Tired enough to have spelling problems

The other night Amber and I stayed up all night listening to all of our old lo-fi recordings from Toronto, which were of the first songs we had written together. We were delighted and inspired and upon all of this I think we are really beginning to lose the resentment we hold toward West Virginia, hippyism, and the way we used to be in general. I think that even though our style has evolved considerably we are once again seeing the value and wisdom in the people we once were.

Amber's birthday came and I bought her a vintage Fender Telecaster so that she may rock out on it instead of on her teleacoustic or folking on her full body acoustic. Amber also wrote a song yesterday and it was quite a bit like our earlier stuff, very folky and bright with a kind of carefree sound. We sat in the living room and jammed on it all afternoon.

I finished reading Kerouac's the Dharma Bums. I started out pretty indifferent toward it, but about halfway through I got in to it. There was a particular part near the end that referenced an old Chinese fable as depicted visually on several panels. Here's the gist of the fable: A young man leaving town, going out into the wild mountains, taming a bull and riding it, leaving the bull to meditate, then there is a blank panel, a panel with blossoms, and finally the man is old, fat and has returned from the mountains to town to drink and be merry. So he is actually leaving society to tame / ride his own mind and does so successfully, but upon doing so realizes he doesn't need to feel anxious, look for himself externally... he really doesn't need to do anything. He obtains 'nothing', and the blossoms come and he is happy and wise and old. I think this really stuck out to me because it reminded me quite a bit of the adventure Amber and I had with going to the mountains. I think really the beast to be tamed was our own anxiousness. We certainly came back with nothing, and I've been down some for the last couple months because I felt like I was just working all the time and not creating any, but I think the healing process is beginning and just as spring is coming I think the blossoms will come and Amber and I will be able to recognize the good that came out of the situation on all levels. I'm glad that we are finally finding peace with things again. :)

Tired now and must go to sleep. Peace to all.

New School

So, a new year and new ambitions. Amber is attending school and hopefully I will soon be doing the same. We've been working on some original material and getting a set together to start playing live with. I'm also super stoked about getting into doing house concerts. Glad to see a lot of hard work really taking shape. We've been putting a lot of planning and work in and it's really going somewhere. I notice that we're really meshing musically, and Amber is really coming forward with the lead vocals. I think we will have the website up in the next week or two :) Super exciting stuff!

Ooh: also getting a screen printer, so I can start printing some of my designs on a variety of surfaces; mainly t-shirts and bags. Between Amber and I we'll be able to design our entire wardrobes.

Anyways happy new year! Here's to all things new!

And A Good Day To You, Sir

So since july i got second job at a coffee shop, we went to new york, then i quit the second job and now we are both going to attend OSU in january for film studies.

Our trip to new york was fantastic. Not very relaxing, but full of excitement. We stayed at a pretty nice hotel near washington square park. we kind of hung out in greenwich village; coffee shop hopped; bar hopped. It was an awesome and inspiring time.

I think we are getting pretty super serious about all of our goals, I think we are tired of all the talk and anxious for the pursuit. Musically, we do have a show of our own lined up and so we are working madly on that. Our music has also undergone a major style change and so we are reworking a lot of things at the moment. all wonderful and exciting, and also sometime soon we will get a number of websites up, one for each of our artistic endaevors. the first up, more than likely to be for Evolu.

Also exciting: an awesome election day for us this year. everything from the local issues and races up to the senate, house, and governers went our way.

Well that's all for now.

Closing July

So July is closing up and our place is coming along quite nicely. We've been painting and creating so the place will have a real vintage victorian feel. We still are not quite settled in yet, so we haven't really been creating much lately, especially musically. That's actually ok though, because we have a lot of ideas, and we want to spend some time setting our place up to be a space for creating in. Somehow I couldn't figure out how to word that last sentence any better so I'll just leave it like that.

Home Sweet Home

Signed a lease Wednesday and now we are the proud new renters of an apartment not far from the one we left a year ago! We have the first floor and basement of an old victorian house- a step up from the attic of a victorian house! We are going to paint this coming week before we get any stuff moved in. I think we are only going to bring in a few things that we have used in the past: couch, stereo, kitchen appliances. We are going to try to get new stuff for a new start. Stuff that more accurately represents our personalities and styles now.

Bonnaroo 2006! Almost!!

So there is only one day left until we leave for bonnaroo! Bonnarooooo! We will be traveling in our (only) car of choice: Stella, the 196,000-mile-old '95 Avenger. We love you Stella!

Shows I'm most stoked about:

Bright Eyes
My Morning Jacket
Death Cab For Cutie
Radiohead
Blues Traveler
moe.
Be Your Own Pet
Artvandalay

...and also I'm very much looking forward to the Masquerade Ball.

Well, time to pack toilet paper and bottled water. We will be writing reviews of bonnaroo and I will photographing the happenings there as well. Check back here soon (shortly after we return) for lots of good stuff about bonnaroo, as well as the link to our review site where there will be not just lots of good stuff, but TONS of good stuff about bonnaroo!! (if you're NOT going this is your chance to get in on the excitement (and find out why you should go next year). If you ARE going, then check back and look for yourself in pictures of the crowd, read about our experience, and share yours! The forecast says it's going to be a hot hot weekend (about 90 everyday with little chance of rain!)

I think Bonnaroo is the perfect way to reset our lives into this new mode and I'm glad that we pulled it off this year. When we return, we will be hunting apartments in Columbus, OH just like last year after bonnaroo, but I think this year we will actually decide to take one. ;)

Waking Up

After another strange adventure with an abrupt end, we have landed back in Columbus, where we ran from almost a year ago. Some of the things we have seen and done were so surreal I almost wonder if they ever happened at all. No apartment yet, but we are both probably going right back to work where we were. It's sort of like we never left, but are waking up from a year long dream. Our journey taught us so much about ourselves and we've both done so much growing. I think we are ready to just stop roaming and start creating, at least for a while.

You know, it's strange to me to think that most people CANNOT pack up all of their belongings into a small car and change the entire direction of their life at the drop of a hat. That's kind of how we have become accustomed to living. It took maybe 3 hours to pack up all of our possessions into that car. It only took us about 2 minutes to reach the decision to, with not a lot of serious talk leading up to it. Sure, moments such as these are quite serious, but I think romanticizing them helps us get through. I suppose it's kind of my way of seeing the humor in it... Kind of.

So back to the good. We need to take all that we've learned and seen and experienced and use it! There are a lot of ideas zipping around between us, and I think that our band, Evolu is just about ready to work its way into the scene.

Best of all, our new chapter will sort of be kicked off with a trip to Bonnaroo! Despite the sudden change of residence/plans and the worse-than-typical poverty, we have managed to secure our most sacred holiday, and we will return from this one inspired, and ready, and glowing brighter than the sun does on the horizon. We are young and we are more motivated and more confident than ever, and our devotion to art and bohemian ideals is a mountain of its own. And of coarse, the world is a beautiful place!!

Down, Out and Up (a mountain)

Well after a good hike today amber and i are both feeling pretty depressed. It seems as though we are destined to be travellers for the rest of our days. Our restless souls cannot be tied to one place for too long. Whats worse? We really thought this time we found a place to call home- a place to stick around for a while, and some friends close enough to call a family. It may sound sudden, but it is certainly not. We have been supressing our unhappiness for a little while and trying to stay positive. Once the cracks in the illusion began to split though, we realized that we were merely outsiders and all of this time we have been supporting someone elses dream. I think that we really have a battle ahead of us, but how do we flee without burning this bridge?

Lately there has been some unspoken tension between us all and Lori confronted us about it all tonite. We explained that we've been feeling very homesick and that we also don't feel that we fit in well here. As much as we love the outdoors, camping, hiking, and nature, we are city people. We love the multicultural mix of people, the liberal ideas, the diversity in the city. We love taking long walks, chilling at coffee shops, being in the music and art scene. At first she seemed to understand, but by the end of the conversation I think she seemed more frustrated and defensive.

I guess the cards play out how they do no matter what you try to do to avoid it. I just hope its in the cards to survive this one and keep our friendships, because after all of the misadventures we've been through, it would at least be nice to take something with us, especially something as meaningful as a friendship. But it looks like it is out of our hands now. We can only be honest in saying that we belong in a city, not on a mountain, and if the people who asked us here cannot understand why we are not happy being here, then i don't suppose there is much we can do to make them understand.

Forget Smilefest, Go Bonnaroo!

Well our Smilefest photo and press passes eluded us so we are focusing all of our resources on Bonnaroo tickets. Bonnaroo is more our style anyways. We are still just a tad short on getting two tickets and without a steady source of income, we cannot guarantee that it will happen at all.

So far we have sold necklaces, shirts, and purses that Amber made, and homemade bumper stickers that I made, AND cleaned dorms at the folklife center to make the money we have. It is kind of cool knowing that selling artwork we created may get us such a cool experience. Better than it going to pay bills.

The mailout day for the tickets is june first. Thats two days from now, and we are 85 dollars short. After the 1st of June, they will continue to take orders until they sell out. I suspect they may sell out almost immediately. Bonnaroo is kind of like christmas to us, and i do believe our sanity may be at stake, so we are spending down to our last penny to get there. Last year's Bonnaroo was such a magical experience and I just can't imagine missing it this time around. We need some inspiration, and we REALLY need a reminder of who we are, especially right now.

Therefore it is absolutely of up-most importance that we find a way to Bonnaroo. Wish us luck. :)

Coffee and Cocoapuffs

Amber and I have been working quite a bit on our music the last couple days. We are in the process of writing 2 new songs and I think we are evolving quite a bit. We seem to be moving in the direction from our folkie soft-spoken coffee house songs to some more rythmic alternative stuff. Did a tarot card reading the other night. Interesting stuff, and always so right too. Well all the while, I thnk we know exactly what to do and how to do it. I think we need to start stepping up to the plate with our music, too. The plate is, after all, right in front of us.

Song of Creation

We were all up last night and early into the morning, creating this crazy music and with spoken parts over it. We recorded it and i think its like 30 minutes long. We drew pictures and wrote amazing stuff. I actually drew a picture of a giant wave coming up onto land near the mountains and under the sun, and then we read this afternoon that an 8.0 earthquake had happened in the south pacific early in the morning and there were supposed to be tsunami warnings out there.The last time one happened, Amber and I felt the energy from it beforehand also.

May Day

Yesterday was may day!
We went to a really cool may day event at this huge 400 acre commune about an hour away from us. They did the may pole dance and had a big feast, and then a bonfire. It was all very ceremonious and celebratory- and it was like completely stepping into another universe. The stars were so bright and amazing. We even saw some shooting stars and the energy of the evening was absolutely intense. I think we were in some kind of time lapse too, because it felt as if we were there for a long period of time, but it was only midnight when we left.

Earth Day 2006

Our earth day festival was a big success! It was amazingly cool and evidentally all the people who came had just the best time :D Things really started to take off near the later part of the evening, when tons of people started showing up. A lot of them came to do the all might open mic and camp out. It was originally supposed to rain and storm all day and magically it didn't rain at all... it was actually sunny and nice all day and relatively warm all night. Our stage looked awesome, the lights were cool, and those of us selling art made a little money to buy food with for the week ;) I think the coolest thing about the whole thing was knowing that we threw an event that people REALLY dug... especially all the open mic bands and the whole late night crowd of kids that came... and by the way there were some really talented kids playing that night. They were rocking out the folklife center until like 6 in the morning. It was all so fantastic.

What is even better: we get to do the open mic once a month all summer long- and a lot of people have already told us how excited they are to come to them all. There are so many interconnected things that can happen through all this too!

Well we have another vending opprotunity this weekend to sell some art, so back to creating it is!

5 in the morn

Wow is it really 5 in the morn?

The four of us had a crazy creative spurt tonight and stayed up writing
and playing music and expressing ideas. Meanwhile we have also been
each working on our art to sell at earth day. I think we are all delirius
(sp?) now and the creative / productive boom has wained down to short
lived bursts of action in between long periods of inactivity. Time for bed!

Good night!

Circus Day!

Going to see the circus today up in Charleston... lots of fun!

Arts conference went great, we impressed lots of folks, and
it was this whole big thing. We may get more grant money
than we know what to do with. Also have a consultant
from the National Endowment of the Artss coming down to
help us write grants. It's been a while since all this happened
so my tone/descriptiveness may not be as excited as it was
immediately after returning from the conference. :)

Our earth day festival is rapidly approaching and we've got some
cool stuff made; mostly amber. I made some bumper stickers
and I'm going to make some cards and matte some prints. She's
designed and hand-made several clothing and jewelry items
that we're very excited about!

Lori and Robert's band is taking off- they are booking up pretty
fast- all the way to the fall; playing all over the state :) I think theyve got
about 30 gigs booked for the next 3 months or so. I've been doing the
lights and sound for them and both amber and I have been sitting in
on stage occasionally, usually drumming and whatnot.

We went to a yoga class with Lori and Robert yesterday
morning. It was my first one. I felt more rested and revitalized
afterwards than i have in a long time.

Our building is coming along quite well and we can't
wait till its done!! It's going to be amazing-------
I'll miss the mountain house once we move in to
the building but i think the whole thing will be
so fantastic, and there will be so much space
and so many resources for creating art that
we won't dwell on missing the mountain house.

Thats all for now! Circus time!