In the spirit of InPassing, here’s a snippet of a totally wonky Matt randomly chatting with his brother on the phone at 2am:
I think my cd purchases finally outstripped my available listening time last year, and i’m still barely caught up. For a while i was keeping up just fine, but somewhere around my massively ill-advised thanksgiving shopping spree i managed to load up on more things than i had the ears for, and Christmas just put me further under. Albums by Portishead, Velvet Underground, Built to Spill, Ben Folds Five, et all are still just strewn around my desk-floor-stereo area while i’m still stuck on Sarah Harmer and DeathCab for Cutie. And, of course, a new 29-track Ani DiFranco album coming within the next month doesn’t really leave me much time to adequately catch up, does it?
If i could just get my brain to constantly download music and upload blogs during class and sleep (and sleep during class), all of my problems could be solved…
Matt has this hilarious routine where he always seems incredibly hung over when he wakes up. Note that he doesn’t drink, and that this applies even if he wakes up from a ten minute nap. I know this probably has something to do with him sleeping in the high bunk … because god knows i could see myself getting a little woozy from the dismount after sleeping for a while beforehand. Still, the way he always manages to stumble out of the bedroom and into the bathroom or kitchen is endlessly amusing to me. It’s like he’s got a hangover and munchies! But, i swear, he’s just been sleeping for hours now – not sitting in his bed with a bottle of Captain Morgan’s and a packed bowl. I mean… even with my totally unintuitive nose for illegal substances i think i’d be able to smell that, wouldn’t i? It’s a rather small apartment…
What’s weird is that both songs tonight employ a very old-skool Ani DiFranco fingerpicking style which reminds me mostly of “Rush Hour” from her first album. If you’re not an Ani fan you won’t know what the hell i’m talking about, but it’s more of a fluttering of the fingers over the top strings rather than a defined picking routine – and when rushed or played live it quickly descends into the rampant aggressive strumming that i also have stylistically in common with Ms. DiFranco. I swear… new Ani lyrics put me in a mood every time … i can almost track eras of songwriting by Ani albums i was listening to at the time. Tori just doesn’t have the same effect on me; all of my Ani-ish songs make it onto here and my demos, and all the Tori ones are chalked up as artful experiments and then shoved into a corner somewhere because i can’t seem to play them correctly. That makes it pretty obviously where my true influence lies, doesn’t it?
Eek! The one night i intend to sit here and catch up on work and my muse seems to be on direct-connect with my brain. Sure, it’s fun to write this fast, but it’s all in minor keys so it’s not as though it’s cheering me up any, and i still have work due at 9am one way or another. Damn me and my damned art…