#& i just had about a new spiritual experience. oh my god the guitar in this song i swear

[cathymee]

OKAY why is ang huling el bimbo THE song. like it's THE song. of all time.

[prongsmydeer]

Ayesha Liveblogs Oh My Ghost (2018) Ep. 9-16

Part 2 of this post because tumblr would not let me save anymore either because of the numerous images I’m commenting on or because of how many times I use the word H*rny 

Kaopoon is frustrated bc Real Jiw is now vibing with her new BF Sun while she is sitting sadly on a swing set [Alexa play Sadness and Sorrow]

Backtracking to the other kind of drama: Lieutenant Murder is finally going to murder someone on screen (specifically his fellow police officer) because Lieutenant Murder jumped him for getting too close to solving Nammoon's hit-and-run case, which is at this point obvious he committed)

I love when Sun and Jiw flirt through their apartment wall

Jiw and Sun are dating now but the remaining point of contention is how much Horny Ghost just wants them to sleep together instead of getting to know each other to which Sun thinks “Jiw do u only want me for my body 😔?”

I can't believe that Lieutenant Murder's tragic backstory is that he was an orphan oh my god. Adoption is normal!! Murder is not!!

Lieutenant Murder was possessed by an evil spirit????? (After the first time he tried to murder????) WHAT WHAT WHAT

Sous Chef Rain is yelling at the restaurant staff bc of forgetting his birthday, bc he is, truly, a perennial pain in the ass

They are all out for Rain's birthday except for Sun bc of his and Jiw (Kaopoon)'s sex fight and so he is very anxious about his girlfriend being out with The Guys without him

Also Study-Abroad Win is handsome to the point of distraction AND nice  where is his romance? Where is the justice for the male models of the world

Sun's Mom does not know he is Dating and Housing his employee possessed by a Horny Ghost He Thinks is One Facet of Her Personality

Presented without commentary:

Win has been politely pretending not to notice that Sun and Jiw are in a relationship and now I'm thinking he will get a romance and it will be Ida, to wrap up most of the loose ends of this relationship pentagon. Based on no other reason than that they are both single

Dkjhgkjgh lmao @ Sun going to his whole staff: “WHO WANTS TO GO TO THE MARKET?” and then saying no to everyone one by one except his girlfriend

Kaopoon is making Sun help her dad install a restaurant hose in the middle of their work day hahaha

FINALLY PROOF THAT LIEUTENANT MURDER IS A MURDERER. Warning for murder related description, there was a flashback where it showed a still body (face obscured) wearing Kaopoon's outfit on his bathroom floor

They really hammered home the ‘he is a murderer’ thing, he has a bag full of evidence of his crime

In more lighthearted news, Sun's rice intolerance is psychosomatic bc his mum never cooked rice for him and it's Sad Boy Hours

Sun and Kaopoon!Jiw seem like they're finally ready to have sex (they've talked out their feelings and are going away together) but there are FIVE MORE EPS and the murder stuff still lingers so I wonder what other madness this show will unleash on me

Actually, six more eps!! Ahhhh that's so much time

Oh how the tables have turned now Kaopoon is the one too in love with Sun too have sex (bc she will go to the afterlife if she does -- But if she doesn't she'll be an evil spirit so... stuck between a rock and hard-on) 

I have been suspecting for a while tho that the sex will not change anything. She will probably have to solve her murder to pass on

You know what that is? Growth!!

Now they are back to the weird energy of Sun going “Now that we are in love I would like to have sex,” and Kaopoon!Jiw going “Sex????? Never heard of it!!”

Against Kaopoon's credit, she has not informed Jiw that their relationship has progressed this much. She's just like "yeah things are normal" bc she wants to spend as much time with Sun while she has the chance

Win and Kaopoon!Jiw are just being good bros and Sun, in tandem with the sex-back-and-forth, is jealous of their dynamic

Kaopoon has begun to solve her own murder!!! Unfortunately the first thing she did was point out inconsistent evidence to Lieutenant Parin, who extremely Murdered Her

I feel so happy for Jiw when she gets to experience normal boyfriend moments with Sun like these cheesy matching necklaces. <3 Why does Jiw's life have to be so complicated?

Kaopoon is... spiritually breaking up with Jiw, so she can end the messiness of her involvement with Sun

Ehkjehrrk Jiw is back to living her own life and a spirit just tried to grab at her and she just whacked their hand off and said, "Don't bother me now!" so she could keep cooking, love that for her

The employee-boss affair's out of the bag!!

They also keep cutting to Lieutenant Murder with his knife ready to go after Jiw for Knowing Too Much kjhgkhgjh so I guess the last four-and-a-half eps will dedicated to crime-fighting

Auntie Pu is kind of my favourite character on this show bc she goes from Ghost Nemesis to Ghost Mom all while having Sun's mom as her BFF and Sugar Mama

Hahahaha all the other restaurant staff (minus Win, who is chill) are sucking up to Jiw now bc she's dating Sun

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH Jiw felt guilty about dating Sun when half the things he loves are things that Kaopoon did and now the Horny Ghost is out of the bag

I can only assume, bc he thinks she's bipolar, he will assume this is product of a hallucination

Reservations on the commentary on bipolar disorder aside, what DO u do when the person you love tells you that they can see ghosts and key relationship moments you had together were the product of them being possessed by a ghost

Sun now believes in ghosts but he's very upset about the romantic implications of this knowledge

“I think the reason I haven’t been reincarnated... isn’t the fact I’ve never slept with a man after all” HORNY GHOST CONFIRMED FOR DETECTIVE GHOST. VINNNNNDICATION!!!!!

Awww the restaurant staff are all surrounding Chef with support in his time of romantic woe

“But I want the two people I care about the most to be happy” I want Win to date Sun AND Jiw he's so good to them

AYYYYYYY Sun found out that Jiw made the recipes for the blog he liked (and called his soulmate) and now he's visiting her grandma bc he truly is in love with both Jiw AND Kaopoon

Sun said, “I acknowledge this is a complicated situation but I'm willing to work through the ghost thing and figure out how we feel about each other”

Cutting back to Lieutenant Murder, he has just meowed at his coworker threateningly in response to being investigated (for attacking that same coworker!!)

Lieutenant Murder wears this same stupid outfit every time he's gonna do a crime recently and can I just say: I hate it

WHAT'S HE GONNA DO, KILL EVERYONE WHO KNOWS SOMETHING ABOUT ONE OF HIS MANY CRIMES?? THAT'S A LOT OF PEOPLE! AUNTIE PU! JIW! THE FORESENICS ANALYST! ALMOST-SUN? HE CAN'T EVEN KILL KAOPOON BC HE ALREADY KILLED HER AND SHE'S A GHOST!!!!!!!!!!!

“Chef, is something wrong?” Jiw asked, after telling Sun that his brother-in-law is a murderer who also probably hit his sister with a car

Sun said, “Pls don't be a murderer I love u bro” and Parin said “My life of crime is very important to me”

This is Kaopoon possessing Auntie Pu so that Kaopoon, Jiw and Sun can be a crime-fighting trio, love that for them

There are SO MANY crimes going on right now I cannot even begin to describe but just know Lieutenant Murder is responsible for all of them

So Jiw has been kidnapped (GUESS WHO) and Sun is investigating every school in the area and Kaopoon has a network of ghosts looking for her while Jiw tries to find a way to communicate her location. The Crime-Fighting Trio Continues!!!

You'd think more people would notice  what a creep this guy is considering that he is literally DIGGING A GRAVE for the woman trapped in his cupboard!!

Poor Nammoon she has no idea her husband is possessed by a murderous ghost. Which like, to be clear, he did try to murder before the ghost possessed him sooooooooooooo

“You're a good person,” said Nammoon, to a man who has committed at least three murders with a fourth on the go

Sun rescued Jiw via high speed car chase and now Auntie Pu and Kaopoon have taken Sun's car to chase Parin and GET HIS ASS

Also Jiw got 2 attack Parin which I think she deserved to get to do

Oh yikes it's possible she fatally injured him which doesn't bode well for the psychological implications of this whole ordeal

Nope I was wrong the ghost-busting continues

Well I don't know what's more perturbing, the resolution of that fight or the fact that there is still one more episode of 1 HOUR left jhfkjhkfjh this better be a happy filler ep where Jiw and Sun get married omg

HORNY GHOST SHOW REALLY MAKING ME TEARY-EYED ON THE LAST EP

The entire restaurant staff is a collective of morons who love Jiw for who she is  

Jiw won a cooking scholarship and gets to study abroad in Europe for two years so it's Sad Boy Hours with Sun again

THEY GOT A SECOND DOG THIS IS THE BEST THING THAT'S HAPPENED ON THIS SHOW

SCREAM NOW AUNTIE PU IS A RICH AND FAMOUS GHOSTBUSTER MEDIUM

Sun has expanded his restaurant business, leaving Rain in charge, and so they have been sent a new employee Summer, who I guess is everyone's new Pain in the Ass just for fun kgjhkjhkgh

He was merely a plot device to prove the Chef Boys are Bros 4 lyf

In a weird turn of events Parin is still alive with amnesia???? Even if all of what he did as an adult was ghost possession stuff.... he did still try to attack a baby as a teen. That's a thing he did! Are we forgetting this????? I guess!!!

GET SOME THERAPY NAMMOON!!

BACK TO THE DOGS:

Sun is strumming a guitar woefully because he misses Jiw:

SHE'S BACK AND THE JIW SUPPORT SQUAD IS THRIVING:

Sun is presumably somewhere sadly shaking a tambourine

IT'S FINALLY HAPPY BOY HOURS

[samaelserpentine]

An Odyssey Through Music, Muses, Madness and Magic

(Buckle up Tumblr, this is a long poem) 1. The isle guardians of vinyl Unwittingly nervous to the necromancy I have planned An inner storm so terrible But I was Struck by his Occult missive So laden down was I By all the lyrics, the words With characters told through dark supergods As Aleister Crowley is to Led Zeppelin is to David Bowie And now me Lost among them Buried within them The pages of ancient texts And the liner notes of the albums Held far too close to the heart Though I tried, perhaps I merely formed mystery at my own doom The records of the sorcerers Performing an infernal scratching on my psyche Breaking down what was there and carving out what could be But whether it should be Is still uncertain to me. 2. I found the darkness in riffs The wall of sound I was into Inhabited by self-admitted aliens Aleister’s hellfire brought to light My heavy work held up The symbolizing of some god Archaic and forgotten Through a ring Art cracks All the people that stare loveless Into your eyes But I would be different I would be realized Something broken Mended Yet still wrong But I would Make myself into something else With your words The fascination told fables A way out, a way through I would find my way to you Through the cracks. 3. Once artwork I became their voice Lurking in the shadows of time On the periphery Of reason Madness could be a thrilling companion And with the records transcendent And the races lost The shout rang out Are You Experienced? I am and am not Like an abysmal and sunken ship Lost in the depths of the ocean Alone and devoid of meaning Abandoned everything to Grooves, characters, truths And once there inhabiting these my psyche Broke open spilling out visions, words Like arcane knowledge Dancing carelessly over the line Between the sacred and profane Whispering it’s so nice to see you here again And my mind became a bookshelf filled with ancient wisdom A record player Playing albums that told lies like they were the truth I uncovered the Necronomicon Had lives in Atlantis Sat with the sound and vision Of a populated landscape Woven through history Like a single thread Linking everything I became a fixture Fantastic Within the hidden music of a paperback I would not be forgotten there. 4. Of those who sought And those who chose A wriggle of religious fanaticism in claim And its origins an apparent expression of salvation I say You are nothing and have nothing for me With your hierarchy and worry over the threat Of music and sexuality And your constant waging of war against me When mine and yours is a history of burning I have nothing to give you You’ve already taken too much from me I want what was mine back With your wicked face as old as These chords I worship And your evil work to further ministers As meaningful to me as a rotten turnip Yet of my conjuring powers You disbelieve When honey, you should fear me And not the other way around I hope that when you are most afraid You say my name. 5. Mobs make parents worried They claim the rock audience chaos Is just hormonal fury A response to what is true Inside of both me and you There is more than this A kind of magic If you look for it Religious In the way we turn musicians Into gods and goddesses Idol worship But is that all it is? In the truest sense An ancient rite Long buried and forgotten Rising up inside us all Those who dare to dance And by prohibiting and demonizing The ones who shake their fists Lose their sense Always the sound of agitation But I saw these pagan spirits first Before I heard your protesting words Theirs speak louder to me Than your hatred ever could. 6. To the electric teenager Finding your way Rebellion is autonomy It is tradition To push boundaries Yet each new generation of adults Somehow forgets these Eternal truths It's not your fault They're afraid of your youth Don't listen Hold on Your fire will make the world a better place For you. 7. Could this ancient thread Of reality and magic infused with dangerous potential Normally inhabited by far greater Magicians than I could ever be Break me? I am traversing this rough terrain Of shared perception With aliens These common visions a violence What could I even be? Nothing more than a mystery To those around me Lost in this metaverse I have accessed Through song, collage, words Chaotic, such occult meanings They and often I End in something Beyond reason Scratching out messages of methods The angels referenced spoken vast by terrifying qualities These opposing sorcerers Like a guitar screeching endless feedback Which demons? Sex? Drugs? Words? Palpable as suggesting a penultimate hidden secret Impenetrable beyond nothingness and Nonetheless I must find it Even if I have to destroy myself trying Nothing is more important Than this truth. 8. Years go by and I come about left handed Shaped by a tarot card about the arts and earlier The room Space Death I know spirituality I see it in my brother’s eyes Only the inner outer world collides But of the Beatles or beetles They didn’t understand How To make the world bend at your command Of this phenomenon devotees are Reckless Breathtaking in their beauty And chaos It takes a certain kind of madness Or perhaps maybe genius To choose this path To withstand the pressure Of reality kneeling At your feet Bending to your will I will break it before it breaks me Oh brother, don’t you worry I always find my way out of the darkness And besides, hell has never bothered me I am the master of my own design The maker of my own making Nothing else can touch me. 9. Imagination turns listeners into participants Gives power to the powerless Those converted shaped by few ideas Dreams Had rock’s Hare Krishna LSD Asking questions Whose inner world could I be? And as it moves, a cultural generation Becomes magical More magical than entire rock bands Than holy men and women Fashioned by the young The carbon copy progressives Lying like Houses Already vast Led by the words of the Bhagavad Gita You should have listened to me When I had the cards already free I tried to warn you what was coming But no one ever hears me Invisible as I am Until so repulsive, so strange You can’t look away from me You really should have listened You can't say I didn't try to warn you. 10. This is bigger than I am Stretched too thin like skin Over bone was and into The board, into the planchette Could enchantment make me forget? The board is vibrating Shaking like hands The grazing of sleeves Culture, vinyl Seemed out from under our covers Like what was hidden There, even tucked away those records Though of nothing gatefold came No reason to be afraid Other than the fingers that have become potent The light that has now dimmed And what could I have been To all who pulled that woven magic Out of my childhood? Could it be the way was manifest Curled up snugly against your breast? As warm candlelight over the Ouija Plastic memories came From which I had imagined the feelings like air between Bewitched but hovered from Somewhere above our heads I wished that I was dead Or that something would end. 11. Experiences divorced from reality Covers rock personas Cut out images appear worse But Dionysus would love this His child Who has people staged Like personal shamanic relics Thinking writing something mystical That I would seek this That I sought this Is surely a form of madness But all the logical illogical reasoning shows A kind of rare dedication to the cause These rites are magical Why speak of demons And why speak of devils? I have conjured and created Something new out of the ancient Like nails Scratching deep grooves into a record album I have altered something Broken it As their gods create chaos simulating insanity As if they even have to in me I am the false image of a human performed By a front magician Playing at being god In these moments of desperation Carrying the weight of lives As though my power were absolute My belief almost religious Fanatical My concerns become concerts When I am on my own Wondering why happiness has abandoned me And where all the merrymakers have gone Why I am more Anubis than Pan Why myth seems written in lyrics As musicians play me like a fiddle Play me for a fool I am possessed Into thinking I am appearing as many legends Something older than time itself A life bringer A life destroyer With the power to stop or start it all I needed to believe I had the power To save all of you To destroy all of you To protect myself If I needed to And I don’t know if I can save myself From the things I want to do As the darkness envelops me And my mind becomes unglued So go ahead and do what you always do And blame it on the music When we all know the truth It’s always been you. 12. Rumination is realization I wandered alone Within the elements and to God Unintelligible Words became strange as Rogue faeries genuine Approach looking wing Impenetrable as I have become What I’d produced went away from me Flew out of my control Reborn in catastrophe When where into situations I went From film to film I sense in time a song Things start about a room and again Became revolt But maybe that’s just what happens when you’re Involving the occult Bring out the old rock n roll safeguard Make it out of symbols and sigils A complete thought catalogue so arcane It would leave you spellbound for days My mind prison And that in myself some Christ was born A thought so seductive to be sure I would take control of these pursuits But unlike you Hatred would never do I would never fight against passion Your fear I came to hear Against spaceships, rituals, the mystical, Sex, magic Your terror So absolutely Psychological I felt protection close at hand And I was real myself, as I really am In and out of my depth Battling against you and your demands I came out cleaner Stronger And what became of you? Shhh, no telling I won’t spoil the ending No good to warn the enemy Of what is coming But You really should have been listening You should have been watching What was happening. 13. He said, you should have started with Kether Been sure of the path you were following After all Magic, like blood, stains But these moments were wonders They could drive out the fear of fortune, destiny Hanging over my head I was taking control Creating my own instead As thin as the thread that links us all Tenuous, fragile Like a mind on the verge of breaking Under the weight of a cruel reality The walls would speak to me Whispering When will you come to me From here or there And find me in a room High above the clouds Where we could build our love? It’s not enough It’s a drug And I need it As lovers we were And I, such as the mountains Looming, shy Unable to look you in the eye But here is the stuff of legend Sound soars like a movement Lost to the ages I never thought myself better than this moment Lost as I once was Now flashing light and colour Connected to everything Raising you like the devils they spoke of Dancing my way to Malkuth A fearless necromancer Disregarding all the rules. 14. I am the sun I am the ocean I am the mountains and the streams I am the demon who would be with you In all your wildest dreams Where men circle around you Desperate to keep you You land like sand flowing through my hand I did not try to hold onto you So you let me keep the thread Through this glass I was searching Broken as the cracks But now I am returning Now I am mending And once you were evasive Elusive Like a high I was chasing Or the first drink, the tenth, or the last But now I find you woven into everything Believing we were thrown together like darts Bending like space and time I was searching for this Searching for you In desolate stations We would be protected Dredging the world to a ditch Just to find you Just to become more than this You are a wonder Among wondrous things And I am bird Who has found his wings Overlooking humanity From up on high I have found me in you This time And of all the things they can take from me That will never be one of them For I am the sun I am the ocean I am the mountains and the streams I am the demon who would be with you In all your wildest dreams But above all else What is more I have found peace Dancing in the flames of this madness They tried to call a disease I am me I am me I am me.

[dustedmagazine]

Listed: Joseph Allred

Photo Credit: Susanna Bolle

Joseph Allred grew up in Tennessee and currently lives in Boston, where he’s found good company with acoustic musicians such as Glenn Jones and Rob Noyes. Like them, he makes music that can easily be tagged as American Primitive guitar, a category that Dusted’s Bill Meyer invoked in a 2019 review of two Allred cassettes that were issued on the Garden Portal label: “Of all the musicians who convened in Takoma Park, MD last year to attend The 1000 Incarnations of the Rose festival, Joseph Allred hews closest to American Primitive guitar’s mystical spirit.”

But Allred has also made music that has little to do with that approach, and is not even played on acoustic guitar. A quick survey of the seven vinyl albums and virtual basketful of tapes and downloads that Allred has released on Feeding Tube, Garden Portal, Melliphonic, and Scissor Tail Records since 2013 will turn up songs played on piano and harmonium, banjo instrumentals, and sound collages made from cell phone recordings as well as sonically rich and emotionally commanding acoustic guitar soli. Meyer also reviewed Allred’s newest release, Michael, out on Feeding Tube, noting that “his grasp of the essence of American Primitive guitar, which is that music is not just an idiosyncratic reordering of certain influences… that are played on a steel-stringed acoustic guitar, but an articulation of one person’s uneasy relationship to the wider world.”

Mike Gangloff – “The Other Side of Catawba”

Ten Years Gone : A Tribute to Jack Rose by Mike Gangloff

This song was Mike’s contribution to Buck Curran’s 10 Years Gone tribute to Jack Rose that came out last year. In addition to being a moving tribute to his friend and musical co-conspirator, it points to the mystical, dirge-y side of the Appalachian fiddle tradition that I’m particularly fond of, evoking more than a bit the keening wail of graveside bagpipes.

Powers/Rolin Duo — St

St by Powers / Rolin Duo

A lovely ecstatic drone folk album from these lynchpins of the Columbus, OH cat-instagramming scene. Shimmery, rumbly, at once earth-planted and heaven-turned. 12-string guitar paints color washes like the album’s watercolor sun-scape cover and hammered dulcimer fills to the brim with echo, sometimes sounding on the verge of being blown apart by its own reverberation. It’s been providing a much-needed meditation and catharsis lately.

Ostad Elahi — The Sacred Lute: The Art of Ostad Elahi

Nur Ali Elahi was a Kurdish musician, mystic, jurist, and philosopher born in Iran to the Yarsani religious leader Hajj Nematollah. Despite showing a prodigious talent for the tanbur and being recognized as a master musician at an early age, he never played music in a professional performance setting, preferring to use the instrument, which accompanied him throughout his life, as part of a personal spiritual practice. The tanbur has an airy, ephemeral sound often described as dry or even ascetic, but it uses a rolling right hand technique that creates seemingly unending hypnotic swirls of notes.

Buck Gooter — Finer Thorns

Finer Thorns by Buck Gooter

I met Billy Brett and Terry Turtle about 10 years ago when the band I used to play in shared a spot with Buck Gooter on the lineup of a Harrisonburg, VA basement show. I thought of Suicide and Big Black with some primal Ramones-tinted sludge seeping through the cracks, but it was ultimately something uniquely weird in the best possible way. I didn’t get to know Terry as well as I wish I could’ve before he died last December, leaving Finer Thorns as his last album, but he was a special person and a true outsider art savant. I wish Billy the best as he carries the Buck Gooter flag forward on his own.

Stanley Brothers — The Complete Columbia Stanley Brothers

My dad sang in a gospel quartet and I used to poke fun a bit by asking if it hurt his feelings that most of the gigs they got were at funerals. Maybe because I’ve experienced a lot of loss in the last decade or so I understand the special place gospel music has around death for some of us, but I think it can call us to start building a heaven on earth just as it imagines a place where our departed friends and lovers watch over and wait for us. These recordings made between 1949-52 are some of the finest gospel and bluegrass to be found and have been my medicine for homesickness and world-weariness.

Arvo Pärt — Für Alina

I did a transcription of this piano solo for a tape that came out on Michael Potter’s Garden Portal label two years ago and found my first experience with transcription deeply rewarding. Für Alina is a quiet, introspective piece, arranged to slowly unfold and then fold back up and consisting of two voices that move together against an occasionally sounding pedal tone. When I arranged it for guitar, one of the alterations I needed to make is that I put the two voices in the same octave, whereas on the piano they’re played an octave apart. Pärt intended the dedication to “Alina” as a consolation to a mother who had recently been separated from her daughter, so distance is a theme of the piece, but I found it especially poignant that the tension between the two voices seems much more pronounced when they’re put closer together.

Julian Bream — Dances of Dowland

The recently departed Julian Bream was a giant of classical guitar but his anachronistic lute playing technique and use of an instrument with some modern amenities earned him the ire of the more authenticity-minded lutenist community (apparently a fairly ornery bunch). I don’t recommend caring too much about the difference between the right hands of a classical guitarist and a dedicated lutenist, and I still love this album of Dowland renditions for the lute. Bream is a particularly good candidate to bring out the drama and flamboyance that can be extracted from the music, and it’s always a treat to hear the joy and mastery he brought with him to whatever era or instrument he happened to be playing.

Popol Vuh — Spirit of Peace

Music can be weaponized and used to challenge oppressive structures in overt and destructive ways, but in the hands of those like Florian Fricke, it creates spaces for self-transcendence and communion with the Divine, which builds the foundation necessary for successfully transfiguring those structures or building new ones. It allows us to enlighten and empty ourselves, to become conduits for Divinity and activate it in the world. Like much of Popol Vuh’s music, Spirit of Peace speaks from soul to soul.

Alan Sparhawk — Solo Guitar

I’ve been experimenting with an electric guitar a little after having gone two years or so without plugging in at all and using some of that time to think about what the electric guitar excels at or might be uniquely capable of. Alan Sparhawk’s Solo Guitar came out the year after he had a well-documented breakdown that led to the cancelling of a 2005 Low tour and an eventual hospitalization, and this album stands out to me as a testament to how bleak and alienated the electric guitar can sound. It’s also a reminder of what made me put the electric guitar down for so long to begin with. It’s a beautiful album, but sometimes I can’t help but hear audio renderings of hellscapes Alan must have been fighting through.

Dorothee Soelle — The Silent Cry: Mysticism and Resistance

Dorothee Soelle was a German Protestant theologian who came of age against the shadow of Germany’s horrific deeds during World War II. She spent her professional career as an outspoken critic of the Vietnam War and Cold War arms race, patriarchal renderings of God, and a perversion of Christianity she called “Christofascism.” The Silent Cry stands as one of her most important and widely read works. She imagines an imminent, politically engaged mysticism, one equally at odds with the violent, patriarchal exploitation enacted by capitalism, and other-worldly mysticisms that refuse social analysis.

[x--daughters-of-darkness--x]

INTERVIEW: Alecia 'Mixi' Demner of Stitched Up Heart (March 2020)

LIVE METAL: Before we get into the fun stuff, we should touch on the big issue in the world happening right now, the coronavirus pandemic. It’s affecting musicians with tours and festivals being canceled. Stitched Up Heart has a bunch of dates scheduled coming up later this month. Are those still on as far as you know?

ALECIA “MIXI” DEMNER: I just got the call, and it’s pushed to the fall. This whole thing is insane. Obviously, there’s a lot of planning and stuff that goes into a tour. We’ve been preparing, whether it be gear, whether it be flying people places to make sure our crew is ready. The crew has to make sure that they’re available during that time with whatever their side jobs are. So everything—RV rental, merchandise—everything gets pushed and put on hold for this. So a lot of people are really disappointed

I’m trying to look at the positive of it, and I actually already have set up a ton of writing sessions during this time, and I’m gonna try to pump out another album during this time. I’m just trying to stay productive, and since there’s a bunch of people that are usually on tour that we would typically get together with or we’re usually trying to find time that’s available to everyone. Now this time just freed up, and I’m basically trying to fill it.

Trying to make something good out of an unfortunate situation.

That’s always the way to look at it, right? How can this turn into a positive? There always is a positive in it. This whole pausing the music industry thing—I was just thinking about it on my way back home—is going to actually probably affect the music industry afterwards in such a positive way, because you’re taking it all away from everyone. Nobody can go to shows. They’re stopping people from being able to go out and do something. So once people are allowed back out again to go to shows and be at places that allow more than 100, 250 people a venue, they’re probably gonna be really, really excited about it.

Switching gears, the new album, “Darkness,” comes out tomorrow. You’ve been slowly releasing the songs one by one for a while now, but it’s still got to be exciting to have the end product finally out there.

Oh yeah. It’s been a really, really interesting process as far as this release goes. We wanted to try something new with this waterfall effect, and it’s not something that rock bands have really tapped into. So we were curious to see what kind of result we would get. I think the rock fan base is very loyal, and they usually buy albums, but it still has changed over time. I mean, our last record was released in Best Buy. It’s changed so much that now streaming is such a big thing. I even stream. I listen to stuff on Spotify when I want to hear something new. We can’t really be upset about it. So I think that having streaming and having something new and building momentum and keeping things fresh in people’s minds is an interesting way to go about it, and it seems to be doing well for us.

I would think this strategy would allow you to see even more which songs people are really getting into. Have you noticed anything like that or any surprises?

Oh yeah, absolutely. Having each individual song released as its own is so different from just having a whole album and then skipping over a song every once in a while, and then maybe a year from now, you go, “Wow, that song’s actually really good. I never really paid attention to it.” Each song gets a little more notoriety on its own.

I think streaming, in general, you can tell singles are really, truly these days based off whether or not the listeners are responding well. It’s not so much this is the single everybody thinks will be the big one. It’s more this is the one that’s getting the most response based off people streaming it. So you can see it a little more.

With having this longer release process, has it been hard to sit on some of these songs for longer than usual?

For me, no. For the listeners, probably yeah. For me, I’ve already heard them. (laughs) I practiced them a million times. It’s kind of nice having that. But yeah, I could see it would be frustrating for some people—”Give me the album already! Give me the album!” But something to look forward to is exciting to me.

How long was the process of writing and recording these songs?

We probably started in about February and finished the whole thing, after 70 songs, in September, I want to say, of not last year, the year before. So it’s been a whole entire year, because we released everything throughout a year. But the actual songs out of the 70 that we ended up using were pretty much all written at the very end, within a two-month period.

So how did that work out? Was there something that changed along the way that made you decide those were the ones you wanted?

I think just like anything you do in life, the more you do it the better you get. Especially with this record, we tried to try new things, and the beginning as all experimental. Eventually, we found a lane that everybody liked and was happy with, and the producer that we wanted to use, which was a huge, key element. We finally found what I wanted to say, ‘cause that changed also. Originally, lyrically I wanted to just sing about being strong and all this powerful stuff, but I realized that it wasn’t coming out as authentic, because there’s so much it takes to teach you to be strong. So lyrically, I really needed to grow in that sense and find the right deep, dark stuff that I had to pull out of me. Musically, we found a modern rock sound that worked really well, we felt like, for an evolution and not to stray too far from our original identity.

As you said, it’s been a while since the first album. It’s been almost four years. How have you and the band changed during that time?

Oh, gosh. A lot. (laughs) So much. When “Never Alone” was being written, we’d just got our first record deal after touring as a band for five years. I just became sober right when that writing session was happening. We didn’t even know what Active Rock Radio charts were. We hit the ground running with that album, and it just evolved. We met so many people. We made so many relationships over the last couple years. It’s been really cool. We’ve grown, obviously, as performers, as songwriters, as people in general. We’ve learned so much.

Do birds have some kind of special meaning to you? They’ve been on the covers of each album.

Yeah. I feel like a bird is something like what music does. It kinda takes you away from everything. You can fly out of your life and just be sucked into this whole other world, and it’s this freedom. And birds kind of feel like freedom to me. With “Never Alone,” because I was a bright-eyed, doey-eyed baby in the real rock industry at the time and seeing the light at the end of the tunnel and everything was looking amazing, and the doves coming out of the darkness was this, OK, there’s a light. And I went through a lot of stuff afterwards, and I kept seeing crows everywhere. I didn’t even plan to do this bird theme, but it just worked. They were everywhere, and I kept noticing them. I was like, “That’s got to be some sort of sign.”

I started looking into what they represent, and they’re very, very wise creatures. They’re supposed to be messengers almost from a different realm or a spiritual realm. I looked at it as there’s a sign in this. The lyrics, how I went through some dark times again, the whole thing kind of tied in really well together with the dark crow coming out of the light, like I just went through greatness, but look, stuff is happening and you have to go through it, and that’s part of life and not to be afraid of it anymore because you know you made it through it before.

But yeah, it’s a sense of freedom and being able, musically, to take you out of whatever your day-to-day life is.

I noticed following the band on social media that on your last tour, you had started to play guitar on stage a little bit. Had you done that before?

Yeah, that’s how I started writing songs when I was in high school. I got my first guitar at 15, and I would go to open mic nights three nights a week and play acoustic and sing along. For the longest time, in every band I was in I either played guitar or bass. When I started this band in 2010, the guitar player was so good, the first guitar player was so good, I just quit. (laughs) I was like, “Dude, I will never be that good. I’m gonna leave it up to you, and I’ll just sing and scream, and focus on that.”

For the longest time, I hid behind the guitar. That guitar was like my safety net, my blanket, and I realized I could actually perform without it, which was a whole new learning experience. Then for I don’t know how many years, we would hire a rhythm guitar player, and we just kept having this revolving door with this one guitar player position.

When we thought about it the last tour we did with Steel Panther, we decided that it might be smarter for us to get a sound guy out front instead of a second guitar player, because we found a guy that was really good and the chemistry was great. So we decided to try the last tour out with it, and I was like, “What songs need a second guitar?” And “Catch Me When I Fall” was the only one that really needs it. So I was like OK, I’ll learn this one song and we’ll see how it goes. And I was super nervous. (laughs) It had been nine years since I played on stage with a guitar. I was even nervous to practice with the band. I was like, oh my god, I’m gonna be horrible. The first show, I hit one wrong note, but no one noticed—I did. I practiced every day, just the one song, and it went well, and it sounded great.

So we decided we don’t need a second guitarist for the moment. It’s just more fun for me. I learned another song of ours that I’m gonna bring in. I don’t want to play every single song on guitar, ‘cause I still have to perform. It’s kind of breathing life into me, to be honest.

What was it like to tour with Steel Panther?

Well, what happens backstage stays backstage with that band, but they are such great people. They really, really made sure we were happy. Just really great people, super supportive. Michael Starr literally watched every single set. He watched us play every single night. We hung out, and we’d have little meetings, check in on each other, see how everybody’s doing. And actually the fan base—this was the thing I was most surprised of—the fan base, I didn’t know how they were gonna react to us, being that we’re, obviously, a different kind of style of music. I was scared they were gonna ask me to show my boobs or something (laughs), because some of the audience might be a little crazy. But they were so receptive and responsive. We were really shocked, because everybody was just so excited to be at a rock show that they were probably the most energetic crowd we’ve ever played for and super exciting and fun. And I think that’s how the Sebastian Bach tour ended up happening. We didn’t realize that’s a whole entire different kind of rock genre that we hadn’t explored, and we might be OK in the ‘80s hair metal scene—I don’t know.

I think that’s all the questions I’ve got for you right now. Is there anything else you’d like to say?

No, just with the tour being postponed, in the meantime I have already set up a ton of writing sessions, and I probably am going to be fostering some more bottle baby kittens, which I usually do when we’re not on the road. If anybody is interested in helping this rescue that I’m super passionate about, their website is kittenrescue.org.

[bnrobertson1]

Best Tunes of ‘19

Albums:

10. Squid- Town Centre - 4 songs, the first of which is a mood-setting throwaway. But the rest- especially the one-two punch of “Match Bet” and the funk by way of Parquet Courts of “The Cleaner”- make it easily one of the most exciting debuts in recent memory. I look forward to their LP- and obsessing over this band for years to come. (Song: “Match Bet”)

9. Weyes Blood- Everyday- Alternating between lush and orchestral Sufjan-isms and quiet and direct, well, Sufjan-isms, this album makes a definitive statement of the boundlessness of Blood’s talents.  (Song: “Everyday”)

8. Malibu Ken- S/T- The matching of Aesop Rock’s hyper-verbose lyrics and TOBACCO’s warped soundscapes proves alchemic, especially for two artists known for their eccentricities. (Song: “Acid King”)

7. Thee Oh Sees- Face Stabber- If you don’t like them, 22-minute jam “Henchlock” won’t convince you. But for us knuckleheads, there are few things as life-affirming. (Song: “Fu Xi”)

6. Crumb- Jinx- A surprisingly underloved debut, I (think I) hear in this neo-psych-soul group what others do the XX. (Song: “Nina”)

5. Fountaines DC- Dogrel- Seeing these intense Irishmen live I had no idea their album would have the nuance it does (both verbal and sonic), all-the-while never losing an ounce of that hypnotic feral focus (Song: “Boys in the Better Land”)

4. Nolan Potter’s Nightmare Band- Nightmare Forever- I’ve gushed about this band to anybody who’ll hear it but the record itself is far more convincing. (Song: “Seahorse Retreat”)

3. Purple Mountains- S/T- While it’s impossible now to listen to it without thinking “suicide note,” it’s still about as beautiful a send-off from this mortal coil as could be written. (Song: “She’s Making Friends, I’m Turning Stranger”)

2. DIIV- Decider- In many ways the yin to Purple Mountains yang, Smith & co. dealt with similar demons by changing styles (yet again) and reaching for Guitar God glory (they achieve it: see “Skin Game”)

1. Mike Krol- Power Chords- Every decade needs its own Blue Album and the ‘10s finally got theirs with these eleven tunes of rowdy, joyous heartbreak. (Song: “Left For Dead”)

Shows:

12. Rolling Stones- Reliant Stadium (Houston)- It wasn’t without disappointment (“Heartbreaker,” indeed), but they hit the highs when they needed to, and their scorching “Midnight Rambler” made you debate buying tickets for their 2039 tour now. 

11. Iron Maiden- AT & T Center (San Antonio)- What can you say about a concert that featured Bruce Dickinson sword fighting a 15-foot tall skeleton? (Besides “awesome” about 100 times, as a I did) The show that made me debate burning all of my clothes and exclusively buying tight black jeans and white high top 80s Nikes. 

10. Bob Seger- Frank Erwin Center- Not the coolest concert by a long shot, but easily one of the year’s best. MAGA Hats were present (not a problem per se, just noticeable to someone who mostly attends shows that could be subtitled “Fuck Donald Trump”), but so was the fire inside the 73 year old Seger’s soul. A small aside: my personal favorite part of the show was the kind of uninteresting anecdotes he’d tell during songs. Example: “Against the Wind” is about how he would literally run against the wind in high school track. That’s it.

9. King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard- Stubb’s- These Australian rockers have been permanent fixtures in my headphones since I first saw their name 6/7 years ago. This was the live show where it all really came together to me (even if many of the attractive people there were confused/ intimidated by the thrash of their newest album). 

8.  Peter Hook and the Light- Emo’s- A concert I almost skipped after a weekend full of Levitation, this set full of New Order songs (including a front-to-back of their classic Technique) was the best Monday show I’ve ever attended.  

7. Nolan Potter’s Nightmare Band- Hotel Vegas- a nine-piece psych band fronted by a polymath flutist, this band is for lovers of 70s Rock (any/ all of it). Their live show, faithfully captured on their debut album, feels like the past and future simultaneously in the best way possible. 

6. Thee Oh Sees- 2nd Night- Hotel Vegas- No song touches “I Come from the Mountain” as an opener in its effectiveness to make your blood vessels turn into the autobahn.  

5. DIIV- Mohawk- It felt like a triumphant exclamation point to their newest album. Also, “Under the Sun” remains one of the prettiest songs ever written. 

4. Yeah Yeah Yeahs- Moody Theater- Entered drenched with rain, left drenched with sweat.  

3. Chemical Brothers- Bill Graham Arena (SF)- I’ll spare you the specifics but had a spiritual epiphany with “The Private Psychedelic Reel.” The best combo visuals/ music I may have ever seen?

2. Stereolab- Paper Tiger (San Antonio)- The first of three shows, I’ve been working on a larger piece to discuss the entire experience, but I’ll say that crowd members were profusely thanking the band in between songs- I’ve seen thousands of concerts and never seen that happen before.  

1. Beak>/ TOBACCO - Empire Control Room (Levitation Fest)-  I’ve long dug their music videos, but I had no clue Beak> was that fantastic live. A minimal mix of krautrock and trip hop, I vividly remember looking around for about 25 seconds when they started “The Meader,” (featuring the best baseline of the young century) making sure I wasn’t hallucinating this moody masterpiece. (I wasn’t). “RSI” is as good a song as anything Neu! wrote. On a personal note, I saw this show the day after getting some rough news and it reminded me of music’s curative powers, full stop (”RSI,” man, “RSI”). That said, I hope there is little footage of the concert because to say I was dancing a fool would be an insult to fools everywhere. Plus, I got to meet the incredibly friendly, funny Geoff Barrow, an experience I’ll forget about as soon as I forget the concert (read: never). 

[strange-spaghetti]

☽☼ King Crimson ♪ 

I don't think I've ever seen one of my original flautist/saxophonists before, so hearing Mel Collins play, my reaction was absurd & I had no means of toning down my enthusiasm because OhMyGod! Incredible! I went berserk! My entire being: enamored & amazed. Sometimes the sax & horn levels were too low & his monitor must have been too high (& he will gesture to the s.e.). But the flute! He sounded gorgeous. Every time he picked up the flute, I was beaming. FRAME BY FRAME! Having flute on Frame By Frame was my favorite aspect of the night. That! was So! good! Belew Crimson is my favorite (sorry, Greg- sorry, Wetton- sorry, dude I can't recall the name of because frankly I only really go to that era when I want Mel, Lizard, & crazy jazz textures X)... Definitely not enough Simmons *bongk-pingk* electronic drums, but maybe that's a novel Broof thing they don't want reflected on them now. I don't know, I think Simmons is kind of just as synonymous with Crimson as mellotron... which also was very mildly done, but psyched whenever Fripp went for his keyboard. TONY! Man, too cool. What a character & a player. Maybe because of my horrible car speakers I expected the chapman stick to be louder (haha, duhmb), but way cool & sounded (&felt) beautiful on Starless. Starless was pretty shaky getting into it. &! I think, unless he was on some SERIOUS delay or loop, The Sax Was Dubbed! he went to fix the mouth piece & uhh.., sax was still playing. The dudes in front of me noticed too, so I can't be making it up. A lot of the heavyheavyheavy metal-esq jams that ya know scatters out & then collectively comes back after a few minutes to f*cking HIT you back into the song AHHHH!!!!! I was so excited to experience that. I love the long tedious & sometimes dragged bits that are Absolutely necessary to play contrast to the build up & bring back, like I get psyched watching videos of them do that & it was SO! Great to live in one of those moments. Professionals, dudes. An honest to god skill being able to do that sh*t live, in one take, right before you. Super incredible.  "Who's doing this?" Oh, my god, Alice that's Fripp! Godddddd, I love him! His way of playing is out of this f*cking world & he can make a guitar sound like a synth or a percussive instrument. A craftsman. There was this moment, wish I could remember which song, where the lights went dark red (not much stage design or lighting, which for them, works). This red presence canvased all & then there was Fripp: a vision in front of green illumination coming from the screens of his rack interfaces. (Hi, I love lighting a lot) I soaked it up. Gorgeous & the longest of my memories because the sight of it was deeply beautiful & I was just. there. Living & truly in love with life in the present beautiful moment of looking upon Robert Fripp. Not just was it wonderful to hear King Crimson songs & watch them perform, but Robert Fripp, ya know? I love his style & solo work a lot, I admire him a lot & what moves him to do what he does & practice. A lot of what he has spoken of & speaks of resonates with me & makes sense to my way of being; musically, spiritually, just being a thoughtful human being. Ah, I saw Robert Fripp. : ) Ah! & Mel Collins☆, & Tony (again) which man oh man that man. He makes everything just a little bit brighter which is funny to say since ya  know bass, but definitely a key ingredient to full pieces of music... The singer reminded me of Billy Sherwood, that may sound daft. He just moved like him. I only know of the singer because of a photo of him & pH. His voice works, & I'm for sure hard to please in that area. Singers matter, not sorry to say. Unique one of a kind instruments that time will take & alter, you can't say that about any other musical device. Like EASY MONEY! Sounded so tight! & Even from the Bah-Dee-Dow-Dow's !!!#@$##^@#$! AHHH, Yes! So happy they did that one. They did Cat Food.. which f****ck Tony! Killer! THE.THREE.DRUMS. How in the World! That was some out of sight synchronization oh my god. From the tiniest little miscellaneous percussion, they were on it! Pat was fun to watch. Rhythmic motions within the silence & of the thundering sound. Very cool... Nice piano bits that found it's way in... "No matter how closely I study it, no matter how I take it apart." Indiscipline was very different, of course no one can beat Belew, but that was really good & HAVING. MEL. THERE! ughghhh oh mygod. F*ck your composition, SAX anywhere & everywhere! Flute in any song! Give.me.it! Like flute in Frame By Frame!!! Bonkers! Absolutely mad. So in love. How can I ever listen to that song now knowing what Mel Collins has done to it?♡ ... A lot of my night was actually really bad haha. I got lost so I missed the first 15 minutes. I entered when Pictures of a City was ending : ( Really bummed. Can't recall Moonchild or In the Court just know that of course Mel Collins took 80% of my attention. I love you Fripp, but don't put an original woodwind/horn player parallel from you.... Alright: Mel Collins. The red shoes, Dig. The glasses constantly going on & off- double dig. Pretending to throw your sax, shut up! you’re still as f*cking cute as ever. Watching him adjust his equipment was cool. Fripp really didn't fiddle about with his guitar sounds if I remember correctly. Oh! except a really out of place ~groovy~ psychedelic wah-wah pedal which could have been from the singer's guitar, but that was fun. I liked that a lot. There was a guy there with a Christian Death shirt a row in front of me. When walking out I talked to him, showed him my Rozz Williams tattoo. He was heavily tattooed everywhere. This crowd felt like a bizarre scene. a third of these folks were younger & really stylized, it was kind of a spectacle to me- so many interesting looking people. & when I got to my correct seat after intermission (yeah part of being late) like the row I was in - all young. The dude next to me was f*cking good looking. What the hell is that all about? I wonder if he was like god this chick is c*mming whenever the sax plays. UGH! MEL. I hate how far I was. He would do these incredible things & it's like I NEED to "woo!" ya know!? I was so close to screaming his name because OHMYGOD! He definitely gave me a new experience. I've heard live sax/flute before (hell, I’ve recorded jazz musicians) & I’ve heard/seen Winwood's flautist/saxophonist but it wasn't really anything, even being that they were Chris Wood's compositions; it was nice, but I didn’t feel AT ALL like how I felt here- it could not compare to how moved or how over the moon ecstatic I felt for Mel Collins playing his & McDonald’s parts. Goshh.  King Crimson was one of the first bands I got into after my decade & personality shift, & I started collecting their CDS in 2016. An immense & heavily decorated atmosphere within the music, they are one of the best bands on the planet & I'm beyond happy I got to see them. I meant to see them in 2016, but I was still new to them & I didn't want to take off work. I really really really hope to see Fripp & them again. Oh, god please let me have the chance to hear Mel Collins play again, holy f*ck. (she's still on ‘im)... I haven't stopped! But i will end this here & maybe do a Mel Collins rave the next time I watch a Bryan Ferry video or listen to Camel or Chris Squire. Oh! last thing (this massive entry was written two separate days) & today I listened to Poseidon in the car to & from work & I skipped Pictures of City because I'm going to be sour about that forever, but! then after work I listened to it & %$!#$%Y@ F*ck! Mel! I really wish I got to hear him start that song off. Still too scared to look up what I missed. Next time I'm taking a taxi to begin with from the train station... I walked south of a street when I needed to have gone north... 30 f*cking minutes walking in the WRONG direction. But I made it & King Crimson was wonderful.･`✧*☆’☽゜ ...Hm, I don’t think I mentioned Mel Collins enough. Robert Fripp, who’s that?

[projectalbum]

All the best. 200. “Accelerate,” 201. “Collapse Into Now,” 202. “Unplugged 1991/2001: The Complete Sessions” by R.E.M.

After exhaustive touring, a greatest hits disc, and a dud album, the lovable lads from Athens, R.E.M., wisely took some time to figure things out before regrouping.

The four-year absence didn’t register with me, as I was collecting the back catalogue during that break. As far as I was concerned, new material was everywhere I looked, filling up my burgeoning record collection as I finished high school and started making my way through college. By the time Accelerate (#200) burst onto the scene in March 2008, I was a junior in film school, about to attend my first documentary festival. I put aside an extra $15 from my work study job to pick up the CD the day of release— the first time I’d been able to perform that record store* ritual for my favorite band. *(Though I didn’t have access to any record stores at the time, so it was likely procured from the closest Wal-Mart.) 

Fast, lean, gritty, produced by a guy who goes by “Jacknife,” this set of songs could not be more of a deliberate course-correction from the overly fussy, mid-tempo Around The Sun. Peter Buck’s skills on the axe, often mixed way down on the previous album, here announce Accelerate's punk-ish purpose in the intro to “Living Well is the Best Revenge,” leading off with a dexterous riff before the drums come trampling in. Stipe spits furiously, with the best use of his full-throated tenor since New Adventures in Hi-Fi, and the rare bar to inspire a Fuck Yeah fist-pump: "Don't set your talking points on me / History will set me free / The future's ours and you don't even rate a footnote.” Recorded and released in the tail-end of the Bush years, there are unmistakable references, drawn in anger and in weariness, to the emotional tolls of that reign.

“If the storm doesn’t kill me, the government will,” Stipe muses at the top of “Houston,” a hair over 2 minutes but suffused with poignancy. It’s an acoustically-driven Western-tinged ballad that hearkens back to “Swan Swan H” or “Monty Got A Raw Deal,” but here the drums are splashy and blown-out, the organ serves a bleating counterpoint to the vocal, and bowed electric guitar bleeds through into the verses, serious as storm clouds. The intriguing production choices are what mark it as the Accelerate twist on familiar R.E.M. tropes. The chorus: “Houston is filled with promise / Laredo's a beautiful place / Galveston sings like that song that I love / Its meaning has not been erased” is stirring, as if to absolve the Lone Star state for spawning the political dynasty that led to 2 disastrous presidencies. "Belief has not filled me / And so I am put to the test” are the last words before distortion drowns out the melody like a fatal wave. The song has never left my head.

“Until The Day Is Done” is a more familiar flavor of the band’s earnest political identity— it even ended up scoring a CNN-produced piece on environmental issues. The lyrics approach the first two verses of Leonard Cohen’s “Everybody Knows” in reflecting a distressing capitalist landscape, and to read them is to find that the “business-first flat earthers” have only doubled-down in the decade since the song was released. But the lack of idiosyncrasies leaves us with a folky protest song, and it has a tendency to become oatmeal to the ear, nestled amongst the bolder sonic moments.

By which I mean the muscular guitar sounds and fast n’ furious arrangements on tracks like “Man-Sized Wreath,” “Accelerate,” “Horse To Water”— the revitalized band blowing up the electronic, art school solemnity of the preceding Bill Berry-less records. I remember I once put on Accelerate during a day of recording drive-by b-roll footage with some new coworkers, who enthused, “We were a little worried when you said you were gonna play R.E.M…. but this is really good!” I just glided past the implied criticism and took the positive note.

In early 2011, songs for their follow-up began to be released on YouTube and rolled out by the pop culture press. I’ll admit I was underwhelmed by what I heard. Accelerate’s novelty, its flouting of the band’s cliches, had me expecting another quantum leap in a wild direction. Collapse Into Now (#201) was feeling more like a greatest hits mashup.

“Discoverer” at times sounds like an interpolation of “Man-Sized Wreath” (compare the chorus of the former to the verses of the latter.) That exultant wordless harmonizing on “It Happened Today” is straight from “Belong” on Out of Time (plus special guest Eddie Vedder.) “Blue,” the closing track, takes equal parts New Adventures’ “E-Bow The Letter” (dark grinding minor key, Beat poetry, plus Patti Smith-voiced chorus) and Out of Time's “Country Feedback” (the chords sound similar, and the aching Peter Buck solo is back). I’d never before been able to identify the sonic inspirations so easily. However, for all my creeping dissatisfaction, as a true fanboy I knew the record would grow on me. The prophecy was indeed fulfilled.

The song that most represented the sound of a modern-day R.E.M. was “Mine Smell Like Honey.” It was unmistakably them, with the inscrutable lyrics, Michael in gravel-throated rock mode, a Mike Mills vocal harmony line designed to carry its own trajectory while lifting up the chorus, Buck with an indelible riff that doesn’t show off for its own sake— but it would fit right on modern rock radio in 2011, if that still existed. I had another one of my Best Buy PA system epiphanies, clicking this track into place, proving sometimes you need some huge speakers with good bass to truly experience certain songs. In a similar mode, “That Someone Is You” rockets by in under 2 minutes; a live-in-the-room ode to the feeling of meeting that exciting new person who'll lift you out of the mud. 

The mid-tempo balladry is back as well, diversifying the sound from the previous release. In “Oh My Heart,” a direct sequel to “Houston,” Stipe croons a New Orleans spiritual with "a new take on faith," while Buck's mandolin comes out of retirement for another sweet, sad melody, and Mills fills in the mournful choir. As with the song’s predecessor, it’s a high-point in the track listing that moves me whenever I hear it.

Before I had warmed to Collapse Into Now, I comforted myself with the idea that New LP equaled New Tour. I could finally catch my favorite band live! They told the press they had no plans to tour behind the record. Odd, but they were an institution, so they could take a pause. I’d recently witnessed Paul McCartney tearing through his hits in person, and he’d already blown past age 64. Then in September 2011, R.E.M. announced they had decided to “call it a day as a band”— a phrase designed to wave away the idea of Beatles-esque acrimony. I was, you can probably imagine, more than a little heartbroken. The previous tour had come within 2-and-a-half hours of my town back in ’08. At that point in my life, that seemed like a hassle: why not wait, see if they made it a little closer next time? Now, I wish I had put in the extra effort.

With this announcement, the sense of Collapse as R.E.M.’s tribute album to themselves came into focus. Stipe is even waving goodbye, for god’s sake, on the first album cover photo to clearly feature the faces of the whole band since 1985’s Fables of the Reconstruction. "It's just like me to overstay my welcome, bless” he sings with sheepish glee on “All The Best.” Shrouded by the spirit-radio-filtered effect of his “Blue” recitation comes his clearest statement of purpose: "I want Whitman proud. Patti Lee proud. My brothers proud. My sisters proud. I want me. I want it all,” and then Patti Lee (Smith), one of his earliest lead singer inspirations, draws the narrative to a close… before the ringing jangle of opener “Discoverer” reprises and concludes. The book’s been closed shut… but the story of the band’s music continues.

There was the inevitable plundering of the vaults. An over-arching Best Of record, finally combining songs from the I.R.S. and WB catalogues (didn’t buy it), with 3 brand new recordings (they’re ok). Two digital-only “Complete Rarities” collections, encompassing hours of b-sides and soundtrack cuts (lotta great stuff, but this week WB removed all of theirs from Spotify, so I’m pretty perturbed).

In 2014, 3 years into my mourning period, they announced Unplugged 1991/2001 (#202), a 2-CD set of their appearances on the MTV show where bands play intimate, stripped-down acoustic sets… you know, in front of multiple TV cameras capturing every angle. Now this got me excited, maybe more than I had been for their swan song record— Bob Dylan Unplugged, Paul McCartney Unplugged, and The Unplugged Collection Vol. 1 had all got a lot of play in my home through the years. Other than my favorite version of “Half A World Away” closing out the Vol. 1 compilation, and a burned, hand-labeled CD-R I had once glimpsed on a coffee table during a realtor’s house tour, recordings of R.E.M.’s appearance on the show didn’t seem to exist until now. I pre-ordered that bad boy.

The set is a snapshot of two very different eras for the band: Disc 1 features them on the cusp of superstardom fueled by Out Of Time’s success, with the classic lineup of Berry/Buck/Mills/Stipe and support from Peter Holsapple. Disc 2 finds them down to a three-piece, supporting Reveal, a record that never got its due, with their frequent contributors Scott McCaughey and Joey Waronker filling out the sound. “Losing My Religion” is on both discs, of course, from the bright new hit that pumps up the crowd to a warmly-recieved old friend.

The treat in hearing these shows is also two-fold. There’s the way that familiar tunes get adapted to the setting: “It’s The End of the World...” is transformed into a Friday night Americana hoe-down, while “The One I Love” is slowed down to a gritty lament with a slightly varied vocal melody. After the 2nd chorus and an instrumental bridge in “Country Feedback,” Stipe folds lines from Dylan's “Like A Rolling Stone” into the tune, a goosebump-inspiring moment.

Then there’s the added benefit of songs that I’d once slept on revealing their power in the live arrangements. The 2001 show closes with several tracks from Reveal, and free of all electronic touches, the choruses of “Disappear” and “Beat A Drum,” well, revealed themselves to me, becoming new earworms and spawning a personal reevaluation of the album. “Find The River” had once been a pleasant-enough closer on Automatic For The People, but a step down from the iconic “Nightswimming” that precedes it. Now it’s a new favorite, and I’m prone to singing it loud with embarrassing over-earnestness.

With the band truly well and dissolved (and no cynical cash-grab “reunion tours” planned, those damn jerks and their integrity), the repackaging of older material is the only avenue left for unheard R.E.M. music. The studio albums are greeting their landmark anniversaries with special editions: Automatic’s 25th was recently celebrated with various configurations of physical release, including one with a disc of demos and a 5.1 surround sound Blu-ray that I WILL possess one day, damnit! Just this week, their social media team announced a sprawling set of BBC sessions and interviews, hopefully to be made available on streaming services in addition to the fancy 9-disc set (I know, sacrilege in my blog about physical media, but space is at a premium and I haven’t even COVERED the live DVDs and music video collections I already have of these guys).

There’s even a podcast exclusively about the band! The exceedingly silly interplay between Scott Aukerman and Adam Scott was enough to get me to listen to several eps of their previous U2-centric show (a band that I’m fairly positive towards), so "R U Talkin’ R.E.M. RE: ME?,” in which they go album-by-album through the discography, was appointment listening from the jump. I couldn’t help but sprinkle inside jokes from the podcast into my first entry. Fuckin’ stoked!

It’s hard to articulate how much R.E.M.’s music has meant to me. There’s undeniable power in finding art when you’re young and unsteady. To ally yourself with a favorite band, especially one that clearly creates from a place of conscience and empathy, is to find a solid stone floor that supports you when you’re at your most weighted down. It’s easy for me to hold onto nearly 2 dozen discs because there’s so much variety. They could uplift, interrogate the status quo, offer humor or succor or an outlet for the uncertainty we struggle with. Michael Stipe sang about identity, queerness, nature, hypocrisy, anger, tenderness, artists, politicians, outsiders, expressive freedom, and quiet contemplation. These lyrics came from what he saw and felt but they were conjured by the instrumentals constructed by Peter Buck, Mike Mills, and for years Bill Berry. Jangle-rock or country-western or chamber pop or folk or glam or electronica— they busted through genres with grace and power; immutability was not an option. They couldn’t finish a record until Michael had the words; Michael had their blueprint on tape to fill his ears until the images flowed.

“Here’s a little agit for the never believer / Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah / Here’s a little ghost for the offering,” Stipe sang in his 11th hour, one-take performance of “Man On The Moon.” Now I offer a 20-song Document of the R.E.M. songs that mean the most to me at this moment. It nearly killed me to whittle it down, and your favorite probably isn’t on it. The song I just quoted isn’t even on it! But that’s the power of R.E.M., where the subjective experience rules all.

[teacherintransition]

Plans for Life Change: Books to read, check; Paint, check; Travel ... uh travel?

Philosophers, intellectuals, humorists, writers the world over advocate the mind opening, enriching benefits of seeing the world ... ah, but 2020!

In 2013, my wife changed my life ... again, she has the habit of doing that. During that year, I was enduring year seven of a debilitating leg injury, I wasn’t painting, I wasn’t playing golf, not really reading, the guitar was gathering dust and I was putting on the weight. Any dreams or lofty goals were far on the back burner. One afternoon Kim came home from work and declared, “oh my god, we are going to Ireland!” The panic of the couch potato took hold and my response was limited to single word utterances, “ what ... how... when ... no... afford... us?” Ireland had been a dream of ours for years. Every time John Wayne’s “The Quiet Man” was on, we would stop what we were doing and get lost in the lush green and rolling hills of Eire’. We would laugh as we spoke to each other in really bad Irish accents and it was an evening well spent.

Now, here my wife barrels through the door and says with absolute authority that we are going to Ireland...what madness is this!? Without going into tremendous detail, my wife had treated the wife of an old college professor of mine who was mildly handicapped. Despite this, she and her husband managed to go yearly to Ireland regardless the obstacles. Kim replied, “one day ...,” and my professor said, “no, stop!” He shared with her a nugget of wisdom that has stayed with us to this day; he said, “Kim, if you wait until you have enough money or everything falls into place, ‘one day’ will never come... go.” Eight months later; my knee had been replaced, I was pain free and we were climbing the hills and exploring the castles of Ireland. We met fellow folks with wanderlust who became magnificent friends who we would continue to travel with throughout Europe every summer since our meeting. It wasn’t travel on the high end, nor was it travel on the extreme cheap, it was a series of adventures with close friends of like minds.

Every summer it was a time to recharge, to draw inspiration, to explore, to get lost in all that was around us. My views changed, my mindset changed, my heart changed and it became an almost addictive balm that soothed the wounds of everyday life. It became our life... Ireland, Scotland, France, Spain, Wales, England, Monaco, Italy in affordable, magical doses that we shared together and with friends every summer. I would return refreshed mentally and spiritually to a depth I didn’t understand until it was taken from us this year. It was a shock to our collective systems... we hadn’t fully comprehended how healing our travels had been to us in breaking free from the daily anxieties and stresses that weigh on our lives in ways we don’t fully understand. Worries clung a little tighter; problems were a little harder to shake off; I ran out of ideas for paintings; that little, secret smile that you share with your partner was harder to come across, the anticipation that kept you going ... didn’t, it felt like you had lost some sustenance that you couldn’t get and didn’t know when you could get it again. (Yikes ...I didn’t intend to make this a drug addiction analogy). This was a loss that we felt deep in our bones and the pain exacerbated by the unknown nature of a crisis we were helpless to combat.

It is my hope that this won’t be viewed by some as some kind of off the wall wail of despair... travel of any nature is a treasure that too many of us don’t avail ourselves. The quotes of the restorative and enlightening nature of travel are in abundance.

“Live your life by a compass, not a clock.” – Stephen Covey

“Nobody can discover the world for somebody else. Only when we discover it for ourselves does it become common ground and a common bond and we cease to be alone.” – Wendell Berry

“One’s destination is never a place, but a new way of seeing things.” – Henry Miller

“A mind that is stretched by a new experience can never go back to its old dimensions.” – Oliver Wendell Holmes

I could go on but the point is made I think; a willingness, a need to travel is a metaphor for an open mind... a breaking free of constraints often placed upon us by the fears of others. If you never break these constraints, you never know the peace of liberating yourself from living in a limited space in a world that was made to explore and to experience. Again, I’m not just referring to exotic adventures in exotic locations, wonderful though they may be, a simple road trip can break shackles and dispel fears. It’s not so much a literal breaking free as it is a breaking free into the world of ideas. It helps our minds become unencumbered by fear that is often a falsehood. A desire to travel is just one aspect of a liberated mind... it’s walking to the other side of the block, it’s trying the spicy order, it’s changing the music to another style, it’s zigging when everyone expected you to zag. The world is bigger ... your mind is expanded, and as Mr. Holmes said in the aforementioned quote, “you can never go back....”. I don’t want to ...

Yet, in apparent contradiction, I stand fearful that something may be lost forever because of our world’s current crisis. I can’t find inspiration for my art, a listless feeling permeates my mood, an anxiety that I might not see friends again fills my heart, the lessons that should have been learned from our travels seem obscured by mist. It is a worrisome time for us all. Since I started the blog, I’ve tried very hard to avoid the dark clouds that have come with this pandemic and political climate, I don’t need to be brought down and neither do any potential readers. While sharing with my brother how dissatisfied I was with my last few paintings, he asked why. Puzzle pieces starting falling into place as I told him that I usually had dozens of ideas floating around in my head after summer, hmmmmm...why would that be? It’s been tough to get myself out to maintain my daily walking goals, hmmmmm... why would that be? I started this change of life energized by a myriad of plans and projects and was doing great... my fuel tank was low ... we hadn’t been able to travel... we’d been restricted in our movements not by choice, but by circumstance and it was frightening.

There were lessons that should have been learned that apparently hadn’t taken root. Fear and anxiety are often unavoidable, but the self discovery and benefits of a road well traveled should combat them. I had failed to apply the lessons that came from seeing the world because I let their temporary (?) absence obscure the benefits they had provided. What can I say, a rookie mistake, it’s all going to be ok. Isn’t that what I was supposed to have learned by seeing different people and places? It will all be ok ... this is the truth that all the history and culture and locales were to have taught me. I’ve seen places that were millennia old and had seen severe suffering and strife and they were still there. I’m still here... my travels were teaching me still... the new way of seeing things as quoted above was in full affect. Rome, Nacogdoches, London, Lufkin, Barcelona, Beckville... the truth was there; it had never left.

I love talking about traveling and in my thinking, this may just be the first in a series of writings on how my wife, my friends and my adventures have made me a better person... not where I want to be, but at least able to persevere this difficult time.

http://labibliotecacoffee.com/

[onestowatch]

PREMIERE + Q&A: Saint Sinner Asserts Principles of Self- Acceptance & the Collective Experience in “Blood”

Down to the inherent contradiction in her name, Saint Sinner believes in maintaining a “beautiful balance” throughout all facets of life. Hence what led us to discovering her in the first place: an ear-catching, eclectic sound that spans from “jungle hop to wavy acoustic to psycho tropical.”

The latest in Saint Sinner’s anti-genre streak is “blood,” premiering today on Ones To Watch. The new track embodies the young artist’s powerful ethos, as she challenges the religious boundaries she grew up in while asserting a collective human bond symbolized by the contrast of blue and red blood. Airy, soothing vocals are set against percussion and bass-infused production – all products of Saint Sinner’s quest for spiritual and sonic balance.  

She shared on her mental process,

"‘Blood’ came at a time when I really needed someone to have my back. And it ended up being me. I was surrounded by religious people who had an idea of who I should be and what made me deserving of their definition of love. Eventually, I landed at ‘fuck you.’ And that's when 'blood' arrived. But it's not only that, it's also a call to similarity between us all. My blood is 1 part blue to 1 part red, and yours is too, whoever you are. So I guess it's a ‘Fuck you. But I won't stop loving you.’”

While she’s only been in the music game for about a year, the now multi-instrumentalist, producer, and vocalist is currently exploring her sonic palette in Southern California. As we can expect to hear the Saint Sinner a lot more this year and beyond, we're honored to introduce more on her background, sound, and goals in our exclusive Q&A below.

OTW: I read that you moved out of your parents’ home and started a completely new life when you were basically still a kid – tell us about that.

Saint Sinner: I have four older siblings. My parents moved around a lot when we were little, so we house-jumped all the time. I wasn’t an army brat or anything. They just liked to move around, fix the issues from the last house, and move into the new one. I just got fed up. There was no real big explosion of something that happened to move out, but I just think there were things that happened in my childhood that I had to address before I did anything like go to college or all the scenarios you think you’re going to do. I was like, I can’t focus on anything with my family here; it’s just kind of a mess right now. I have friends and friends’ parents who offered their homes to me, so I’m going to move out, and I moved to Oregon. I lived with a friend. I was there for about two years and graduated high school.

OTW: How did that affect you as a person?

Saint Sinner: It was the best thing ever. It was really great.

OTW: Where were you before that?

Saint Sinner: I was in Arizona. It was really good. I feel blessed to have older siblings because I got to learn a lot pretty quickly, and I got to grow up pretty quickly, so I felt ready. I didn’t feel like a kid leaving. I was 14, and I was definitely a kid, but I didn’t feel like a child. I definitely grew a lot, and I loved being in a different atmosphere. It’s beautiful in Oregon. There are lots of trees and snow, and I had never seen that before, and being able to experience that and all these different types of people was really cool. I love different types of people, and so to start that young and see all these walks of life was really cool. It was really mind opening.

OTW: Did you tell your parents, or did you just leave?

Saint Sinner: (laughs) Yeah, it was a conversation. I was going to go either way, but I told them. I was talking to my homie, and she was like, “Well come, I have an extra bedroom.” It was great.

OTW: Nice. How did that lead to South Africa?

Saint Sinner: I graduated high school and had all these scholarships for track and field, high jump, hurdles, and whatever. That sounded great, but I had no idea what I was going to do in college. I had no idea what I wanted to do and I loved everything. I just knew I had to do something else. I wasn’t going to go to college and spend all this money or time. Two to four years in the same place going to school...I was just done. I had skipped a few grades, and I was just done with school. Then I had found a random interest in surfing, and South Africa is legendary for surfing. I wanted to learn how to surf, and I ended up getting sponsored and teaching surfing and going on tour for contests, which was really fun. It was kind of like the other side of the world, and it was something completely new. I was young, and it sounded better than going to college. I was 16 when I graduated high school, so I wasn’t about to go to college. Like, what am I going to do? (laughs) Living in a dorm room right now sounds so boring.

OTW: So what was your experience there like, and how did that further shape you and your artistry?

Saint Sinner: That’s where I found music. I moved into a house with a couple other people, and there was a guitar there. I started playing, and I was like, “Oh, this is fun.” I learned how to play “Amazing Grace,” and it was the first song I ever learned how to play. It was like G-C-G-C the whole time, and it was so easy, but I have this little booklet of chords on the guitar, so I started there. Then I would look up jazz chords. It was all basically guitar books. I would learn my favorite songs and I would start to sing them over the guitar, and I was like, “Maybe I should try writing something.” It just came from there and just got better. I really could not sing as a kid, which was interesting. In elementary school, I was in the back of the school play. My brother tells me he remembers our teacher putting me in the back. That’s how bad I was. But I feel like it was a gift.

OTW: Interesting! So now you’re living L.A – are you feeling good or are you feeling like you need to leave somewhere again? (laughs)

Saint Sinner: (laughs) Probably. Give me three more months, and I’ll probably go somewhere else. No, it’s great. It’s really cool. You’re constantly surrounded by movement, and it’s super stimulating and inspiring. You can go home when you don’t want the noise, but you can go out and see people who are doing rad shit 24/7 and are doing it really well. It’s cool to have these standards. You live somewhere that’s not New York or L.A. for a little bit, and the standards are here. And then you come to a place like this, and it’s fast moving, and everyone’s doing amazing stuff, so your standard becomes higher too, which is really great.

OTW: So your name, Saint Sinner, is obviously contradictory. Where did that come from?

Saint Sinner: I was raised super religious, which I’m not right now. I consider myself spiritual, but definitely not religious. And I’m in love with a woman, and I discovered that, so the move to South Africa was kind of like, “I need figure out whatever this is and battle my own internal stuff with being raised to think this is so bad,” to being like, “I actually don’t believe that was something I was taught.” I’ve had so many people lay hands on me and be like, “I just know God has the right man for you,” and I’m like, “Okay cool, thank you.” All these people were like, “Sinner, sinner, sinner.” I’m really good at being a sinner, but I’m not even a sinner. It’s just a play on words. I also believe everything is in balance, and I’ve been given a voice that is super calming and can be peaceful for people, but I like to put it on top of hard bass and really in-your-face type of production, which is also a really beautiful balance. I think it’s just about contrast and balance.

OTW: The all-dreaded question: how would you define your sound? You’ve described it as “jungle-hop to wavy-acoustic to psycho-tropical?”

Saint Sinner: (laughs) That’s basically it.

OTW: Is that your own description?

Saint Sinner: It is. I have no idea. And I’ve sat down and need to decide because people ask me all the time. It’s just music, and I don’t know how to explain it. It kind of just hits all the genres in one. We have some instruments and elements of hip-hop and elements of acoustic, original vibes. I don’t know.

OTW: How did you land on this? 

Saint Sinner: My friend taught me how to produce, and that’s the greatest thing that ever happened to me musically. I was writing all my songs on the guitar or piano. I would take it to a friend who would produce, and it was good, but it wasn’t what I heard in my head. You can’t describe a sound. You can be like, “I want the snare to sound like this.” I learned how to produce about a year ago, and that was huge for me. “Lady” and “Alright” I produced, which was great. That was the first time I could feel from head to toe that those were my songs. I definitely am grateful for that. I have influences from every genre, which I also feel grateful for, because you get to pull from all these different places, and that’s what you are designed by.

OTW: How did your singing skills evolve?

Saint Sinner: It was fun. I just had songs that I liked. I loved Amy Winehouse. It was “Amazing Grace” and “Back to Black.” Those were the first two songs, and I played them for like six months, just those two songs over and over. Then you just practice. It’s muscle memory and developing and growing up. Even just as a human body, hormones and evolving—all this stuff, you just get used to it. It just got better with time.

OTW: What are you working on right now? What can we expect from you this year?

Saint Sinner: We’re releasing projects. 2018 is the big introduction to the world. We’re working on a project now that I’m super proud of and super excited to get out there. As soon as that happens, we’ll get out in the live scene and play live shows. I’m hoping to tour and whatever presents itself. We’re working on the music right now; music is the priority. We have four songs that I’m super stoked for, and that’ll be a little package we’ll be releasing.

OTW: Do you have an idea of what your ultimate goal or definition of success is?

Saint Sinner: I don’t know about that. When people come and see a live show, I don’t want it to feel like I’m standing on stage in a spotlight with everyone looking at me. I want it to feel like we’re all just there enjoying the music for what it is. I don’t feel like the music is mine. It’s a weird relationship I have with my music. I like to listen to it because I know it was a gift since it came so late in my life, and I want to just enjoy it with other people. When they come to a live show, I want it to just be like a house party in a huge stadium or wherever we are, just enjoying the music as it is. But I don’t know what my definition of success is as an artist. I think I already feel successful because I feel fully expressed. I can go to sleep at night and feel peace, and that’s all I can ask for because that’s my experience. I want other people to just enjoy it with me.

OTW: Agreed, it’s a collective experience? Where do you pull from for your fashion sense?

Saint Sinner: I love men’s fashion, and I love Japanese fashion. I really love Japanese menswear. It’s really cool—super layered, mostly black and white. They’re just so attentive to detail, which is really cool and something I’m still learning and learning about products. They put so much on, and yet it looks so simple. It’s really cool. They’re very not necessarily edgy, but they push boundaries within fashion, and I love that.

OTW: Who are your Ones To Watch artists? 

Saint Sinner: I love Archy Marshall (King Krule). He’s amazing. Låpsley is amazing. Glass Animals is amazing and doing really well, which is awesome. James Blake should be way bigger than he is, but I kind of love that he’s still just doing his thing, which is great. 

OTW: You’re just in the early stages of introducing yourself to world, so would you say you have a message for people who are just starting to discover you?

Saint Sinner: I’ve just been to so many concerts where I feel completely detached and bored. I think for me, the most important thing is to connect with people through music. It is a collective. We’re here all together. What you put in affects other people, like the butterfly effect. I want to start breaking the boundaries of distance between audience and performer and having music that’s a great song that can be a hit song on the radio, but it’s not written by any rule or book of rules. People have written “how to write a pop song,” “how to produce the perfect song.” We don’t make music like that. We make music in the moment. When I’m writing a song, it’s like a train, going, going, going. Then I step back and let the song be what it is and let it teach me something. I think it’s cool for people to go in and enjoy it. It’s not that big of a deal. I want people to take things a little less seriously, because I had to learn that. I just want people to have fun and enjoy the music as I do, and as I listen to other people’s music, it’s amazing. I don’t want it to be like, “Look at me.” We all wake up in the morning with puffy eyes. It’s just having fun.

[elaniadventuresinlondon]

Week 2: March 24-31

Meeting the body of believers

I didn’t know that the folks here weren’t plugged into a church body here. They have a “home church” model, however it’s not plugged into anything larger. Back then the lock down wasn’t enforced yet, so some folks showed up to “house church” in person while others showed up over zoom. (I’m using parenthesis on “house church” because things aren’t defined...yet)

Anyhoo, I was excited to meet the body of believers and experience how they do things here. I had a chance to introduce myself and to my joy, I actually knew like 3 other people from last year when I was here. (I actually forgot I was here last year at the exact same time!)

“And whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against anyone.”

During introductions I had a very rude encounter with someone on zoom who accused me of bringing corona over here after someone in the group coughed once. “Who coughed!? Wait someone over there coughed! Why did you come from America and bring corona here? Now we are all going to get it! How do you know Collin and Lyndsey? Why are you here?” No one stuck up for me but as I tried to stop the guy’s spewing mouth they just said “let the girl speak.” I was the token Asian girl, and completely understand the way people see Asians as bringing corona.

Lord take control of my tongue.

I was bombarded with questions and accusations from this dude and I tried my best to speak with faith but I was getting angry! And my anger turns into tears when I hold it back so I literally started crying in front of everyone. Ughh... what a lame introduction and first impression. I actually was so mad that I sat in the corner and pushed the computer away signaling to everyone “I’m done with you!” I was able to guard my tongue but not my emotions or thoughts.

“God, why didn’t you bring me here? To this? Wow Lord, this is not the kind of spiritual body I thought I’d be walking into. Is this who I’m supposed to run with in this season? This was not worth giving up my lease for and packing up, and taking risks for, etc etc”

My thoughts went on and on and I was “done with this.” I had massive judgements and my lens of discernment was on against everyone. Thankfully, Grace asked me privately if I would like to talk more about what just happened in another room. I knew that if I didn’t I would still and be mad the rest of the night. So I nodded yes. She empathized with me and asked me how I felt and I let it out. She then asked if we could pray together and also if I wanted to, to forgive that guy for the way he spoke.

As I was praying, God showed me a glimpse of that guy’s past and his heart and his fire and his giftings, and told me He’s working on him, and that while it’s not ok what he said, that this guy is going to be used mightily for His kingdom and he doesn’t want to lose him and to give him grace and forgive him. Grace covered me in prayer also. After praying I felt better and rejoined the group, just in time for communion. Collin had found a box of free fancy bread!

It was delicious bread. We spent some time praying for each other. It was a very organic time where it was clear there was no agenda but simply to break bread with one another and pray for each other.

Then Collin asks me if I’m still willing to lead worship, and I was down, but I felt like God asked me to worship publicly. So we all got our coats and walked to this awesome building nearby where it’s like a big empty hall. Keep in mind I haven’t led worship in a long long time and I haven’t practiced, but I really just wanted to encounter the Holy Spirit and I missed how thick His presence feels at the Ark.

A lady recorded us while worshipping and we prayed for her and her son. She stayed the entire time.

The lady then posts a 4 min edited version of our worship night on her Facebook feed and sends it to us. Praise the Lord!

Send me more intercessors

I asked God to send me more friends and specifically intercessors. People I could go to war with in the spirit. And literally a day after I prayed that I was walking by the canal and saw this girl trying to take a selfie. I jokingly said “would you like me to take your photo? I’m a professional.” She exuberantly said yea! And handed me her phone, not quite afraid of germs yet. She asks me if I’m American or Canadian lol, and asks me how long I’ve been here,etc. I end up telling her a brief testimony of why I came just last week to follow God’s voice here and that my heart is just to worhsip and pray for folks until God tells me more.

She gets really excited and says “no way! I was just walking up and down the canal interceeding for the boat community! Yea I was speaking in tongues and everything!”

Rosie went to Bethel’s SWM, plays keys, is into creative art expressions and plugs me into an intercession group here on WhatsApp. God answers prayers quick!!

She mentions a dude named Sean has a Kings Cross house of prayer here somewhere. So she gives him a call but no answer, so we hang out the rest of the day. Thank you Father for sending me friends who like to pray!

God sends me more friends

Collin and Lyndsey we’re leaving for their 5 year anniversary so I was going to by by myself for a week, so I asked God to send me more friends. People I could run with. And as Collin and Lund we’re going to the train stay they messaged us saying “there’s a guy at the station doing open air preaching and he’s pretty good! You should join him!”

So I literally run out the door with guitar in hand. I see him there preaching at the train station and it seems like no one is listening. I jump onto scene like a sidekick to a superhero and say “hi! I’ve come to join you!” Hahahahahah!! What a weirdo.

He says, “well alright, I was about to buy this man some food, but I’ll come back then. Maybe you can worship and intercede here.” Thankfully my friends Kenny and Grace were there so I had courage and did not feel like an idiot. I just worshipped and prayed, as they spoke to people coming up to us.

The preacher dude comes back, his name is Joshua, and he says how about you sing a few songs then I’ll preach? Ok! His preaching is good, in a calm, kind, Bristish accent tone. He seamlessly preaches about the last song we sang “Turn your eyes upon Jesus.” After he’s done preaching something came over me, and I start praying and interceeding, loudly! Oh dude it get ugly like tears and shouting, repenting loudly, on behalf of the people, asking God to heal our land and then I start to invite people to come and receive prayer if no one has prayed for you lately, if you have fear or anxiety or worry, or depression! If you want freedom and joy and peace, etc and surprisingly I open my eyes and there are 2 people there wanting prayer. We each take one and pray, and the dude I’m talking with really wants freedom from fear, and he’s so afraid of being sick. I share with him the good news that we need not fear sickness or even death because of Jesus Christ! He invites Jesus to be his Lord and Savior. We spend a good amount of time praying and declaring truths and he takes a bible and I feel he needs to keep reciting truths. He asks about church but now everything is online, and he needs a computer to join. He didn’t have one so I said God will be with you when you read His word.

I didn’t take a photo of any moments but Kenny had filmed some of the preacher dude before I got there, and he eventually makes this video:

https://vimeo.com/406276698

[persephonestourrp]

Lucy Quinn Fabray | April 30 | 26 | Dallas, TX | Guitar for The Sirens | Santana Lopez

[twitter bio here]

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@quinnfabray: 

♫ I used to hold my freak back ♫

Lucy Quinn Fabray was born to a life of which most people could only dream. The Fabray family was, after all, rich and beautiful. Her dad, Russell, was a partner of a major law firm in Dallas, Texas, and his wife, Judy, was the most beautiful woman in their country club, which was saying something. Of course, Lucy knew from a young age that their marriage was far from the picture perfect ideal they showed the rest of the world, but she also knew not to say that. The world didn’t need to know that Judy drank or that Russell worked mysteriously late hours some nights. It just wasn’t what good, Christian people like her family talked about. Ever.

Oh, and there was one more member of her family: her older sister Frannie.

Frannie...well, Frannie was nice, really, even if she initially resented Lucy for ruining her only child status. And Lucy has always loved her sister, but it was hard growing up as the younger Fabray. Everything Lucy did, Frannie did first, and due to the age difference, she was doing even more important things than her baby sister. When Lucy got straight check pluses in kindergarten, Frannie got elected president of her class. When Lucy had her first school dance in fifth grade, Frannie won Prom Queen. The only thing she ever got to do that Frannie did was band. Her school made everyone play an instrument or sing in fifth grade, a policy they started after Frannie had left. Lucy took a liking to it rather quickly and became fascinated by making music. She easily made first chair, but her parents weren’t really amazed by it, especially not with Frannie getting her Ivy League acceptances. It was a relief when Lucy started middle school and Frannie went to college (Harvard, of course), since at least she wouldn’t constantly be overshadowed.

The other thing that made being Frannie’s little sister hard was that she was...well, Lucy. While Frannie grew up slim and svelte and with naturally blonde hair, puberty turned Lucy into a brunette, chubby, glasses-wearing, awkward loser. At school, everyone called her “Lucy Caboosey” and she was constantly picked on. It made her develop a thick outer skin and made her start spending more time alone. She spent most of her free time playing her flute and reading books.

Eventually, Judy made Lucy sign up for dance classes and put her on a diet, since it seemed even a growth spurt didn’t help her lose weight. And somehow, that actually started to work. And as Lucy’s body trimmed down - and as she, frankly, got a bit obsessed with lowering that number on the scale - some of the teasing stopped. And for the first time, Lucy felt like she could actually be like the rest of her family. So after sixth grade, she started bleaching her hair and got contacts, and for her thirteenth birthday the next year, she begged and pleaded until her dad took her to a plastic surgeon and gave her a nose job. In eighth grade, she finally found the right medication to clear her skin. And for high school, Lucy got to transfer to a new school district and managed to convince her family, including her cousin Kitty Wilde, to call her by her middle name, Quinn.

The transformation was completed.

Quinn, of course, was totally different from Lucy at that point. Quinn still got straight As, of course, and still had parents who fought all the time, but she quit band and, instead, was the only freshman on the varsity cheerleading team. She was a Homecoming Princess, a member of the services club, and the founding member and president of the Celibacy Club. Quinn Fabray, after years of taunts and jeers thrown her way, was now the person throwing them, and Lucy Fabray was just a mere memory.

But at the end of her sophomore year, things collapsed.

Just a few months after Frannie’s perfect wedding, Russell ran off with his secretary, leaving Judy and Quinn alone with the house. She was his little girl, the apple of his eye, and yet he just left her, like it was so easy, like she wasn’t even worth staying around for. But that didn’t make sense. She was Quinn. She wasn’t Lucy. She was the perfect example of a Fabray. She had changed everything about herself to make her parents proud, to make him proud, and yet he still left. Quinn was devastated. 

To make matters worse, when her boyfriend (some football player she didn’t really even care about that much) comforted her, Quinn fell into bed with him in order to just stop thinking. That wasn’t the bad part, though. Well, yeah, he wasn’t that good and she didn’t really orgasm or anything, but that wasn’t what was bad. The bad part was when some girls at school spotted her buying Plan B the next day. No one believed Quinn’s insistence that it was her first time and that it was an accident; the whole school soon assumed the whole Chastity Princess deal had just been an act. Her reputation was ruined. Between her home just having her lush of a mom and her school full of kids calling her a slut, Quinn felt like she didn’t belong anywhere. The only person who seemed to still be there for her was Kitty, but she lived all the way in San Francisco.

So she spent a lot of time after that at church. Judy found a new one after the divorce to avoid judgment, and their new church had some college-aged youth minister who wanted to start a worship band. Since Quinn was there a lot, she figured she’d volunteer to at least sing back up or maybe set up instruments or find a way to play the flute, since she picked it back up (colleges loved musicians). But the minister ended up teaching her guitar. After a few months, she was confident enough to perform at the band’s first service. While her life had become a bit weird, she still felt some spiritual connection, and putting that in music was amazing.

Somehow that confidence spread throughout the rest of her, and she went back to school her junior year determined to do what Fabrays did best: win. So by the time she graduated, Quinn had become the captain of the cheerleading team, the founding member of the God Squad, president of National Honors Society, vice-president of the student body, and the school’s valedictorian, all while still playing Christian rock music in the basement of her church. Of course, her popularity never returned to her pre-Plan B level, and she never got that Homecoming or Prom Queen crown. Though that bothered her a bit (and she hated that it bothered her), Quinn was satisfied with her high school experience, but she was ready to get the hell out of Dallas.

She had applied almost exclusively to Ivies and a few other high profile schools. After some debate, she settled on going to one of her Ivy choices, Columbia University. If anything would be different from conservative Texas, it would be New York City.

♫ Now I’m letting go ♫

New York City turned out to be just what Quinn needed. Immediately upon moving into her dorm, Quinn found herself among people that were so unlike anyone she knew back home. All the women were defiant, worldly, and proud to be women. She ended up bonding with a lot of the women at Columbia’s sister school, Barnard, and took classes there when she could. Those classes introduced her to feminist texts from multiple points of view, all of them challenging her own feminist beliefs and developing her thoughts. She really lived up the college freshman experience that way, while doing other dumb freshman things, like experimenting with weird hair colors, cutting her hair, and getting piercings in places that weren’t her earlobes.

Of course, feminism and politics and hair colors weren’t the only thing Quinn experimented with. In yet another clichéd college experience, Quinn found herself kissing a girl and liking it. Really liking it. Kissing led to touching which led to clothes coming off and Quinn having her first real orgasm ever. And, okay, it freaked her out a little. Okay, a lot. But pieces of her life started to fall together as she realized that, holy shit, she was not straight. Those things she had thought and felt about other girls were not heterosexual. 

And while she wished she could say she took it in stride, she ended up feeling a lot of self loathing. She panicked and stopped talking to that girl, bleached her hair back to blonde, and tried to go back to “normal”. She couldn’t be gay or bi or anything because she was a Fabray and Fabrays are not gay. Quinn hated the whole Fabray brand, but if she wasn’t a Fabray, who the hell was she? And what would happen if her dad, who was paying her tuition to this very expensive school, ever found out? And was it wrong for her to want to still be on her dad’s good side despite the divorce and abandonment?

Quinn had a bit of a crisis and it got bad enough that she did another thing that wasn’t Fabray approved: therapy. Though it took a while for Quinn to open up, since she was a very private person, she eventually poured everything out to her doctor: how she felt inadequate compared to sister, how she always wanted her dad’s attention and how that possibly influenced her trying to get guys’ attention, how her mom drank, how she was attracted to girls...She told her therapist things that scared her and disgusted her about herself, and her therapist never even blinked. In fact, her therapist, while sympathetic, was direct about how she wasn’t completely alone. Through talking about it and realizing she was normal and not some freak of nature, Quinn started to get better. She let herself experiment more and focused on finding herself, not on living up to the last name she had. Of course, she was still stressing out a lot over school and needed some kind of release. So she may have slept with a few other girls to help, and maybe drank a bit too much and started to smoke. It wasn’t that bad, though, because she only smoked at parties. Or when she was really stressed.

What really got her interest, though, was a flyer for auditions for an all girl band. They needed a rhythm guitarist, and Quinn had honestly come to miss the confidence that came with playing live music. While she played a lot alone in her room, it was never the same as performing with a band. She probably wasn’t the best, but it was worth a shot, right?

She never expected to connect with the other girls as much as she did. After her audition, she talked with all of them and honestly felt connected to all of them right away. Marley Rose was sweet and funny, with this sassy side she loved. Kat Hummel was very similar, but also gushed with Quinn over her clothes and makeup. And Norah Puckerman...well, there was a connection there right away, and it wasn’t just a mental and emotional one.

The Sirens, the band name she suggested, quickly became her best form of release after hours of studying, and she also made some money with the gigs they kept getting. Eventually she graduated Bachelor of Arts in Women Studies a year before the rest of her band mates were scheduled to graduate. Quinn had planned on going straight to law school in the area in order to become an attorney focusing on women’s cases, but she ended up deferring her enrollment. After graduating summa cum laude, the idea of going straight to another intense program scared her. Also she honestly wasn’t sure she wanted to go to law school, either, not when the highlights of her days were writing and singing and hanging out with the other members of The Sirens.

Somehow she managed to get a job as a receptionist at a dental clinic, and it was enough to foot the bill for a studio apartment. It also provided some health insurance, which meant she could see her therapist for some sessions, though they weren’t as often as she liked. Still, Quinn was enjoying her life and truly felt like she was living the way she always wanted to.

Then Sabrina Smythe came to a show and things just got better.

Quinn threw herself into writing for the album, spending time at work writing out lyrics or coming up with chord progressions. Eventually she got to give her two weeks and, just a few weeks after she left, their first single came out to critical praise and commercial success, with the album following a similar fashion soon after. Now Quinn has an actual loving family with her bandmates and is successful and basically living the dream. She’s even started to accept her sexuality and came out to her bandmates (not that they were surprised, because, well, Norah, but more on that later) and even to Kitty.

But, of course, nothing’s perfect. And, even after years of therapy, Quinn still wants her family to approve of her, even though she still feels betrayed by her father. In order to do that, she’s a lot less honest to them than she is to her real family (her bandmates and Kitty). They don’t know about the little flask she keeps with her, the cigarettes she smokes when she’s stressed, and they definitely don’t know about her sexuality - or how she’s used it to her advantage in the past, but, again, more on that later. They see her tweets sometimes have Biblical captions and assume she’s spreading the good word. They assume she’s a virgin since, well, she hasn’t even dated a guy in years and only hangs out with girls (oops). For now, Quinn’s okay with that. After years of having to be the black sheep of the Fabray family as Lucy Q, Quinn is okay with pretending she’s still the perfect Fabray Girl™.

Oh, and that Lucy thing? Well, her bandmates know her real first name is Lucy, and she’s mentioned a few things about being a bit awkward and overweight as a kid. But Quinn’s not the most open person to begin with, even with her favorite people, so they don’t know the whole story. They don’t know how much she changed herself. They don’t know that the whole Quinn Fabray thing is someone she invented. They don’t know that they don’t know the real her.

They don’t know that she doesn’t really know who she is, either.

♫ I make my own choice ♫

Norah Puckerman: Norah’s like a cigarette; she provides physical release when Quinn’s stressed and Quinn has a hard time quitting. Quinn was automatically attracted to Norah from day one, and she could tell Norah felt the same way. After a few months in the band, a private rehearsal went from Norah helping Quinn on a fingering of a chord to Norah doing something much more pleasurable with those fingers. They constantly would resolve to stop, only to end up with the two of them stumbling to rehearsal together with mismatched buttons and messy hair. They managed to stop for a while when they started working on their debut album, but after the release and subsequent tour, weeks on the road brought them back to each other’s beds. Of course, it was clear from the get go that this was just about sex and desire, enough so they wrote a song about it. They finally stopped again, and the two have managed to get back to the “just friends” thing pretty easily. After all, they’ve always remained friends the whole time; they just don’t want to risk anything by feelings turning to more than friendly feelings. Quinn loves Norah with her whole heart and she knows the feeling’s mutual, but it’s for the good of the band...though they may have already slipped a few times before the tour has even started, though they’ve been better at keeping it a secret this time. And thank god Kat and Marley are going to help keep them separated on tour. 

Kat Hummel: Quinn truly admires Kat in several ways. Kat knows more about fashion and makeup than anyone and she can pick the perfect outfits for anyone’s style/body shape - and, god, don’t get Quinn started on her gift giving abilities. Not only that, but Kat is so confident in who she is that it’s insane. Quinn always felt like she had to be one way while growing up - hell, she still feels that way around her family - but Kat is always true to who she is and has even come out to the whole world with no problem. And while Quinn’s religious beliefs are a complicated subject on their own, Kat has always known what she’s believed in that area; they’ve actually had some interesting conversations on the subject. All of that and more are why Quinn’s glad that her cousin has bonded so much with Kat. Quinn has also received endless lectures on smoking and drinking from Kat, since she’s kind of the mother hen of the group. They’re annoying, though accurate and warranted.

Marley Rose: Ever since Quinn met Marley, she’s felt a bit protective over her. Yes, even before she knew about the eating disorder thing. Marley just gives off this sweet and kind vibe, and Quinn loves that about her. Of course, Quinn’s style of protection isn’t as intense as Norah and Kat’s, which is ridiculously suffocating. Seriously, how do they not realize how frustrated Marley is with them? Quinn’s kind of seen herself as the cool, older sister type with Marley, so she’s always felt protective in the sense that she wanted to be there when Marley got interested in things like drinking. She shouldn’t have to experience parties and the like alone. So now that Marley has said she wants to rebel a little, Quinn’s grinning from ear to ear. She’s more than happy to help her explore the world and get out of her comfort zone - and she’ll keep her safe while doing so. And now that Marley’s eating disorder seems to be affecting her again, Quinn can keep an eye on her without suffocating her, either. After all, Quinn knows what it’s like to hate your own body.

Kitty Wilde: Kitty is the only family member Quinn actually looks forward to seeing. While she feels a need to please her parents and sister, and while she loves her nieces, Kitty was always her favorite. They were as close as cousins who lived in different time zones could be. They’d see each other at least twice a year and spent several nights talking on the phone or instant messaging or texting. Kitty’s family was even super helpful during Quinn’s parents’ divorce, even thought Kitty’s mom is her dad’s sister, and Quinn was always there when Kitty needed to talk about the sexual assault she faced. So when Kitty sent Quinn some recordings of Divine Influence, Quinn was more than happy to pass the recordings to higher ups at the label. She’s thrilled for her cousin’s success and is excited to spend months with her on tour. However, she’s still nervous as to how Kitty will react to the “new” her, since once Quinn entered college they spent less time together. So they haven’t even spent much time together since Quinn came out to her. Kitty knows she’s into girls, but she doesn’t know about Norah or anyone else. Quinn’s afraid Kitty will be disappointed if she finds out about the meaningless hook-ups, not to mention the smoking and the feelings she’s developing for her best friend. And while Kitty has gotten used to calling her Quinn, at least in public, Quinn’s afraid of what name might slip out of Kitty’s mouth on accident - especially if it’s not just her name.

Rachel Berry: Quinn heard a lot about Rachel Berry growing up. She was Kitty’s best friend, after all, so Kitty talked about her on the phone or when she visited the Fabrays or when Quinn visited the Wildes. It took a while before Quinn ever met Rachel (sometime after she had become Quinn and wasn’t Lucy anymore) and, sure enough, she got why Kitty liked her. She was a good friend. While Quinn never bonded with her as much as she bonded with Kitty, they still had each other’s numbers and IM names and Facebook accounts. They would message or text from time to time. The fact that Rachel was the lead singer of Kitty’s band was just an added bonus, since it met they’d get to hang out some more, too. So, months ago, when Quinn heard hyperventilating in the bathroom and found Rachel, she immediately flew into action. She knew the signs of a panic attack all too well. They talked a lot and Quinn got her in contact with her therapist with Sabrina’s help. Rachel asked her to keep all of that a secret from Kitty, though Quinn hopes she can convince her to tell Kitty about it eventually...which is kind of hypocritical when she hasn’t told Kitty a lot of things. She’s actually told Rachel a lot of things that Kitty doesn’t know. She’s never been so open and vulnerable with someone as she’s been with Rachel. And the fact that Rachel’s smile makes her heart skip a beat really doesn’t help matters.

Fiona Hudson: Like all The Sirens, Quinn was invited to Carole and Burt’s wedding, and she met Fiona there, and she’s seen her a few other times when the band was in town or her family visited them elsewhere. And now Fiona’s playing drums for them on tour. It’s just kind of weird, because the four girls in the band are so close and even end their tour set with a song sung by just the four of them, and Fiona’s just...there. Quinn knows that Kat isn’t too fond of Fiona, even if Kat hides it behind jokes, and that was also why Quinn chose to house Fiona for the rehearsals in New York City. While Quinn only has a one-bedroom, she figured keeping her away from Kat and easing Kat into seeing her step-sister more often would be preferred for everyone. So Fiona’s graciously taken the couch and the two of them have started to talk more. It’s surprisingly nice, actually, having someone else there, and Fiona’s been extra nice to her because of it. Seeing as they could use an official drummer at some point, Quinn has to say that Fiona might end up being a good fit, at least if Kat gets on board with it.

Santana Lopez: Santana is someone Quinn’s known for a long time, as well as someone she’s known in the biblical sense. The two of them shared a class their freshman year at Columbia, and Santana...Santana was Quinn’s first. Well, technically only her first girl, but still her first. So, as mentioned before, after her first time with a girl, Quinn went into deep denial and self-loathing and pushed Santana as far away as she could. When Quinn started to accept herself, though, she never really talked to Santana again, only to have her show up as their new publicist...and it’s weird. Really weird. If Santana wasn’t acting so professional, Quinn would be afraid of what Santana would do to her career. She wants to apologize, but, really, it seems better to just, like, not bring it up. After all, Santana’s been with enough people that maybe she doesn’t really care? Maybe?

Sabrina Smythe: Quinn is truly grateful for Sabrina. Somehow Sabrina stumbled upon one of their shows and ended up changing their lives for good and for the better. Sabrina not only discovered them, but she truly launched their careers mostly from her own manipulation of the public eye. Quinn, a fairly good manipulator herself, can appreciate that. She also appreciates that she sets up her therapy appointments as well as Rachel’s. Sabrina also happens to be smart and a great person to talk to for some intellectual stimulation. Whenever they talk, however, Quinn can tell Sabrina is looking for a lot more than intellectual stimulation...and while Quinn has no interest and knows that Sabrina would flirt with a rock if it had boobs (she’s like Norah in that way, honestly), she doesn’t mind flirting with her to get an advantage. And if flirting with Sabrina helped get her cousin a record deal? Well, Quinn’s a-okay with that. It’s not like she promised her anything or slept with her for it, but using her sexuality to her advantage is totally cool.

Blair Anderson: Quinn and Blair hit it off ridiculously easy. Blair brought up going to Cornell and Quinn “joked” that it wasn’t a real Ivy. Thankfully Blair took it as a joke, or at least wasn’t offended, and the two have been getting along ever since. While Quinn can’t necessarily understand turning down an Ivy education, she’s enjoyed having Blair to talk about books and films with, and she finds her similar background with an overshadowing older sister interesting, too. She can definitely relate to feeling like a stranger in her family, and Quinn just finds her easy to talk to. Ridiculously easy, really. But seeing as it’s not hard to notice the animosity between Blair and Rachel, she’s not sure what to make of her just yet.

Jackie Puckerman: Honestly Quinn has enough drama to deal with that she hasn’t thought much about Jackie at all. The two haven’t talked much, anyways. In a lot of ways, Jackie just reminds her of a younger version of Norah, and seeing how Jackie obviously looks up to her, it makes sense. But beyond that, she hasn’t put much thought into Jackie Williams and doesn’t necessarily plan on doing so unless she has to. She’s nice to her and Jackie seems nice back, and that’s about it since, again, it’s not like a mean thing or anything. Quinn just has enough to deal with.

Sam Evans: When Quinn found out Sam didn’t go to college, she was a bit shocked. In her mind, everyone should go to college and everyone deserves a right to an education. She even talked to Kitty about it to find out more, and Kitty mostly shrugged it off and said that Sam wasn’t confident about her abilities and she didn’t have the money. Since then, Quinn’s been very politely trying to correct Sam on grammar mistakes and trying to educate her as subtly as possible. What? All women should be smart, and while Quinn can’t replace a college degree, maybe she can inspire Sam to go after one in the future.

♫ Bitch, I run this show ♫

Do you plan on coming out publicly at some point in the future?

[answer here]

Do you regret changing from Lucy to Quinn?

[answer here]

JBI asks: Do you have any books or authors you want to recommend to your fans?

[answer here]

[scottstiles]

hi divvy! i know you are MAD right now, so don't answer this until you feel like it, but when you're ready i'd love to hear your thoughts on music on the sabbath and yom kippur! i love hearing you talk about jewish things tbh.

first off i’m so sorry i didn’t answer this whole time. it’s not that i was so mad (that came and went) but i did need a little distance from thinking about it and then i thought why not wait and see how the rest of the holiday goes before replying.

secondly oh my goodness i can’t believe you love hearing me talk about anything XD but it feels really nice that you enjoy my random outbursts about religion. i get that it must be weird for people (especially ones who know me irl) that i have this whole aspect of me that doesn’t fit at all with the way i present myself/live my life (for the most part- except the people who only know that part of me, of course, my students/congregation members etc). i have such a weird dual personality when it comes to this but anyway that is a HUGE can of beans for maybe another time.

but anyway here’s a bottom line about me to help us in this discussion about music on shabbat (im just gonna call it shabbat from here on cuz “the sabbath” is so weird for me to write for some reason) and holidays:

my elementary school was a secular zionist/traditional jewish day school. this might sound completely ridiculous so i’ll break it down- it wasn’t an orthodox place (girls and boys did everything together, nobody had to dress or act a certain way because of religion, and it was basically non-denominational so… secular), but it was traditional in the sense that we did morning prayers every day from the traditional (i guess u could call it orthodox) prayerbook, we learned Torah every day and everything to do with jewish traditions/ritual practices, learned about Israel, jewish history, etc. we, of course, studied all of the secular subjects (including french) at the same time. at the time i also went to a jewish summer camp from age 6-12, but it was more traditional and pretty jewish/israel intensive. we also prayed every day, observed shabbat in the orthodox sense (no electricity, no “work”, special activities, lots of food and rest), and even had special events on certain days like tisha b’av (the fast day commemorating the destruction of the temple), and maccabiah games at the end of the summer (like color war/olympics, but we had to talk hebrew the whole time or we lost points XD). my favorite part of camp was an event called ma’apilim, where the counselors would wake us up in the middle of the night and the entire camp would run through this simulation of the experience of the holocaust refugees being smuggled into palestine in the mid-40s. i can describe that whole experience for you in detail if you want but maybe not right now since i’ve rambled so much already.

SUFFICE TO SAY i grew up in a seriously jewish environment, but not a religious home. as a teenager i went to a jewish high school, though not at all as religious, and became active in my synagogue youth group. OH also, when i was 9, my parents switched us over to the reconstructionist synagogue (from a conservative one) so my sisters and i could have a real bat mitzvah (in orthodox and conservative shuls girls aren’t allowed to read from the Torah like boys do). so thru high school i was very involved in jewishy things and my synagogue, and i got really attached to reading Torah and the prayer service in my synagogue. my reason for emphasis is because, as i’ve said, i’d been exposed to the traditional prayer service for most of my life, but praying in this shul has always been a completely different experience.

in school and in camp, despite the traditional service (and separation of boys and girls, in camp only), i was always able to sing out loud as much as i wanted. but, traditionally, prayer is lead by an individual- the cantor- and the congregation (and the rabbi) only “participates” out loud in certain parts. that’s how it is in most synagogues in montreal except the temple and mine. in my shul, we’ve never had a cantor, and the entire service is basically communally led. our rabbi was also very special. our leader for 40 years, he was a pioneer in the reconstructionist movement, creating his own prayer book (not new prayers, just his own translation and commentary and additions) and passover haggadah. he wasn’t a singer, but he had a musical soul and when he led prayers it just moved me every time. the tunes for the prayers were sometimes the same as the traditional melody, and sometimes not. it always took me awhile to get used to new melodies or songs he would introduce (i’m so inflexible, what a shock), but i would always eventually suck it up. for him. basically for 25+ years i got used to doing things a certain way in my shul. i also watched through the years as new people came and left, including my entire generation (moved away/got married/not interested in synagogue), until the whole makeup of my shul was essentially completely different. but we’ve always had a few core members that stuck around, and the melodies have always remained. i was always proud to carry it on.

so, a little about the reconstructionist movement and synagogues in montreal. reconstructionism began post-holocaust when the founder, mordechai kaplan, realized how difficult it was becoming for people to continue to have faith in  religion after such trauma. people couldn’t connect, or didn’t want to be involved at all anymore. so the movement began as a place for these people, to maintain a connection to judaism without feeling the pressure of having to believe in god or accept all of the traditional tenets of the religion. this isn’t the same as reform, by the way, which a lot of people think is the only other denomination of judaism besides orthodox/conservative. i don’t wanna give a lesson on denominations rn, but basically reconstructionism is all about adapting and shaping judaism so that it can fit into your life and inform your values without infringing on however else you choose to live. okay all of that just to get to this motherfuckingpoint:

playing music on shabbat/(certain) holidays is part of the laws of shabbat, codified by rabbis during the temple period as part of the Talmud. these laws, which are basically a breakdown of all the things you cannot or must do on shabbat, are what is considered oral Torah, just as binding as the laws in the written Torah from moses. they had to break it down because “on the 7th day you must rest” isn’t exactly specific, so how can you know if you break the law? there are 39 things that are listed as “work” which you cannot do on shabbat. the two main reasons for not playing an instrument on shabbat are: the instrument might break and you might be tempted to fix it (and in so doing, do one of the 39 acts), and the fact that instruments were played in the Temple, and we’re not supposed to be doing anything they did in the Temple until we’ve built the new one (hence no more sacrifices even tho almost the entire book of leviticus deals with the priestly ritual laws).

okay so those are the rules. now, for me personally. what’s my problem? i’m a member at a reconstructionist synagogue, not an orthodox one. i’m not a religious person. i don’t keep the laws of shabbat on a regular basis. what. is. my. problem?

maybe i should have mentioned, along with my heavily traditionally influenced childhood, there was also a point in my life where i did decide to keep all the rules. for about 5 years in my mid twenties i became completely zealous when it came to the laws of shabbat/holidays (maybe cuz i was trying to get my jewish teaching career off the ground idek). i walked 45 minutes each way to shul. i even walked clear across town on saturdays to get to the theatre in time to meet my mom for the ballet at 8pm after sunset. i made them turn off the microphones if i was going to be on the bimah (pulpit) in shul. i was a bit insane, but nobody was offended and neither was i, i just tried it out and eventually decided it wasn’t for me.

i guess what i’m trying to say is that my problem with music in synagogue comes from a few places: 1- my “traditional/religious” brain saying NO it’s just NOT ALLOWED, IT’S TOO MUCH. YOU BREAK SO MANY RULES AS IT IS, and i guess that’s harder to turn off than i would like 2- the shul i grew up in and love was one where our collective voices were the instrument, and that alone has had a huge impact on my spiritual growth. i don’t like being drowned out (my own and other’s voices) when i’m praying. 3- while my rabbi occasionally would whip out the guitar, this new rabbi has it out every single shabbat. to me, prayer and ritual worship are not a performance. when i see someone on a “stage”- in this case the bimah- with an instrument, i’m in the mind frame of a concert, and all of my attention is focused on the musician. i just can’t pray like that. when i lived in nyc i worked at this huge reform synagogue that had like 5 rabbis and 3 cantors and every friday night service was like a broadway spectacle with a full orchestra and choir and what not. it was beautiful, but i couldn’t concentrate on the praying. i don’t know how many people could. i understand that for most people music in itself is a spiritual experience, and that makes complete sense, but for me, my spiritual experience in synagogue is hearing voices in prayer.

i just realized i didn’t talk about yom kippur specifically. yk is one of the only times of the year that most jews in the world decide to do the exact same thing (the other is passover). jews who eat bacon every morning and work all day on saturday will put their lives aside and fast. most will even be in synagogue for kol nidre (the night before) or neilah (the night of), depending on your ethnic background (for ashkenazis the former is most important, for sephardim the latter). the main part of the kol nidre service (which is the beginning of yk), is the kol nidre prayer itself, which is supposed to be chanted 3 times, starting off soft and each time getting progressively louder. as a child i led the kol nidre service once in the conservative shul where we went, and it was unbelievable i’ll never forget it, so i’ve always had a special connection to this prayer and melody. in my current shul we’ve always had a choir, and a cantor, for the occasion, much like many traditional congregations do. i’ve never really liked it because i can’t sing aloud all three times, and therefore don’t feel the same connection to the prayer, but i dealt with it. bringing in an orchestra was just kinda a last straw i guess? i didn’t want to have to deal with all of that negative bitterness as i’m trying to ask god to nullify my vows so i can be clean again.

oy gevalt. this was an essay, and not a well thought out one at that. sorry :// my main point is, basically, that for me music on shabbat is complicated, and it’s not just about the law, because clearly i’m not a “follow every law” kinda person. i don’t feel like i fit into any particular jewish mold, thanks to my upbringing, and i can’t really connect to any of the denominations, so i pick and choose what’s meaningful to me. luckily i stuffed a lot of information into my brain (thank you mcgill jewish studies), and i feel more comfortable doing so than i might have in my youth because i actually know and understand my options. maybe i’m not the best jew i can be, but i’m trying to be the best divvy. :)

[vtruq]

My thoughts on things that are essential to me

For my future, I want to build my life around the voice from inside rather than the noise outside. I ended the last week's post with this sentence. And it raised the fundamental question behind all of this talking about essentialism and also this blog in general: What is essential to me?

Approach 1: Going through the twelve areas of life and writing whatever comes to my mind in the respective area. After that, review the results and see which area got the most attention and why. Finally decide what is essential.

Love Relationships Love and affection play a huge role in my life. I don´t want a girlfriend for the sake of having a girlfriend but I definitely miss someone around me. I wrote about a “perfect” week in ~5 or 10 years. This is the goal. I definitely see myself in a relationship. I am a peoples pleaser. Effortlessly I am making jokes to make everyone laugh. And so many thoughts that I want to share with someone. I can only be who I want to be with people around me. I need an audience.

Friendships Friendship and time with friends is something that I have had too little over the last couple of years. On the one hand, I want to be part of many nice memories in many people´s life. But on the other hand, I feel like I am burning time when meeting with friends sometimes. I feel like there is a very very limited number of people that give me energy back. I still need to find the balance here. But I guess this is something that just happens and I can´t plan that. I think minimalism/essentialism is going to help me a lot in terms of freeing time for these people and also for other friends/contacts. Over the last year, I developed a kind of anxiety whenever I meet an old friend or someone from my studies and it is time to say goodbye again. I think the anxiety stems from the fact that “everyone goes back to his/her own life” and I am not happy with mine currently. But once again it is just about me to make it better...

Adventures I have no problem to spend 400€ on a jacket or hoodie because I love fashion and craftsmanship. When it comes to vacation and especially holidays on my own I am always reluctant. I love to go out from time to time. But firstly, my focus is currently to build something and secondly, I only want to do holidays I really fancy doing; diving with amazing animals, water sport activities, learning to sail etc. These things cost money and I do not have it at the moment. I´d say it is important for me but I kind of want to invest the money also in other areas and there are travel destinations closer to my home, so it does not always have to be a crazy trip to India. As a “new years resolution” I want to spend at least 2 weeks in another country. Either on my own or preferably with friends. I think it is essential to free up time and experience something new. As Tim Ferris mentions it in “The 4 Hour Work Week” it does not cost a million and travelling is always a valuable thing to do.

Environment This is the quality of the general spaces where you spend your time. This is huge for me. The reason is that I am busy and this is not going to change in the future. I still want to achieve a lot. I just want to be happy with the things I do again and I want to be productive again. I want to have a home that is filled with self-build furniture, smells like I want it and just jells:” Come in feel home, feel loved”. I will spend a lot of time there. And even though I want to have a partner and more friends around than before, I still need a place I love to help me to overcome lonely moments. As mentioned many times before I value craftsmanship and valence a lot. One of the things I learned is that no matter if you only work 5 hours a day or 12, I come home and I am tired and exhausted. Thus I need things closeby - a lake or the sea to have a walk, waves or a gym to do some sports, mountains to calm down etc.

Community &contribution Currently, I do not have a core skill yet – or let's say I am still developing it. I try to give something back to the community as often as possible and I need to find a new extracurricular activity that is essential. But I think I need to develop much more as a professional person to achieve the contribution I want to. Still, I think this is one of the most important things in life. Give something back and be thankful for what you have and what happens or happened to you. I strongly believe that happiness is something one can never have on his/her own. Happiness is owned by two or more people as a group. I think that happiness is something one can never find but only give to others and therefore participate and be part of their happiness.

Family life Important when it comes to my own family/the family I am going to have. My current family is also important but differently. I don´t connect with cousins that well and I only stop by every once and again. It is nice to be home for Christmas, to hear what went on in their life. But after some time it is about the time to kick it. It is kind of the same feeling I have towards the end of my travels; that feeling of confidence and willingness to go back to “my life” and work on the stuff that I want again. Funny enough, travels and time with my family are the times when Piet comes around most often/ is almost always with me.

Creative Creative work is the reason why I started this blog. There is not that much to add to it. This might never get bigger than a hobby but I still need to pursue it.

Career The best question of the day. For the moment I think that the driver behind my actions is learning. To become the person I always wanted to be (charismatic and a leader/entrepreneur). My recent experience and failures give me the feeling that I chose the wrong path of studies and that I am competing in disciplines I will never master.  Hopefully, essentialism and the energy I source from it help me to fuel myself again and find my path...

Spiritual During my time here in India I learned a lot about my personal connection to God. I think it ties in with things like anxieties and the need&search for belongingness. I do not need to go to a church regularly or meditate every day. But whenever I do it feels good. It is one of the things that are very important/essential but it does not take much time, power or energy. My belief helps me to be more relaxed, to be generous to myself and others around me, to trust people and to be happier.

Skills that make you unique do you master them I want to learn many skills: become a bartender, a barrister, a sailer, a massage specialist, a fitness coach and a nutrition coach, a management coach, a musician and an entrepreneur. But I only want to master skills that lead to what I have been looking for such a long time – Charisma and a fulfilled and happy life. For now, I know that my strength is to read and to communicate with people and I have to find a way to leverage that.

Intellectual This has always been in me and goes hand in hand with my deepest motivation. The willingness to learn livelong. I want to be in a high-performance environment where people discuss issues, share the general interest in subjects such as politics etc.. I want to achieve a lot and by a lot I mean become a pro in what I am doing, love what I am doing and actually see a value for the society created by my work. Weirdly enough I have the feeling that the older I get the harder I need to leverage my “remaining young years” to learn as much as possible and to grow as a person. This train of thought ties in with my current belief that the “career race” is over once you started your first job. Which is, of course, flawed and wrong because “career” is nothing else but the professional part of self-fulfilment to me; still, I do have that believe because of peer pressure I feel.

Health and fitness Health and fitness is something that has always been with me. During my last year, I had very little time to work out and kind of lost the focus in my gym workouts. I wrote a whole article about this last week and I think the one thing I am thinking right now, that sports and good food will always be an essential part of my life. I need it to feel balanced and happy. And I think a good phenotype not only helps to be confident but also is a part of charisma for me. One specific goal until the end of this gap year is to beat my acne once and for all.

Approach 2: Ok the first approach did not lead anywhere. Now I want to use some lessons learned already to get somewhere:

Interests come and go in waves, and there are only very little things that stay with me, I want to be great in what I do and therefore I need passion, essentialism will be the constant challenge against myself of "I could have done more". Also knowing that I am not Elon Musk and that I am going to lose focus and myself and the quality of my work if I take on to many things.

Things that stay with me for a long time right now are my interests in psychology and communication, in charisma and power, in fashion and esthetic, and my interest in craftsmanship and the process of creation. Another vision I do have is one of me building my own furniture and living in a home where every detail is like I want it. A human-centred home. A place to feel home: many plants and flowers, old wooden floor, a piano and guitars, a huge sofa with space for everyone. Bandanas on the wall and warm light. A minimalistic office with a hammock. And a bedroom that makes everyone say "oh my god" Or "waaaaaow" as soon as they enter.

I want this to be mine. … Ok, screw anything that I have written so far in this article.

This blog is meant to be an open online diary. And I realised that the fact I had to sit down more than 5 times to continue writing on this article is probably a sort of cramping and shows that I am not happy with where this article went. I guess I have to write another article on my progress in essentialism somewhere in the future. Essentialism is just a term. I want to use it to overcome my “Youtube addiction”, to learn to balance free time and work time and to start projects I wanted to start for a long time. And don´t get me wrong it is totally fine to sprint from time to time and leaves the “rules” behind. I feel like I just need these guidelines at the moment to balance.

 But what is actually essentialism for me right now? I guess that it means that I have to set concrete and measurable rules of how many hours of the week I want to commit to what. These rules will also serve as a control indicator in the process. In a second step, I have to define my criteria to include/exclude options in my life. I guess these rules will in the first place be used to realise in which areas I do not want to accept follow up projects. But of course, it also helps to realise in which areas I should start to work. And for now, it ends there. I want to implement or redefine these steps first and apply them to my life. As McKeown describes it. Elimination and definition comes before execution. So let's start with this:

A rough time plan including buffering and time to play: The week has 168 hours of which I spend ~68h sleeping. So I am on my feet for 100 hours per week. Generally, I want to spend 60% of the time with work/ career stuff and 40% with “me time”. Another general consideration is that even though I already use Pi as a factor to plan for individual projects I also only plan for 95 hours of the week. It is just another control instance to not overwork and to not overload myself with projects. I have a problem to say f.e. the maximum number of projects is X. So I go by these buffer rules. So 95h -14h because Sunday is a full day (Sunday) to chill, to not do anything but enjoyable stuff like trips, spending time with friends, having a walk or journaling. It is important to have that day for quality time. To regularly ask myself where I am and where I want to go from here. Also, one day to spend time with friends and family or at least call many people. That leaves me with 81h. The 60% rule leaves me with 57 hours for work/ career stuff. Of course, this will not be true during exam periods but this is the rough guideline I am setting for now. Career stuff includes uni, studying, working and also seminars for my professional career. Thus I have 24 more hours to spend per week. 24 hours for “me stuff”. Which means work on projects that are important to me at the time. For example the fashion idea, my music, learning Spanish, also time to think about where I want to live in the future and how I want my life to be. Me time includes sports, music, building furniture with my uncle and time to visit and call friends and family. Overall that sounds reasonable. I guess what will stay with me is not more than 57h per week on work, at least one full day (Sunday I guess) per week off to reflect and 24 hours for my stuff and friends. Again: I don´t want to cramp on this concept – it is ok to sprint from time to time. This split just sounds reasonable to me right now to make sure I don´t burn out, don´t overload myself with projects or lose the balance between long and short term satisfaction things or lose focus. For at least 2 weeks a year, I want to go on vacation. See a new country, city or culture. Do things I love. Like diving, becoming a bartender, surfing, learning to sail etc. Just go out, ask people to join and make things that I fancy. This, of course, is related to creating financial buffering as well as time buffering. I guess for my further future I wish that I could spend 1 to 3 month a year in another place. That would be the ideal case to have a place to focus on work stuff and one place to primarily focus on “me stuff”. Bill Gates has his reading week with no internet or any connection to the world except for an emergency phone, somewhere in the mountains. If he can take the time to do that I can aswell.

The extreme criteria framework This uses the WIN-framework in it: What is Important Now? Here is my list of criteria that have to be fulfilled to 90 % or more to consider a new option. It is basically a checklist I want to use to put a structure to the question: Is this essential to me? Since I will mostly use this framework towards professional and extracurricular activities it is kind of targeted in that direction.

Does the opportunity offer a strong learning potential in a field I am interested in?

Offer a great opportunity to unfold my potential so that I can/will be as good as I want to be in anything I do?

Does this opportunity help me not only on the hard skill side (learning curve) but also, improve my soft skills (leadership skills and a mentoring model) and help me to get closer to my goal (=financial freedom, the fashion shop, coaching institute and C-level consulting, all with enough time for family&friends and my own projects (see time split above))? In other words: Does it offer strong opportunities to grow as a person?

Is it targeted towards my game plan (make a good living, work part-time and have my own business + fashion store/café on the side and still enough time for friends and family and hobbies)?

Do the people there fit with my personal style of living, being and working (professional but also a joke from time to time, travel and explore, entrepreneurial) and can I imagine having a very good time there? Is the boss nice (personally) and can I learn a lot from him? Is the vibe I am getting a good one?

Are the people like-minded? (entrepreneurial, nature and eco-friendly, love to explore and try out things, extroverted, open to new experience, sometimes creative)

Does it hold a chance to be/work in an environment I feel very happy and able to perform?

Do I think I can be as good as I want to be in everything I do?

Does it boost my career and provide me with new skills and abilities to be better at what I am doing?

Does it offer enough time to try out different things either at work or beside? (work-life balance)

Does it connect me with people I want to spend more time with or can help me to open new doors?

Does it make me happy on a daily based because it is fun to do it and I feel good about what I am doing?

Do I believe in it so much that I can be really passionate about it?

Does it help me in other projects I am facing or does it connect me with people who might help me?

Is the job in line with my location goals (= close to very nice nature: Lakes, mountains for hikes, the ocean or a sea to surf, sailor or dive or is the office at a very sunny place (not only in summer))?

Does the job offer the chance to work remotely?

Can I imagine settling in the environment for at least 2 years? Are there things closeby I enjoy? (=Environment, city I like and party life, likeminded people, nice music/art/comedy scene, close distances to work, the gym, the market etc.)

Can I adapt the timing and job schedule to my individual preference? And does it offer enough time for friends and family?

Does the opportunity have a sabbatical option?

Is the payment fair? Is it more than 50.000€ per year for not more than 57h but rather less?

Will it be an impossible challenge for me or doable to be a high achiever

Do I want the problems associated with this choice in my life? (The answer is no if I can think of 3 or more I do not want in my life)

18 of these 20 criteria have to be fulfilled as a rule of thumb. As mentioned in an earlier post the difficulty will be to not say “no” to early because you never know how it is until you are there. Anyway, I think this framework in mind combined with things that might come up over time (WIN-framework) will help me to ask the right questions to get an idea of how things are at the respective company/institution.

The things listed here are essential to me. Things might change a little bit over time but will most probably be constant because they represent the values I have been holding up all my life. I hope and I am confident that this will help to listen to the inner voice instead of the outer noise at any given time.

[xxjaytx87xx]

Better School Daze * I had been dating a girl that same year. I don’t know how I pulled that off, it just kind of happened. I’d bring my acoustic guitar to school and saw she could play too, so it went from there. But man, I was even timid around her. It took me forever to grow the guts to kiss her, much less, hold her hand. Everything was on her schedule because she had to make the first move, every time*. * I was the first in my group of friends to go all the way, sexually, though. So I had that going for me. It felt like real love at the time. I really thought I was (more on that later...).* * I was able to go to prom with her since she was a junior, while I was only a sophomore.* *This was another reason for my experimenting with alcohol. I’d be an idiot kid when it came to prom and the many after parties, if I had never drank before.* So there I was, sitting comfortably in World History, feeling beyond great. I could feel as though my eye lids were hanging on for the dear lives. They descended into two slits in the middle of my face, while my mouth was gaping and giggling. Who knows what was so damn funny, I just had to laugh. I had taken about five swigs in a three-minute period. A tingling sensation grew in the back of my neck, as well as the top of my head. The rest of my body was numb, inside and out. Internally, my conscious revealed that I had just been reborn. I couldn’t remember who or what I used to be, only what I was now. I turned around to Sam, sitting behind me, and whispered, "Oh my God, getting drunk is awesome!” She glanced at me, lifted her eyebrows as high as they could go, surprised, exclaiming, “I know." All the while, nodding her head. I turned back around in my seat—a chair connected with half of a desk, instead of the full ones we had back in the middle school days. I wasn’t able to get that goofy grin off my face. I was permanently, The Joker from Batman. Sensations of confidence flowed through my body and soul like waves on a beach. Filling me with, what felt like, a new power. A secret that I had found. And it was all mine. I took another long swig from the bottle that was now half-full. I sat up a little and took a long look around the room at everybody. It was dark, but I could still see all their faces. Now, normally, I’d be thinking everybody was looking at me, judgingly; however, nobody was looking. Nobody was judging (except maybe Sam, who probably thought I was an idiot for drinking in class). This was what having no worries, no fears, and no inhibitions felt like. This was how I was supposed to be—without a care in the world. I didn’t care what others thought of me anymore. I was able to be my true self. It was an awesome thing our substitute put on some boring-ass movie, otherwise, I probably wouldn’t have had this spiritual and mental revelation. I put on my inconspicuous headphones—my desk was across the room from the teacher’s desk—and pressed play on my Disc-Man. It was a fast-paced punk band known as The Casualties. Their music was blaring inside my head. It seemed like my ears were bleeding. That felt impeccable. *I* felt impeccable. I wanted to jump out of my desk-chair and go wild. Dance in front of everyone like they weren’t watching, and who gives a damn if they were, too. I needed to keep myself hidden though—I still had that sense—so instead, I sat back and slunk down in my chair. Loving myself. Loving life. After all these tortuous years, I was finally comfortable in my own skin. I ended up killing the bottle by next period. * I gotta do this again.* ________________________________________ *Beep, bzzzz, beep, bzzzz, beep*— The radio clock read 5:00pm in digital, red numbers. Our time was up for this session. I turned to look at Gail— "Wow, there's so much more that I gotta tell you." "I'm sure there is. What a story, so far! I am very glad you had the courage to tell me certain things. Thank you. That was very brave of you," she said. I sat up, then glanced down at my black chucks, shaking my head, "that's funny. 'Cuz that is nothing compared to the rest." I looked at her, eyes up but my head down. She jotted down something on her clipboard. Maybe where I left off in the story, for when I'd see her next time. But I wasn't ready to end it there... "Can I at least finish the high school part? It won't take but a minute." She looked at the clock again and asked if I could make it quick. I nodded and began, again— "Ok, well... I ended up breaking up with that girl I was dating back then, after I went to prom with her and her friends twice. She was crushed, heartbroken. Didn't know that would come back and bite me in the ass later. "I started experimenting with pills which went great with alcohol. I remember in Geometry, feeling the Valium kick in with some vodka I drank earlier. As it kicked in, The Verve's "Bittersweet Symphony" started to play in my headphones. I slowly melted into my seat feeling pure ecstasy—until I later tried real X at a show, which was truly surreal. I loved X. Took it every time I had the chance. I didn't care for mushrooms or acid, though. I had had a bad trip when my parents weren't home and my buddy brought over a gallon-sized Zip-lock bag of shrooms, then told the five of us to eat up. I wish I knew how much I took 'cuz it was horrible, everybody went insane. I tried acid and found it a lot more smoother than caps (or shrooms), until I felt a sharp pain in my lower abdomen. It hurt so bad. I couldn't tell my parents because I thought it was from the acid. A day later, I couldn't bear the pain anymore so I eventually told my parents. They took me to the Emergency Care doctor who said I needed to be rushed to the hospital. My appendix had ruptured," I laugh, "a doctor in the E. R. told me I'd be dead, had I waited another day"— "Oh my god!" Gail stopped me. "Ok, this is becoming longer than a minute. Let me check to see where my next client is." "Sure thing, doll." *Every female nurse or counselor has been a victim of my charm*. After she picked up the phone and waited a few seconds, she started talking. I took glances around the room looking at the different furniture, pictures, and little knick-knacks she had. Of course, she had a full bookcase containing probably every textbook she bought for schooling and counseling. She had two different versions of the DSM, including the most recent one (DSM-IV, at the time). The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. It's used to categorize and determine a patient's diagnoses. It has a list of every single disorder or disease you can think of. If your therapist doesn't have one on their shelf, it's time to find another one. She hung up the phone after a minute and said her client was running a little late so I can continue if I want. "Of course I do. Quickly, though." I gestured my hands in a chop-chop motion. Then stuck out my index finger, rolling it. "I had a band back then, too, where I played drums. Sorta hippy jam band, but we had a decent following. It was right before our last show when my appendix flaked out on me, so we had to cancel the gig. I was super pissed. "So back in high school, I was always at school, high." *I laugh at my corny-ass joke. *"I was drinking everyday or getting tipsy, at the very least. Then I'd have a wicked hangover at the end of the day. That's when the drugs came in handy. I started doing cocaine at parties, then quickly, everywhere. As a senior, I'd sell key bumps to underclassmen for five bucks each. Stupid kids. Then we graduated. When I walked, tons of people cheered. The alcohol was my liquid courage throughout the years, which brought me out of my shell and into life. I became a popular guy, knowing almost everyone in my school and dated some very cute girls. On the other hand, I was becoming an alcoholic, though I didn't know it at the time. Even for graduation, I took some X and drank before our school-run grad party, afterwards. "Out of high school, nothing changed. I kept drinking. Blacking out became a routine thing for me. I felt like a detective the morning after, trying to figure out what I did the night before. I was constantly sneaking out of the house and fighting with my parents. They couldn't take much more of my destructive behavior, so we agreed that I go see a therapist. We tried to keep it a secret, but I didn't care, I was either drunk or high on something. Even when I met up with my new shrink. I could not talk to him unless I had drank beforehand. "This one time I had to pay a bum to get me a pint of whiskey, so I ended up being late. In his office, I would talk and talk and talk, usually about nothing, and always being a smart ass. This lasted a few months, until one day I could see and feel what the drugs and alcohol were doing to me. I had scars and bruises obscuring my pale skinny body. My parents then brought up rehab. Initially I said, "no, absolutely not!" "Until, I finally gave in and told my shrink that I was sick. His eyes were half-closed with his head resting on his hand when I said, 'I think I need help.' "He jumped up as if he'd been shocked by a taser. "Yes, yes, you think?" The expression on his face was of huge relief. I think he was tired of my blabbing and knew I drank every time I saw him. So he called my parents, who had already found a rehab, and two days later... I was off." I took a big breath in and slowly exhaled. "So then you went to rehab," said Gail, confirming. "Yep. The first one." I nodded. "Ok well, thank you for having the courage to tell me all this. I'll see you next week?" "Indeed. And that's when things get juicy."

[bthenoise]

Q&A: Aaron Gillespie Details The Almost’s Epic Return To Rock Music With First New Album In Six Years

It’s been 6 years, 4 months and 7 days since we’ve heard a new full-length album from The Almost. Thankfully, for all of us desperately awaiting a follow up to 2013′s Fear Inside Our Bones, that’s all about to change. 

Hitting stores and streaming services this morning, mastermind Aaron Gillespie has released a brand new album of open-minded, honest rock anthems fueled by his need for getting things off his chest.

“I think the best records come when you feel like you have something to say,” explains Gillespie, “and I just felt like I had something to say. So I started writing songs and I don't think I initially planned for it to be an Almost record or anything. Sometimes you just therapeutically or cathartically write songs, you know?”

Detailing more about his new Joshua Tree-influenced record Fear Caller, Gillespie told The Noise he was a little unsure about how many Almost fans were interested in hearing a new album.

“You know, you go to these Emo Nite things and you're the old guy. Then you go on tour with Korn and Alice in Chains like we did this summer and we're the babies. So I feel like I'm in this weird limbo as a musician, a public musician if you will, where it's like, ‘Is anyone even going to remember this?’ So it was a really pleasant surprise to have people that are, like, stoked.”

To read more from the multi-talented musician, including the wild story behind Fear Caller’s artwork as well as the choice to cover U2′s “In God’s Country,” be sure to look below. Afterward, make sure to grab a copy of Fear Caller and pick up tickets to see The Almost out on tour as they plan to play 2008′s Southern Weather in full. 

At what point did you know you wanted to write another Almost record?

AARON GILLESPIE: I don't know that I did. I think the best records come when you feel like you have something to say and I just felt like I had something to say. So I started writing songs and I don't think I initially planned for it to be an Almost record or anything. Sometimes you just therapeutically or cathartically write songs, you know? We were home for a couple of months with Underoath and I was just going to my studio every day and writing a song. I do that for other people and for "work stuff” but I was like, recording these songs and I was just going every day and writing and I think probably five or six songs in I was like, “I should make an Almost record.” And then I did the whole battle where you're like, "What makes this an Almost record versus something else?" But I always loved the vibe of that band and what it stood for and so we just made the record and it kind of just happened. I made it in six days in a house in the desert. It's a really kind of thrown together thing. I feel good about it though. I feel like the songs are pretty revealing for me. And I didn't do the whole, "I'm trying to make this type of song or that." I just kind of diarrhea-mouthed those songs out and I think that's why they feel the way that they do. So I'm pretty excited about it.

When you released “Chokehold” as your first new Almost single, was the reception what you were anticipating? 

I mean, more than I thought. You know, you go to these Emo Nite things and you're the old guy. Then you go on tour with Korn and Alice in Chains like we did this summer and we're the babies. So I feel like I'm in this weird limbo as a musician, a public musician if you will, where it's like, "Is anyone even going to remember this?" So it was a really pleasant surprise to have people that are, like, stoked. So I don't know, in 2019 it's hard to know what success means musically. And for me, it always just meant people singing along and getting something out of it. So I think [the album will] do that, but you don't know untill it comes out. People have loved the first three singles, I don't know how many [people] or how they remember it, but I'm stoked.

Talking about Emo Nite and all of the nostalgia The Almost represents for some people, on your upcoming tour, you'll be playing Southern Weather in full...

We might skip a song or two but we'll play 99% of it.

Who's going to play with you for those shows as far as your band goes?

A bunch of guys that actually work for Underoath. Our production manager is going to play drums. He's a hell of a drummer. My drum tech is going to play bass. And then I have a friend from Florida who's playing guitar. We're just doing a four-piece band this time not a five-piece band.

You've covered some classic rock/folk-type stuff in the past playing Tom Petty and artists like that. Are you planning to keep that going for this tour?

I don't really make setlists. For The Almost tour, we have a setlist now because I haven't played some of the songs in 10 years so you kind of have to. I haven't done any preparation yet but the other guys needed prep time. Other than that, I just fly. I'm one of those people that's like overly musically spontaneous. I'll hear something one day and I'm like, "I gotta figure that out" and I'll play it the next night. I guess for me, that's the outlet of what I get to do with my own stuff. With Underoath, there's a production. It's not calculated, but it's planned. 

Similar to when Underoath came back and played They're Only Chasing Safety and Define The Great Line, what has it been like for you personally to go back and revisit these Southern Weather songs?

Oh, it's funny because you're 23 and you're like, "What the hell?" Like, "Is that really how I felt about that?" I think the same thing all the time with Underoath though. When we did that tour playing They're Only Chasing Safety, I was like, "Oh my gosh." You know, you're 21 and you're like, "What am I even talking about?" You know, because it's things that you've already worked through and you've already figured out and you're over it. But you go back and sing it and to some people, you know, it’s still where they are. It still matters. So I think that’s what gives you the juice to do it as other people are still there. They're younger than you or they're older than you but they're still there. And that helps you sort of take ownership of it again.

The desert is a very big theme with Fear Caller. You went out to Joshua Tree to record it. Were there any spiritual experiences that Joshua Tree brought for this recording?

It's weird when you go somewhere like that. I went there years ago for vacation, like I just love the desert. I live in Utah on five acres out in the dirt and it's something that I like. And I had never been to Palm Springs or Joshua Tree and we actually went to Palm Springs to like a Hard Rock. I have a friend who is a talent manager for a Hard Rock. It's not there anymore. It's called something else but he still works there. But he had me and Spencer [Chamberlain] out to do some like commercial drops for him and then just gave us the penthouse for a week. And I was like, “This is really cool. I've [already] been in Palm Springs, it's hot as shit. I want to see some stuff though.” So we got in a car and someone drove us out Joshua Tree and I had never been there. [Immeditely,] I was like, "This is my place, man. This is it." So I knew that I wanted to keep going back there and I knew that I wanted to make music there.

The thing about the desert is you just you get a sense that it never ends, especially out there. You get a feeling that it's just old. Like the people that lived there and like if you read old Louis L'Amour books -- I'm reading all that cowboys shit, you know. So like, it's super cool to go out there and kind of see it and just weird stuff happens out there. The reason the record is called what it is, the first day I was there (I go running every morning or ride a bike for a long way a couple hours a day) I got up one more morning to go running and there was a giant jackrabbit, like huge, two feet tall, and he just followed me on my route. It didn't spook, it was really strange. And then we got kicked out of the Airbnb for making noise even though they knew what we were doing. This is day one, we recorded the drums and the guitar to one song and I'm like, "Fuck." So we left. We had to pack up and I literally brought in a whole studio. So it took hours. Packed it all out, put it in a van and we were homeless. So everyone back in New York is making phone calls, we found another house and that's where we ended up making the record. But as we got to that house, I set up the vocal mic out of this living room window so I could see everything and there was that fucking rabbit, man. Or one that looked just like it. And every morning, there he was.

Then we went to a bar in this town in Joshua Tree called Pioneertown, it was built in the 50s and 60s by like all the old cowboy movie guys. It's a set to a film for Clint Eastwood movies and stuff and they never tore it down. So hipsters kind of moved in and bought it and made clothing stores and record shops but there's still like no people there. There are no paved roads. And there's this bar that has been there forever. It's called Pappy and Harriet's. It's this famous thing and like live bands play there, semi-recently Paul McCartney showed up and played piano for an hour. Shit like that happens. It's just really weird. So we go there and there's a band playing. I don't remember who it was. And me and Matt [Squire, producer] are just having some drinks in the back and this guy, this like homeless dude, is just in a patio in the back with a rabbit on his head sitting there. So at this point, I'm like, “This is getting weird.” It's constant. I've never seen a jackrabbit out here and I've definitely never had it come this close. So we started looking into it and it's like a Native American totem for anxiety and creativity and it's kind of just who I am. And I see [the rabbit] everywhere now when I'm out in that part of the world, so lots of weird shit happens out there, man.

Being that writing and recording this album was pretty therapeutic for you, now that it's finished, how do you feel?

I haven't been able to feel any way because I've been so busy. You know that kind of happens in the music world where like, if you're a "professional musician" or whatever the hell that means, you're always doing [something]. Like I'm doing something today that has nothing to do with that. I'm kind of a compartmentalized person where I'm all the way here right now. Or if I'm working on someone else's song, I'm all the way there. So it's been hard. The records comes out [soon] and we don't tour until January, so I'm just sort of just like, I don't know. I don't even know what to think yet.

What are you most excited for people to hear on the record?

I'm still kind of precious in the sense that I like making whole packages, records as a whole. So I'm excited for people to sit down and listen to the journey of the whole thing. It's not conceptual or anything but I always felt like, in Underoath, we always spent so much time sequencing records and obviously, it's 2019 and we're in the age of Spotify and "tracks" but I'm just excited for people that do listen to the whole thing. I don't know how many people actually do that, but I'm excited for them to do so.

You chose to cover a U2 song from their Joshua Tree album, "In God's Country." It's an interesting choice considering how outspoken you've been about religion lately. What was behind you covering that song?

I mean to clear the slate, I don't have issues with God. I have issues with people. You know, I don't have any issues spiritually. I have issues religiously and socially, but I ain't got no issues spiritually. So I feel like that land and those expansive spaces and just that untouched country, that's God's business. You know, babies are God's business how they're formed in the womb. And for me, it just feels like that. You know, this record feels like it wasn't really my business. Not to say that God made a record but you know, it's not my business. It's God's country, you know?