Ahh, that was nice, getting my Xbox back on. Kind of like reuniting with an old friend… and picking them off with a well timed head shot. Good times. I sat up and burrowed into Halo 2 on Friday night. It’s good, I mean Halo 1 was great, but 2 is just not that different. I checked the cheats the next morning to get past a tough part, and found that I’ve almost finished it! What the hell is up with that??? Halo 1 took me like, weeks! That sucks! I see what Rantz is talking about when he says that 2 is more like an expansion pack than a true sequel. Oh well. Riss and I got way into Burnout 3 on Saturday night. Sure you can race cars, but the CRASHING is fucking sublime. For the uninitiated: the game is 50% traditional racing, and 50% levels where you have to speed into a crowded intersection and cause the most violent, expensive, multi car pile up possible. Once the carnage is complete, a brilliant “Fight Club” style roving camera surveys the damage and adds up every dollar. For guy who has a history of breaking shit in angry moments, a video game like this is paradise. 

Watched U2 on Saturday Night Live, they were really great. After all that Ashlee Simpson lip-synching bullshit, and the worlds most popular artist, Eminem rapping to a guide track the very next week (which still sucks in my opinion), it was vital that the show did something to re-establish it’s reputation as America’s greatest weekly LIVE performance opportunity. They played “Vertigo” first, then anther new one, which was especially good. Sounded like “classic” U2. Then before the credits, they played “I Will Follow”, and Bono and The Edge walked into the audience, Bono screwed with the cameras ala “Zoo TV Tour”, and he mingled with the SNL cast making the ladies cry. It was a really cool moment. He was singing lyrics about it being “live” over and over. Very important that that happened. I think anyone who makes a career of lip-synching should stay clear of SNL, leave that for actual live performances. That includes those in the hip-hop world who rap to a “guide vocal”, I mean, shit, you’re not even singing, you don’t have to worry about pitch, just fucking do it!

We had a couple Panic rehearsals over the weekend, as we get ready for the show at the Key Club on December 2nd. Things are sounding better and better. Yesterday we did the set, then sat around for a band meeting and came up with plans for finishing the recording we started last month in December, the stage show, and what we plan on doing in the new year. Afterward, we played some new music.

Dave mentioned that he was into trying a song from “Project P” (a song cycle I have been writing for the last two months) so I sent him a demo of the most rocking song, (N1). The demo was just a little middle of the night one I made to keep the ideas before they floated away, it wasn’t the one I was planning on sending to him, but what the hell. The song was built from a jam that Dave came up with a few months ago, a really haunting Pink Floyd like verse part, and then a 180 degree flip into a really acerbic mean riff. That was the piece of music that got me started writing “P”. I was planning on finishing it as much as I could, then hitting the guys with it once we had finished the record, but we’ll see what happens now. Maybe we’ll play a song or two from it live before then. This means that maybe earlier than I had thought, I will take the wraps off it and tell you the name and idea behind it.

Originally, it was meant to be a 3-4 song “suite” of tunes that ran together to tell a story (ala The Who’s “A Quick One While He’s Away”), but once the idea made itself known, it was obvious that it was a record-sized piece. At the moment it is 5 songs done, with two more in the works, and after that I think it will need 2 more to be complete. It really felt great to run through “N1” and hear all the band muscle behind it. Even when they are just playing something the first time, it sounds awesome.

We have the week off, 2 days to go before Riss and I take off to the snowy mountains to visit my folks for Thanksgiving.