Run Boey, Run

I found a bunch of old pictures of me running that I thought were cool enough to share. I was so young when I started running. I think I was in kindergarten in this first picture. The last picture was taken right before my first race. It was also the first race I've ever won. I think every road race I entered I won for my category and the ones that didn't have a category for my age group I got an honorable mention award. I used to always say I was going to run the Boston Marathon when I was older. I am older and have yet to make due on that.

Tomorrow I'm going to Canada for I don't know how long. I would know more if I had looked into it a bit more but I just decided to go a few days ago. It should be ok. I guess we might see AFI at some fest. I have never seen AFI before. In fact I haven't seen most of my favorite bands before. If I get to see them I'll rate it our most successful tour ever.

I'm always frantically looking for my tour blanket and pillows the night before we leave and this time is no exception.

Why I Suck

God dammit. I have sent the last 2 hours typing and deleting a million different paragraphs and sentences trying to accurately portray what I want to say. I'm beginning to think I don't really have shit to say right now. I cannot seem to find any sort of lasting focus this week. I have now typed and deleted the letter "I" over 10 times in attempts to form a new sentence. So far nothing yet. I'm just gonna post this now and try this again later.

I got a sketch pad today. I'm going to try and learn to draw. I don't have to draw well, just enough to evoke laughter amongst myself and others, provide some sort of outlet for me when making music is just a little stale (kind of like it's been this week), and well just flat out give me something to do. I think I'll post my weekly drawings. That way all three of us can laugh together at my lack of steadiness and improper pencil holding technique. I've already hit one problem with this and it's that I don't really know what to draw or what I would even want to draw. That is the point of creating something right? To make something that you want to see, hear, taste, smell, or feel become tangible. I suppose I can start with all the things I thought would be hilarious if Eric drew.

I want to write a soundtrack like Jon Brion. The stuff he does for Eternal Sunshine and I heart Huckabee's is awesome. He's an actual songwriter before a film scorer so his stuff comes out very pop influenced. I don't really know what else to say about this i just figured it warrants a blog entry.

ALSO

Maynard James Keenan has one of the best voices ever:



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pvLkQJUqxrU (it wont let me embed this one)

And so ends my first week being home. I always like the first week I'm home because I feel like I have a handicap and not much is expected of me. I'm mostly referring to my life at my house. Now when little things like me eating all the bread, finishing up the juice, and flushing the toilet at night (yes this is an issue here) come up I look more like a deadbeat than a quirky visitor. You know now that I think about it I really should just get out. I really don't have any options if I pursue Energy. I cannot work a job as things stand with us and we're not out that much at this point. I feel like it will get to a point really soon where either Energy will have to start becoming profitable or I will have to stop doing it to work. My time here is dwindling. I hope this isn't coming across as me saying I'm doing music because of money. I don't think anyone gets this serious about a band for money making scheme and if they are they're out of their fucking minds. Music for me is very therapeutic, a way for me to tell everyone (when published) something I couldn't ever say with out saying a word. Call it corny but I feel like I'm putting a background to everything I'm feeling, especially recently I feel like I've tapped more into that. Whether it's good or not, whether it's going to be heard by anyone at all, it's always a narrative to something. With that being said I can do that in a band that tours 5+ months of the year and I can do that all by myself. If I didn't have those reasons above I wouldn't do either. So when the matter of money comes up it's not a question of motive it's really a matter of survival and with out a place to live then... well I have to find a way to support myself. I don't really know who I'm preaching to right now I think 12 are subscribed to this, 5 probably check regularly, and 3 will actually read the whole thing out of boredom.

I didn't mean to write all that I mostly wanted to update to leave a bookmark on today because I had a really good day today. I played with Beartrap on WERS today. It was probably the best day to be in the city and right by the Common too. The set went well and we were done really fast. Debaser was all their so they played a few songs. Dose played the most perfect pick slide I have ever heard. Jesus. After wards they did a recorded interview and since I'm not in actually in Beartrap I went for a walk around the Common by myself. Everyone went to My Tie (I really don't know how the actually spelling is) I just went for a walk again to find food that isn't 5000 dollars for a bite of food. After wards we played a last minute show at, I feel stupid saying it because I'm not down with them, Fort Fuck Awesome. It was pretty awesome.

Tomorrow I have to wake up and do shit in the yard, which I am glad because I feel like I'm at least pulling my weight. I should be finishing up a song that I've been working on. It is with out a doubt the most emotionally intense thing I have ever recorded. It's the first thing I have ever recorded that has my voice(12 tracks of heys and 8 tracks of woahs) on it as well so it's really a step forward.

home

I didn't really feel like we were gone for a long time until I really started thinking about everything that happened this time around. This was with out a doubt the best tour we did. I feel a great level of personal success. Lot's of cool stuff happened. I'm so siked on life right now. I haven't slept in over 24 hours. I'm just going to lay on my floor and watch Nick At Night's marathon of fresh prince (which seems to happen almost every night) while I strum my acoustic.

I'm sitting in my friend Roberts room in Burbank California. Everyone that cares is with me right here so there is no point in posting this. This is my favorite place ever. I'm gonna listen to some new debaser and eat at In N Out and possibly see Brand New for free tonight. Pretty good day.

Now titled Dr Neurosis' Hair Blog

Redying my hair

Hair Progress

The first picture is from last summer which was the last time I shaved my head. I've let it grow since then except actually I got an actual cut in September but since then I've been growing it. Though very slowly it is getting there. I seriously couldn't take a picture of myself with out laughing my ass off. Even by myself I cannot be serious in front of a camera. I can't wait to see where my hair is in a month.

These are my last few days to just sit at home before I'm sitting in a van for an average of 6 hours a day for the next month. I'm really looking forward to touring this time. I feel like I've talked about this in a very recent entry but I really enjoy playing now so there's actually something for me to be excited about each night. I'm really excited for whenever (the days are numbered) we get around to practicing. There's so much material to be worked on it's crazy. I have written 21 songs since last July. That's the official tally I just took. Most are Energy songs and a few are Carnival Date-ish songs. This doesn't count the fragmented songs that are just a riff or two. If I count those were talking 38. This also doesn't count the 3 songs Tank has pretty much done on his own. This is a huge improvement over last year when I couldn't write a single song to finish the IOTM. I think we were stuck at 7 songs for the longest time. But anyway I'll be a little sad to leave home only because I have a hard time making songs or anything while we're out. I gotta try and finish everything I've been working on before we leave.

Yesterday I went to the Outlets and met up with Bart. After a quick trip to Levi's I'm now the proud owner of some white jeans. I think they look pretty awesome. White is just too difficult to wear a lot. I'll have to one of those people who have a bleach pen on hand. My hair is getting pretty long now. It's long enough now that if I slick my hair back it will stay in a Patrick Batemen-esque do, with one exception, I have thin hair and look like I'm dying. I'm gonna re dye my hair again before we go.

The people who loved Mario Galaxy and The Wind Waker now bring you this: http://music.ign.com/articles/958/958176p1.html.

Nice!

Stagnant

I'm incredibly bored right now as I was yesterday and the day before. Nothing ever happens. I'm still pushing forward writing songs but with nothing cool or new happening for me I don't feel like there's much of an emotional involvement to what I'm working on at the moment almost like it's being forced. I'm sure the inspiration will come again. I feel like I go through spurts of feeling blank. I guess I shouldn't sweet it too much I have a lot done so far. I've been spending my time trying to organize the songs written so far into 3 to 4 song EPs based on their style and mood. This was Tanks idea to help make the work load feel a lot less daunting. It seems like a lot more is getting done when you finish an EP instead of still struggling to write a full length. I'm naming the EPs after times of day so far I have The Evening EP (finished), The Twilight Hour EP (finished), The Mid-Night EP (unfinished but so far my favorite). That's all I have organized. I have more songs organize and a lot to be written. I really like the idea of releasing a cd that have different parts almost as if it is a group of EPs on one CD. Each part could have it's own feel and sound. The packaging could be really awesome too. Perhaps it could be a set of four 7"s.

I finished reading Watchmen. Not what I expected but it was still pretty good. Now I'm looking foward to seeing the movie. I'm think I'm gonna start reading either Fight Club, The Hobbit, or The Silmarillion (the History of Middle Earth and according to Tolkein his most important work.)

The Future

Weezer, The Smashing Pumpkins, AFI, Nirvana, and the Beach Boys are some of my favorite bands. In a little way I want to be like them all. I want to have soaring guitars that hit on an emotional level (Weezer), with music that has a surreal sound scape as if it came from outer space (The Smashing Pumpkins), that is aggressive and has a dark vibe to it (AFI), over music that is simplistic at the base and is catchy with out coming off too sugary (Nirvana), that has complex supplemental vocal parts that swirl around the listener and elevate the song to whole new emotional level (The Beach Boys). I want to have songs that vary in style and moods. I want to be able to play any kind of music while it still having something unique to it that it will be Energy. I want to get to the point where it wouldn't be to out there for Energy to release the next Roots and then release the next What's My Age Again and everything in between.

I have written 15 songs towards a new CD and I have 10 unfinished/riffs laying around. So far the songs range from the theme song to a gothic disco to very fast aggressive punk. Most of the songs I have finished are Cure influenced songs that besides one or two I really don't want to use for the new CD but it's nice to have lots of options for what songs we can use. Ever since I decided to just work out every since idea I come up with I have been coming up with many more ideas than I used to. Lately I've been getting back into writing fast songs but trying to be conscious of what I didn't like about the way the songs on Invasions came out. I feel like those songs don't breathe enough. I don't know how to describe that other than they just go. I'm trying to be mindful of that while writing new songs. For the next CD I think it is important for us to have a song that is upbeat, but not sugary (think Muzzle by The Smashing Pumpkins if you know it) and a heavy song, something in vein of what we established with the song Invasions but take it a step further. What I want to do with the next CD is take everything that happened on Invasions a step further while also going down completely new paths not explored by us before.

I just got in from the Energy/Debaser/BearTrap tour. I really love the initial silence of walking in my room after being gone for a while. All at once the static and noise just fades and for the first time in awhile I'm by myself. I feel like I'm picking up where I left off right before i walked out of my room the last time. I always try to savor this moment for as long as my attention span allows before I get bored and pick up a guitar or go to the computer.

This was my favorite tour we have ever done. Really it's pretty much set up to be fun regardless of it being successful or not. I was just hanging out with the people I normally would and playing music that i recently have gotten a whole new love and appreciation for (seeing all that has happened in the passed month or so). It's a perfect formula. The shows though many last minute and barely advertised were great. they gave me a whole new confidence in Energy and what we can do. I feel like on this tour we finally became whole. I finally feel like we're a unit. We are Energy. We saw some pay off from previous tours as well which felt extremely rewarding. The first night of tour we lost all the guitars but mine and Dan's guitar was found and returned to us. Take that "Karma"