#totally not me wanting an acoustic all our days

[pennylanefics]

Wedding in Italy - Jake Kiszka

a/n: i had a similar fic written for my universe but i didn’t want to share it, so i just wrote another fic based around the idea! :)

summary: you invite jake to a wedding in italy, but he finds it hard to keep his feelings for you in such a romantic setting

word count: ~3.8k

“Jacob!” You greet your close friend as you step into the studio, where him and the guys were spending the day. He invited you since you mentioned being bored and not having any plans after you met up with your best friend.

Which, led you to make a decision and give Jake some news that you were hoping he would love.

Your childhood best friend is getting married, and she has of course asked you to be her maid of honor as soon as she told you. It was something you two talked about ever since you were little, so you of course took her offer up.

She also let you know that the entire wedding party gets a plus one, and that it was going to be a destination wedding. In Italy. All expenses paid. And the only thing people would need to pay for is for any extra excursions they wish to take, like wineries or tourist attractions, and food of course.

But everything else, paid for. And she had to make comments about your current relationship status.

“If you’re not able to find a plus one, I know this perfect guy for you. He’s Ophelia’s brother, and she says he’s been single for a while now and looking for a relationship.”

“Ivy, I don’t need you setting me up with anyone. I have someone in mind, no need to worry.”

That’s how you found yourself at the studio with the guys, ready to ask Jake to travel to Italy with you. As friends. For a wedding.

“Hey! How’s it going?” He asks.

“Not bad. I’m glad I finally have a day to just relax and do nothing.”

“What were you meeting Ivy about?”

“Well, you know she’s getting married, I’m her maid of honor, so we just met up to discuss some more things about the wedding and whatnot.”

“Oh yeah? Is it a fun job?” You chuckle and plop on the couch next to Jake.

They had decided to take a break a couple minutes before you arrived, so Josh and Sam went out to get coffee for everyone while Danny stayed in the booth, playing around on the acoustic.

“It’s fun to an extent. Helping with the guest list is not, but getting to work on things like ordering flowers and finding the perfect aesthetics for everything is. Also, the perks of being in the wedding party. I have a plus one. And since I don’t have a partner, would you like to go with me?” Jake stares at you in surprise.

“You’d really ask a friend to go with you rather than finding an actual date?” You smack his chest playfully.

“I mean, I can totally find someone else to go to Italy with so-”

“Oh fuck yeah, I’ll go!” He cuts you off. You giggle after he interrupts you rather loudly and excitedly.

“Okay, good. Everything is paid for, the only thing we’d have to pay for out of our pockets is if we want to do any extra excursions or tourist-y things, and like food on those days outside of the wedding.”

“We’re definitely going to a winery, we have to. When we were in Italy on tour, we stopped at this beautiful one in Tuscany but I’m sure there are lots of others. What city is she getting married in?”

“Venice, on the terrace of a fancy hotel. The actual ceremony and reception will be on the rooftop.”

“Wow.”

“But I’ll text you all the details later, when it is, what time we have to be there, because I’m the maid of honor, it’ll be a couple days before, all of it.”

“Sounds wonderful, (Y/N). Thanks for inviting me, really.”

What you didn’t know was Danny was listening to the entire thing, and as soon as you left, he’d be talking to Jake about it.

Sure enough, a couple hours had passed and you were preparing to leave to head home for the night. As soon as your foot is out the door of the studio, Danny walks over to Jake.

“So…Italy? For a wedding?” Sam and Josh pick up on this conversation and become very nosy, joining in right away.

“Jake’s getting married in Italy?” Sam questions. Jake smacks his shoulder and sighs softly.

“(Y/N) invited me to Ivy’s wedding that’s in Italy. It’s nothing serious,” Jake brushes the topic off.

“Then why’d you agree to going?” Danny presses further.

“Because why would I turn down an all expenses paid trip to Italy. Plus, she needs a friend there.”

“And you invited her to a winery.”

Jake’s brothers perk up at this.

“You’re going to tell her your feelings, right?” Josh asks this time. Jake shrugs, staring down at his hands, twirling a pic between his fingers to distract himself.

“She invited me as a friend because she has no one else to go with.”

“Jake, she could have easily found another date, but she asked you. She’s giving you the opportunity to tell her how you feel in a very romantic setting. Take that opportunity.”

The months pass and your maid of honor duties continue, and before you know it, you and Jake are flying out of Nashville, down to Atlanta, and then over to Italy for the next few days.

“How fucking loaded is Ivy?” Jake curiously asks as you finally arrive at your hotel, Hotel Danieli, after a long flight. “First class tickets, fancy ass hotel, rooftop wedding, holy shit.”

You laugh and guide him over to the check-in, and soon, you are receiving your keys and heading up to your room on the eighth floor. Stepping into your room, Jake gasps once more.

“Jake, you’re acting like you haven’t stayed in super fancy hotels. You’re a rockstar.” He laughs and walks over to the window.

“We stay at regular hotels and stuff, nothing like this.” He opens the curtains to get a look at the view, and it’s a gorgeous one.

You have a perfect view of the canal and skyline, with a balcony to enjoy the views on, and you couldn’t even begin to imagine what the rooftop view would look like in a couple nights. The room was just as good as the view.

It was very fancy, almost like you were staying in Versailles. Totally not what you were expecting, since Ivy kept the hotel a secret from you, that being the one thing she wanted to surprise you with.

“Shall we go explore the city or take a nap?” Jake wonders.

“Exploring. I took a nap on the plane so I’m fine for now.”

The first day was wonderful. You and Jake explored the many museums and sights, even taking a canoe ride on the canal to get a beautiful view of the entire city. But you couldn’t be more happy to finally get back to the hotel and crawl right into bed after showering.

“Sorry it’s just one bed,” you say. “She wasn’t able to get many rooms that had two beds unless they were for parties of three or more.”

“That’s alright. It’s not like we haven’t slept in the same bed before.”

Right, we have. But not in Italy. In a fancy, romantic hotel. On a trip for a wedding that I invited you to as my date.

But things are fine. Jake sticks to his side while you lay on yours, facing the window, watching the lights of the city. Jake keeps his eyes on you, though. Watching the way your shoulders rise and fall with each breath you take. Imagining pulling you into his arms and just holding you close to his chest, whispering how long he has wanted this moment to happen.

But he doesn’t. He reaches out for you, his hand falling on the empty space between you on the king-sized bed, but he soon retracts his hand and turns on his left side to face the door.

The next couple days go very smoothly, much smoother than you were expecting. However, you could tell something was up with Jake.

The night before the wedding, the wedding party had a rehearsal dinner inside the hotel’s dining hall, and it was beautiful and going just as planned. But when you and Jake get back upstairs to settle down for the night, he’s rather quiet.

While you took a shower, he sat on the balcony and watched the sunset, playing on his phone, texting his brothers to update them on things. After exiting the shower, you crawl into bed, knowing that you have to get up early tomorrow to meet the bridal party on the 12th floor to get ready and prepare everything.

Jake comes back inside and sits at the desk, jotting something down on the notepad provided by the hotel. Just as you are close to falling asleep, Jake climbs into bed as well, although he tries to keep his distance from you.

You hear him sigh heavily, trying to stay as far on his side as possible. You flip around to face him, but keep your eyes closed, hoping that he would just turn around and pull you into his arms. He doesn’t. He stays put, his bare back facing you.

You open your eyes slightly just to take him in, and your heart soars. His skin looks so soft, all you want to do is reach out and caress it. But you stop yourself from doing so, and fall right asleep to the sound of his even breathing.

Jake was still asleep when you woke up the following morning, though that was to be expected. It was seven in the morning, and the actual wedding wasn’t until three, but Ivy wanted to take pictures and have everything ready and prepared for that time.

By the time three rolled around, you were exhausted, but more than happy to finally see Jake. He dressed very nice in a striped button-down shirt and black pants. His hair was perfectly done, as natural as it can be, but it was washed and blow-dryed, so it looks very nice.

As soon as his eyes take you in, he gasps, his eyebrows raising.

“Wow,” he manages to say, stepping closer to you. He takes ahold of your hand and spins you around to get a full view. “You look…incredible.”

The colors that Ivy had chosen for her wedding were burnt orange and champagne. The bridesmaids all had different style dresses in the same color. You picked out a gorgeous, one-shoulder dress, with rouching on the top, a silk belt wrapped around your waist, and the skirt flowing out around you just the perfect amount

“You look rather handsome as well, Jacob. You can clean up nice.” He fake laughs and shoves you playfully, but smiles, telling you that he wasn’t all that serious.

“You should go sit down, it should be starting soon.” Out of no where, he leans in and kisses your cheek softly, sending you into a full-on meltdown.

He doesn’t look back or say anything else, and your mind is racing.

DId he mean to do that? He’s never done it before, it’s not something that’s normal between the two of you, so why would he randomly do it now?

You push that aside for now and go stand with Ivy and the rest of the bridesmaids, taking your place alongside the best man to make your entrance.

The rest of the wedding goes as planned, though one thing you couldn’t ignore was Jake’s eyes on you the entire time. Sure, he drifted over to the bride and groom every once in a while, but he was so enamored by you, it was hard for him to look away; his mouth also remained slightly agape in awe.

Once the ceremony concluded, guests were guided to the ballroom inside for cocktail hour while the hotel staff set up the dinner tables for everyone in the same space. You caught Jake before he could get too far, though.

“She wants all the plus one’s to join photos,” you tell him.

“She does?” You nod and take his hand, bringing him to the area they had set up for professional photos and everything. “Why?”

“She said she wanted us to have nice photos with our dates,” you say, getting into the line that everyone was waiting in. “Afterwards, we’ll do just the wedding party and family, but this was easier than rounding everyone up after that. This way, you can just head straight to cocktail hour.”

Jake’s hand remains in yours, neither of you really wanting to let go. You enjoyed the confort and feel of his hand, something that was also new for the two of you. When it was your turn for photos, you stand right up against Jake’s side, his hand falling to your waist, or rather just a tad lower than that, as you smile for the camera.

“Alright, a silly one,” the photographer directs. Jake immediately wraps his arms around your body, your back colliding with his chest. Your hands fly up to his forearms and once again, he leans in and kisses your cheek, his long hair tickling your face in the process.

Your smile is huge and your laughter adds to the noise in the room, and this makes Jake smile even more as well. The both of you stumble off to the side and your laughter begins to die down some. You clear your throat to ease some of the tension that had set in as soon as things went quiet between the two of you.

“Um, well, I have to stay here for more photos so, uh, feel free to go get a drink and some appetizers.” Jake’s expression falters and he backs away a little, nodding curtly before turning around and walking away. Sighing, you watch him, wanting nothing more than to run after him and kiss him.

But your mind tells you not to, that he sees you as just a friend and nothing more, and that doing so would risk your friendship.

By the time dinner rolls around, you are starving and more than ready to finally sit and relax for a little while. There wasn’t a seating arrangement for dinner, so you and Jake sat next to the bride and groom, Jake on your right and Ivy on your left at the head of the table. Her husband sat across from you, and he and Jake conversed while you and Ivy talked.

The sun was starting to set just as everyone was finishing up dinner, and since it was growing colder, everyone began to move inside for the party time of the evening. There was a dance floor and DJ in the same room that cocktail hour was held in.

But you stayed put in your seat, taking in the beauty of Venice and the color changing sky.

“Hey,” Jake’s voice calls out, breaking you from your daze. Your head whips around to find him holding out a jacket for you. You hadn’t even noticed he left the table, let alone went down to your room for it.

“I figured you would want to stay out here and watch the sunset, but it’s getting a little chilly, so here.” You take it from him and smile, slipping it onto your shoulders.

He sits back down in his seat to join you, silence washing over the two of you. But when you feel Jake’s hand cautiously grab yours, you saw this as a perfect chance to talk things through.

“Jake? Is something…is it just me or…” You were struggling to form a coherent thought about this.

Jake’s eyebrows furrow in confusion as he stares at you. He admires you in the warm glow of the setting sun, a sight even more heavenly than the brilliant sky in front of him.

“I don’t know how you think of this, but all day you’ve been…affectionate and…well, just different. And I don’t know if I’m reading it wrong or you’re just being friendly and my mind is overthinking it, but…”

“(Y/N)?” Jake murmurs. He squeezes your hand as a way of comforting you, his eyes remaining on you. “You’re…you’re not overthinking it.”

You narrow your eyes at him as he is now the one to start struggling with what he wants to say.

“I-I’ve liked you for some time. Hell, I love you. You are so special to me and while I’m glad you asked me to come with you, it got me thinking how much I want this to be more. I want us to be more. I don’t want to just be your date because you don’t have a partner. I want to be your partner. I want you to be mine, and I want to be yours. I want to go through life with you as more than just friends. I was hoping this trip would help me get the courage to ask you, but I feared that I wouldn’t, so I just started sending you some signals in hopes that it might get your attention.”

“Jake, you’re stupid,” you tell him. This makes him laugh, though. “You really could have just told me.” He nods and reaches up to cradle your cheek with his free hand.

“I know. But how do I easily tell the most beautiful girl that I have ever laid eyes on that I love her, and not have any worry or doubt that she doesn’t feel the same way back?” For a split second, you notice his eyes quickly dart to your lips.

Smirking, you take matters into your own hands and lean forward to kiss him. Jake is caught off guard for a moment, but he quickly kisses you back with just as much passion.

“I love you too, Jakey. I was also hoping this trip could turn into something more.” A grin spreads across Jake’s face and he kisses you again, though much shorter and much softer this time.

“It definitely can, darling. Now, let’s go dance because a slow song just started.” Giggling, you stand, dropping his jacket onto the chair, and run straight into the ballroom, your shoes thankfully left behind as well. One of Jake’s hands goes right to your waist while the other holds yours up in a proper ballroom dance position.

Though your rhythm is slow, no rush, just swaying back and forth in a circle. Jake admires you once again, staring down at you with a love-drunk look in his eyes and a grin on his lips. But, staring at you isn’t enough.

Jake leans forward in the middle of the song, into your right shoulder and neck area that was exposed due to the one-shoulder style dress, and presses his lips to your warm skin. Your heart begins to race like crazy, and you can feel the blush rising in your body.

He places a line of kisses from the cap of your shoulder, all the way along your collarbone, and right into the dip where your neck and shoulder meet. Though he doesn’t stop there, and continues his kisses up your neck, placing them a few centimeters apart so he could get in as many kisses as he could.

He ends with a chaste kiss to your lips, after having gone over your jawline and cheek. By now, your face was on fire and your heart was beating out of your chest. Never, had anyone been so sweet and tender with their love for you.

This moment was so intimate, so personal, that you forget you are still at the wedding. You gaze up at Jake and caress his cheek with the hand that was resting on his shoulder.

“Wanna go back to the room?” You ask. He nods without a second thought, but before you do, you say goodbye to Ivy and a few others while Jake grabs his jacket. Upon entering, you immediately take a shower first, having sweat so much over the course of the day, and all you were looking forward to was cuddling up to Jake.

Finally.

After both of you showered and are dressed in your pajamas, you crawl into bed like you’ve done for the past couple days, however this time, Jake finally gets the courage to pull you into his arms and into his chest.

You let out a content sigh and curl into his body, his bare chest a comforting feeling, just like you imagined. You two have cuddled plenty of times, but this was much different. It was a difference that you welcomed.

“So, is it okay to say that we’re more than friends now?” You murmur into his neck. His chest rumbles with a light chuckle and you feel him press his lips to your forehead.

“I think so. What do you say about making our winery trip our first date?” Raising your head to look at him, you find that his eyes still hold the same look in them as they did on the terrace.

He truly does love you, and even if he can’t say it much with his words, he definitely shows it with his eyes. That’s one thing you loved about him.

“I would love that,” you grin. He leans forward to give you a sweet, lazy kiss. However, you deepen it a little bit, wanting more of the taste and feel of his lips.

The kiss turns into a rather heated make out, with you crawling on top of Jake’s body, straddling him, his hands grabbing ahold of your waist to steady you.

You cup his face in your hands, keeping him as close to you as you can. Just as your tongue swipes across his bottom lip, he groans and slightly shoves you back, sitting up while doing so.

Your face falls and immediately, you think you’ve done something wrong. So you try to climb off of him, but his hands keep you grounded.

“Baby, don’t move, it’s just…” he breathes out, attempting to catch his breath and calm his speeding heart.

“Jake, did I do something? Was that crossing a line? Or-“

Jake cuts you off by placing his finger to your lips, a lopsided smile on his face.

“No, you didn’t do anything wrong, I just need a moment,” he tells you. “I’ve always thought about kissing you and now that it’s happening, I don’t know how to…how to process it, I guess.”

You cradle his face, your thumbs running over the apple of his cheeks, your eyes raking over his face. The way his pink lips parted, short breaths escaping them, his eyes half lidded, still filled with adoration for you. His cheeks were tinted a dark pink, and his skin felt a little clammy.

From the spot on your hips, you could also feel his hands were shaking, so you move to grab them and hold them in yours, trying your best to calm him down.

Finally, he was coming back down, so you fell beside him and curled into his side.

“We don’t have to do anything more,” you let him know. His hand trails up and down your back, running under your shirt to feel your skin against his.

“I wanna make out with you, honey, don’t get me wrong,” Jake laughs, “just give me a moment to come to terms with the fact that I’m no longer dreaming.”

—

gvf taglist: @maud-gone @rhythm-of-space @streamingcolors-gvf @sunfl0wer-power

#jake kiszka #jake kiszka imagines #jake kiszka x reader #jake kiszka imagine #greta van fleet #gvf #greta van fleet imagines #gvf imagines #josh kiszka #danny wagner #sam kiszka #imagines #fanfiction #fanfic

[this-daydream-is-dangerous-13]

May 20th - date of significance? Yes.

Harry released Harry’s House on May 20, 2022. After waiting many months to release Fine Line on Blondie’s 30th birthday, and after writing the bulk of this album in mid 2020, we can assume he chose this date for a reason. Here’s my proposed reason why.

But first - this requires acknowledging that the official, public Haylor origin story of 2012 is incomplete. Yes, they met in late March, eventually took a break, and picked up again in the fall. But based on Harry’s random flights, their mutual habit of vanishing simultaneously (no photos, fan or otherwise) and the lyrical information they’ve disclosed over the years - there is way more to the story.

Let’s call May, June, and very July of that year the Cruel Summer of 2012.

A bunch of stuff likely seemed to have happened in early May (that’ll be a future post about how the Sweeran origin story is also contradictory). But here we are, mid May.

Taylor is living in LA and mostly in the studio. There’s a stretch mid-month where she seems to disappear. Recall - this is the summer where she rents the house in Hyannis Port for many months.

On May 20th, 5 boys and their crew are spotted at the airport in London, flying to Boston Logan to embark on a couple months touring/doing promo in North America. Take a look at young H:

He is CARRYING ON an acoustic guitar, which he can barely play, rather than sending it ahead with all their other instruments and luggage.

The band lands in Boston; 4 guys head to the Mohegan Sun in CT (where they will play a concert soon) and are photographed by fans. And this guy? Vanishes.

Recall the secret message for Everything Has Changed, which Taylor brought to Ed almost totally done for recording on May 27, 2012:

This song, if you’ll recall, talks of a green-eyed smiling man whose eyes “look like coming home”.

Red was finalized at the very beginning of June; Taylor met the Kennedy grandsons on July 4th weekend. The timing does not work, especially since it was recorded in late May (with pap photos of Taylor and Ed outside the Santa Monica studio that day).

But MORE that that, something else occurs that day. It’s described in a 2014 song by Alex and Sierra written by Harry, and outlined in greater detail by Taylor on folklore. It’s a day described in august:

And…ah…perhaps this was also the date for some of the other events described in august?

And lest you think the whole thing wasn’t significant to Harry…by May 27 or 28, the boy gets his second tattoo. It’s a small capital A on the inside of his left elbow, seen for the first time here:

In an interview given by the boys in early July, Harry is asked about the tattoo (which had been drawn by Zayn, our OG Haylor). I cannot link directly to the interview - search for One Direction Granada TV interview on YT. And at 2:30, Harry is asked the significance of the tattoo.

Harry: oh, it’s for my….ah…ah..it’s for me mum.

Boys: laugh heartily at him

Louis: No it’s not! No, it’s not! It’s for a mystery blond!!

Reader, recall that Blondie publishes all of her songs as Taylor A. Swift.

Ten years later, on May 20, 2022, Harry’s House is released.

And on May 20, 2023, during a rain show at Boston’s Gillette stadium, Taylor Swift tells the crowd “I’ve never been so happy in my life in all aspects of my life…my life finally feels like it makes sense.” And that she will play them “this song, which brings me a lot of happy memories”: Question…?

ETA: Want to know what his next two tattoos are? He has them in this late June photo

- the word “Hi” (“all I know is we said hello, and your eyes looks like coming home)

- the (misquoted) lyrics from Temper Trap’s Sweet Disposition, which happen to be the line which follows *the secret message for Treacherous*. Which he starts kissing while singing love songs starting the day after he gets the tattoo.

[gotham-ruaidh]

Little Bit Better Than I Used To Be

Catch up: Chapter 1 (Starry Eyes) || Chapter 2 (Save Our Souls) || Chapter 3 (Dancing On Glass)|| Chapter 4 (Merry-Go-Round)|| Backstage (1) || Backstage (2) || Chapter 5 (Danger)|| Backstage (3) || Chapter 6A (Love Walked In) || Chapter 6B (Without You) || Backstage (4) || Chapter 7 (Stick To Your Guns) || Chapter 8 (Time For Change) || Backstage (5) || Chapter 9 (Take Me To The Top) || Backstage (6) || Chapter 10 (Home Sweet Home) || Backstage (7) || Chapter 11a (Nightrain) || Chapter 11b (Nothing Else Matters) || Chapter 12a (Handle With Care) || Chapter 12b (I'm So Tired of Being Lonely) | Also posted at AO3

Chapter 13A: Angel

I want your love // Let's break the walls between us Don't make it tough // I'll put away my pride Enough's enough // I've suffered and I've seen the light

Baby, you're my angel // Come and save me tonight You're my angel // Come and make it alright

Soundtrack: “Angel,” Aerosmith, 1988 [click here to listen]

The Road

May 1988

Claire sipped her mug of oolong tea and kicked off her boots, nestling into the curve of the high-backed chair in the corner of the room, flipping through the latest issue of Time.

“…said when you asked me yesterday, I really want to keep the press at a minimum this tour.”

“And as I said when you told me that yesterday, this reporter is a straight shooter.” Colum Laird – Print’s new manager, all five feet of him – crossed his arms, face stern. “I’ve known him since my first tour with Zeppelin back in ’73. Met him on the Starship. We had a thing for the same groupie.”

Jamie sighed, not meeting Colum’s gaze in the reflection of what Claire teased him was the “movie star mirror” that she now realized was standard issue in all dressing rooms.

“Anyway – I know he’s a big fan of the band. I invited him to the show tonight, to hear the new stuff. The new songs are fucking great, Jamie – and you’re so smart to do the acoustic thing now, to test out the new stuff before going back into the studio for a proper record. You’ve done a grand total of one interview in the three weeks since we started this thing. And you kept the focus on the music, which I understand. But everyone wants to know the stories behind the music.”

“And as I told you yesterday, I don’t want to go into the detail. It’s private.” He was polite, but Claire knew him well enough – from three weeks spending every moment together, from hotel rooms to restaurants to the tour bus – to know when he became exasperated.

“You’re gonna have to do it eventually.”

Claire felt Jamie’s eyes on her – and looked up. His gaze held hers for a moment.

“I’ll talk all anybody wants to hear about addiction, and recovery, and sobriety. I’ll do that every day for the rest of my life, if people will hear me say it. But I’m not going to talk about my heart with some reporter that I don’t know, and who will only print what I say for the public to consume and throw away.”

Colum sat down in the empty chair next to Jamie’s, arms still crossed.  “One of the new songs is called ‘She’s My Addiction,’ Jamie. People will want to know who she is.”

Claire watched Jamie’s jaw clench. His eyes tore from hers to look straight on at Colum.

“She’s my heart, Colum. I shit you not, from the first moment I saw her at The Ridge, that was it for me. I knew I had to be in her life, somehow. She took me for who I am, and she didn’t care about all the bullshit that had got me there in the first place. She’s it. She’s my ride or die. And I’m terrified that one day she’ll just have enough of what my life is, and she’ll fly back to Boston, and that’ll be that.”

Her heart clenched – she wanted nothing more than to hold him close, in that moment.

“Colum, what Claire and I have is so fucking special. I don’t want to share it with anybody. Not this reporter, not my band, not even you. But I just did with you, and it was so fucking hard to do it, so that you can really understand.”

Colum ran his hands through his shoulder-length gray hair, a wide silver wedding band flashing. Claire wondered whether he’d made an honest woman of the Led Zep groupie.

“Just meet with him, Jamie,” Colum sighed. “The first chat can be what they call off the record. I can bring him here after the gig tonight. Just to get a feel for him. And if you don’t have a good feel, I’ll drop it. And he won’t screw us over in publishing something anyway.”

Jamie extended a hand to Claire – and immediately she padded over to him, socks whispering against the floor. She sat on the table in front of him, and his hand settled on her jean-clad knee.

“What do you think about it, Claire?”

She traced his eyebrows with her thumb, not caring about Colum just feet away from them. “I think you should talk to this reporter, Jamie, and you shouldn’t shut out any questions he asks. People need to know who you are now, and since I’m part of who you are now, that’s fair game.”

“I don’t want to expose you to all of the shit, Claire. Reporters and paps and fans.”

She smiled. “Both my eyes are wide open. I don’t care. People always appreciate honesty, and they can always smell bullshit. Be honest.”

He turned his face to kiss her palm. “They’ll dig up so much dirt on you.”

“What do I care? You know all of it already. It’s not like you’re spotless. And if I hadn’t fucked up my life so badly, I never would have met you.”

He huffed. Thought for a long moment.

“I’ll do it. But Colum, I have three conditions.”

Claire saw more than heard Colum’s sigh of relief. “Tell me.”

Jamie took Claire’s hand in his, kissing the inside of her wrist. “No questions about my prior manager – he’s a bloodsucker but he’s still powerful. I’m not going to air that dirty laundry.”

Colum nodded. “Fair. What else?”

“Claire has to be in the room when I talk to him.”

“Seems reasonable.”

“And, she can’t be named in the article. It’s inevitable that I’ll talk about her. People will figure out who she is soon enough. At least let me have a few more weeks until the tabloids figure out who she is.”

Colum stood and clapped Jamie on the shoulder. “Consider it done. I’ll bring him by after the show.” He glanced down at his watch. “Twenty minutes until curtain. You ready?”

“As I’ll ever be. And thank you.”

Colum nodded and slipped out of the room.

Jamie turned to face Claire, and she effortlessly slid onto his lap. He rested his head in the curve of her neck, nuzzling her collarbone, and she threaded her fingers through his hair.

“I can hear you thinking,” she said softly.

“I don’t want to burst our beautiful bubble,” he whispered.

“It’ll have to happen, Jamie.” She held him close, gently massaging his scalp. “Once you make the record, and once you go on a bigger tour. Easier for it to happen now, with someone who’s apparently got a good reputation. While we can control some of it.”

“And then the paps will camp out in front of your apartment. Mob you at the grocery store.”

She kissed the crown of his head. “I’ll deal with it.”

“Some tabloid will interview Frank. You know it’s coming.”

“I do. And those same reporters will find a dozen women you hooked up with after shows, all across the country. But it doesn’t matter.”

He kissed her neck. She shivered, and felt his smile.

They’d agreed to remain celibate until their wedding. It hadn’t been such a bad idea when they were still mostly apart – but these past three weeks on the road, sharing a bed in each hotel room, had put their resolve to the test.

“You’re right. We’re under no obligation to share more than we need to.”

She pulled back, and leaned down to kiss him.

“Finish getting ready. I’ll see you after the show.”

He darted in for a quick kiss. “Not if I see you first.”

#outlander #outlander fanfic #little bit better than i used to be #jamie and claire

[likeadevils]

2012 Lover Diaries Transcripts

Feb 2012

Holy Ground Lyrics

Mar 2, 2012- Perth, Australia

So here we are in Perth. It’s a beach town on the Indian Ocean and it’s beautiful. It’s 85º and sunny and yesterday I went to Cottesloe Beach – I’ve never seen water that crystal blue before. And white sand. There was this art festival going on, so there were all these sculptures set up on the beach. We laid our towels out and got tans and frolicked in the water. After our beach afternoon, we went to this restaurant right on the beach called Indiana. It was built in 1910 and looked like an old fancy hotel. It’s one of the most beautiful places I’ve been, with old world arches and moldings, antique tables and big french doors opening out to views of azure blue ocean. We sat there for hours drinking strawberry mojitos and eating calamari until I was so tired, I went back to my fluffy hotel bed and slept. I’ve been thinking a lot about getting older and relevancy and how all my heroes have ended up alone. I wrote a song on the plane ride from Sydney to Perth on the appalachian dulcimer I bought the day of my flight. I bought it because Joni played on most of her blue record. I taught myself to play ‘A Case of You.’ Anyway, I wrote a song on it called “Nothin New” and it’s about being scared of aging and things changing and losing what you have. It says “I’m getting older and less sure of what you like about me anyway.” And in the chorus it says “How can a person know everything at 18, and nothing at 22? And will you still want me … when I’m nothing new.” It’s a really vulnerable song, but I think it’s important to say.

Jun 10, 2012- Los Angeles, CA

I’ve been in the studio non stop. This week I was in with Max Martin and Johan Shellback, the guys I wrote ‘Getting Back Together’ with. The first day, I had to do this corporate performance for an arena full of managers. I played Love Story and Mean, solo acoustic and Justin Timberlake was MCing so he introduced me. Hilarious sense of humor. He was making the whole arena laugh. When I finished there, I got on the plane and this idea came to me “I don’t know about you, but I’m feeling 22.” I wrote the entire chorus on the plane ride to LA. When I landed, I went straight to the studio and played it for Max and Johan. They loved it. I was so excited. I wrote 22 about how much fun I’ve been having this summer and this year in general. It’s so carefree and sounds like a summer anthem. I was floating on a cloud after we wrote it. The next day I brought them a chorus called 'Trouble’ that’s about how I should’ve known what I was getting into. We came back to 'Trouble’ and it turned out to be absolutely amazing. It’s so edgy and unexpected. It’s almost dub step. My friends love that one the most. I love writing so much. It’s the only thing that makes total sense to me. If I missed a day in the studio, I’d be so mad at myself. God I’ve been having such a beautiful life lately. I can’t believe it. It’s like there’s magic in the air. Friday was my day off. I woke up and went hiking. Then went home and showered. painted my nails, daydreamed about our trip for 4th of July. Taylor

Oct 17, 2012- Los Angeles, CA

This Love lyrics

(2003 • 2004 • 2005 • 2006 • 2007 & 2008 • 2009 • 2010 • 2011 • 2012 • 2013 • 2014 • 2015 • 2016 & 2017)

#lover diaries* #note: dates and place names are from my notation not taylors #and i didnt transcribe the specific lyrics bc the formatting was giving me a headache #so go to taylorpictures.net if you want those

[louis-in-red]

I saw Louis in my city!!!

Ever since that boy stepped in Peru, Lima has been WAY TOO SUNNY for autumn/winter! Usually, Lima is very gray with minimun sunlight during this time of the year, but the sun really came out the days Louis was here, and I'm so happy because the city looked extra beautiful (he also stayed in one of the fanciest places in the city near the beach and the hotel had a pool so I hope he took advantage of it).

I couldn't get the day off yesterday because I was on holiday last week, so my chances of queuing early were none (I wasn't planing on going in the morning either way but I didn't want to go late). Because of work (adult life sucks) I arrived at the venue around 7pm (also the venue is far away from where I live, it took me an hour to get there), expecting everyone to already be inside because doors opened at 6pm, but I was surprised to see a very long long line that circled the Mall (the venue is inside a mega huge mall). I waited for my friends to arrived and we waited closed to the entrance until everybody got in, but after a while we realized it was better if we just queued😩. At the end we entered around 8:30pm when Sunroom was already playing so we missed the majority of their set. Since there was time till Louis started, I bought merch (the black t-shirt with the red eye) and then just waited with my friends for the concert to star 😄

He was late 😅 like for 10 minutes I think? but soon enough we saw the band getting on stage and the lights and We Made It started playing and then HE GOT ON STAGE and MY GOD!!!! I couldn't see him properly because I was almost in the back haha but the screens helped a lot!! (I saw jdelf🔪…) And I have to mention here how important and relevant was to start the concert with that song for us Peruvians because I know many Peruvians Louies fought very hard to have Louis here in our country which often is not included in tours 🥺. It was extra special and I was super emocional during that song. The energy in the venue was great since the start, specially during the 1D songs... which tbh I didn't mind because I know the fanbase is still very much 1D focused, but they totally made the concert about HIM. I didn't see any signs about a 1D reunion or about any ship or any dolls that weren't Louis, at least in my section, and that made me so happy because I was quite scared since I know how popular that ship is here in Peru (someone even mentioned it in the news but I won't focus on that), and from the photos I've seen of the barricade, I think the focus all the time was on Louis, which is how it's supposed to be.

I was sort of surprised that many didn't know the lyrics of Change(s) or Copy, but then I realized maybe it's because most of the people around me seemed like casual fans (not very much invested in the personal life or obvs not into deep in the fandom as me haha) and maybe they didn't even watch any livestreams before. At the end I realized it didn't matter that not everyone sang the new songs, because when Louis asked us to scream we delivered. I was also a bit concerned about the outdoor venue because a close one helps with the acoustic of the screams and the noise (and I wanted us to be super loud), but the crowd really came through!!! like the energy was amazing, super fun and electric and you could tell everyone there loved Louis.

I have to mention how special hearing Change(s) felt this time, as well as DLIBYH. Mainly because for a while I was feeling a bit meh about many things, including my job and in times the fandom, like for a bit I was feeling way too many things and many aspects started to bothered me way more that they should... I'm rambling haha... I feel way better now, like I think I needed this leg of the tour to happen to feel this energy, to feel Louis close to us, and those two songs are just... so great 😭 so comforting. Even my friend who didn't listen to Change(s) before said it was the best song, lyrically and emotionally and that she can't wait for the next album to come out (honestly same haha).

Now... Michael... what the hell??!!! he is so HOT!!! playing his guitar, being all daddy on stage and then all shy when fans approach him in the streets. Like everyone was always screaming for him, specially me and my friends haha like the thirst for Mikey is real (Louis would approve, I know it). My friend already follows him on insta and says he is a hottie 🥵

I loved being there with one of my best friends! since I'm always second guessing everything I was thinking maybe she wasn't going to enjoy it that much since she isn't fan of Louis like me, but I was surprised to see that she knew every song in Walls and that she loved the concert and that now she is hopefully closer to being a Louie 🫢 The other friends I was with were also happy and jumping and singing at the top of their lungs, and they just made the whole experience a great one!! I felt so young again!!

Last but not least, experiencing this in my own country was extra especial and even though I wasn't anywhere near him as I was in Buenos Aires, this felt different because ... this is where I live, this is where I was born, where I've lived most of my life... Louis WAS HERE??? AND HE LOVED IT? HE KEPT SAYING "LIMA/PERU" AND MY HEART COULDN'T TAKE IT? LIKE HE WAS THE SWEETEST VOICE??!!! And he was so baby yesterday, clean shaved and in his baggy shirt and his almost tight black jeans, and he kept saying that he felt our love, that our country was beautiful and he just has my heart you know? he already had it but now he has it more 😩

So yeah... this was long and I could probably write more but I just want to close this by saying that every time I think I couldn't be more proud of Louis, he shows me that I can. Yesterday was magical, healing, lovely. I wish Louis the very best all the time, and I hope he knows, I hope he knows how much we love him and how much he deserves this because he does❤️

#my concert #louis en peru #ltwt22: lima

[aijamisespava]

Favorite Songs From Each Country! Part 4/37: Latvia!

Hello! I'm back with yet another addition to my series! So far, I'm glad to have worked on this every day so far and hope to keep it up (I'm saying this because I like having an intro and I'm posting a little later than usual because Saturdays have become busy when I'm at home).

So...yeah. I just write about my favorite song from each 2023 Participating Eurovision Country (from 2009 forward) and discuss the 2023 entry as well. I'm still debating on whether I want to do non-participating countries, but I guess we will see when the time comes since we have 33 countries still to cover after this. Most of my rankings are out of date, and who knows, maybe I'll even go back in time for future updates! Oh yeah, for some countries, their favorite entry IS their 2023 song...for that I just mention my previous favorite.

Let's get to the fun stuff! Our next country is...Latvia!

I feel like I have a weird connection to Latvia in Eurovision. It could be that the year they captured their first (and so far only) win was the same year I was born. And with that, the first Eurovision of my lifetime would have been held in Latvia (the contest was held in May and I was born in November). And they are one of those countries with a small yet interesting list of songs, from winner material to straight up guilty pleasures. *noting here that they get bonus points for naming their NF Supernova...I just love that name*

Favorite Entry: As I mentioned yesterday for my favorite Serbian entry, there are very few songs that I've had a "love at first listen" experience. And this year, Eurovision gave me 2 experiences in a little less than a month from each other. With that in mind, my favorite Latvian entry is 2023's "Aijā" by Sudden Lights. To me, that song is literal perfection. I had the same reaction to this song to my favorite song, which I can't reveal as the artist will be a spoiler for a country we have yet to cover. I kept a sort of "diary" of my first impressions of the songs as they came out instead of ranking them, and if I shared it, you would see me fall in total love with this song. The beginning sounds like a video game, the vocals are amazing, the ambiance is stunning! I was so heartbroken when I saw they didn't qualify! However, the only way to go now is to the top of my Spotify Wrapped at the end of the year so stay tuned! RANK: 11th in 2023 Semi-Final 1 (28th Overall)/PERSONAL RANK: 1st of 37 Countries *as if I didn't make that obvious haha* **also, I'm attaching the original version of the song, but I highly recommend the acoustic version too!**

Previous Favorite Entry: This is going to come off as the biggest generalization ever, but I think that my previous entry may be the most predictable for Latvia. From what I've seen of Latvia's songs in compilations, they provide an interesting palatte (as I mentioned earlier), but with the time frame I put, I don't think that it comes as a surprise that my previous favorite Latvian entry was Aminata's "Love Injected" from 2015. For one, 2015 is my favorite year in Eurovision. It had such a stacked set of songs, gave me one of my favorite artists of all time, and you'll probably see 2015 floating around this series a lot from now on. Now for Aminata. The song sounds very experimental, and it was an experiment that worked. And the way she hit the notes in the chorus was very well done. *Side note: I was rooting for her in 2022's Supernova, thinking that she could overtake herself.* RANK: 6th in 2015 Grand Final/PERSONAL RANK: 9th of 40 Countries

#esc #eurovision song contest #esc 2023 #eurovision #eurovision 2023 #latvia #aija #sudden lights #aminata #love injected #Spotify

[sinceileftyoublog]

of Montreal Interview: Making a Coherent Reality

Photo by Christina Schneider

BY JORDAN MAINZER

Like their most beloved albums, of Montreal’s 18th full-length Freewave Lucifer f<ck f​^​ck f>ck is a poppy, spritely record born out of a period of intense grief. Isolated, Kevin Barnes, the Athens, GA collective’s only consistent member throughout its history, decided to dive into free associational lyrics and washy and chopped sonic experiments as a way to process the death of both their mother and their dog, not to mention the collective trauma of the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Though 2020′s bright UR FUN was of Montreal’s most recent album for longtime label Polyvinyl, they self-released I Feel Safe With You, Trash in March 2021 on Bandcamp as part of the band’s Patreon. It’s the latter whose process and mindset became influential in the making of Freewave Lucifer f<ck f​^​ck f>ck. Barnes went into the studio and recorded a little bit each day, not trying to force any sort of aesthetic but making themselves work nonetheless. Naturally, some of the songs were inspired by what was going on in their life. “Marijuana’s a Working Woman”,  referring to Barnes’ choice to switch out alcohol and welcome weed during the pandemic, sports psychedelic funk and piano obscured by effects, a sonic manifestation of their newfound drug of choice. “Ofrenda-Flanger-Ego-à Gogo”, on the contrary, juxtaposes sparkling synthesizers with lilting acoustic guitars, two cleaner sounds. From dance tunes to baroque pop to brooding 80′s synth anthems, Freewave Lucifer f<ck f​^​ck f>ck covers a lot of ground but never strays from Barnes’ ethos of catharsis. 

Earlier this summer, I spoke with Barnes over the phone from their home in Athens about Freewave Lucifer f<ck f​^​ck f>ck’s free associational process, making political art, and being inspired by sci fi. Read our conversation below, edited for length and clarity.

Since I Left You: So many of the lyrics on Freewave Lucifer f<ck f^ck f>ck are free association. Do you find it easy or useful to look back and glean meaning from what came out, to pinpoint where things were coming from? Or do you let the lyrics be?

Kevin Barnes: It’s a combination of both. I realize I try to need to be coherent. Reality is totally incoherent, but we make it feel coherent because we have to. I realized that the same thing applies to art. You don’t really need to try to make it linear or sensible because people will connect the dots anyways, and they’ll do it in a more interesting way than if you said something really straightforward. That’s the way my mind works anyways: bouncing all over the place. It feels more natural and organic to write in a style that feels more abstract or like it has no meaning. It’s impossible to not have meaning, if that makes sense. It’s impossible to abstract something so much you can’t take anything from it.

SILY: How did these songs come about? Did you come up with the lyrics first and then the instrumentation?

KB: Some of the words had been written or started. I always keep a journal with lyrical ideas or any phrase that pops into my mind that has a rhythm to it I could sing. All of the music was created around the same time last year. I had just finished this double album I self-released on Bandcamp that I gave to our Patreon people. That was in the middle of the pandemic. I knew we wouldn’t be able to go on tour and thought it would be a cool way to add value to the Patreon thing. I hadn’t released a record in my own in a long time, and I wanted to try it. Polyvinyl then asked, “Ok, can you give us a record now?” I worked on it shortly after. I was still in the spirit of the last record, in the approach of not knowing what was gonna happen and experimenting in the studio every day. Not worrying so much about what was going to be the single. 

I just wanted to make music every day. I just wanted to make sounds. I didn’t want each day to feel like every other day. There’s something I read or heard recently that was like, “If you see a problem and work towards fixing a little bit every day...” and the problem for me was not having a record. So I had to work on it a bit every day. That’s why it feels musically composed, like maybe I’ve made this one-minute thing yesterday and today I don’t feel like taking a verse-chorus-verse approach to it. Each section has its own identity and personality, and the songs themselves contain a bunch of little sections I glued together.

SILY: The album still seems pretty cohesive, and the songs themselves have a lot of segues between them. How much of the final product resulted from you going back in and switching the order of the tracks or playing with how up front your vocals were in the mix?

KB: I think the whole process was just an experiment and playing around in the studio. Because I worked by myself and didn’t have any outside collaborators, I was able to completely become immersed in the project. I didn’t move parts around that much, but I would use what I did the day before as inspiration for the next day. I wasn’t trying to make something jarring where the songs would have extreme tempo or key changes. I didn’t have a vision necessarily, just more fucking around and being open to whatever sounds happen, while still trying to push myself to make more interesting creative decisions and try to create interesting sounds--more so than trying to create catchy or infectious things.

SILY: I wouldn’t say the aesthetic of the album is radically different from other albums you’ve made, but it definitely has a unique sound. Looking back, was there something you were influenced by that pushed you in an aesthetic direction?

KB: It has a sadness to it. My mom died last year. My dog also died, the dog I had for 15 years. COVID endlessly continuing. I was in a dark place. When I’m in that dark space, I try to escape through music, through a different realm and mind space that’s more positive or amputated from the sad reality. In a way, being able to make the record was a therapeutic experience for me. Sonically, my influences were really just everything I listened to in my life up until this point, and trying to imagine future sounds as well.

SILY: There are moments on the record, like on “Blab Sabbath Lathe of Maiden”, where it unexpectedly turns dancey. Did that process of change in the song mirror what you were feeling in terms of finding unexpected moments of happiness within grief?

KB: I had to generate it more because it wasn’t happening organically in my life. It’s something I’ve done a lot in the past, like on Hissing Fauna, Are You The Destroyer? There are songs that sound happy but are lyrically sad because of the pain I’m going through in my life that’s extreme. But instead of making minor key music that feels like a funeral, I decided to fight it by making something more positive, colorful, and uplifting. 

SILY: On “Après Thee Dèclassè”, you sing, “Logic is the enemy.” Is that the thesis statement of the record?

KB: That’s a reference to Trumpism/QAnon as well: “Even love has cold hands when logic is the enemy.” Those people have an alternate reality that isn’t the reality that any of my friends, family, or myself see. It’s such a strange time period with Trump and the conservative movement. It’s the complete antithesis of everything I feel and care about, and to see the country splitting so completely down the middle, it can’t help but have an influence on our consciousness and art.

SILY: I wouldn’t really call of Montreal a political band. But you’ve been in a liberal city in a historically conservative state for so long. Does that contrast specifically have any effect on what you sing about?

KB: It absolutely has an impact on my worldview. I’m constantly getting spammed by conservative political signs. Even though Athens is pretty progressive, there’s still a ton of conservatives here. Going for a drive, you’re just bombarded by conservative shit. I’m actually probably gonna move out of Georgia next year. I just realized, “Why am I here? Why do I continue to live in this place that’s so outside of my views?” Just by living here, I’m giving it a tacit approval. There’s two sides to it. There’s [the other] side that’s, “Liberal people are most needed in these red places.” But I don’t want to fight that battle. It seems so endless and pointless. I’d rather move to New England where people are more like-minded than be here with these fucking cavemen.

SILY: As someone who has lived in Illinois for most of his life, I can’t really relate. I do have friends in similar situations, though, who live in “blueberries in a bowl of tomato soup.”

KB: [laughs]

SILY: On the final track, “Hmmm”, you sing, “Grief is an anvil to the skull.” What do you mean there?

KB: Knowing you’re not alone only makes it sadder. I didn’t really get any comfort out of sharing the grief [of my mother’s death] with my family. It just sucks, and there’s nothing that can be done about it. You just have to feel the pain. There’s no way around it.

SILY: What’s the inspiration behind the album title?

KB: I don’t really believe any of this shit, but if I were to explain it, Lucifer is definitely more of a friend to humanity than God. Jesus is fine, but Lucifer seems more helpful to humanity. Lucifer gets a bad rep because of superstition. The whole thing’s made up anyways, but if I were to pray to anything, I’d be more likely to pray to Lucifer than I would to some saint or whatever. The freewave concept is something I came up with. It’s basically, “To be liberated is to ride the freewave.” Everything has “wave” next to it, like “vaporwave.” “Freewave” is my own designation for what kind of music this is. “Fuck Fuck Fuck” is a reference to all of the horrible shit that was going on [in the world].

SILY: How did the art and design of the cover come to be?

KB: My brother David created it, and his vision for it was to feel like Times Square, Tokyo, or Seoul, an area that has a ton of signage. But instead of the signs being for a ramen restaurant or tattoo parlor, the signs are the song titles and lyrics.

SILY: What’s your approach going to be for playing these songs live?

KB: The benefit that we have nowadays is that we can put things in backing tracks if sounds are impossible to reproduce. We can always use sampler pads. There are four other musicians in the band, and I’ll assign them parts that make sense for their station. Jojo [Glidewell] has 3-4 different synthesizers and keyboards. So I’ll assign him main keyboard parts. [Nicolas Dobbratz] does most of the lead guitars. [Clayton Rychlik] is doing all the drums. [Davey Pierce] is doing all the bass lines. Then the rest is me trying to figure out what I can tackle. What’s leftover will either be left out or be in backing tracks.

SILY: Does adapting songs live prove to be as rewarding as making them to begin with?

KB: It’s a very different experience. At first, it’s not at all satisfying--we’re lucky we do have a practice space where we’re not gonna get the cops called on us, but it’s never going to sound as good. It always sounds flat when we’re in the room, but it’s gonna sound good in a club with a PA system. I have to look in the future and imagine what it’s gonna sound like. Practice is a laborious process; we just have to get our parts down and feel comfortable with what we’re gonna do. Once we hit the stage, we’re gonna feel better.

I like making stuff. I don’t really like reproducing stuff as much.

SILY: Especially for something as layered as this record. Is this album deeply intertwined with its context?

KB: I would think that usually, but a lot of stuff I think is very personal, once we go on tour, I realize they’re universal themes. Things I thought would only be relevant to me are relevant to everybody. People will point out a lyric I hadn’t thought about that much and say, “That lyric meant a lot to me.” So it takes on a different life when you play it live.

SILY: Are you working on anything new?

KB: I’ve started working on the next record. I have 3 songs, I think. I’m in an interesting place right now. Sometimes, it takes a bit of time to catch the spirit of what I want to do next. I can tread water and float around in the studio and make something usable for the next thing I put out. I have to work that way. It would be pretty easy to not make anything ever and stare at the wall. [laughs] That’s what I love about making records. When I physically hold the vinyl or CD, I can think, “2018 didn’t get sucked into some vacuum. I have proof I existed.” So I’m always trying to work on things and get into the headspace that will be inspiring and stay in touch with that side of my brain so it never goes to sleep.

SILY: Is there anything you’ve been listening to, watching, or reading that’s caught your attention?

KB: I’ve been reading this Clive Barker book Imajica. I knew he made Hellraiser, but I didn’t realize he was also an author. A friend gave me the book. It’s a pretty long book, so it’s not an easy read, but I’ve been super into it. I’ve been getting more into sci fi stuff, like Ursula Le Guin. Sci fi films as well. I don’t know why, but sci fi has been a safe refuge for me.

SILY: Probably the same reason it is for a lot of people: imagining a different world.

KB: Totally. I feel like sci fi doesn’t get treated like a serious art form. People think it’s goofy or nerdy. But it’s really prescient. So much that has been written in sci fi novels becomes reality in 10-15 years. I think we should all be mining sci fi literature for answers. A lot of the times, it’s pretty dystopian, but that’s probably pretty realistic.

SILY: Was Le Guin a big influence on this record?

KB: I wouldn’t say I was taking inspiration. There are some lines that connect to Alice Bailey and thinking about spiritualists in the early 20th century and A Treatise on White Magic. I guess sci fi and magical thinking are often one in the same. Religion is magical thinking--it doesn’t exist in the physical world right now. But if you can imagine it, it’s magical thinking. On some level, knowing that there are so many humans that existed and exist now that were really brilliant and turned on, I get a lot of inspiration from those people. If you watch Tucker Carlson, you’ll get negative and depressed all the time. I guess people are hungry for bad vibes. I don’t understand the appeal of that shit. It’s so negative and pointless. It’s like lying in shit. I love discovering new authors and filmmakers that pull us out of that negative way of thinking. Not in complete fantasy, but depicting realities that we can identify with and spark our imaginations.

Tour dates # w/ Locate S,1 $ w/ Le Pain 9/08: Athens, GA @ 40 Watt # 9/09: New Orleans, LA @ Howlin’ Wolf # 9/10: Austin, TX @ Mohawk # 9/12: Albuquerque, NM @ Sister # 9/13: Phoenix, AZ @ The Crescent Ballroom # 9/14: Los Angeles, CA @ Regent Theater #$ 9/15: Berkeley, CA @ UC Theatre # 9/16: Eugene, OR @ WOW Hall # 9/17: Portland, OR @ Wonder Ballroom # 9/18: Seattle, WA @ Neumos # 9/19: Missoula, MT@ The Wilma # 9/20: Salt Lake City, UT @ Metro # 9/21: Englewood, CO @ Gothic Theatre # 9/22: Lawrence, KS @ The Granada # 9/23: St. Louis, MO @ Red Flag # 9/24: Atlanta, GA @ Buckhead Theatre # 10/04: Carrboro, NC @ Cat’s Cradle # 10/05: Richmond, VA @ Broadberry # 10/06: Washington, DC @ 9:30 Club # 10/07: Brooklyn, NY @ Elsewhere # 10/08: Cambridge, MA @ Sinclair # 10/09: Philadelphia, PA @ Theatre of the Living Arts # 10/10: Cleveland, OH @ Beachland Ballroom # 10/11: Detroit, MI @ Magic Stick # 10/12: Milwaukee, WI @ Turner Hall # 10/13: Minneapolis, MN @ Fine Line # 10/14: Chicago, IL @ Lincoln Hall # 10/15: Cincinnati, OH @ Woodward Theater # 10/16: Asheville, NC @ The Grey Eagle #

#interviews #of montreal #polyvinyl #clayton rychlik #locate s 1 #40 watt #the howlin wolf #mohawk #sister #the crescent ballroom #regent theater #uc theatre #WOW Hall #wonder ballroom #neumos #the wilma #metro music hall #gothic theatre #red flag #broadberry #9:30 club #elsewhere #the sinclair #turner hall #fine line #lincoln hall #woodward theater #the grey eagle #freewave lucifer fuck fuck fuck #christina schneider

[daintyduck99]

Love you prompts: "This is my favorite picture of us." for Rulie pretty please?

Reggie's not snooping through his girlfriend's stuff. Really! Swear on his grandpa's banjo.

She'd added a little too much glitter while she was decorating her phone case, and it keeps getting in her speakers and scuffing on her screen, so he figured he'd do something nice for her and pop the case off and clean it up a little, that's all.

He doesn't expect a scrap of tissue paper to fall out and unfurl, freeing a handful of Polaroids that flutter across the Molina's kitchen table.

Reggie gingerly sets Julie's phone and her case away from the photos and wipes his hands on his shirt. He carefully sifts through the pictures, doing his best to touch them as little as possible.

There's one of him and Julie with Luke and Alex that must have been taken right before their Halloween gig. They've got their arms around each other and bright grins tugging at their cheeks. Julie's incredibly cute in her gingham dress and ruby slippers and her braids, and she and Flynn went all out on helping Luke and Reggie and Alex with their costumes, transforming them into the Tin Man and the Scarecrow and the Cowardly Lion, respectively.

The next photo is one of Julie and Flynn from the same night, squishing their cheeks together and making silly faces at the camera. Only Flynn could decide to dress as the Emerald City and make it work.

There's Carrie flipping off the camera without looking away from her phone, lips twitching in a small smile, there's Luke with a guitar pick between his teeth, acoustic in hand, there's Alex and Willie smearing cookie dough batter all over one another, and there's Reggie grinning at Julie behind the camera, cheek propped in his hand, eyes glittering with affection he can't contain.

Flynn calls it his "hella heart eyes" face. She's not wrong.

The last photo makes his chest all fluttery, like someone unleashed a storm of butterflies in there. Someone did, honestly.

Julie still gives him butterflies. She bowls him over all the time, makes him weak in the knees with a single smile or a casual touch or a bright laugh, a loving look when their eyes meet. Hers are so warm, and he gets lost in their depths constantly.

They're sparkling with joy in the picture, evident even under the brim of the black cowboy hat she'd just stolen from him. The flannel she'd borrowed had been tied to look like more of a crop top, and she's stunning, the loveliest person at the square dance he'd dragged her and their friends to.

She's smiling at him, nose scrunched, leaning in close as they dance, and he's smirking, though a vibrant flush betrays how flustered she'd made him.

He'd really wanted to kiss her right then.

A tiny giggle catches him off-guard. "Reg?"

"It's not what it looks like!" he rushes to say, throwing his hands up.

Julie shakes her head, giggling harder.

"I don't mind if you look at that stuff. I wouldn't have left my phone here if I did. You just seemed really invested. Did you know that you have glitter on your cheek?"

Huh. When the heck did that get there?

Oh, he was doing the whole heart eyes, cheek-in-hand thing again. He hurriedly scrubs at his face.

Julie smiles. She reaches out and wipes the glitter away, or at least some of it. She weaves around the kitchen table and wraps her arms around him, resting her chin on his head.

"This is my favorite picture of us."

He has to swallow some of the butterflies so he can speak. "Really?"

"Yeah." She presses a light kiss into his hair. "Our Not Date, Flynn called it. I had so much fun with you that night. I almost told you that I liked you then, and I thought about kissing you, but I was worried it would ruin your night if I was totally misinterpreting everything. Flynn slapped that photo into my hand and said I couldn't be, and I should go for it. So I did."

"The very next day," Reggie murmurs. "When you brought my hat and my shirt back. The neighbors were scandalized when you kissed me on the porch."

He feels her shrug. Her voice wavers with mischief and barely-contained laughter.

"I mean, I did hold the hat up. They don't know that for sure."

He snorts. "Well, I do. And it said a lot. I really thought I was dreaming until then."

She gently tips his head back with her fingers on his chin. Her eyes shine.

"What does this kiss say?"

It's a very loud I love you, without hesitation.

Though there might be some glitter.

#rulie #reggie x julie #i love you prompts #ficlets with ash #I'm still a bit sick so I hope this makes sense #my brain has just been yelling BUTTERFLIES AND GLITTER for quite some time now lol #julie and the phantoms

[sweetxvertigo]

2022 was… a year.

Putting this under a Read More because I wrote quite a bit haha.

I don't know if it was a good one or not. It definitely had a lot of ups and downs.

January 1st I went back to streaming 1st after taking about 6 months off due to burnout.

In February I had definitely the best birthday I've ever had though. I played an acoustic stream on twitch and a bunch of my close friends showed up at my house mid-stream with gifts + taco bell and it was just the absolute best. I don't know if any future birthday will surpass that. I'm so thankful that I have such incredible friends.

In March I quit my band of over 10 years. It was one of the hardest things I've had to do, but I did it for many reasons. I did it because I was frustrated with things within the band that I knew would never change. I did it because I wasn't totally feeling the direction we were going musically. And the big thing, was I wanted to try and really focus on getting my shit together this year. I really fumbled the ball on that last one. My last show was a really good time however. So many of my friends came out from different states and that I'd met playing music over the years which meant so fucking much to me. I was fully expecting to not be able to play the set without bawling my eyes out. Music has been my passion since I was 16, and giving up on it, even temporarily, was not an easy choice. I ended up being more angry during our set however because the sound person didn't route like any of my guitar through my in-ear monitors so I pretty much had to wing it. I wish I could have a do-over of that last show but oh well. A few days after that show a friend of like 7 years randomly messaged me telling me that we were no longer compatible as friends and then blocked me on all social media and to not contact them again. Definitely a kick in the teeth after an emotional weekend, but whatever.

In April I got to meet the singer of one of my favorite bands, The Wonder Years and show him my typography project based on their song Oldest Daughter which he thought was really cool. Ended up getting covid at that show, but thankfully it only felt like having a cold. I had a mild panic attack for a few days when I found out I had it AFTER making out with somebody and worrying that I gave it to them / their family, which it turned out I didn't somehow?

In May I went to my first concert since the pandemic started and it was to see The Menzingers, who are like a top 3 all time favorite band for me now. What a cathartic show it was to be able to scream along to their songs for over an hour.

The first day in June I woke up to the news that a friend, not one I was particularly close to but one that I enjoyed being around and got to bond over Coheed with a few years prior had passed away. It's so weird losing someone around the same age as you. I saw one of my best friends get married to the love of her life and got to celebrate it with all of my close friends. I went to a few more shows, mainly to see You Me And Everyone We Know.

I don't remember much about July. I remember being extremely stressed out about a lot of things. I did get to hang out with my friend from CT a few times which was cool though.

August was the last time I streamed until a one-off in September. I don't think I'll ever be the streamer I once was again, and that's fine. I broke things off with the person I was seeing. Oh and at the end of the month was when I made that bootleg MCR shirt that sold over 1100 copies? Wild.

In September I went up to NYC with a couple friends to visit one of my best friends from highschool that I haven't hung out with much in about 10 years. I went to my first burlesque show and got to see a really hot goth clown staple pages of the bible to her body. Went to at least another YMAEWK show, and obsessed over the new Wonder Years album.

Speaking of The Wonder Years, in October I got to see them and Fireworks twice. Some of the best shows I've ever been to, hands down. One of my favorite local musicians started releasing new music after like 7 years which was really awesome. I also got to take some cool engagement photos for a friend. At the end of the month I got to meet a bunch of cool online friends in person that I've grown closer to over the last year.

In November I got drunk for the first time at a friend's halloween party which was fun. The next day I got to see The Menzingers for the 2nd time this year, this time playing the album that got me into them in full and I got to be like 3rd row the entire set. I got to see a few of my friends play at the First Unitarian Church in Philly for the first which is so cool after seeing so many of my favorite bands there before. I ended the month seeing The Spill Canvas playing "No Really, I'm Fine" in its entirety which was such a wildly inspirational album to me back in the day.

And now we're in December. I started off the month by going up to CT for the weekend with my friend from NYC to visit another friend of ours we knew through twitch. We had a lot of soups that weekend. It was a good time. Had a friends Christmas get-together last week with was a lot of fun. I do feel bad that I couldn't get everyone gifts / didn't spend a lot but I'm glad that I got to see my friends and give most of them something. Honestly besides those things, this month flew by.

But here we are, less than 24 hours from 2023 and I don't feel any more accomplished than I did at the beginning of the year. I thought I was going to make moves this year and yet I couldn't get my brain to cooperate with me long enough to take the motivation I had to make any sort of strides towards reaching my goals. I've been super in my head this past week over stuff like that as well as other stupid things that have been sending my anxiety to wild levels. I did have a lot of good experiences this year though, along with the bad. I lost some friends, but I also gained some others. Maybe next year will be better over all.

#long post is long #2022 #cw: alcohol #tw: mention of death

[the-firebird69]

Couple of ideas we're going forwards and he's going to move on I'm home and one of them is the cardisan Ringling part of and Bailey fundraiser for less privilege and the charities are being run right and they want to have people represent from each group to make sure they are you can't go anywhere and have it run right. And several things probably come from it the orphanage where the girl cookie is and he calls her that her real name is die it's kind of weird so he calls her cooking. And a lot of people will so that's one of the things there's a few places like that even or if a nanny it's kind of from the future believe it or not and they do sing the song it's an amazing event it really is and it actually helps and there's a lot of work and people find out that that Trump is just a huge a******. Whatever he touches he wants all of it and it starts messing it up and gets kicked out it's true. There's a few other things but that program at the circus grounds or was huge huge effect it changes a lot of things some of these motorcycles show up the king motorcycle and franken like they show up with those bikes and actually someone has a crocker and it is hagrid and it's his version no it's what they built later on in the 90s and he wants to bring that back and he said that's great we have to lower it and he said yeah we do I'm huge when I ride it and it's too high up and it's squishing my nuts. Oh you're in love with this one this is an awesome program it's it's a nasty group it really is and the sun figures it out but he knows a really gross but they sell such a stuff all the time he's like look I'm in costume I don't need it right now I'm a young guy you know that's the point I said I'll have to leave and they stop so they get excited about it but just do anything so they're trying to do that really it's like rape or something but it is a concept and we do go along with it literally and figuratively but the whole thing is about freedoms too it's going to start up and they go up there occasionally and they do ask and they make some money. Last weekend there are about three Acts they went there for an hour each and total of the weekend and two different days but only a total of three times so it's one hour on Saturday and 2 hours and Sunday or three different people and cheese combined almost Barbra Streisand format and it's with a trumpster unfortunately you know about it and they're kind of pigs and want stuff to take over like that to hide in the screw around with people it says screw around with Max and get lost so they say why have them do it yeah it's not likely you're like though you have some sort of cheese ball and lame

-another program that's going ahead and yeah our son and daughter though are encouraging people and they want me to mention what the acts were. One of them was an acoustic guitar performer and they know some really nice songs not just led Zeppelin okay they know Simon and Garfunkel and they know some Bruce Springsteen but they know some of the older signs that are very nice with the acoustic guitar and it sounds really nice and yes Summer breeze is one of them and there's a couple of songs from Mexico and they're wonderful to listen to and it was not Mac Daddy or his kids it was a daughter of Sarah and people say she's brave to go up there and she is and it was a sister of Alicia

*another ask out of the three and it's normal during the winter summer it's not a ton but it's a really good temperature now and it's going to cool off and in the evening it's nice in the morning it's nice for acts too and it increases the popularity of the museum. They had performer juggling when he says oh that's a real good one and they were not using the pins they're juggling with the juggle sticks but they're professionals real professionals of street performer and he's very good at it and it is the ones that have the knobs and you juggle with two sticks in your hands and you're juggling two or three sticks and he did a bunch of tricks and it was fantastic for an hour and people loved it in this films of it and it's going around

*the third act was kind of a little bit Hands-On and it was more about not interaction but it was gymnastics it's more physical I guess and people were not physical with them. But it was gymnastics and they did gymnastics stunts of course the backflip but they did about 20 of them there's a crew of three and over the clones and they went up and they did that and they did somersaults they're on the grass one of them did about 30 and everyone clapped in a straight line then one of the 20 in a circle and it was a lot of clapping and they're dressed up for the occasion not massively but they did have bicycle shorts and bicycle top with the spandex it looks fantastic they did a great job and they're organized and had music and it was choreographed they got the message and they got a lot of thank yous and fireman Bailey did great business that weekend cuz these are well known performers in the area and that's what they're looking for

*so our son says he can go up there and walk around that's what he does apparently and his wife says that's all he does and they considered an act they think we can't do anything so people going to try and get him up there to do the air then I do some jokes in practice baby Hera will show up to help him out the other girls who show up it was the different girlfriends and all sudden it's kind of funny oh yeah that one she's not before and then she has done it and they changed back and she's her so he might try and do that it's got a lot of rude jokes Nancy barman Bailey circus and how many ghosts do they have they'll say a few and say none but they're all goes now don't forget to give generously lol. So it took a bit for them to get the joke but they're getting it now. And we think that's what friends on BG to do an MGMT kids. It's a huge huge day okay there's one more thing

-they're thinking of getting him to work to do all sorts of stuff now it's John remillard train and snare him and point is he suck he can hardly do a damn thing it has to be like free and all this other weird s*** that the guy is kind of useless we really actually don't think so he can't do it anymore and Josh had trouble doing it so we shall see but other people are thinking about that idea to try and take over the job and that's actually what works it's a good thing to put it up there and good thing to say because it did work

Thor Freya

Yeah I got the idea horrible joke horrible boy what kind of ghost and he looks around don't say anything so really it's kind of hell cuz they are very good at what Trump says he's real good at and our friend here says no not me not us they'll be fat heads like Aaron Mike says and yeah he's trying to threaten with bugs so he's saying the wrong damn thing in the wrong time it just does not sound good so he says oh and yeah oh

Thor Freya

Used to say that a lot of work. Oh. And yeah this is not right and this one doesn't look right. He said some Whoppers ok was underpaid. For years. That sounds good pretty mad and angrier and angrier in his rightfully so they doing it to me kick us out of the job don't care get beat up they don't care get hassled they don't care lose half their forests they don't care lose their fleets they don't care so really they can't be disciplined or reasoned whether to work with and they're still doing it and he says we're going to have to just keep going in the direction we're going and trying to administer corrective behavior and it's true and people should separate and isolate from them and they're terrible

Cassandra

The sooner messing with me ruining me messing me up and trying to take me down and all sudden I heard him saying that's good and he pulled it off the internet and said what is it and someone's having it done he found them working with me and I'm screwing around. They got it out of them they said you know this is the max stuff and you're doing it all the time to everyone they said what are you talking about I said you don't get anything this is how it's flowing out and they're saying we're taking everything over with the computer and their mental as hell and people figured out their delusional you know about all this stuff and what they're doing is not helping you so we're going to war with them now

Megan Merkel

One of their women is crying for mercy and it's kind of like you're asking a clone they don't have mercy on anyone you idiot and she wants her to him to do something it's ridiculous granted they had some things they were doing correctly and a whole bunch of it and now they're doing nothing right and they won't change we're getting to work right now and helping her son

Thor Freya

Olympus

[thisaintascenereviews]

Aaron Lewis - The Hill

Sometimes I want to torture myself by listening to a bad album, or at least what I perceive will be a bad album. I don’t listen to a lot of what I consider bad anymore, and most of the “worst” albums I listen to these days are just kind of okay or mediocre. Every now and again, though, I find something that my curiosity draws me to that I know damn well is going to be awful. I listen to it, anyway, because I’m curious to see how the album may sound, and maybe it won’t be that bad. I’ve listened to a lot of albums that are considered to be bad, but are actually okay. What album did I find this time? That album is Aaron Lewis’ The Hill. Lewis is the frontman of Staind, a butt-rock / nu-metal band from the 00s that I never liked, especially after Lewis came out as a diehard conservative some years ago, and ever since then, he’s joined the League Of Conservative Rockers that include Kid Rock, Ted Nugent, the guy from Trapt, and whatever other D-tier musicians you can think of.

Since Staind went on hiatus in the 00s, although they reunited a year or two ago and put out an album no one listened to, Lewis started making country music. He’s from Vermont, but wants to act like he’s “country.” Already that’s a red flag, but he really leaned into that within the last few years by making really bad conservative country music that most country fans (read: old white people) really like. His new album, The Hill, is more of that, and it’s not just one of the worst country albums I’ve heard, it’s one of the worst albums I’ve heard period. This thing is top tier garbage, it’s not even funny. Whether it’s due the white nationalist and the Trump worship lyricism (the rest of the lyrics are bad, too), the awful vocal performances, and the bland instrumentation and sound, this album is terrible in every way.

Lewis is mainly known these days as being a conservative singer, and this album has its awful conservative lyrics, and they don’t even make sense. The album opens up with “Let’s Go Fishin’,” and from anybody else, this would be a song that is about leaving the problems of the world behind and enjoying nature, whether it’s fishing, hunting, or just being outside, but of course he throws in a “let’s go Brandon” reference that was already dated the second that catchphrase caught on, and “make America great again,” which doesn’t make sense because the song is supposed to be about leaving politics behind in favor of going fishing. You’d think that this song would be about bringing people together through fishing and having a good time, but it’s still somehow about being a Trumper.

A good chunk of this album is about just that, whether it’s the hilarious “Outlaw” that has him paint himself as an outlaw for being a conservative and blatantly admits he won’t listen to anyone who thinks differently than he does (he says “I won’t listen to what the left side says”), or the awfully racist “Made In China,” where he says he’s totally American, guys, and he isn’t made in China for some reason. I guess he says that because a lot of our products are made in China, but what does that have to do with anything? You can buy things made overseas and still be patriotic, or you can be an immigrant and still love America. It’s a weirdly racist song that has Lewis simping for America. It gets better, though, because on “Up To Me,” he says that he wants America to be a Christian nationalist country if he were president, and then uses that mysterious “they” all conservatives want to paint as an imaginary enemy. This song is such a strange fantasy by Lewis, because he doesn’t even say anything that’s an actual policy.

This album in a nutshell is a bunch of conservative buzzwords with an acoustic guitar. The following track, “That’s My Life,” is literally just that — Lewis tries to act all high and mighty and say “you live your life the way you want and I’ll live mine,” which is a great idea, but in the same song, lambasts drag queens, ANTIFA, CRT, the LGBTQ community, and then goes onto say that he “doesn’t care,” and that “I don’t hate.” He says that like he hasn’t spent this whole album (and the last few years) being a huge bigot and whining about everything conservatives do. If you didn’t care, or hate any group of people, why are making a song about it and then complaining those things in the same song that you claim to not care about or hate?

The few songs here that aren’t your average bigoted conservative bangers, they’re some of the most bland and uninteresting lyrics I’ve ever heard about how he’s so sad or not over an ex, or something or the other. It’s hard to care how sad he is about stuff when the rest of this album is spent whining about drag queens, the LGBTQ community, or this country not being Christian nationalist. They’re also just badly written, and Lewis is not a good vocalist. He has this gruff voice that admittedly sounds better in rock and metal, but in country? It sounds awful, and he sounds on the same on every song. The only credit I will give this album, and it’s not much, is that the instrumentation isn’t bad. Does that mean it’s good? Oh, not at all. This is some of the boring, generic, lazy country / folk? All of these songs sound the same, but it’s tolerable. If you don’t listen to the lyrics, this would be some lazy country that no one would certainly care about, but the bigoted lyrics and his awful voice make this album one of the worst I’ve ever heard.

#Aaron Lewis #the hill #staind #bigot #conservative #country #bad music

[theold-ultraviolence]

Ah!! I’m so happy you’ve gotten into The Bear! It’s an incredible show and my love for Cousin Ritchie knows no bounds.

You’ll always be my A7X mutual because we share the obsession brain cell 😅

I was absolutely blown away by Matt’s vocals. He sounded beyond incredible and I my jaw actually dropped with the higher notes he was hitting flawlessly, as well as bring his dirty vocals back but actually doing it in a way that wasn’t damaging his vocal cords. The last time I saw them, he was going through all of the perils of his vocal cord damage and I truly thought he’d never recover from it, but I am so so so SO happy that he’s put in the absurd amount of work to rehab his voice and has progressed to a place better than he’s ever been in my opinion. The rest of the band also sounded so clean and crisp and they were so silly on stage -as they usually are.

I nearly cried when they left Jimmy’s vocals in Afterlife and amplified them so we could hear them clearly. The entire arena was screaming with him and it was so emotional😭 I still get full body chills when I think about it.

We did get the Cosmic set list! They closed the show with it and had a bonkers laser show to accompany it. I was completely mesmerized. It truly felt like I was a teen seeing them again when I heard their older songs on the set list. The only thing I wished they differently was have more songs off of either Hail to the King or Nightmare on the set list. One day I’ll hear Planets live 😩

ANYWAY, their lighting was 😙👌🏻 as well as the visuals they had on the backdrops.

Our set list was:

Game Over

Mattel

Afterlife

Hail to the King

We Love You (was very excited to hear this live)

Shepard

The Stage

Roman Sky

Blinded in Chains (VERY excited for this one)

Bat Country

Nobody

Nightmare

Unholy Confessions

Save Me

Cosmic

Bestie, Cousin Richie, I freaking LOVE HIM. For some reason he's giving me grown up!Eddie Munson vibes and it makes me love him even more, he truly stole my heart on that first episode fr fr.

About Matt's vocals, ABSOLUTELY! My show was actually postponed because he caught a throat infection. They made us wait out an hour until someone else came by to announce that they were postponing because Matt was sick, and apparently, he had been taking adrenaline shots to try to get his vocals in place for our show until he realized he just couldn't, which is why they said they waited till the last minute to announce it. And the day right after that, they did perform in Arizona and he sounded terrible - especially in the high notes during Game Over. I was scared that going from canceling a show to performing would damage his vocals even more, but when they did play on the rescheduled show he sounded AMAZING. UGH SPECIALLY DURING WE LOVE YOU! my god. Let me know if you wanna dm so we can share videos of it because the melodic bit he sang during We Love you freaking SENT ME. Longer story longer just to say I agree with you about his vocals 😂

And I feel you about Planets! gahhhhhh I wanted them to play Planets so bad when I saw them live in 2013, I was so sure they would, it's the perfect song for when everyone's already sweaty and pumped up. And I'M SO HAPPY you got to hear those songs live, AH! ROMAN SKY? BLINDED IN CHAINS? SAVE ME!!!! COSMIC!!! it must have been so amazing. The one that most surprised me was Blinded in Chains though, like!! what were the ODDS that they were gonna play that one? Cause everyone was begging for them to play Cosmic but then pulling something older from City of Evil? god-like move. I wish I had been to the show with you!

My setlist was:

Game Over

Mattel

Afterlife

Hail to the King

We Love You

Buried Alive

The Stage

(After The Stage, Synyster Gates played an acoustic guitar solo!)

So Far Away

Nobody

Nightmare

Bat Country

Unholy Confessions

A cover of Astro Zombies by Misfits! (which was a total surprise!! they added it because it was sorta like a Halloween show, they rescheduled on the 27th.)

A Little Piece of Heaven

G + (0)ordinary + (D)death + the walk off with Life is but a Dream

The fact that they played for so long was freaking amazing and I'm totally with you about them sounding so, so good and crisp! Some of my videos caught Johnny's bass SO WELL and it makes me so excited. I don't think I'm exaggerating when I say it was the best concert I've ever been to. And the newer songs sounded even more AMAZING live, oh my god. Sorry if this is the longest reply ever but I hadn't talked to anyone about this show in such detail!

#silens-oro #jesus #so sorry for the longest reply ever #but yeah if you wanna share videos of the show I'm so down!!

[whythewords]

Expedition

Goodness me, it's been a weird few weeks. But it actually hasn't. I think I'm using that as a turn of phrase to identify that in the intervening weeks since that last post, I've had a few deeply sad and lonely days amidst an otherwise "normal" time. Maybe pepper in a few revelations about what I want out of life and how soon I want it. But technically this is all "normal" ain't it? We go about living our lives in between the milestones of total befuddlement as to how in the hell we got where we are, for better or for worse.

I went to check out a concert last Friday. It was a mostly acoustic show in a tiny little venue, a little tavern/restaurant in Toronto. I remember a time when I was so staunchly anti-city, and that sentiment returned when I was only working out there and still living in Mississauga, but at some point in between then and when I was actually living there (or much closer to it) I romanticized the hell out of it. It was also for the two years that I was single between my first and second stints dating my now ex-wife. I'm starting to think it wasn't the city I was romanticizing, it was the concept of discovering it on my own. Going out mid-week, doing more open mics, getting drunk on a Tuesday and stumbling onto the subway to get home. In a weird way, I romanticized my single-hood at the time, but I also recall it took me so long to get to that place. I remember those times vividly, and for most of them I was miserable.

Part of me feels as if I'm clawing my way back to that sense of wonder and self-discovery, but that misery hits at the exact same time. This show on Friday was the second solo concert I'd been to in the last couple of months, and the feelings were the same each time... Realizing now that I didn't even talk about the first one though it was in March: It was a John Mayer solo acoustic show at ScotiaBank Arena. As I sat alone in my seat with strangers on either side of me waiting for the show to start, I felt that profound loneliness that I thought was reserved for the darkened room in my folks' apartment, in the wee hours of the morning with my face lit up by the glow of my phone. It was there in full force and it was all I could do not to think about how I was the "weird guy all alone at the concert." It's moments like these I feel fortunate that I'm a music guy. The show started, the music took a hold and I settled into it and forgot about those feelings and enjoyed the show. Ironically, my ex happened to be at that show too and I met with her briefly after to "say hi." And it was fine, we were good and amiable but I'd be lying if I said it didn't feel weird. Concerts were an activity we enjoyed together a fair bit when we were, well, together.

So that was the arena show. Flash forward to this past Friday at a tiny little venue, Eric Hutchinson at the Dakota Tavern. I was sitting at some tables with strangers and there's that same familiar feeling, now with the added bonus of this weird pressure I've put on myself to be more outgoing and chatty because "maybe I'll meet someone." The lonely feelings lingered into the opening few numbers of the set and it was a little while before I settled into the distraction, and I don't even know that I fully settled in. It took until after the entire set was over and I was milling around the bar waiting to meet the Eric (he came out afterward to take pictures and chat with fans) that I actually made an attempt to strike up a conversation with a stranger. It was fine, friendly, and I kicked myself for not saying something sooner, but by this point many of us (myself included) were looking to get our photo and chat with Eric and then head out.

I got on the subway home and reflected on the lonely feeling and thought about what I could have done differently....all of these thoughts swirled around instead of me reflecting on the show and that I got to chat with an artist I admired and get a photo with him. I meandered from Kipling to one of my new favourite shawarma joints that was in the area for a late night pick-me-up, still got home early enough to properly wind down for the night. I mean, fuck, it was a pretty great night all in all, both of those shows were...but that feeling man, it's been chasing me. And I'm not even all about the dating thing right now. I threw the apps back on my phone and I can barely stand to look at them, don't even know why they're there.

To get deeper into the thought process, my plan for battling these feelings was to keep my head down and keep working on myself until I get to that inevitable "reinvnention." "It'll be different man. When I have my own place, and a new job in a new town...like Halifax perhaps." Yep, that idea is still on my mind. And It's getting harder and harder to contend with the fact that I'm not there yet now that pretty much everything else has fallen into place. I have all of my independence except for that one key, very important part of it...that accounts for like 98% of it. All of the rare moments when my folks have left the apartment for a night, hell even for an afternoon, are the most joyful and peaceful moments of my entire week or month. I need that feeling. I need to get out. I need to exact and execute the plan of working for a year or a year and a half and then trekking out east to (overdramatic as it fucking sounds): "build a new life." But even that job man...I mean it's going fine, but a year? Year and a half? I don't think I can wait that long anymore. I don't know how much better real estate prices are going to get over here, or how much shittier they're going to get over there over the course of a year.

I'm thinking a lot. Not the first time I've pointed it out, but I know this desire for solitude as well as this profound loneliness are completely at odds...but solitude fucking wins out. I need to get there, to get my head right and be with myself for a while so that I can be ready and willing to be with someone else. I think that's what the hesitance and timidness boil down to, a lack of readiness. But the last piece of the puzzle to get where I need to go emotionally and mentally, is to get the fuck away from everything else physically. The moving away thing. Just like the Japan trip, it started out as kind of a pipe dream, and as time went on it seemed like more and more of a potential reality...or a necessity. I think I gotta do it. I think that I NEED it. And I think I gotta expedite the process. I'm heading out there on vacation in July. Maybe that ought to be more than a vacation. Maybe I ought to start scouting things out, looking for a plot of land to finally finish rebuilding this fucking machine.

It's almost fully operational...almost.

#life of joe #not so daily journal

[blue-eyed-bloodstains]

1657

Most hated childhood nickname: not nickname but when I was a kid I’d have so many people “slip” and call me Megan when my name is Morgan. it used to drive me insane, but as I got older I got over it and just laugh it off like “yeah don’t worry about it, happens all the time”

Age you were when you hit your current height: oh lord I was always the tallest in class so I never had a growth spurt really, it was just gradual until it stopped and not exactly sure when I stopped...maybe early teens after I hit puberty

Speaking of height, how tall is your crush/sig other? I’d say my fiance’s about 5′9″, 5′10″, only a few inches shorter than me

Your first favorite color, and how old you were when you liked it: I have no clue lol most likely blue that’s always been a favorite 

FAVORITES

Favorite kind of cheese: provologne, mozzarella, pepper jack

Favorite TV show you love to hate: Jersey Shore! Jersey sucks enough as it is, and they just made it 1000+ times worse ugh

Favorite kind of hot beverage: coffee even though I practically live on iced coffee lol 

Favorite chord (I’m a music major, I had to put this one in): umm not sure, I can’t remember how to read sheet music

Favorite musical instrument: acoustic guitar and drums

Favorite brand of toothpaste: doesn’t really matter, long as it’s minty

Favorite kind of sandwich: BLT

Favorite method of travel/transportation: driving

Favorite means of expression: as many fucks and curses as possible XD

Favorite Broadway musical: not familiar with broadway at all really, went to see The Adams Family for a senior school trip and I’ve wanted to see The Lion King on broadway all my life but other than that I’m clueless 

WHEN’S THE LAST TIME YOU…?

Ate something you hate? I’m not real picky with food so I don’t really hate much...however I’ve never been a fan of spicy food and as I got older I developed several health conditions to where it literally pains me to eat anything spicy or too acidic so there’s that. I’ll push it sometimes, but I try to get it as mildly spicy as possible

Did someone a favor? can’t remember

Felt like you’d really accomplished something big? been a long time...

Missed your parents? meh I mean sometimes I do but I talk to mom everyday and I keep in touch and live a state away which is only a 2 hour drive away from my dad and stepmom and visit on occasion and check in through text/call so...

Spent longer than two hours talking to the same person? a lot of the time with mom, especially added together given there’s multiple calls every day

Wrote/recieved an actual letter (not a bill, not an email)? not sure, usually write in and receive cards for bdays/holidays

Felt like everything was going really really well? ha! yeah that’s a definite lonnnnng ass time!

Felt like you’d failed? I constantly do on a daily basis. 

Stopped to smell the roses– literally? last time he got me my white roses for our anniversary or my bday which was last year or two years ago

Spent way too much money on something totally dumb? DoorDash always adds up quick lol considering we/I order every night

Enjoyed doing homework? when I was still in school, I never minded homework for the most part. I know I’m weird :P

#survey #bored #about me #random

[joeonmusic]

Ten highlights of my musical journey in 2022

Jan 26th Tom Robinson quoting my lyrics back to me

Remember party gate? We’ve changed PMs a couple of times since then, so it feels inconceivable that it was only in January this year that the stories about the Tories breaking lockdown rules and partying like there was no pandemic were all revealed. Anyway, Mintball (Sean Buckley) and I collaborated on a funky song satirising the government and rushed it out hoping we’d release it before Boris Johnson was forced to resign (in fact he clung on for months afterwards, but it felt like he had only days left).

Anyway, we got a good reaction to the song, even if it wasn’t as big as I may have hoped, and my favourite thing was when Tom Robinson tweeted this to me: 

"We thought nobody would dob us in - we are the ones that call the tune"...

For such a legend of the music and broadcasting world to acknowledge your work and quote your lyrics back to you is a massive compliment and something I will always treasure.

19th March Solo gig Artefact - audience reaction

I’ve done three gigs supporting Grant Sharkey in total and this one at Artefact in the Spring was my last. We played in the back room with its perfect acoustics and got a full room of people - even running out of chairs, so some had to sit on a rather cold floor! Anyway, Grant had been talking about involving the audience, and I took this onboard, by not writing a set list, but putting the songs on cards and letting them choose which ones I sang and in what order. 

I haven’t done it again since, but for that one, it really worked and did indeed break down the barriers between performer and audience. I also had a really powerful moment when performing one of my saddest songs as someone in the front row had tears streaming down her face! She loved the song and it touched something deep inside her, which was an amazing feeling. This was me before heading to the gig:

28th April Trace remix

Not long after the war in Ukraine started, things were looking bleak in the world, I was worried about my friends in eastern Europe and the possibility of Putin using nukes. I was also trying to find ways to help, so was about to drive to see some Ukrainian refugees when a message pinged to me from the Invisible Squirrel that he’d finished the remix of my track Trace. 

I listened to it in the car on the way to transport clothes and support to some desperate people and was blown away by what he’d done. For a while, I felt the buzz and excitement of music in amongst all the gloom. It was special.

Watch the video for the song here: 

30th April Reaching number one in the Cool Top 20

It’s lovely to be written, or talked about and I’ve had some great coverage this year, from being interviewed on Adrian Goldberg’s Brum Radio show and by Kirk on Duggystone Radio, a YouTube interview with Martin Holley and a great feature with Sam Lambeth in Louder Than War. To actually feature in a chart at number one is really amazing for me, though. I have great respect for anyone who gives up their time for free to do radio shows, podcasts or blogs for free in the name of promoting independent artists, and Cool Top 20, run by the wonderful Lean, is one of my favourite blogs, with a weekly chart that you can listen to as a playlist. I have discovered loads of brilliant artists through this blog, so to have been number one in their chart twice is pretty mind-blowing for me.

CoolTop20 has been updated! And here are our suggestions for the #festivalseason 2022! Give them a listen here: https://t.co/WEuEyimuxk The talented Shayan Regan is in our spotlight: https://t.co/n4ecaYi9Ux#cooltop20 #musicblog #NewMusicAlert #indiemusic Enjoy the weekend! pic.twitter.com/LSbrNzsBiT

May onwards Rehearsing with Louisa and shaping our sound

Up until this year, I had been doing all my original music as a solo musician, which is great in many ways, because you can do exactly what you want with no compromising with band members and waiting for them to do stuff. I really wanted to add another element to my music, though and had missed that feeling of playing with someone else and bouncing ideas off them, so for a while I’d been trying to get Louisa to play fiddle and sing with me. 

She finally agreed to start rehearsing with me in the spring and I have absolutely loved working with her on creating our sound as a duo. I have listened back to some of our rehearsal recordings in wonder - absolutely loving the combination of our two voices, or just her voice and my songs. It gives me such pleasure to play with her and we’ve had such lovely comments about how well we compliment each other at gigs that it feels to me like this was meant to be and I can’t wait to release some recordings next year. I really hope people will be as blown away by our songs as I am. 

12th June Two artists doing covers of my songs

As I mentioned earlier, I love doing recordings of other people’s songs, so I have done covers of songs by independent, unsigned artists, such as Penfriend, The Heavy North and Sam Lambeth, as well as more established and famous ones. I also did a cover of a song by 3 Little Wolves of the single Fractured (a bit) and then was blown away when Paul reciprocated with a cover of 100 Doors. Check it out here:   

After our mate @joe_peacock ‘s rendition of ‘Fractured (a bit), thought it was only fair we return the favour… here’s a little electric piano version of ‘100 Doors’ 🚪 If you don’t follow Joe already, check him out… he’s a great guy and the biggest genre-hopper we know 🐺🐺🐺 pic.twitter.com/t7F4AV1rqn

However, that wasn’t the only one. My first big single ‘Is not Everything Morbid?’ would not have sounded like it did without producer Joe Adhemar, but for him to then decide to record a cover, too, was incredibly humbling and flattering. As you can see from this, the single was largely his work in terms of the piano playing, anyway:  

So...apart from getting the song title wrong (Is Not Everything Morbid), I had a go at performing @joe_peacock's track today. Warts n all, #murderedsongoftheday - Hope you like it https://t.co/rWwketqTOQ

19th July Releasing Mirror Neuron Generator - listening party

I guess you could say that this album was a bit of a risk. Having made some kind of name for largely guitar-based songs, I did an album with almost no guitars on it at all. The influences were more Prince and Prodigy than Pixies this time. Also, I went from having a talented producer (Joe Adhemar) making sure everything sounded right on the previous album to doing it all myself, apart from the final mixing and mastering. How would people react? Well, in terms of Bandcamp sales it was a complete flop. I hardly sold anything. This might be because I didn’t stagger the releases - it went onto streaming platforms on the same day and the incentive of a free lyric book and 3 extra tracks wasn’t enough to tempt people into paying for it. However, lots of people said nice things about the album and I did a pre-release listening party hosted in In Your Ears Radio to introduce all the songs, which was really fun to share the album for the first time and chat to people directly about the different themes in the album. You can read about that in this blog post here: https://at.tumblr.com/joeonmusic/mirror-neuron-generator-out-tomorrow/2w5uj7vg1nf8

6th August #MurderedSongOfTheDay meet up

I have no idea how many songs I’ve posted on this hashtag over the year, but it’s a lot. I love trying out different songs and I’ve done everything from Bernard Cribbins to Bjork, Buddy Holly to Bob Marley etc. In August, Stevie T arranged for the people who love sharing music on Twitter in this way to meet up at his house and all play together in person. It was a fantastic occasion and meeting Stevie and his family, Scott, Ady, Cathers, Ian and Rich was such a joy. 

The only slight downer was those who couldn’t make it, especially James who was one of the original instigators of the hashtag and has such a fantastic voice, which I was looking forward to hearing live. We sang through the night and had a great time - lots of laughter and a real feeling of shared love for music.

Love version of Is Not Everything Morbid by the awesome @joe_peacock 👌 #MurderedSongOfTheDay #MurderedSongOfTheDayLive pic.twitter.com/R4TUcCmjb1

5th November Review of RHTP

I’m not sure if there is a right way to release singles. Most people put them out on Fridays to catch #NewMusicFriday fever on Twitter and some people go for long periods to promote them and get a buzz going, plus as many pre-saves as possible. I did neither of those - released it on Halloween, two weeks after uploading it and had a really long tricky name for this song, which I thought DJs would probably hate having to say! Nevertheless, it got a really good reaction. I was especially pleased with this Tweet from Top of the Radar, which totally made my day: 

https://t.co/lCh9srx3so@joe_peacock is an artist with a unique style & twist on combining music with storytelling! Radioactive Hybrid Terror Pigs catches you from the second you read the title (I hear you nod) & I guarantee you'll be singing that line all the way through! #TOTR

November 17th Missed Trees playing to a sold out Kitchen Garden Cafe

Every gig I have played with Louisa has been special. Our first one at Artefact was small, but a lovely, intimate way to get started with playing our songs to people. The Warehouse Cafe is a special place for me, due to my connections to that building and the people there. We played to a good-sized crowd and there was a wonderful atmosphere. Our third gig was the most magical and introduced our music to a whole new audience of people who’d never heard us before. 

Supporting Ellie Gowers was a brilliant experience and getting to see her perform afterwards was a treat in itself. We played a short set of our seven strongest songs and the reaction was fantastic. Kitchen Garden Cafe is an absolutely lovely venue for a gig (especially acoustic ones) and I hope we’ll be back there again very soon. 

It’s been a great year full of highs and I feel very lucky to have found such a great community of new music enthusiasts to share this journey with. I’ll be doing plenty more in 2023, with the first releases from The Missed Trees and new solo single being finished for release as we speak and at least one album to come out. I hope you enjoy listening to it all as much as I enjoy making this music. Cheers - here’s to another year of fantastic musical adventures!

#singersongwriter #diy music #indie #new music #altfolk #acoustic #birmingham

[epacer]

Classmates

Doug Robinson, Class of 1973

Here's My Story

I was raised on Art Street--there's a good start in life.

My folks were loving and unusual people. My older brother Andy was a neighborhood rockstar and my hero. There was always music in our house because Dad owned a couple of bars in downtown San Diego and he was always testing out new 45s to see which ones would end up in his jukeboxes. So Andy I and got our fill of Marty Robbins, Ray Stevens, Ray Charles and then later The Beatles, The Beach Boys, The Kinks, Herman's Hermits and everything else that was happening at the time.

I started piano lessons at nine years old; Andy was already drumming in a rock band and I was learning drums from him as well. As it turned out, I developed a knack for picking up a new instrument and sounding better than horrible pretty quickly, eventually learning guitar, bass, vibes and of course piano and drums. My teacher, the lovably ancient Mrs. Foote (who would sit in my lessons with her Pekingese tucked under her arm while she wept loudly at how "beee-uuutifuly" I was playing) was less encouraging about my original compositions which began to emerge. (To all the parents out there--if your kid starts composing at nine, give her some room to develop those skills. She can always go back to practicing the Bach and Beethoven later.)

Frustrated, I quit taking piano lessons and started to practice on my own for hours every day. My first band experiences, though, were as a drummer. There were lots of rehearsals with groups like Bass Four, The Shylords, Kong and other '60s garage bands. I was a rocker for certain, although I did listen to Ahmad Jamal's beautiful version of "Poinsettia" over and over to try to figure out what was going on.

One day when I was probably 12, a young kid came up to me and asked if I wanted to sub for his jazz band's drummer. He twisted my arm by promising a payday of $5 or $10 for the gig, and the next thing I knew I was sitting in a rehearsal with four supremely talented young players: Nathan East on acoustic bass, Carl Evans Jr on piano, Hollis Gentry lll on sax and Casper Glenn on sax. It was the first time in my life that I'd even been the only white guy in the room, but I remember choosing not to feel intimidated. In fact, the vibe was so friendly and the laughter came so easily during setup that I had completely forgotten to panic about the fact that i knew NOTHING about jazz until Hollis--a handsome kid of about 14 with the poise and voice of an adult--called out the first tune (The Creator, by Pharoah Sanders). When I asked what I should play, Hollis grinned and said cooly "This is jazz, man--just play what you feel."

He didn't know it, but that comment probably jumpstarted my puberty and changed my musical life forever. We became a unit that served as the core group of the award-winning Crawford High School Stage Band, the Crawford Pep band and off-campus music groups like The Chapparells and Solid State. Jazz became the music of my heart, even though I never abandoned any of the other styles. They just slid over to the side and waited for their chance.

After focusing on the drums for most of my early teens, I was  eager to explore my piano-based compositions which were heavily influenced by Randy Newman and Rupert Holmes as well as the progressive rock of ELP, Frank Zappa and then Mahavishnu Orchestra and early Weather Report. Luckily for me, I wandered into the Crawford Choir room at lunch time (where I would normally compose instead of hanging out in the quad) and I heard someone playing piano in more or less my own jazz-rock style. To my shock, it was Keith Milne, a senior and athletic star on campus. I'd always figured him as a total square, but within minutes we were sitting side by side and composing the first of several wonderful melodies which were later brought to life by our excellent band The Twinkies, which also featured Cory Homnick and Paul Sundfor on sax, clarinet and flute; John Marotti on trumpet and flute; Mike Rios on bass; John Frawley on guitar and Gary Irvine on drums. Keith and I alternated on Hammond B3 and piano, and we built a nice reputation for ourselves in the San Diego area, appearing several times at SDSU's The Back Door, a folk club.

All along, I'd been volunteering my time at the San Diego branch of Synanon, an innovative drug rehab program that was blossoming into an intentional community where ex-addicts lived side by side with 'squares' like myself. I learned how to communicate effectively and to be empathetic with people from radically different walks of life. it was brilliant, eye-opening stuff and I used those skills with all of my relationships...and still do today, when I'm on my best behavior. In Synanon, I met lots of incredible musicians but none so important to me as Frank Rehak (frankrehak.com), a trombone legend who had played with Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie and others, even though his terrible heroin addiction kept him from achieving fame outside of the music world. He took an interest in me and my music, and when I decided to move into Synanon full-time with the plan to teach music in their kibbutz-style school, he laid out a 40 hour weekly music program for my own education, along with pianist and wicked Zen master Al Bauman.

I could not have had a more exciting or fulfilling couple of decades. Frank and I became great friends, and through him I met David Scott, Bruce Gilbert, Doug Hurt, Ken Elias, Wendell Stamps, and other amazing musicians who held down a chair from time to time in the 'house' band known as The Sounds of Synanon. We played jazz festivals and college concerts as well as doing recruiting tours in prisons and juvenile camps where the audience was exposed to the success stories of the guys in the band, mostly ex-addicts themselves. I learned to be a radio personality from the one and only Dan Sorkin; I learned sales and creative marketing through our in-house business that came to be known as AdGap (Advertising Gifts and Premiums). I also fell in love a few times, with my longest relationship being the special union between Glenda Alice Garrett and myself.

We survived the eventual death of the community, plugging onward with other ex-residents who were part of AdGap which became a standalone integrated marketing company. For over a decade, Glenda and I traveled to work with clients around the country but most often with our friends at Abbott Laboratories who time after time risked ridicule and embarrassment by choosing our promotional campaigns over those of competitors who were far more qualified on paper. But as it turned out, our common sense and irreverent brand of marketing did the job for them and we succeeded beyond our wildest dreams--thanks in part to our talented colleagues, our wonderful assistants Sande Millstein and Judy Malcolm, and our fearless leadership team of Brooks Carder and Macyl Burke.

We were fortunate beyond belief, retiring in 2001. Returning to San Diego to spend time with my mom after my dad had died, we set up life in the hills of Escondido and it was good...but something was missing. I had a marvelous trio--JAZZOOO, with Duncan Moore and Ken Dow--but those moments onstage and in the studio weren't really enough to keep a couple of ex-revolutionaries like Glenda and me excited.

We found what we were looking for when we went to central Mexico to visit an old friend from our community, Mayer Shacter. We discovered San Miguel de Allende, an arts-oriented colonial town in the middle of the country. Amazing musicians, artists, writers and other creative types had all made the decision to live 8 hours from the beach, 90 minutes from an airport, and light years away from the kind of convenience we had taken for granted our entire lives as residents of the US. We built our new lives in Mexico, producing fundraising events, concerts, parties, contributing to college funds for under-priviledged kids, teaching, building a dream house and studio. And we also battled breast cancer, which brought us back to the US for a full nine months of treatment. Thanks to the tender loving care of our Synanon friends, along with the loving and professional wisdom of our dear friend Jaime Aguet--we conquered that challenge. But a couple of years later, our marriage ended. We both found true love again, but sadly Glenda's cancer returned with a vengeance and she passed away in January of 2015.

Life goes on, if we're lucky. Today I am back in San Miguel de Allende and facing each day as the first day of the rest of my life. Up till lockdown, I produced concerts, played gigs, taught a little and composed and recorded new music at a pretty healthy clip. My 2019 release is called HYMN FOR HER and it's dedicated to all of the amazing women who have shaped and guided me with their feminine energy and love throughout my life. My 2020 release is START WITH WATER.

Things are starting back up now as of September 2022--new shows, new music, new life! *Reposted bio from Doug Robinson in his own words posted on dougrobinson.com website.