newly wed to my partner of nearly eight years.

We both work in marketing – me in communications development, she in design. We are also both musicians – she the lead singer of Filmstar, me as a solo singer-songwriter as well as and a member of Arcati Crisis.

We’re also relatively voracious consumers of music, especially within Philadelphia, which boasts an astounding and thoroughly-talented local scene.

In addition to my major three loves (wife, comm, music), it turns out I’m also pretty passionate about non-profit development. I probably wouldn’t have told you that before this year, because it is the first time it has been so patently obvious. I helped to throw a music festival and a 24-hour streaming benefit concert, both of which raised funds for respective non-profits, and both of which nearly intellectually slayed me in the process.

Inclusive of prior iterations of the festival and my wedding I spent every free moment planning an event from March of 2007 to this past month.

Right now I’m trying to be pretty passionate about me. It’s hard – for someone who spends a lot of time working in the public eye and promoting others I have an awfully hard time shining the spotlight on myself. It something I have to improve on to avoid doing a disservice to my songs.

Oh, hey, and to my blog, which has run the longest out of any native Philly weblog – I’m currently blogging into my tenth year of inane, self-centered rambling.

We’ll see how that goes.

Filed Under: NaBloPoMo, self-aware, thoughts Tagged With: resolve

  • « Go to Previous Page
  • Go to page 1
  • Go to page 2
  • Go to page 3
  • Go to page 4
  • Go to Next Page »

Primary Sidebar


Support Crushing Krisis on Patreon
Support CK
on Patreon


Follow me on Twitter Contact me Watch me on Youtube Subscribe to the CK RSS Feed

About CK

About Crushing Krisis
About My Music
About Your Author
Blog Archive
Comics Blogs Only
Contact Krisis
Terms & Conditions

Crushing Comics

Marvel Comics

Marvel Events Guide

Marvel Omnibus Guide

Spider-Man Guide

DC Comics

  • Drag Race France Season 1 – Pre-Season Power Rankings
    Drag Race France's debut season features 10 queens I've never seen before, and I've ranked them all based on their promo looks and Instagrams. […]
  • What makes a good Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition official release or 5e-Compatible supplement?
    There's an ever-increasing amount of D&D 5e-compatible material in the world, but how exactly do you choose what's right for your table? […]
  • Music Monday: “We’re Good” – Dua Lipa
    Dua Lipa's"We're Good" makes a major impact without a tricky song structure or vocal fireworks. It just needed a few contradictions. […]
  • extra sleep sunday
    Parenting programs your brain to believe that sleeping extra means danger. No one explained this to me before I became a parent. […]
  • RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars Season 7, Episode 6 – Total Ru-quest Live: recap, songwriting analysis, & power ranking!
    When it comes to Total Ru-quest Live Girl Groups and Night of 1000 Dolly Partons drag, it's a risk to take things too literally. […]
  • Harbingers of Failure
    I thought I liked odd stuff because of my unique brain wiring. I'm sure that's true, but it might also be because I'm a harbinger of failure. […]
  • New for Patrons: Jane Foster Guide – The Mighty Thor & Valkyrie
    A Jane Foster Guide to her time as a nurse, doctor, Thor, and Valkyrie is about to be incredibly relevant with the release of Thor: Love & Thunder! […]
  • the spider in the mirror
    I didn't think too much about the spider in the mirror until it was gone. […]
  • The Infinitely Expanding World of Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition
    What does it mean to be 5e Compatible, and how does it tie in with my torturing a Dungeons & Dragons email list back in the 90s? […]
  • Slow Song - The Knocks with Dragonette featuring AquariaMusic Monday: “Slow Song” – The Knocks with Dragonette
    When I listen to "Slow Song" by The Knocks with Dragonette I feel instant nostalgia for the dingy, neon-lit adult world I remember from my youth, long since lost to the passage of time. […]

Layout copyright © 2017 · Foodie Pro Theme by Shay Bocks · Built on the Genesis Framework · Powered by WordPress

Links from Crushing Krisis to retailer websites may be in the form of affiliate links. If you purchase through an affiliate link I will receive a minor credit as your referrer. My credit does not affect your purchase price. Affiliate programs and affiliations include, but are not limited to: Amazon Services LLC Associates Program (in the US, UK, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, and Spain), eBay Partner Network, and iTunes Affiliate Program.