avantpop.com

Hello friends & strangers...

2008-04-24T09:00:00.000-07:00

As you can see, this site is pretty much dormant. Personal website blogs almost seem odd with all the social networking sites.... those sites make it so effortless and less, well, self-centric. If you're an old friend of mine, you know where to find me.

Time for another lap around the world with a new band... leaving in a week!

Home?

2007-10-01T13:05:00.001-07:00

That's right, going home for the first time in over four months.
Home for a week.
I'll take it.

;)

I woke up this morning...

2007-06-02T19:21:00.000-07:00

... and it was too bright outside to see.

Squinting, my eyes adjusting, this is what I saw:

Oh, hi there

2007-03-28T11:45:00.000-07:00

I'm going to Australia tomorrow. I should pack, huh?

ps. if/when I finish up the myriad of other projects I'm bouncing around right now, this site will be razed to the ground and regrown all fresh and new.... mmmmmm, spring....

the weirdest thing about touring

2006-10-22T01:00:00.000-07:00

...is coming home and nothing feels like home anymore.

II.

Below is a mix made back in August... mostly singles lifted from other (better) blogs... the secondary, more personal soundtrack of the tour. I can't tell you the number of times that I listened to Sufjan's acoustic version of Chicago over and over again in my bunk before falling asleep at night... the same vividly ambivalent feelings about home then as now.

Stars - Your Ex-Love is Dead
Feist - Mushaboom
Clap Your Hands Say Yeah - The Skin of My Country Yellow Teeth
Tegan & Sara - Walking With a Ghost
Bloc Party - This Modern Love
SOUND Team - Movie Monster
Band of Horses - The Funeral
My Morning Jacket - Off the Record
The Arcade Fire - Rebellion (Lies)
The Decemberists - July, July!
Black Rebel Motorcycle Club - Ain't No Easy Way
Ryan Adams - Come Pick Me Up
Iron & Wine / Calexico - 16, Maybe Less
Snow Patrol - Chocolate
Andrew Bird - Fake Palindromes
Final Fantasy - The CN Tower Belongs to the Dead
Sufjan Stevens - Chicago (Acoustic)
The Delgados - Come Undone
Rilo Kiley - With Arms Outstretched

Get it while it's hot... link lasts for about a week.

It's time to show this site a little love

2006-09-20T22:05:00.000-07:00

So, I'm about 20 hours into the drive from Denver to Vancouver. I'm sitting in the front lounge of the tour bus, watching Project Runway, ichatting with a couple of friends, and (apparently) belatedly updating my blog. It could be much worse, no? I took a four hour nap... one of those naps so deep you wake up gasping for air... so now I'm wide awake for the rest of the drive. The internet only lasts until we cross the border, so there's a bit of a time limit here in terms updating... here we go.

I'm on tour again. I used to be so supremely paranoid about referencing anything work related that I wouldn't speak to anything past or present. Realistically, it's probably not THAT big of a deal. My name is (will be) on the photos that I take, I deal with fans on a daily basis, there's nothing really to hide. Am I going to broadcast anything about the tour? Hell no. I'm not even going to say what tour it is, but my resume is on here... it doesn't take a genius to put two and two together that I'm somewhere out there. I'm on the road, that's my life.

The road is treating me much better this time around. Last tour I was unable to ever get enough sleep... I struggled against exhaustion and the inevitable daily drama that seemed to spring from nowhere, but potentially any direction. That's probably the norm, but this tour is so unbelievably smooth that even the twelve days in a row without a day off passed with nary a blip in the stress radar. Maybe I'm just better at coping with the road, maybe it's because this job is more independent than my last, it's hard to say. I can say that I love this job and that I feel pretty damned lucky to be working with such great people. I'll probably have a better idea of the reality of things if/when I take another job as a production assistant down the road... something that I'm not necessarily looking forward to right now, but it's good to be able to do as many different jobs on the road as possible. In the meantime, it's been GREAT to get back into photography and drop the money on a semi-decent camera setup. One of these days I'll post some photos here, though I sort so many daily photos for my job that extra sorting isn't really my idea of great day off time. Soon, my friends... soon.... well, soonish... hahaha, sometime.

Life besides touring? What's that? I don't know... I haven't really done anything with aikido since the uber belt training over the summer. It's so hard to pick up classes on the road because, even though it's great to get a little dose of training, it's never the same as your home dojo, your own sensei. One of the hardest parts of being gone is knowing that I'm missing lessons that won't be repeated. I just have to hold strong that I'm learning my own lessons out here... and I have to be fully in the place where I currently am. At least when I'm home my work allows me to I can train as much as as I want. In the meantime I train in my head, if that's worth anything.