Thursday, April 26, 2007

Screaming

Okay, okay, it's been a little while.

Peja got a stomach bug.

Gave it to me.

I gave it to Sienna.

She's upstairs sick right now. Peja's with Sienna's parents.

I'm typing to you. Hello!

"Why don't you scream in your music?" one of my little drum students asked me. "It would be better if you screamed." Something to think about. Still, he bought the damned cd (45 to go before we break even -- order your copy today)

Been sitting today listening to bootlegs of Kyra and Tully Rehersals, trying to decided what to play and what not to play. Brushes and I are learning to get along. . . Slowly. . .

It's getting darker outside. I still want to bike to work. It's been like 3 weeks or something. The wind is Eastern today anyway, so the ride out would be fine. Electric bike hopes are slowly fading, growing, fading, growing, and now just waiting. It would be sweet. 30k at 30k for $0.10 of electricity. . .

Must get off my ass and plan some new shows. Soon. I promise. I'll talk Kyra and Tully into renting out the Wilson Room or something. It'll be great!

Wash your hands,

Jay.

Sunday, April 15, 2007

Kyra and Tully meet Jay. . .

Late Friday afternoon, I finally coaxed Peja to come with me to Limestone Music to buy some brushes. When we got home, I added my new brushes (I know my parents bought me some back in '93, along with my snare and cymbal combo; but perhaps from lack of use, they've vanished along with some trig, a hook-shot, and some horse whispering) to the already stuffed backpack. I managed to squeeze a snare drum, a cymbal, two stands, a drum stool, bundles, maracas, an egg shaker, and now, some brushes into Sienna's old planting backpack.

There's this thing in some era of English lit, where people would do this thing called Cataloging, where you just list things, and the idea is that a really, really long list can become almost like poetry, and the story it tells can be so compact and artful. My list back there was not. Read some Swift, he knows what he's doing.

Get to the point, man. See, here's the thing, Peja's got a flu thing that's involved my getting puked on in the middle of the night. Which kind of gets in the way of my sleeping. Which leaves me all dopey and rambly. Evidenced here.

So, yeah, I went to Kyra and Tully's house, where I got to meet their son Kezyan, who's 3 1/2 and about 10 years ahead of the curve on learning the drums. Just try and throw him off time, it's not going to happen.

13 songs to learn. A really slow shuffle to master. Less cymbals. Less than that.

Quick preview -- the new Kyra and Tully songs are really great. I should send them an Email about that. In a jam, when I'm really busy trying not to fuck-up (sorry mom), it's awkward to fit that in.

The plan, as they see it, is to head into the studio in a couple of weeks, and lay down the songs 3 times, as if live (though from different rooms). . . So, I'd better pull up my damn socks.

Socks!

Get some sleep, little ones. The wolf awakes at dawn. He's thirsty.

Brushes, a pail, two cats, three dogs, a car, a dock, a leaky roof, a sinking deck, mushrooms, a bakers dozen, six midgets, 3 globetrotters, and my aunt Ruth.

Thursday, April 12, 2007

Mostly on the Plains. . .

Hey.

Down at the bottom of this little window I'm typing in is a chance to apply a "label" to this post, like to catagorize it, and my suggested choices are "scooters", "vacation", and "fall".

Did it really snow again today? My whole "bike to work" program is going right to hell. I've managed twice, which is pretty sad considering the mediocre distance (7 km) and my dislike of driving.

Tomorrow night I'm heading over to Kyra and Tully's place to audition for playing some drums to record some demos for their 2nd record. Tully was kind enough to drop off a copy of their first cd, which is really amazing mellow folk stuff; it's very brave music that I greatly admire.

I need to buy some brushes. . .

Wednesday, April 04, 2007

Hey, Jay, WAKE UP!!!

Alright, so since the show, which was wicked-fun and at least moderately successful at achieving it's goals, I've had a bit of a music hang-over.

However, Adam's been cool enough to update the site, and now, if you are so inclined, you can purchase the new CD ONLINE (holy-crap!) for the low, low price of. . . It's like $10+2 for shipping and stuff.

I biked to work on Monday, which was one of those "oh, jesus christ, this is the worst thing ever, why the hell did I think this was a good idea" moments. It was windy and cold and lots of traffic, and all the rest. But, it was only like 30 minutes of hell, and I didn't ACTUALLY throw-up at work (only felt like I was going to), and I was at least half-conscious for my lessons. The ride home was much better, the wind had died down (and was at my back regardless), and I got home in 20 minutes through light traffic and darkness. So, the lesson being, I'm going to buy one of them new-fangled electric bikes. You should check them out, they go like 50km on like $0.10 of electricity (no exaggeration). And, sure it's lazier then biking, but it's about 1,000,000 time cooler than driving around 2000 lbs of metal and spewing shit into the air.

Or, I'll just toughen up and get into shape (stop laughing).

More shows soon, I swear.

Take care,

Jay.