Archive for the 'Emo' Category
By Your Powers Combined…
March 9
I am Captain Quitter!
God, I hate coming up with those fucking intro paragraphs. Next design won’t have those. Assuming there is a next design.
Yeah, I’m gonna pull a John Oxton. Well, not completely. I’m just feeling like I’m not doing something right. I don’t want to give up doing design or programming or anything like that, I don’t even think I want to give up blogging. At least not all the way.
Right now, I haven’t done real, serious design work in a year. In a few days, we’ll have left GTR a year ago, and I won’t have worked since. I did that little stint for Sproutit, but that was bullshit on both sides. All I’ve really done since then is learn a new language, write half a novel, and troubleshoot shit for Max and Ray. And I don’t want either of them to take this the wrong way. I love helping my friends and I consider the two of you to be some of the best designers and friends I’ve known. I just feel like I should be doing something else.
Kinda funny, huh? Burn out from not working.
I don’t plan to disappear, like I said. Manny and I have been talking about doing a podcast. I really want to do this, so that’s my first concern. I hope at least a few of you will listen to it. It’ll probably be a bunch of elitist punk/hardcore ramblings from us and then music you don’t like being screamed at you, but, still, give it a try.
I also want to get back to where I belong in design. I’ve always loved Photoshop, but now I find myself starting up Illustrator more and more often. I’m not an illustrator, never have been, never will be. My early design was all about music, too. Music was my muse, more or less. So I want to get back to doing some stuff like that. So, any bands need a web site?
Two other things that I want to deal with. The first is my newest NaNovel, The Lazarus Process. I need to finish it. Most of my life, I wanted to be a writer/poet. I kinda gave that up in high school when I really started learning how to do web design, and college squashed it further. I think this novel is a lot better than last year’s Rat and so I’d like to finish it. Maybe I can have it finished before the baby comes. I’m not going to rush, though.
Secondly, Webpen. It’s my first real, first big Ruby on Rails application. It’s not finished. Remember all that stuff you hear about how fast development with RoR is supposed to be? It is…to a certain point. Then it slows way down as you try to figure out how to do something. I just spent two days trying to get an optional third-party part to work, and I know Manny (who’s been helping me) has spent a few days trying to get one form widget to work like we want. The problem is a lack of specific documentation. That’s not my goal, though, to write docs. No, I just want to finish the damn thing. So, I plan on spending a good amount of time in TextMate to get it done.
I guess I’m not really quitting. Not in the traditional sense. Mostly I just mean that I’m not going to be looking for real work for awhile. I’m going to build my portfolio back up, finally decide which I want to do: design or programming, and get back to my roots. So, look for more music here, less blogging, and I dunno what else.
Motion City Soundtrack
November 18
Look at this! An MP3 actually gets uploaded for you to check out! OMG! Yep, and this is probably one that you’ve heard, if you have music tastes like mine. I’ve been listening to them while I write my NaNo, so I thought I’d share.
They’re not the most amazing band I’ve ever heard, but they have some fun quirks and the lyrics are fun. And, like I said, they’re helping me write, so that’s always the best aspect. Anyway, enough blabbering. Motion City Soundtrack is the band. These are the songs:
Fugazi
July 13
To make up for the last few weeks of no MP3s, I’m going to help educate Manny. He says he’s never heard Fugazi, so here are two of my favorite Fugazi songs.
The first is from their Repeater + 3 Songs album and is probably my favorite of their songs. The second is from 13 Songs. If you haven’t heard them, then listen. If you have heard them, listen anyway.
Addendum: Thanks Ray for catching that.
Ozma
April 3
An awesome band that I don’t think is with us any more. That’s always such a tragedy. Anyway, the band is Ozma and these two songs are off of their newest album, Spending Time on the Borderline. They’re an amazing emo-esque band. I say emo-esque because they’re very poppy and fun. Check ‘em out and write your Congress man or woman about reinstating this band.
Osker
December 12
I loved this band back in the day. I heard ‘em first on Punk-O-Rama vol. 3 and they were amazing. This is where emo came from, in part. The lyrics are always very personal with Osker and, though his voice can get annoying, the music feels somehow secondary. They broke up a few years ago, so don’t look for anything new, but they have two albums and they’re both worth having. Enjoy Alright
Saves The Day
November 29
A more-popular band than I usually feature, Saves The Day has been a favorite of mine for a long time. Off their new album, In Reverie, here’s Driving in the Dark