September 2006 Archives

i think i need a vacation
it has been almost a year since i left town for more than 1 or 2 days
for one thing, i have to finish this record i've been making in spare moments over the last year.
in spare moments between other, even more distracted moments.
its hard to focus and complete these 'songs' whose very core seems to be a lack of focus.
i get close up to them and suddenly lose my sense of direction.
things just get fuzzier and i get lost in all the sounds and layers of intent and its like it tricks me and hypnotizes me and shape shifts and i lose me objectivity.
the sounds on the tape are always the same but each time i come to them i am different and my feelings about my previous decisions sway drastically from moment to moment.
i AM getting there, though.
i've learned enough to know that you can never force the funk. so.
trying to be patient with myself while trying to motivate towards completion so i can put out a proper album and maybe even get the hell out of dodge for a minute.
these days its just work and endless hours staring at the computer in a daze and food and drinks and play a few shows here and there on weekends and hang with a few bros and a few special treats here and there
...and its all fine and good.
the home life is wonderful.
but something inside of me, perhaps triggered by the quick change of season - the wind and cloud where before there was just that torturous sun - yearns for the rapid disassociation of cross continental air travel.
watching my life shrink to ant-size as we ascend.
all the strings and habits and patterns dissolving as we drift skyward.
to open my eyes and in a whole new world.
time doesnt make sense to the body for a while, you get this existential vibe about the meaning of it all..
...ahhhh/// well.
portland, like anywhere any time, has shrunk down again around me.
maybe its the cloud cover or the general gauzy, bumbling vibe.
the general lack of focus that we all drink so much coffee in futile attempts to make up for.
i end up just getting more spaced out two hours later and then i cant get to sleep at night.
a vacation as an attempt to purify the mind and continue on in uninterrupted silence and acuity
developing life with some sense of platonic purpose that several maturing layers of self reflection and doubt wont let free.
oh to jibjab away with enthusiasm and that unbridled hope and ambition i see in even folks just a few years younger.
that beautiful, rosy-cheeked and unchecked eagerness.
the seeming purity of intent.
drag my lazy shadow over to some apartment in the big city left by a friend for me to look after the plants for a few weeks. a few hundred bucks and a portable recording set up. a journal to scribble in while on public transportation, listening to music sound so fresh and alive through the ear buds. much more meaningful with strangers and strange landscape passing by. a dream worth dreaming.

any and all bugskull recordings, on tape, cd, LP, 7 inch. through the years i've had most of their releases, but being that they were local and i thought that their records would always be around i did not hold onto anything. there was a tape on union pole or on their own little tape label. there was a split with quasi, another seven inch, the cd on road cone, snakland, distracted snowflake, soundtrack to that film, distracted snowflake volume 2 and meets the big white cloud.
at one point i found a whole box of their cd's at scrap. all sorts of road cone cd's for 25 cents each. pretty crazy. i bought as many as i could and gave them all away. oh well.

anyone in town have extra copies of any of this stuff? keep an eye out for me, would ya? they were the first band i saw when i moved to portland in 1994 as a 18 year old college freshman. it was a show at thee o aka "thee o hell". it was a sunday matinee show i saw a flyer on the window outside of ozone (back when they were across from powells and walked down to the 3pm show and there was no one there and they tripped out and made my brain melt. coming from my small home town of monterey, CA where any youthful rock and roll type show was something very very rare and very very special, it was crazy to think of these guys (who all seemed unattainably more cool and WAY older than me) playing sleepy weird jams to 3 or 4 people on a sunday afternoon at a little all ages punk venue. for a city to be so teeming with cool stuff that it would take that sort of thing for granted - it made a big impression on me. it was the moment i knew i was in love with portland and that i wanted to be a part of her culture. i had read about her big brown river, i had heard wind of "the x ray cafe" (which closed a few months before i actually got here, but soon morphed into thee O), i had visited while still in high school and i remember coming across the 1-5 bridge at night and seeing the little city hugging the river and all the shiny lights and all the rain soaked magic. but that show on that day - i think it did more to define my direction here in town than any other one thing.
so if you got some bugskull records lying around... hook a dog up, for old time's sake. i'll gladly trade for some "new skool" yarnlazer cd-r's or other turn-of-the-century goodies!

listen to this killer early 70's french prog jam! Lard Free: "Acide Framboise"

someone (freshoutmedia.com? anyone heard of it?) reviewed the songs on my myspace? so weird. seems like they like the songs, though!

so i jusst made a new yarnlazer website with new rob walmart cd and the ghosting bonecloud split and everything. let me know what you think, let me know if you find broken links.yeah................it only took me all day long!

heres a picture of some stuff

later!!!!!!!