Brian

jason and i have been back from tour for a couple weeks now, getting back into things at home has been weird and hard. i have mostly been avoiding the work i need to do at home, so now it has grown into a big mess. things are still good though, tour was great, it had it's weird and crappy parts, but by the end of the tour, i think we were proud of how far we have come along. plus it was great to see a lot of our friends and stuff at the different shows. i am a lot more comfortable traveling around now. it is one of my favorite things that i do too. now i am home and back to work at my delivery jobs, one of which i am thinking about stopping soon, just because i hardly make any money there, and it eats up a lot of my nights.

on this last tour, i started feeling really uncomfortable with what i was playing, and really started trying to brainstorm new things i would like to get into once we got back. so i did that, and since i have been home i have been working on getting all of that together. a smaller combo organ (instead of the giant digi-drawbar crumar i've been using), more cymbals and percussion, electronic drum triggers, drum machines, microphones, voice changers, whatever.. i am putting it all together now, and will hopefully be ready by the 4th of december, which is the last of our two shows we have before we have a two month break from shows to write a new album and setlist for the next tour in february. i got almost everything i need, so we will see soon if it works out. i am very excited about the new changes, i cant wait to get down to some serious music making.

seeing derik in nyc was nice. he has gone through so much this past year or two with marrying sarah and moving up to nyc with her, it was good to see him again, and he was totally the same derik as always. he seems to be happy, so i am happy for him. actually most of the people who we saw on tour who moved up there from orlando seemed happy to be there, so that is good. i am still happy here in florida, i dont want to move at all, but i think touring helps that, it almost feels like you live in a lot of places.

things with jason have been good, he is also excited about writing new stuff, which is great. he is always very supportive of the crazy crap i feel like i have to do. it always ends up working out, so i guess that's why. i also saw my old friend glen yesterday for the first time in a couple years, that was also nice. he's going through some stuff, but i think he will get out of the rut he's in soon.

i'm feeling like i'm in a rut right now too, not anything major, i am just worried about a lot of stuff, things have been great, but they have also been stressful, and i feel a lot of pressure, mostly from myself. but that's okay, i will figure it out.

new organ, octagon shaped cymbal, and paia gnome on the way, i cant wait!

new yip-yip art thing, i drew the picture, jason did the colors.

we leave on tour on friday, for our first show which is now in north carolina, at a house show zom zoms are playing. we are both excited about leaving, this tour is probably going to be a lot better than our other ones.

i wonder if we are going to see snow. i know it's going to be cold at least. we are trying to prepare for everything the best we can.

we played in tampa last saturday night, it was a good warmup, just to make sure our stuff was solid before we leave, and it was, or at least as solid as it could be for this tour. i have a few last minute ideas for things with my set-up, but there's not much time, so we'll see what i actually get done.

we have been working on these new zines with a bunch of art like the picture above. it looks great so far. i'll try to make scans of it all and put it up here.

that's about it, working on music, getting ready for tour, working my regular jobs, and hanging out with jason, rachel and poofs diddle. it's been fun!

everything has been going great lately. i have been working a lot on yip-yip stuff, and it's all turning out really well. we finished the beat and the writing of a new song that we have been working on for a few months, but after all of the problems with the end of the song, and the sounds in the drums, we finally fixed it all and wrote a really good ending for it. we were playing to the beat on the big organ in my room yesterday, and it sounds awesome. so that was exciting, i'm glad the song is going to get to sneak into the new set for our tour next month.

i started working at healthy chef on the food line for one night a week, and it has been fun. i have been only delivering for so long, and even though i like it, it is nice to do regular work again too. plus it is also nice to know more about what i'm delivering, cause i had no idea before.

i'm also excited because i am moving over to jen's old room probably sometime this weekend. she is back from nyc to get her things, then jen martin and i are doing a switch-a-roo. this is great because the room is much bigger than the one i am in, which i think is probably the smallest room in the house besides jon's cheap room. i should have a lot more room to setup all of the yip-yip gear so we can easily practice all of the time and record more. probably half of my room is going to be devoted to doing music, there's two big closets too, i can probably put most of my other stuff in there. ooh, i can't wait. the only thing that's going to suck is taking all of my stuff off of the walls, then putting it back up.

we are playing with man man in a couple of weeks, then a show in tampa, then the tour! it sucks leaving for obvious reasons, but i cant wait to travel again. touring is very addictive, and it's good timing, cause if we had to wait much longer i would go crazy. this should be a good tour, almost all of the dates are solid, and have awesome other bands on it, and everything is so close together, it's going to be fun seeing so many of our band friends at once. i hope they all like our new stuff. we are going out again in february too, for a little longer, probably a month and a week, back out west, a lot of it with darren and the show is the rainbow, that's going to be awesome too.

so yeah that's what's going on with me. sorry to my friends who i haven't really seen much lately, i have been working a lot, and then working even more, and just haven't had a desire to go out really. i did go see "the science of sleep", which was great. oh, and i saw daughters that same night, which was also great, and both free too.

see ya soon

snakes on a plane was awesome. everyone seemed so happy being there watching it. i will hopefully be seeing little miss sunshine soon. i'd also like to see the outkast movie, but that may have to wait.

222 house is changing again, jen haines has basically moved out, now living in new york city but still paying rent and utilities down here. soon we will find a new roommate to replace her, and that person will take my room, and i will take jen's, which is cool cause i will have more room for my instruments to practice. trevor is moving out by the 1st and i think everyone is looking forward to that. the house will feel like a new place after those changes, it's pretty exciting.

i have been working on music a lot lately. things have been going well with the band. since that birthday party, we have been asked to play four other parties. it's kind of weird, but good at the same time. we are basically set with our tour coming up in october and november, and now we are planning a month long tour going out through the mid-west, west coast and south back home.

an albatross will be here tomorrow, i cant wait to see them again. i cant wait to try our new set in a couple good clubs. oh, and i get my crumar organ tomorrow, so hopefully everything works on it, and maybe i'll even get to play it in one of the shows.

i'm seeing snakes on a plane tonight after work. how funny is this picture?

last night we played a birthday party for a kid turning 16, same group of people as the last girl, but this time was even more fun. the kid got a nice p.a. system for us, so everything sounded good, and the kids went nuts. i dont know how they could figure out ways to dance to some of this stuff, but they did. halfway through our set, we couldnt see anything, luckily the set gets easier instead of harder, some of the songs towards the end we have been playing for years now, and i should be able to play it blindfolded.





i just bought this organ, the crumar t-1 (the top one on the top picture), hopefully i will get in in time for the an albatross shows next weekend. i got mine for cheap too. i also got this the next day:





paia stringz n' thingz synthesizer! for $73! ebay rules.

now i am banned from ebay from both rachel and jason. but that's okay, cause i have everything i want (for now at least).

nanking porcelain
mid-sun parula warbler
morning-glory otter raft
looking oak canker
mud-bespattered morphological botany
muga-moth
mulct law
pancake plant
panama balata
ox bot mountain
nettle tree off-shaving
palm weevil
babylon old-maidism
collarbone mime
anarchist clog
club mummy
audacity beach
scribble axe
spice missile

everything has been hectic lately. i have been working both delivery jobs a lot, and it's one of those things that just starts to suck a lot when you do it every day. i've been getting antsy wanting to start big projects, but around work it's hard to really get into something. it's okay though, everything has been going really great lately, we wrote another new song this week, it's not totally finished, but the first part is, and it's awesome. probably one of my favorite things i've ever worked on. i'm really excited about writing new stuff for an eventual follow up to reptile house. our live shows have been going really well lately too, it's good to have that confidence again of having a good set, we played four shows the last couple weeks, and by the last one we were sounding pretty tight.

we are planning some exciting stuff including: a) buying amps, one for each of us for our synths only. b) new costumes, same checkers but goofy pee-wee-ish tight suit sort of thing. c) new art book/ music cd with two new songs and a music video too, handmade

i cant wait to get some of that going. the amps we will get soon, once we have money again. the suit i got the fabric for, and have sketches of, but that shit is going to take a while. and the zine/cd single thing will be a while too, we are going to record a coupel of our new songs in the next month, maybe around that i will start getting drawings together.



you tube is crazy.. jason, josh and i watched all these really funny videos where kids tape themselves dissing each others lame video blogs. we found all sorts of funny ones like this creeper:



..delicious burger

we got back from tour earlier this week, but i am already bored being back, i havent really worked since returning, which is strange, i guess i dont really need to, but it still leaves me with not much to do. the tour was great, probably one of the best ones we've done so far. this is what happened...
Thursday 6/08: driving from last night until i cant remember when, i think we got to my aunts house around 5pm, then we watched my name is earl and the office on their tivo all night.
Friday 6/09: woke up, watched more of the office, did a short photo shoot, drove to nyc, got there late, missed the first band, the club was in a basement, good soundsystem, but crappy, small space, everything was way rushed, reminded me of our first show in nyc with an albatross, minus the hundreds of people. stayed at robs apartment the next three nights.
Saturday 6/10: woke up and went shopping with rob and jason, the show that night was at a hipster hell sort of place, we get there and there's hundreds of people probably, and it seemed awesome, since the show wasnt even close to starting, but slowly i realized they were mostly there for the bar-b-que, and maybe a quarter of them were actually going to pay to see the show later. the show itself was cool cause the soundsystem was nice again, and a lot of our friends were there, part orlando friends who just happened to be in nyc, and part orlando friends who now live in nyc.
Sunday 6/11: woke up and went over to matty and snees apartment with rob and hungout there most of the day, caught up on stupid internet stuff, this was our weird last shows with mixel pixel, this time at a restuarant, in the room that we play it's basically a big square room with four square walls, all the walls have videos projected on them, nice couches and tables all around the room, leaving a square in the middle to setup. we decided to setup all at once so we could leave it there all night, and it worked out pretty well, the only thing i didnt like was the soundsystem, which was more of a home theater sort of thing, all the speakers were above our heads, it just sounded funny, so that awkardness and the awkwardness of playing to people while they are sitting there eating made it hard to really get into it, although the first show was really awesome, the second show we were both kind of not feeling it, it seemed.
Monday 6/12: woke up and got food with rob, and then took off for rochester, the drive wasnt too bad, we got there early, the show was awkward too, we sound checked and it sounded awesome, so we were really pumped to play, but the show kept being pushed back, more and more, roger played kind of early, then we were told by a dj to wait to play until later, that way more people would see us, but we just wanted to play for the people who were already there for the show. i felt so bad making the few people wait for hours throuhg a lame 80s night thing just to see us finally perform 3 three hours later than we thought. but it was still pretty cool, the people stayed, it sounded good, and they charged everyone a cover for the 80s night that is usually free, and gave us that money.
Tuesday 6/13: our next show was in buffalo, which was only an hour away, so we spent shopping for most of the day, got to buffalo early, and hungout at the venue, which was a really sweet warehouse turned art gallery/show space. we soundchecked and it sounded good, but we were still worried, since there was only one opener, and she was just added, we've never been to buffalo, so i was wondering what kind of turnout we would get, but as it got later, more and more people showed up, and by the time we played, the room was pretty packed. it was by far the best show of the tour for us, because it was just perfect, it sounded great, there was a good turnout, we sold a lot of stuff, made really good money off the door without a guarantee or anything, and we stayed in a really nice place too.
Wednesday 6/14: i was really worried about trying to get into canada again, we had all the papers we needed, had a work permit approved and the money for it, but i was still worried, since we just got unbanned 3 weeks before, but we got in with no problems, and it was really exciting. i cant really explain it, but it was a great feeling. we lost our phones soon after entering, so that was kind of weird, i felt like we were on our own, and the only thing we had was our directions and contracts for the shows. we got to toronto early again, and i slept and drew for most of the day. we were playing on the second floor of a restaurant, it was a long wait before stuff actually got started with the show, it was really kind of irritating actually, from the long wait before the place opened, to the even longer wait before the other bands and promoter got there, and the soundguy playing some of the worst music, cd after cd, then the bands, who were all besides one, kind of joke bands, even though most of them were entertaining, and super nice guys, it was just a little too much. we played and it was okay, the stage was horrible, you would have to see what im talking about to get it, but it made the show kind of difficult to play everything right. it was weird too, cause all the shows had these guarantees, but to pay the guarantee and the hundred dollar a night of immigration fees they were paying us back every show, i dont know how they got enough money to pay us every night.
Thursday 6/15: the worst day of the tour. we woke up, and only had an hour drive again, so tad drew us a map of toronto and had all these cool places marked, like record stores and music store, so we took off for those in the afternoon. we found some really cool stuff the first few places, i found a vox continental (that was really expensive, not like we had room for it in the car anyways), a bunch of sweet pedals, i found a couple used ska cds, jason had coffee, it was all okay so far, just killing time, but on our last stop, we parked on a pretty major street, next to a bunch of parked cars, it was almost 4pm, we paid the meter and went in the record store we drove there for, left soon after that, and decided to keep shoppoing on that street. we found a music store, went inside and found all this stuff we wanted, a super space drum, a sweet korg organ, a sweet roland jupiter 4 synth, a bunch of sweet pedals, and we were doing pretty well with money, so i was even thinking about buying something like the space drum, or one of the pedals, but decided not to. we leave, go to another store or two, and then come back, and we are walking down the street for a while, and we walk a couple blocks before i start to wonder, cause it didnt seem like we walked this far, but where is the block with all the cars parked? where we were parked.. we walk back and find the record store that we were parked right out in front of, and realize our car was towed, there were no cars on the street anymore. i couldnt before it, the only place it said no parking was on the meter itself it said no parking 4-6pm mon-fri, but it was mixed up with a bunch of other stuff, i would have never seen that. we found where it was towed and took a taxi to the other side of the city where it was towed to. it cost $140 and we got a ticket too, so i guess that helped with the money burning a hole in my pocket, cause that was all the spending money we maybe could have spent. found our way to hamilton, which is figured would suck, since everyone was saying it sucked there, i figured it was like when i book shows around florida for bands and i book lakeland on a tuesday and you know its not going to be awesome probably, but it's another show and not a day off. we got there and it took a while to figure out exactly where we were playing. the show sucked, it didnt sound very good, but it didnt really matter, we got paid after some weird shit with the guarantee, we walked away with a hundred less than we were supposed to, but it was covered the next night. it felt really weird cause if there wasnt a guarantee, i wouldnt have expected anything at all, there was no one there, and we played in a room that no one even went in. oh well.
Friday 6/16: montreal, this was the day we were waiting for, we drove all night from hamilton so we would get there early, and not have to bug anyone for a place, so we got there early and kind of split up so we could rest and get out of each others hair for a bit, and that helped i think, we had so much time to kill before almost every show on the tour, so sometimes we need to do that. i ran into andre from aids wolf, and also the guy who booked the whole canada part of the tour, and came with him to their practice space. it was awesome, montreal is nice, the part we were in way beautiful, the weather was great, everyone spoke french there, it was so different. we soundchecked and it sounded great, the way everything was being setup was cool, bands in different parts of the room. we were slowly running into all these people we had met before like the aids wolf people and the usaisamonster people. it was great to see them. we got free food and waited a while longer for the show to start. the show was awesome, every band was good. our set was good, we changed and rushed out to see aids wolf, who were incredible. they were good back at cmj, but it was even better this time, then usaisamonster played and killed it too. i havent seen them since we played with them at austins and the skatepark, this was my first time seeing them in a really club, and they ruled. they played a bunch of new songs off of their new album coming out later this year, and they were so proggy and crazy. the show did a lot worse than they had expected, but the tunrout was still okay for us, i think there was over 100 people there, so that was fine, but you could tell other people were bummed a little. i was happy, and totally inspired to get home a few days later and write new songs and stuff. we ate french fries and stayed with chloe and yannick of aids wolf, it was fun
Saturday 6/17: we woke up and had brunch with most of the same dudes from the show, at the restaurant below where we played, then said our goodbyes again and took off for door's house new brunswick. we got there right on time, it was good to see door again, and we were playing with dynasty, who we saw in orlando and also has dudes from kites and bryon house, they were really nice and both of their sets were awesome. we played last and it was fun as usual there. really really loud and distorted, hot and dripping sweat off the ceiling and down the walls. i got truck sandwiches after that with door and then started the 17 hour drive home. the drive was long, but as usual seemed like a lot less time than it was. our tour was successful, we had fun, and we are looking forward to going out again soon.

the past couple weeks have been awesome.
a couple days before rachel got back, jason and i started a new song, in a different way than we usually do it, first by jamming on my organ, making riffs and stuff, and then writing beats to fit them, and then making the beats make the riffs harder with lots of changes and weird time signatures. a lot of it has been stuff that we have been wanting to make for a while, but now with our new setups, it's actually possible to write a goofy ska-ish song, and kind of sound like ska.. we finished it in a week i think, it's already snuck it's way into our new setlist that we were modifying for our june tour. on tuesday we worked on that, making a sweet setlist that should work way better than the last one was working on the mixel pixel tour, so that's good news, everything is coming together really well with us lately, i think all the things we have been working on since march have really helped and brought us together more as a band, rather than the lame split up thing we were doing a lot last year.

so we leave for tour next wednesday, which should be a lot of fun, cause it's nice and short, and we are playing with a lot of different friends throughout the 8 shows we have.. it will be great to play with and hangout with mixel pixel, aids wolf, door, usaisamonster, and possibly machinedrum or h8 too.. i cant wait to play some out of state shows, it's nice that we are finally getting to take a break from florida while we are trying to do all these changes...

i got the paia last week, and after a few days of only looking at it, and wondering if i would ever hear it, i did, my dad has been helping me get it running again, and so far it sounds really neat, plus, i've only had it for a couple weeks and i already have a better idea of how it works and how to fix it than any other synth i've ever owned. i cant wait to get it home and set it up with everything. we probably wont have everything fixed and restored by the tour next week, but at least i can get it into the set a little bit, then after we get back i can finish working on it, i cant wait to have my whole setup ready to go, and get everything tight with the new instruments and pedals, it's going to be sweet!

oh and i turned 24 last saturday, so jason and i are kiefer sutherland, not michael jordan anymore. and i saw da vinci code with rachel the other day and it was pretty good. oh and besides my synth, i got some other sweet birthday presents including two real cardiacs cds (!!!!!), penn and teller's autograph, gobstoppers candy from my brother, and nice phone calls and emails from friends, it was a great weekend! thanks everyone!

it's been a weird week. i'm having a hard time motivating myself to work on the million things i know i need to do. friday we playing the florida music festival at backbooth, we played first, which was fine with me, getting a good soundcheck and not having to rush our stuff is something i miss, playing first is awesome as long as you dont mind less people seeing you, and with this show, it was crowded in the place by the time we went on, and after a couple more bands it was almost impossible to get around at all. after 4 or 5 of the bands we decided to split, the whole day jason and i had to wear baseball caps on a dare set by jason, but on a second part of the fmf dares, we had to ride home with no shirts on, while still wearing the baseball hats. jason wants to do a tour where we wear no shirts or shoes the whole time. saturday, i took rachel to the airport, she's going to be gone all week. it's good because i can get a lot of this crap done i need to get done before we leave in june, but it's bad cause when she's not around i dont eat, i drink too much soda, end up feeling like crap like i do now, and end up doing nothing with my little bit of free time. later on saturday i drove up to st. augustine to watch derik get married. it was my first wedding i've ever been to, and i wasnt really expecting my first one to be one of my best friends. i've known derik for 13 years or something now, we have been super-close at times, and other times we hardly see each other, luckily since he moved out of 222 i have let him do his thing, so it's a little easier to think of derik getting married and moving to nyc.

most of my days lately have been better since i started watching this video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pq6vufmTJ9Q
by this man..

thank you denny "blazin" hazen, i will be sending you money for your dvd and average homeboy cd single, very soon.

yesterday was our first day back from our mini-tour with mixel pixel. our last show in sebring, which actually wasnt with mixel pixel, ended up being kind of awesome, considering we were the only band and no one was there, and it was in a town that hardly exists, the dude hooked us up somehow, and we made more money at that show than at any of our other shows last week. the shows we did play with mixel pixel were great, they were awesome people, and they were so good live. it was fun doing this tour with them because they were really cool about the shows, and turnouts and money and stuff, it really helped me stop worrying so much, like i was the first couple days. it was also cool cause we came back home after every show, so we didnt have any weird things with staying in random peoples houses or worrying about our gear in the car and stuff. it was weird though, it didnt really feel like we were actually on tour, since we were still sleeping in our beds every night, and going to work sometimes too, but it was still fun, and a good tester for some of the new stuff we are trying to do in our set.

jason and i have also been watching this guy a lot..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gO_uYbNPVe0

yeah, that's all thats been going on, shows, funny tv shows and internet clips, and work..

"you trust in hell motherfucker. i trust in heaven, and i’m already there motherfuckers."