Crushing Krisis

The Newest Oldest Blog In New Zealand

Peter Mulvey

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I don’t have enough time to turn all of these thoughts into what they want to be. I just ate breakfast in front of a one-two punch of Springer’s “Prostitutes Tell All” and Katie Couric ogling Janet Jackson’s abs on the post-Grammy fashion wrap-up. My brain is fried.

Last night was wickedly cold, and if i hadn’t noticed it on my walk down to campus or sprint to the train station, then i definitely noticed it when we wound up waiting a half an hour for the train home after the show My scarf wrapped all around my head in an attempt to retain warmth and Kat edging around to stand so i was between her and the wind, and both of us jumping up and down and trying to find the right key for us both to sing Pinkerton songs in.

I calmly explained my theory on opening acts as we sat at the back of the room and surveyed the crowd. First i place them on my musical spectrum, and then i speculate on if i could vanquish them in unarmed song-to-song combat. A good opening act doesn’t quite fit on my spectrum because they don’t have obvious influences; an amazing opening act convinces me that i couldn’t possibly walk up on stage, pick up a guitar, and please the crowd as much or more than s/he did.

Burning my tongue so badly on chai that i got stuck between try to scream, swallow, or just spit it out. Having to picture the taste of everything afterwards.

Charlie knowing my name and where i lived even though i hadn’t seen him for half a year and letting me off the shuttle at the corner of Walnut street where i knew that, despite the utterly desolate chill in the air, i was close to my door. How i let my scarf unravel from the knot it had formed around my neck until it was just being carried by the wind behind me. Me running down 44th street trailing my monochrome scarf behind me like a kite, giggling into the thin air and barely breathing.

Pillows taking up half my bed.

https://www.crushingkrisis.com/2002/02/10225422/

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Yummers… linky love! Aside from the aforementioned Phlogger Karl Martino , there’s new-comer rockstar/dork who discovered (!) blogging when he found my site on a search for my guitar-idol Peter Mulvey. Meanwhile, GlacierGrrl upgraded to her own domain, straight out of Sheryl Crow (well, that’s how i learned what that word meant), and yet another newish blogger actually reads me semi-daily (always a shock, trust me). Not to mention Drexelites Kat and Jason, who offer me new perspectives on the things i see every day. And, finally, was this a compliment or an insult? I can’t quite tell.


Ack, i just got fiberglass insulation crappola in my eyes while cleaning. I am such a clutz.

https://www.crushingkrisis.com/2002/02/10197456/

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I am blogging from my home computer.

I am blogging from a DSL connection.

I am blogging while streaming my favourite Peter Mulvey song. In surround sound.

I do believe my technological life just experienced a much-deserved upgrade.

Improvements to my personal life still forthcoming…

https://www.crushingkrisis.com/2002/02/9350938/

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I hated Napster, mostly. The way i saw it, a bunch of cheap college kids were using it as an excuse to short-shrift their favourite artists of hard-earned profit. It did have its high points, namely tracking down obscure and out-of-print Tori songs, but it wasn’t something i was very fond of. In fact, I may have cheered a little when it bit the dust.

Really, how could i help but hate any service that makes cd shopping somewhat obsolete? I live for cd shopping! Even with statistics indicating that cd sales actually showed signs of an upward trend for many of the demographics engaged in trading audio files over the internet, somehow i could never reconcile the idle sampling of a new album with myself — it takes all of the fun out of blindly buying something and then falling madly in love with it. Looking at some of my recent favourite albums, i don’t think i would feel the same about choirgirl, distillation, or poses if i had gotten any sort of substantial preview of them … part of the wonder i hold them in was my initial discovery of what they had to offer A lot of college students might have wound up buying things that they never would have previously, but for a completest like me the entire concept is the sonic equivalent of peeking at my Christmas Presents on December 22nd.

250+ purchases later, tonight i found myself warming to the concept of trading files for an entire opposite reason than i would have suspected Freshmen year. Essentially: my purchasing plan for Winter 2002 is already upwards of a dozen new releases — with my time and money already tied up in snapping up albums by the myriad of performers that i am already practically subscribed to, i can’t always afford to find & snag other random recommendations that people make to me. You could argue that i have enough new music to keep myself occupied, but i could be missing out on my next favourite album every time i blow off a suggestion! Tonight i found myself chatting with Andy, and we made reciprocal recommendations to each other. However, rather than add these people to our ever-growing shopping lists, we proceeded to neatly exchange a handful of their mp3’s, and now it would seem that i’m as destined to own a Mason Jennings disc as he is to buy a Peter Mulvey album.

I never thought of it this way, but i really am a one-stop shopping center for a shocking array of artists; i own between ninety and one hundred percent of the catalogues of Garbage, Madonna, Tori Amos, Ani DiFranco, Peter Mulvey, PJ Harvey, Weezer, Death Cab For Cutie, Erin McKeown, Velvet Underground, & Garrison Starr, with significant holdings in Alanis Morrisette, Melissa Etheridge, Radiohead, and a slew of other artists. Of course, i collectively have under 10 mp3s on my computer of songs from these umpteen albums, but it’s sort of neat to think that someone who was interested in one of these artists could really hear anything by them via me. I think that i’m finally softening to owning mp3s because the odds are if i’ve listened to something more than once or twice i intend to buy it. I still can’t endorse things like AudioGalaxy and the like because i know that i am a highly unusual music consumer, and also because of my possessive singer-songwriter issues, but there’s a difference between randomly downloading a hot new single and making a calculated attempt at triangulating whether or not you should get addicted to an already established artist.

I don’t know why i felt the need to bring that up; i definitely wasn’t volunteering to hook you up with Madonna’s complete greatest hits, that’s for sure. Of course, if you were offering to introduce me to the collected wonders of Lucinda Williams, i would gladly give you three reasons to love PJ Harvey….

https://www.crushingkrisis.com/2002/01/8773094/

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Yesterday was impossibly full… two or three different days all slipped deceptively into the packaging of one. Shopping turned into lunch, which turned into a deep conversation about what made me who i am, which turned into a concert for my mom that ended with a concert that pulled out notes and chords from places i’ve never been before. That was one day… happy deep family day. Then there was my day to myself, with guitar and internet and music and napping and food. And, then, came my day with friends, which typically started out happy and fun and quickly descended into misery. I’m usually introverted enough towards the middle and end of big parties, but this time i had headphones with me so i just turned on the good bits and let everyone at the party do their miserable little social dance to the sounds between my ears. Eventually i got tired of waiting for the people i wanted to be with (the story of my life) and i went out on the front step and turned it up all the way until finally i set off for the apartment.

So many blogging things happened in there… things i’ll have to say eventually for me to make more sense. Somehow i explained to my mother exactly why i like to be thin and why i like the girls who i like and why i have to be successful at something and she understood it all with this wane little smile and tears welling in her eyes. I can’t imagine what it must have been like seeing me from the outside… i wanted to thank her for everything and so when she asked me to play “under my skin” i shut my eyes and opened up and poured things into it that she had never even heard before, and afterwards she sortof just stared at me and i was just sweating and breathing and smiling because somehow i opened the song up again just when i thought i had used it all up.


It’s hard to quantify 20 years in any kind of way, but somewhere in between my nearly mathematical proof that i’ve never had a male role model before Peter Mulvey and my gut-wrenching concert i think i was having a happy birthday. The only happy one out of the three.

https://www.crushingkrisis.com/2001/09/5862553/