Just a Little Goodbye

Stumbled across this today, so I thought I'd post it up here, even though it's a little bit old. This is a video of me playing with The Infidelles about a year ago, maybe longer at Royal Studios here in Memphis, which is owned and operated by Willie "Pops" Mitchell, a legend, so-to-speak of Memphis music. He has recorded bands in this place like Al Green, Ann Peebles, Keith Richards, and tons more, and the Beatles even practiced in this very room at one point. We recorded an album with Willie's grandson "Boo" back in like Summer '07 that doesn't appear that it's ever going to come out, which is a pretty big bummer, but this was all still a cool experience. This video was shot for the website www.gomemphis.com. That's Willie Mitchell talking during the video. Enjoy.

October 6 Dysrythmia flier

By Brian (last name not known) at Black Lodge Video.
Edit: I guess you have to click on it if you wanna see the whole image.

I got into Dysrhytmia a bunch during my freshmen year of college, but I've never gotten around to actually watching them play, so I'm looking forward to this. We've played the Black Lodge Microdome before, and it's a cool, intimate kinda setting. If you get thirty people in there, it's packed, which is nice because it's a safe bet you're gonna be playing to a packed room. I'm sure some people will not be able to get into this, which is a nice thought, even though it's still gonna be a pretty small crowd.

Last weekend, the Unbeheld played two shows with Dark Castle from Florida and Sons of Tonatiuh from Atlanta. We played Little Rock and Memphis, which were both good shows, particularly the Memphis show. I notice that, particularly when we do these Sunday night Buccaneer shows, which this last Memphis show was, we're getting lots of local bartenders and the like; people who are in bars and around live music every night of the week. It's a good feeling to see that, even with the night off from their respective bars, these folks are still coming out and watching us play. It feels nice to be playing in something that has integrity and is enjoyed by people who I would call my peers, and people who are older than me. People with real tastes, as opposed to kids who will swallow anything you shove in their faces. I've been getting lots of good feedback about the show when I've gone out in the past week, and it gets me really excited to record this full length we're going in to do in a couple weeks. I've been listening to lots of stuff that I want to seep into my playing, and just getting overall pumped.

Ok, that's all for now.

Hello again

So I was bored the other day and hanging around on the blogger kinda considering the whole thing. I've talked before about my anxiety about having an online diary of sorts, and I'm very on the fence about the whole concept. I don't think this an odd feeling for most bloggers other than the least self-conscious of the bunch - which, I suppose, may be a lot of them. But my self-awareness prohibits me from being able to regularly write in a public fashion where I scrutinize everything I type through the eyes of whoever I might suspect is reading a particular bit at whatever time. It disappoints me to say that I don't have that same careless abandon I used to have when I constantly updated public journals in the past. Kind of. Even the idea of updating facebook status, which has been a daily activity for some time, is starting to sit poorly with me. I'm just falling more and more out of love with the idea of having any online persona to speak of. Of course, all of this supposes that anybody reads anything I write or is interested at all, which may be a non-issue at this point. Point is, I just don't have a desire to update this thing in the manner I thought I would. I used to be a writer, but I'm afraid I may not be any more. But one thing I notice about other friends' blogs is that all of them seem to have a focus on that person's particular hobby or interest, be that art, writing, music, or whatever. And one thing that has been and continues to be an unstoppable force in my life's direction is my music. I play with multiple different bands and groups, with various different aesthetics and identities, all of which get touched by multiple different hands, both inside and outside of the particular bands, and I think that I would enjoy and update this thing more as a conscious catalog of everything I do musically. It's a huge part of my life, full of things that I am consistently proud of, and so I am changing the direction of this blog. From here on, I will view this as a place for me to post videos, songs, fliers, pictures, or stories about my travels to "wherever the music takes me," to adopt a bit of band-guy pretentiousness. Maybe it's self-indulgent, but it doesn't seem to me to be any less self-indulgent than talking about my day or anything else online with the idea that anybody really wants to read. Anyway, at the very least, this will keep from writing some sappy bullshit when I'm down. Here's hoping it stays interesting, I say, as I second guess even the need to have written anything I just have.

So, anyway, here's a few videos that I have various things to do with.:

The Armed Forces - "Love Exploder" trailer
This is a promotional video for the new Armed Forces single, "Love Exploder." This is a band I play with from time to time based out of Nashville. They are releasing their new album "The Rest is Noise" on a subscription basis, one song a month, for a full year. This is song 3 or 12. I did not play on this song, but I do have a small part in this video, which was shot on a little two show run we just did to Chicago.


The Unbeheld - "Mother Chaos" live at the Hi Tone 8/29/09
This is a live recording of the title track to the Unbeheld album we are recording early next month. It was recorded by somebody in the crowd (I don't know who) at a recent show we did at the Hi Tone with Nebulba and The Entrance Band (who featured Paz Lenchantin from A Perfect Circle/Zwan on the bass, which was cool for me). It's a decently recorded live video.


Slow Southern Steel Trailer
"Slow Southern Steel" is a documentary that was filmed last fall about the southern hard rock and metal/stoner/sludge/doom diy scene that's happening now, whatever you want to call it. I could describe the focus of the documentary, but that's what the trailer is for. Anyway, there is some footage that I haven't seen, either performance, interview or both of the Unbeheld that will show up in the documentary. It also features footage of some cool bands such as Torche, Down, Hank Williams III, Kylesa, Music Hates You, Jucifer, Zoroaster, and a bunch more. The deep voiced guy in the trailer who says the shit about not wanting to die anywhere but the south at the end is Phil Anselmo, who sang for Pantera and is now in Down. The guy smoking the joint at the beginning is Pepper Kennan from Corrosion of Conformity. The fact that my band is in a documentary with those guys is pretty cool. The documentary is going to various film festivals soon, with a suspected release in like Spring 2010. The movie has been getting a press in magazines both in print and online like Decibel, Alarm, and Blabbermouth, with hopefully lots more to come.
Slow Southern Steel Movie Trailer #1


Anyway, that's that for now. Hopefully this new direction means I'll update this more.

Shawn's dreaming of horses

So currently remembering that I forgot that if you put on "Catapult," you're gonna just keep listening when "Angels of the Silences" comes on, and before you know it, a few songs are gonna go by and you're gonna find yourself suddenly at the end of "Miller's Angels," and then it's not gonna matter how you started your day off.

Goddamn I love The Hold Steady

Cymbals Eat Guitars on Don't Look Down

I really really like this band. Their album is super good, but seeing them do all this live seems to be the way to experience it. It can be pretty angular, but it's pretty damned good. Check it out if you're bored.

Cymbals Eat Guitars

The Great Prayer Experiment

...Such experiments, if done properly, have to be double blind, and this standard was strictly observed. The patients were assigned, strictly at random, to an experimental group (received prayers) or a control group (received no prayers). Neither the patients, nor their doctors or caregivers, nor the experimenters were allowed to know which patients were being prayed for and which patients were controls. Those who did the experimental praying had to know the names of the individuals for whom they were praying - otherwise, in what sense would they be praying for them rather than for somebody else? But care was taken to tell them only the first name and initial letter of the surname. Apparently that would be enough to enable God to pinpoint the right hospital bed...

What's that you say, Lord? You can't cure me because I'm a member of the control group? ... Oh, I see, my aunt's prayers aren't enough. But Lord, Mr. Evans in the next-door bed ... What was that Lord? ... Mr. Evans received a thousand prayers per day? But Lord, Mr. Evans doesn't know a thousand people ... Oh, they just referred to him as John E. But Lord, how did you know they didn't mean John Ellsworthy? ... Oh right, you used your omniscience to work out which John E. they meant. But Lord...

-Richard Dawkins

separation sunday

It got to the part with the cattle and the creeping things. Said "I'm pretty sure we've heard this one before. Don't it all end up in some revelation with four guys on horses and violent red visions? Famine, and death, and pestilence, and war? Pretty sure I've heard this one before." You, in the corner with a good looking drifter, two cups of coffee and ten packs of sugar. I heard Gideon saw you in Denver. He said you were contagious. Silly rabbit, tripping is for teenagers. Murder is for murderers and hard drugs are for bartenders. I think I might have mentioned that before.
He's got the pages in his pockets that he ripped out of the Bible from his bed stand in the motel. He likes the part where the traders get chased out from the temple.
I guess I heard about original sin. I heard the dudes blamed the chick, I heard the chick blamed the snake. And I heard they were naked when they got busted, and I heard things ain't been the same since. You, on the streets with a tendency to preach to the choir. Wired for sound and down with whatever. I heard Gideon did you in Denver.
She's got a cross around her neck that she ripped off from a schoolgirl on the subway on a mission to the city. She likes how it looks on her chest with three open buttons. She likes the part where one brother kills the other, and she has to wonder if the world ever will recover. Cain and Abel seem to still be causing trouble.
She said "I was seeing double for three straight days after I got born again. It felt strange, but it was nice and peaceful and it really pleased me to be around so many people; of course, half of them were visions. Half of them were friends from going through the program with me. Later on, we did some sexy things. Took a couple photographs and carved them into wood reliefs. Hey, but that's enough about me, c'mon tell me how you got down here into Ybor City."
He said "I got to the part about the exodus, and up to then I only knew it was a movement of the people. But if small-town cops are like swarms of flies and blackened foil's like boils and hail, I'm pretty sure I've been through this before."

Quitting the internet.

I think I'm going to quit the internet for a little while. Maybe it's a dumb idea, but it makes sense to me. The reason I say so is because I promise to post it if I get back on, and I'd really like it if everybody would talk shit to me about it if I do. If you want to talk to me, call me or something.

rough day

I just want to go to sleep.

Dear life, God, chaos, Yahweh, Thoth, Mithra, Abraham, Alah, Raptor Jesus, uh, Zeus, Vishnu, Lucifer, etc...

For the record, I just want to say that sometimes I think you're fucking with me, and I don't know how much I appreciate it. I'm just being straight up. That being said, I am legitimately curious to see what you've got in mind. Sometimes, though, the meantime sure is a drag.

Sincerely,
SZ

hold steady

The devil and John Berryman, they took a walk together and they ended up on Washington talking to the river. He said "I've surrounded myself with doctors and deep thinkers, but big heads and soft bodies make for lousy lovers."
There was that night that we thought that John Berryman could fly. But he didn't, so he died. She said "you're pretty good with words, but words won't save your life." And they didn't, so he died.

Boooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo I'm drunk.

Still, go tigers.

So rub it in in your dumb lyrics

Here’s what’s on my mind today:

I just had to run home from work for a minute, and I must say really quick that it makes me really happy to see that Derren has decided that Hailey (our two-year-old boxer) is allowed to stay out of her kennel now when nobody is home. She’s my favorite creature ever, and I’m glad to see her growing up. I can only imagine the hatred and jealousy that Sierra must feel. I will keep a close eye on this doggie drama as it unfolds.

Slow day at the Paintball Park today and I contemplated making a mad dash for freedom, but I realized that all I’d do if I went home was read or write, and I can do both of those things equally effectively from work, so here I am. What’s up blog?

It’s been a week or two since I legitimately updated this thing, mainly because I took my trip to Nashville for a week. It was very good, particularly getting to see Sara and Brandon. Full of some emotional ups and downs, but all in all, really really good to just get away and see old friends and just reaffirm that there are places and people that aren’t here. That concept has been mulling around in my head for a little while, and surprisingly difficult to grasp; and while Nashville isn’t exactly a world away (it’s not even another state), it was a much needed reminder. Memphis feels vacuous lately, and it’s gotten me thinking a lot about leaving. This city is my home and I feel an intense attachment to it, but I’ve been feeling tapped lately. I believe that people are people and places are places everywhere, but I think that I could forget that for awhile. I went and reread that last sentence and it comes off as depressing and cynical, but I’ve been kind of feeling that way lately. There’s something very attractive about going somewhere where I don’t know anybody and, just throwing myself out there, to thrash around and see how well I swim. I’m a’crazy fer a’stirrin’. I’ve lived in basically the same five or so square miles for pretty much my entire conscious life (minus the one year in Murfreesboro) and with Derren for most of the last six years. He’s my best friend and, as I said, Memphis is my home, but I’m just feeling stagnant. I’m getting older and it’s getting time I made a move, lest I waste away in complacency.

I want to go to Seattle. I can’t explain why. I’ve only really been there once and I know I wasn’t there long enough to really get a feel for it. I just feel drawn to it. That’s silly.

Anyway, I have and have had every intention of documenting my trip to Nashville, and I know that the longer I wait, the greater risk I run of details slipping my mind. Perhaps I will do that today.

Last night, I read in the Flier about the record amount of Memphis bands that placed SXSW this year, and I must say I felt a lot of jealousy and sadness over it. Not particularly because I just wanna play SXSW so badly (even though I’d love to), but just because it makes me want to be playing music I really love and have a strong desire to work for. Looking back at the old Dis-missile/Process of Moving stuff, it all seems outdated (because it is) and like nothing I’d ever listen to now. Obviously, I’m not influenced at twenty-four by the same things I was influenced by at seventeen, but what I do really miss about that band was how much I really loved being in it and contributing to it. I wrote the bulk of those lyrics, and I really busted my ass every day to further that band and work towards making it a legitimate artistic outlet for myself. After that all fell apart, I felt pretty sour about having put that much work into something for it to end like it did, and I’ve since then just kinda resigned myself to being a drummer over being an artist. I play along with what’s presented to me, and I’ve sort of fallen into this roll of being a hired drummer. And I’m good at that, but the work is not what I want to be. It would be one thing if I was constantly getting gigs and it was paying, but it’s not and it’s just causing me to look at playing as work and it’s turning me off a lot to playing, which feels awful. I do love playing in the Unbeheld with musicians who can all play their asses off. We write music that is challenging for me as a player, we have a respectable little following, we write what we want to write and play the shows we want to play and we have integrity and all that cool stuff, but it still is not what I would choose to do if I started my own band. Really none of the music I’ve played since college has been. That’s not to say I haven’t had an amazing time and done some things that I will be proud of my whole life, but the truth is, I wish I could create something of my own. I see friends of mine like Brandon Jazz and more recently Travis who have said “I have something that I want to do with my music, so I’m going to write these songs and find a band to play them” and I’m for that sort of creativity and pride that I know goes along with doing what you want to do as an artist. Playing a non-melodic instrument kind of hinders me in that respect. I want to learn to play piano. And I wish I could sing. I want to not just be inspired, but to actually have a channel for my inspiration, and I realize that every moment I sit here playing on the internet or playing video games or smoking or jerking off or whatever the hell else I do with my day could be better spent furthering myself as a musician, and, well, I don’t really have any conclusions past that. I know I want to be better than I am, so I guess that’s a start.

In some positive news, my good friend Lauren Rae has told me that four-leaf clovers are caused by a genetic mutation that can be triggered with urine. I have chosen a spot of clover at the Paintball Park and I am going to make some luck.

Also, I have adopted a pet mouse who lives at the Park. I feed him and he scurries around. This is the extent of our relationship.

Media currently being digested, either for the first time, or again:

Richard Dawkins – The God Delusion
Christopher Moore – You Suck: A Love Story
Dave Eggers – How We are Hungry
Animal Collective – Merriweather Post Pavillion
The Hold Steady’s entire catalogue
The National – Boxer
Charlie Kaufman’s body of work
And, um, the Wolverine: Old Man Logan story arc is pretty cool.

Finally, here’s a few videos I’m enjoying watching this week:

The Arcade Fire - "Neon Bible" in an elevator



The National - "Fake Empire" live on Letterman



Cursive - "From the Hips" live on Letterman




I wrote the above post at work and then came home to post it. On the way, I heard "Stop Playing Guitar" by the Promise Ring

"So if I had a dime for every time I should stop playing guitar and put my nose in a book, then my head would be healthy and my guitar would be dusty, but that just might save me from a bunch of bad songs."

ALSO, ALSO!

I just noticed on the end credits on that trailer that the screenplay for the Where the Wild Things Are movie was written by Spike Jonze AND DAVE EGGERS!

Faaantastic.

Where the Wild Things Are + Spike Jonze + The Arcade Fire

Cooooooooool.

and you won't wait for me in some secluded set of trees some christmas eve some god was kind enough to set aside

As stated in last night's burst of profundity, Monday was a day. Off as I always am on Mondays, I ended up at Overton Park with Gabe and then Travis, where we ate bbq sandwiches and looked sketchy trying to dodge the wind on an otherwise beautiful day. I wanted to wander in the woods, so we ate some assorted goodies out of Gabe's assorted goodies bag and I played along some fallen trees while we talked like pirates. I wanted to get lost in the woods, but I knew that if we walked in any direction for more than five minutes, we'd hit a road or the park, and that had me disappointed until I decided I was really glad that I could at least feel lost in the woods in the middle of midtown. You hear a lot about about plans for the destruction of Overton Park, and I just assume that there'd be enough special interest groups and public outcry to keep something like that from ever happening, but it would really be a travesty to lose that place. We were also stalked by a fat man-child in blue pants who watched us from the trees, but I can't confirm this. I wanted to investigate, but Travis got scared.

Gabe casually mentioned that there's no self without other people around (as casually as something like that can be mentioned), and I had trouble reconciling that for awhile, so I asked him to elaborate. He says that we have to accept the grief and growth that comes from our interactions with other people, and that by denying that, we are basically worthless in our existence (as I understand it...I hope I didn't just butcher his point). I argued that the self would still exist, because even if you had lived your entire life in seclusion, you would still be, but he asked me what kind of a shell of a consciousness that would produce, and of course I don't know. He loaned me a book on existentialism and then took it back because he needed it for a paper. Young Gabriel is an interesting dude.

Monday night was a haze of pints, a cute girl from the news, and pool that ended with a close friend in trouble at 3am, and Derren and I drunkenly rushing to help. I can't explain why we didn't all three spend the night in jail, but you can't say we didn't try. And that's all I'm gonna say about that here.

I haven't read Sarte's "Existentialism is a Humanism" and I can't say with any certainty what would happen to the self without experiencing the grief of interactions with other people, but I'm glad I don't have to think about it and that I have people around me that cause me to learn and think and laugh, among many other things. As for the grief, we're doing our best with that; sometimes we take it and we direct it positively, and sometimes we run it right into a bunch of trees.



I need to get out of town, so that's just what I'm going to do. Nashville, here I come. I'm excited to see you.

When you get to the promised land, you're gonna shake the eye's hand.

Yesterday was a day.

When the Earth folded in on itself and said "Good Luck"

Well I have truly been a slacker with this thing, haven't I? I haven't felt particularly inspired to write anything in the last week or so, nor do I really at this point, but as is so often the case on Mondays, I'm off work and nobody else in the world is. Well, it has actually just occurred to me that it's SPRIIIIIING BREEEEEEAAAKK WOOOOOOOOOOOO so I think I could find something to do if I do some leg work. Eh.

I went and saw Modest Mouse on Friday night in Oxford. This was the second time I've driven down to Oxford to see a band play (the first being Colour Revolt six or so months back) and both times I've been struck by how many gorgeous girls there are around (many), and, immediately after, the even-more-startling amount of buttoned-down-douche-bag-cave-dude-date-rapists at every turn. In the same instant, I find myself thinking "Seems like I picked the wrong school" and "Please get me as far away from these people as possible." I'm sure many of these dudes are nice enough people, and I'm probably just a judgemental prick, but I kinda doubt it. At least this visit, there were no altercations like the last time when Derren and I nearly got into a fist fight with some tool right behind us because Ashley asked him to stop yelling "you suck" at Colour Revolt and he had to run his mouth off at a girl. I digress. I had real mixed feelings about Modest Mouse. The truth is I just didn't have much fun. The sound in the club was mediocre, but that's not their fault. Isaac Brock seemed to be phoning it in, but I couldn't tell if he just didn't care or if he too was annoyed at the crowd that had shown out to see his band. Perhaps both, or maybe neither. He went on three seperate angry rants which were hard to hear due to aforementioned sound issues, but I know one seemed to be about how annoyed he was that people kept shouting requests at him, and one hilarious bit that I did hear clearly about how much he "hates this fucking city" because every time he comes in town, there's a Trent Lott rally going on and that anybody who in the club who "likes that dude can leave right now, or better yet, come back and fucking fight me after the show." The set was surprisingly lacking in singles, especially from the last couple albums, which I actually enjoyed a lot. Highlight would definitely be all of the material off "The Moon and Antarctica" which was fantastic ("3rd Planet", "Tiny Cities Made of Ashes," "Wild Packs of Family Dogs" (!!!), and "Paper Thi Walls"). Other than that, lots of stuff off "Good News..." (but not "Ocean Breathes Salty," "Bury Me With It," or "Bukowski,") and some older tracks I didn't know. The only song played off "We Were Dead..." was "Dashboard," and I really would have liked to hear a couple more songs from that album. My hypothesis before the show was that, because they were playing this tour without Johnny Marr, they'd be leaving out a lot of that cd, but I didn't expect only one song.

Anyway, that was a long winded explanation of their set that was probably boring, and I should have just said "It would have been really cool if they'd played all of 'The Moon and Antarctica', but they didn't. Oh well. Douche-bags were present." It kinda occurred to me though while I was sitting here thinking about the show and how I didn't have as much fun as I thought I was going to... I realize that the set they played was pretty good for the most part, and that if I would just have ignored the people around me and (ahem) vibed out on a band that I do really love, I probably would have had a really great time. That kind of judgmental attitude, and especially that I'd let it get in the way of my good time, is a flaw of mine I'd like to try and correct.

Either way, I'll be down in Oxford again in June to see Animal Collective, so we'll see how it goes.

I planned on writing some more, but that was already long enough, and the longer I sit here on the computer, the more aware I become of how beautiful it is outside.

Steps

A few days ago, it came to my attention that a few of my friends that I don't talk to as much as I'd like have blogs set up, and I got the idea that I would return to my freshman-year glory days of mild livejournal celebrity and join the fun. This was abetted by the fact that I was recently told by a cute girl that I was a "computer kid" because I "had an online journal before [this person] knew how to use the internet," which had me embarrassed until this girl (who is very cute) told me that she had actually really enjoyed reading what I had to say. This compliment from this cute girl had the effect of stroking my sometimes overinflated ego, and moving me to start an earlier version of this very weblog. However, a couple nights ago, in a fit of severe (and, unfortunately, all-too-common lately) self-loathing, I decided to delete the blog and leave the world of online journaling behind forever. This was a little silly of me.

When I was eighteen, I wrote a lot. I wrote songs, I wrote poems, I wrote stories, I wrote notes and letters, I wrote scraps of nonsense on scraps of paper, and sometimes, I was really proud of the things that I wrote. Somewhere along the way, this all stopped. I blame this on the passage of time, a reorganization of priorities, a beautiful girl who I wanted to like me so much that I changed myself for her, and a series of small floods and fires (that last bit shamelessly cribbed from Dave Eggers), among many other things. Ennui set in. I met people who were better writers than me, and I decided I'd be a better drummer than they were. I got a BBA I never wanted.

I have put nary a pen to paper without a practical purpose in years. Now, here I am all of a sudden in my mid twenties, reading more than I have in years, thinking more critically than I have in years, and I want this. I feel like I've been unforgivably neglectful of a crucial part of my brain and my life. The problem is, now I'm terrified of writing anything. I worry about writing trite, meaningless bullshit with hollow metaphors, and I feel that because I know I'm not as good as my influences, I should just leave it up to the pros. I fear failure. This is of course, stupid, and a total cop out.

My life has been a series of baby steps interspersed with some bigger steps, just like most everybody else's (unfortunately, I know too many people with too few bigger steps at this point in my life). In the past year or two, I've made a lot more of those bigger type steps. I graduated college. I'm in a job where I'm responsible for not just my own financial welfare, but that of members of my family, at a business where, if I don't do my job right, the business could fail. I bought a car. I experienced the most real and fulfilling romantic relationship of my life with a girl I really loved, and I'm continuing to struggle with and learn from its ending. I've become closer with some people and drifted away from others. Life has been. I feel like I'm growing up more, growing into the adult that I want to be, and I'm legitimately pumped for the future, but I know that not everything has to be a big step, and I think knowing that right now while being excited for whatever comes is a pretty healthy place for me to be right now. I realize that comparing writing a blog to a life change like graduating college is pretty ridiculous, and I guess that's my point. I want to write, so I will write.

Here I will post things I'm thinking, or reading/watching/listening to, or doing, of finding interesting or funny or sad. I look forward to this thing because I think it will be fun and mentally productive, and I hope that people will be interested in reading it.