Also in the new hostees category:
Beautiful as a Dream was a site i had absolutely no qualms about inviting to join based just on it’s engaging layouts and photographs, let alone it’s thoughtful logging. Collect / Obsess / Regret? is my attempt to justify my reckless music purchasing by inviting any (and all) rabid music buyers to let fire with their receipts and rash rushed judgments. If you average more than one fresh music purchase per week over the course of a whole year, join up!
Way back in the day i had a favourite website, and that website was IllegalOp. Before this blog was even a glint in my mind’s eye, i was a regular poster over the summer on the still-defunct Shafted, and IO would have us beat post for post for hilarity and deep thought every day (even if their comment system sucked ass). For months now i’ve had to settle for just reading my hostees Muffin, Spoon, and Ahx (all former IO staff) singularly without any of the wackiness that would ensue from cramming them all onto one page, but it seems that my suffering has finally ended.
Without much further ado, please head over to the newest addition to the Uprush Organization: Registry Error. It’s cheeserific. Now, if we could just get Shafted up and running again…
In two weeks i’ve played outside for Spring Jam, in my supervisor’s office at work, for a room full of “dykes,” and in a tiny bar adjoining a good place to get wings. Each performance had its own little quirks, but tonight’s was definitely my favourite in many ways. Firstly, i had the crowd stacked in my favor with mucho peeps from the Player’s House. Secondly, i was really well rehearsed and not at all nervous. And, finally, all of my songs sounded good – even to me (which is a rare thing).
The set (a whopping hour long) follows, with minimal comments. A trio sneak-peek should be up sometime this weekend.
Other Plans (great opener, still love it),
Punk (crowds seem to pay attention to this; a shame it’s only 2 minutes long),
Deadweight (surprisingly coherent),
Ziggy Stardust (Bowie: random fun),
Relief (doesn’t seem to do much live),
Buildings and Bridges (Ani: by request!),
Under My Skin (wow, a crowd that didn’t know all the words…),
Bridge (“this is as close as i get to playing a solo”)
Dilate (Ani: huge and fun),
Give (hard to do live, but satisfying. thnx rabi.),
Crashing (broke a string; steve of The Conditions filled in while i got this ready),
Lost (quick and painless),
Like A Prayer (Madonna: not the best closer for a bar full of drunk men when you don’t know all the words, but all of the girls helped out by singing along).
My set was between a Drexel gal doing mostly covers and a massive two-hour (still going as i write) set by Justin (of dead susan fame) and Geoff. I think the owner invited me back for next week, but i’m sorta drunk on starvation so i don’t have a very clear memory of it. If i am playing next week, i need to learn some more cover songs. God help us all… g’nite.
In an odd little piece of deja-vu, Benjy blogged the new Nintendo logo, which is a play on Necker’s Cube – which is essentially any drawn 3d box which one can reverse with one’s perception of it. Where’d we hear about this already? Why… in the first exchange Benjy and I had on sBlog2. Blast from the past, i know…
The sky is so very grey that i feel like it’s drowning out all the reds and oranges in my personality and just leaving me calm with layers of blue and purple with maybe just a peak of yellow underneath. Or, maybe i just didn’t get quite enough sleep last night and am looking for an excuse to be low-key. Life is moving by very quickly as of late and i’m just trying to put in an appearance in every day and hour so i can at least say i was in on it even though it will be a blur in my memory.
I seem to be performing in a bar on campus tonight for an hour but i couldn’t explain to you how that happened if you were to ask me so you probably shouldn’t. I’ll get a weekly invite if i do well with the patrons this week and next, so if you have id (that’s identification, not the thing that hides underneath the ego and the superego and makes you all primal and stuff) you should come (Buffalo Bill’s, 35th and Lancaster, $5 cover, i’m on near 11pm). Also, my beloved Treble Makers are singing at the Drexel a capella show Saturday @ 4pm in Mandell Theatre, and they’re much cooler than i am even after you allow for the fact that there’s 10 of them and just the 1 of me. But, enough advertisement.
If one thinks ahead (i know, it’s frightening) to me actually being asked to show up with my guitar on a weekly basis, one would realize i’ll eventually have to get up off my ass and learn some new cover songs to play. In the last 24 hours i happen to have learned three, but that’s mostly because i just got an Ani DiFranco guitar book in my teeny metal mailbox and so now i am in study to eventually have an entire set just of Ani DiFranco songs (as if anyone can really tell the difference). I’ll definitely be Trioing my new covers this weekend, so keep an ear out for them. Should be interesting.
In a tangent tangentially related to my slow but sure musical growth and exploration, Gina seems to be moving into the apartment directly above mine for the summer (after which point i’m probably moving out). The ramifications of having Gina and I stacked one on top of the other with all of our various guitars and cds and things are rather exciting (probably more like terrifying to our neighbors), and life should definitely get more interesting. Or maybe just louder. We shall see. But, speaking of vertical neighbors, my downstairs neighbor randomly showed up at my door last night while my mother was fussing over my newly installed air conditioner, and a strange and uneasy conversation ensued. I have never been one to have guests over, especially on zero notice, so my entire third of the conversation seemed to be geared at getting one or more of us to exit the apartment. It’s not that i’m unfriendly, i’m just not really used to people being in my space. But, downstairs neighbor is very sweet and she likes to listen to me through the ceiling, so i won’t begrudge her some time standing on my threshold talking about where to get good 2for1 deals on whole frozen chickens with my mother.
Wow, that post got much more literal as it went along.
Even the music i brought with me to work today is sorta greyish sounding, and it’s all new so it’s just flying past my ears as i try to absorb some little pieces of it. But, i think i come here to actually work, as odd as that might sound, so i’m off for now, into the grey. Wish me luck.