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Monday, the last day.
Ryan had some extra time in the studio on Sunday night and Monday morning before the "Bruises" drive was delivered to the studio, so he decided to spend the time doing his own version of "Why Cry". We have a great mix from Chris Lord-Alge, but Ryan wanted to make another version that had a bit more of an edge to it, with louder guitars overall. He made his version, and I went in at 11am to make my comments, then he was on to "Blue Bruises". "Bruises" was a song we recorded first with Brian Virtue, then re-recorded last summer with Howard Benson. Even after Ryan had had a day with the song, by the time I got in it still sounded not as fierce as the other songs. Generally, the instruments and tones on the song sounded thinner. Chris Chaney got back from Sundance and showed up to add his notes to the mix. The three of us spent some time upping the rhythm guitars, riding the vocal choruses, and making sure the details of the song were highlighted. After a while we got it sounding really good, although it does sound different than the other songs. This was the last day to engage in my mixing session orange peeling and eating ritual. Since day one, I show up in the studio, say my hellos, and do a little chit chat. Then I get a nice big orange from the bowl of fruit at the door, and set to peeling and eating the thing on my first listen down of the day's mix. I have a motivation behind this that not just nutritional. I find that when you engage your motor skills in some kind of minor task (walking, doing the dishes, etc.) your brain accepts music in a different way then if you were to sit there with 100% of your attention focused on the sound. I like occupying my mind and it's critical processes a bit so that hopefully the music can "wander in" a bit more freely. One day last week, there was no orange. I made sure they never made that mistake again. Chris had one more detail on "Awake" to take care of with Ryan, then we were done. Ryan gave me a finished CD of all 14 tracks and said "pretty strange to know you have a year's worth of work in your hand". It's true. We started out making an EP with Brian Virtue back in October 2004. That ballooned up into being our own self-produced record with tracking at Henson studios in January and February. Then, after we got the record deal, we did a song with Josh Abraham and two with Howard Benson over the summer. Finally this last fall, we went back in the studio and made this, the final version with Josh and Ryan, which led to this two weeks of mixing. Months of work. From writing in Stephen Perkins' garage, to our own rehearsal room, to nights alone with my acoustic, from home ProTools demos, to re-working ideas in the studio. Taking the subway downtown and to graveyards on rainy day lyric walks, filling sketchbooks with pages of words and drawings. Contracts, obligations, conference calls, holdups, conditions. Conversations, arguments, different versions, different lyrics, new names. Laughter, excitement, fear, sweat and sound. So many hours. All in my hand.
Sunday afternoon, 3:30pm. I went to the studio to hear Ryan's finished "Lie Next to Me" mix. This song is a 100% vocal song, done "a capella" style. It doesn't sound like any of the other songs and if it goes on the record, I can only hear it working as the last track, to close out the record. Here's how LN2M came in to being: I had been in the studio about six weeks, and all my lead & harmony vocals and guitars were done. I had spent about a month alone with Ryan in the studio and we had just added some atmospheric keyboard parts to "Outsider", "Bloody Mary" and "She Won't Last". Once that was complete, I found myself in a unique position. Dave was still a few days from starting up his guitar tracks, and I had completed all of my work, and had some fun experimentation time. I was in this great recording studio, with an uber-talented recorder, and had time on my hands. I'd never been in a situation where there wasn't a long list of things to get done, and a time line that I was up against. I could have taken a couple days off and kicked it at home, but what fun is that? The last song I had written on the acoustic was called "Lie Next to Me". I liked the idea of having an acoustic track on the record somewhere. I tracked the guitar to a song called "Someone Else" back in the Henson sessions, but never finished recording it. At the start of the Abraham sessions, I demoed out a song called "Green" as well. I like both songs, but neither was really urging me to put it in the running to be on the record. Ryan and I spent a lot of time talking about our favorite music, and I played him Brian Wilson's "Smile" which I was listening to a lot during vocal tracking. He had never heard it. "Smile" is largely a sung record, and features layer upon layer of exquisitely arranged vocal tracks - it's an amazing album. One night in the week before Dave was scheduled to come in to do guitars, I stayed up late and made a home demo of LN2M, as an all vocal or "a capella" track. Initially I had no idea how to go about it. Since arranging vocals on the level of "Smile" made my brain hurt, I started out simply. Why not take an acoustic song, and just have one vocal track per string of the guitar? So there would be six backing tracks, one for each guitar string, and the voice would just sing what the notes in the guitar chords were doing. Seemed like a good enough place to start. It took me about 3 hours, and once I was finished, it sounded much better that I had thought it would have. I was pretty happy with it as a demo, and it was definitely good enough to bring in to Ryan and Josh to see what they thought. My demo seemed to go over pretty well with them, so Ryan and I reserved that Saturday's tracking solely for LN2M. On Friday I started feeling a little sick, and by the time Saturday came around I was under the weather and coughing up green shit. Good times. Nice visual, right? You're welcome. Dave was coming in on Monday, and we were off on Sundays, so it was Saturday or nothing. We ended up duplicating the approach I had taken with my demo; one track for each guitar string. We made a double track for each of those, and that made a nice studio-quality duplicate of what I'd done at home. We then added a few more tracks for some spice: a couple answering counter melodies in the chorus and outro, and we were done. Yesterday, in the mixing session, Ryan and I went through and gave the song some more shape, by muting some of the higher voices at the beginning of the song, and slowly sculpting how they layer back in until the 2nd verse when they all play together. I love how this song turned out. Again, I don't know if it will make the record, but I would like to see that happen. This song would really help accomplish one of the things we have tried to do with this record: to make something that rocks, but also travels through many melodic peaks and valleys in the course of the album's journey. I left Ryan to work on "Why Cry". He wanted to make his version of this song in what was left of the day's session. space
seems like it's organized
against me
This will have to be a recap. It's Sunday morning, and the daily mix sessions have been going great. Wednesday the 18th we finished "Night One". Despite the length of the song and all the different parts, it wasn't that tough of a mix. Once Dave and I were in, we made some suggestions about the long bridge section and how to play all the atmospheric elements against each other. After that, a pass with the Flamethrowers, and we were done. Thursday the 19th we mixed "Listen". Friday the 20th we finished "Teahouse of the Spirits", and did a "recall" on "Listen"... A recall is when you get the mix home and something can still be improved, or maybe something was overlooked. Thursday night, when I got in the car and played "Listen", the tribal drum kick-in seemed a little soft, as well as the song's final moments: when the main riff is played all in unison by all the instruments, it should have been louder, more triumphant. After listening to a song over and over, sometimes your objectivity can get fuzzy, and clearer ears will give a better take on what is missing. Mixing is an extremely important part of the process; details can be lost or featured, whole song dynamics can be made better or worse. "Listen" was really really good, and 99% of people would never hear a difference, but to Dave and I felt that it's was just about right, but it had to be perfect. After Friday's work on "Teahouse" was done, we brought "Listen" back up and fixed those few small changes. Saturday we got "Left to Lose" done. This was one song that we kept the original Virtue version that we recorded at Henson studios. We had some company at the studio, so it was a good social gathering. After L2L, we did a recall of "Bloody Mary". After living with it for a couple days, we were agreeing with Josh Abraham who had thought that the snare should have been kicked up a notch. I took the opportunity to jump into the vocal booth and sing one more harmony in the chorus as well. As I have been driving around listening to "Bloody Mary" I keep hearing a harmony in my head that I had never sang. It seemed like a perfect bit of happenstance; the mix was back up for a recall, so I added a small harmony to the "Mary's got your medicine tonight" line. So glad I did that, that would have fucking bugged me forever if I hadn't put that bit in. Today we do the a capella song, "Lie Next To Me". This should be fun. I've never done a song using only vocal tracks, and this was an experiment in the first place, but it came out really nice. Dave is away at Sundance, so Ryan and I will finish up "LN2M" and "Blue Bruises".
Woman marries a dolphin. Keeping America the Strongerest Autogynephilia, sado-masochistic bondage dominatrixes, and The Matrix? Count me in. A sea full of danger and oceans of fun. Jeff Buckley Knockoff Project and I thought it was just a cool Muse song... Robots among us. Working Title Epic sound of the 60's and 70's
 Had some company in the studio for the mixing of "Outsider" last night; my friend songwriter Frankie Palmer, and Dave's Spread Radio Live co-host Gregg Simon.
This was a song I felt was just about perfect in it's rough mix version, so the final mix wasn't too different. The task with this song is in getting the delicate balance of all the Zeppelinesque acoustic and electric guitars to interweave just right. Ryan told us that the studio we are in -"Studio B" is the studio that Michael Jackson made "Thriller" in. He says that Jackson felt that the only way to properly hear music back in the room was to lie on the floor. I'll have to try that tonight. After mixing, we next door for our nightly visit to The Virgin Cherry.
We are seven songs in, six left. Tonight we tackle the 800 pound gorilla that is "Night One".
disguised, so the crowd can't see my strategies and plans
Ryan had this one nailed from the get-go. Sounded full, powerful, moody. Dave and I made a note here and there - just minor adjustments - and "She" was ready to go. This was the first Panic Channel song and it's always a benchmark of how far we've come together. It tells the true story of a girl going through a really dark time in her life. There is a lot of emotion that needs to be communicated, and Ryan once again made all the puzzle pieces fit just right. We then went next door for our post mix sushi fix, the Golden Globe Awards playing on TV. After dinner, we went back to the studio and burned our "She Won't Last" CDs. Dave was nosing around and found Ryan's book of Cd's that he brings to test the room to get his head space aligned for mixing, a collection of some of the best rock records from the 60's-90's. He told us how fun it was just to listen to great music you grew up with and that influenced you on the gigantic main "Flamethrower" speakers. He started playing some songs and we all kicked back and just listened. The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Steely Dan, and some obscure 70's rock. Through those giant speakers in that million dollar room, every tiny detail, every nuance was clear. We heard the creaking sound of someone getting out of a chair in the fade out on The Beatles' "A Day In The Life". Like a time machine, we were transported back into the room with all those musicians, hearing what they saved in time for us. The best moment was when we turned the main lights off, and listened to Led Zeppelin. The board's thousands of tiny red and green LED's and all the glowing white fader windows made it look like the cockpit of a ghost spaceship. After "In the Light", we played Zeppelin's "Ten Years Gone". I first got into this song a long time ago when I moved to Los Angeles. I've always gotten this strong vibe from it, it never fails to stop me in my tracks. It was a song that reminded me to keep searching; that something was out there for me. Hearing "Ten Years Gone" through the Flamethrowers in the glow of the lights of that ghost spaceship, I felt like maybe I had discovered what that feeling was for.
just one of those things
another bleeding bird
in love with her broken wings
and I know that's just the way these things go
now I know better
Nonviolence is the answer to the crucial political and moral questions of our time: the need for man to overcome oppression and violence without resorting to oppression and violence. Man must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression and retaliation. The foundation of such a method is love.
-Martin Luther King, Jr.
Sunday in the studio. "Go On" was another monster. A lot of tracks, tons of dynamics, and not a cakewalk to make sure all the elements are right. Dave and I got in and started tweaking the mix. This one we played with a lot more than the others. We added a delay on the verse vocals, and highlighted some of our favorite bits: the 70's synthesizer boom of the intro, the filtered-out quiet verse, and the uber-heavy chug chug chug before the solo. Special care was needed to preserve the details that were born in the rehearsal room. I have always loved this song, and sometimes the early tunes we wrote as a band can be left behind in favor of giving new love to new songs, but I keep an eye on "Go On" to make sure that it gets it's proper due. We spent about 4 hours in the studio getting the mix just right. Afterwards we adjourned next door to a sushi spot that has been kind to us for the past week. Virgin Cherry and his bevy of Japanese Cuisine beauties serving the finest in raw seafood without a wait. Tomorrow we finish the mix on the first Panic Channel song, "She Won't Last". all the noble efforts
sacrificial fireworks
smell the sulphur when all goes wrong
wicked people have no songs
Drove to the studio through a freshly rained on Los Angeles playing "Bloody Mary" over and over and over again. I love it. Dave has a solo that I love more and more every time I hear it. I get some kind of strange feeling listening to it, like a deep feeling of familiarly with the spirit of the notes. Like and old friend. He really nailed the emotion of the song. Yesterday we got "Said You'd Be" done. This song was a much easier mix than the last two. Less tracks and more direct: hit it, ROCK OUT, and quit it. Also SYB is only 2 and a half minutes long. Dave came in first and made some adjustments to the bass and the vocal effects in the chorus (as much as this song has one). By the time I got in it sounded pretty much finished. Didn't have much to add because the way I see this song, it's all about the aggressive alliance between Dave, Stephen, and Chris, and as long as that is intact... the song works. I'm the frosting on top screaming about lying politicians. Dave went off to do his Camp Freddy radio show, and I came home and got busy saving the enchanted forest. It won't save itself. Tonight we finish "Go On"... friendly foes
spreading lies they speak in code
now we finally see
not what you said you would be
6:30pm. Friday the 13th. Mixing so far has been great. It's like Christmas everyday: we head over to the studio where Ryan has been tweaking, effecting, and riding the volumes on our precious track. We show up for a couple hours, make some suggestions, try a few new ideas and leave with one more piece to the puzzle of our record. Yesterday was Friday was the 13th, the day that we finished "Bloody Mary" a song that has been through some big changes this year. This one needed a little more care and attention to finish than the first two. It sounded good when we arrived, but not there yet. Ryan added some Who-esque piano chords that needed to be tucked into the mix a bit at first. We also spent some time finessing the "atmosphere bridge" that precedes the solo. This section is a bed of tribal drums with a mix of sitar, piano notes, crowd noise, Perk's talking drum, and thunder sheet. There were so many details in this section and we needed to go through a cherry pick the special moments to highlight. Once we were done, we knew it. In the mixing studio, you play the song on different sets of speakers to make sure it will sound cool on whatever a listener might have. The main ones are Yamaha NS10's - the standard studio speaker. There are the larger Genelecs. There is also Ryan's small boom box to check out how low-fi speakers will sound. The most fun part (I think for all of us) are using what Ryan calls "Flamethrowers". These are the gigantic 4x3 foot speakers mounted directly into the back wall of the studio. They sound like aliens landing. Or atomic weaponry. Or God. That's always a really good moment, when the mix seems pretty much finished and Ryan kicks on the Flamethrowers. It's hard not to smile when you hear something that you've been working on for a year blasting out of a first-class studio loud enough to shift the plates in the Earth. "Mary" sounded pretty profound and once the work was done, we went next door and ate some raw fish. In the middle of the night it started to rain. she's the queen of midnight runs
the cell phone and the rolled up ones
desperate don't despair
call and Mary's there
Yesterday Dave and I showed up around 6:30, followed by Chris, then Perk. It was great having everybody in the same room together after all the post-recording downtime and the holidays. (parking in the alley, hit the buzzer, door opens, dark brown walls with 1970’s style cork and stone everywhere, head down the dimly lit hall to Studio B) Ryan had his mix of “Loophole” ready to go. He pretty much nailed it. We made small comments here and there; “can you raise the rhythm guitar in the last prechorus a CH?”, “we need more bass in the breakdown”, etc. He said that he had never mixed a song with so many tracks. Apparently the ProTools file for “Loophole” has 62 of them. We went a little crazy in the studio on that one. Some songs we left more sparse like “Said You’d Be” and “Left to Lose”, but some we just didn’t restrain ourselves. The idea is that even if you have tracks you don’t use in the final version at mix time, at least you tried all the ideas that were flowing. Sometimes it’s better to have something and not need it, then need something and not have it. Ryan split the difference and somehow found a place for almost everything we laid down. There are recording philosophy arguments like “you should just have what the song really must have and no more” - the Rick Rubin approach, but we just did what we wanted to do song by song. “Loophole” was definitely a giant job to mix, but again Ryan proved himself a really talented man behind the boards. We added a really thick, trippy effect on the repeated vocal after the solo: “This is the last time, I say it’s the last time, I pray it’s the last time, I swear…” I was feeling that this section needed to be differentiated from the rest of the vocals in the song. The idea is that the words become very personal, internal. Like the rest of the lyrics are spoken out to someone, and for that vocal bridge, the words are spoken inwardly to oneself. (ONe) of the best things happening so far is hearing Perkins’ drums so clear and present in the mix. With all the rough mixes, coming straight from the ProTools rig, the drums have been sinking into the soup of all the guitars and vocals over time. I have been living with those versions for the last couple months, so now hearing the drums crack and thunder with true clarity, separation and depth is really exciting. Once again I am reminded that we are so blessed to have one of the best drummers in the world in this band. Today Ryan is mixing “Bloody Mary”. This is a special day. We’ve all been waiting to hear this song finished and tonight is the night, made even better by the fact that it’s Friday the 13th. A good omen. I don’t buy into the “unlucky 13th” bullshit. I feel just the opposite. The number thirteen has a rich and unique history of good fortune. The version he is mixing is the Bloody Mary “brown” version, the new version. This looks to be the one that will go on the record. It is a difficult choice between this one and the first “white” version, because they really became two completely different songs. I love the new version, but I used to really dig playing that bridge from the white version. Maybe someday we’ll take the bits we cut and make a whole new song. After we finished up, I went to the 3 of Clubs to check out my friends Boatel and Killola play a show. the fountain’s floor is blackened
with the wishes that I’ve thrown in
I found what I was searching for
has been what I was searching with
Wednesday was a truly fantastic day. The last week was really one to have permanently wiped from my memory, but Wednesday almost made up for it. For the last week I have been house bound. Seems that the department of motor vehicles doesn't appreciate when you don't appear in court. Seems they then like to mess with your license and registration status, then your insurance company can get in on the act and make things really difficult. Any way you cut it, it's a giant lesson in humility and powerlessness and an opportunity to find new and creative ways to entertain yourself while standing in DMV lines hour after hour that doesn't involve murdering anybody. So I've been house bound for the last week and going on a tour of the local DMV's, city courts, etc. trying to get my poor car free from it's orange boot of civil slavery. Wednesday it all worked out. Just in the nick of time to be able to drive to... ...The first mixing session on the record. Not exactly the first, but the first of the last. We mixed "Why Cry" with Chris Lord-Alge a few weeks ago, and now we mix all the rest of the songs with Ryan Williams, who recorded/engineered the record. We will mix one song per day, so for the next two weeks we'll be in there. This is how mixing works: Ryan goes to the studio (a new studio, not where we did the record, one especially for mixing) around 10am. He spends the whole day sorting out the tracks, applying effects, delays, compression etc. Some of the effects were "tracked" or "printed" on the "tape"and can't be changed, and some of them were like placeholder effects that would be done "for real" in the mix. Was that too many parentheses in that last sentence? I think maybe so. There's probably a legal limit for that, too... After he has had the full day to get all the sounds, by all, I mean ALL - some songs are nearing 60 plus tracks used; that's alot of sound to sort through - then we come in. Today Dave and I arrived at 6:30pm to listen down. We are really happy with it, sounds just right. Really big, really powerful, and the rhythm section sounds thunderous, which is very important on this song. On "Awake" and "Go On" especially, Chris' bass part really drives the song and so his bass and a solid drum foundation being properly balanced in the mix is essential for it to really really work. Some bands can get away with just maxxing out the guitars, but we're not that kind of band. We are really trying to have all four pieces of the puzzle strong and in context: drums, bass, guitar, and vocal melody. It's sometimes not an easy job. Ryan really pulled it off, and now we are super excited to get the rest of the songs done. The mood was really positive and organic at the studio and this bodes very well for the rest of the songs' last creative step. I will try to blog this process as much as I can day by day. I started this whole blog back in the Summer of '04 partially to document the creation and growth of this band, and it's a shame that I decided to stop the blog right at the most interesting part so far - as we were tracking this record last October, but that's how it went down. Things got dramatic and I went into a place that I didn't feel comfortable communicating from. All I could manage was to work daily on the record. Nose to the grindstone. It became all-consuming; I went into single-tasking tunnel-vision mode, and until I could see how this was going to turn out, I felt the need to be silent. all my problems
they're camouflaged
in these fatigues
I've begun to doubt our breed
of violent peace
yeah
 The Nominations: Powers Woodrow
Crews Q. Peebles
Heilwig Sircy
Wilton Hylander
Steroids M. Splinter
Imamu Stagner
Learn Spanish
Vizcaino G. Lemire
Sylvester Jarvis
Epiktetos Herrell
Odetta Chadwick
Mortimer Ladouceur
Wyatt I. Espinoza
Herminia Ash
Zane T. Puckett
Polhemus V. Speth
Debusk U. Nantz
Feeney K. Rollings
Bumpers H. Mountr
Mulhern I. Maine
Christian Singles
Olszewski J. Marquart
Coughlin A. Shain
Candelarik H. Cluff
Zvonimira Pierpont
Heaps R. Kitchin And the winner is:
honorable mention goes to "Steroids M. Splinter" but I am going to have to go with "Polhemus V. Speth" Congratulations!!! ...and fuck off.
 When I was away for the holidays, I hired my neighbor AJ (who's 7 years old) to take care of my cats Yaphet and Spike. He gave me this drawing to document the event. To the left side you see Spike, and next to him "cat vomit". The fat one next to the cat food is labeled "Yaphet". Seems he got the names of the cats mixed up because Yaphet is the thin one who smiles, and Spike is the stoic fat one who vomits. In the center you see me with my bags in two of my arms, paying AJ with the third of my arms, leaving my fourth arm free. I am also wearing a rather devilish expression, and some kind of skull-type T-shirt. Next to AJ is "cat chow" which I am assuming was the beginnings of the "cat vomit", and underneath is my tri-level cat tree. To the top right there is a cat labeled "Olive" saying "meeeow!". I don't know this cat, but there are about 50 in my courtyard, so far as I know there may very well be an "Olive" among them. Olive is next to something with the numbers "5:10" that could be a water heater or a bomb. I'll have to consult the artist to find out which.
Art weekend. Playing nursemaid for my lady. Chicken soup. Graphics tablets. Adobe Illustrator. Columbo. Been working on my cover design for the record. I'd started this digital painting around last March. Now that the record is nearing completion, I am firing up the computer and getting back to work on it. It's quite a project. As I've said before, I have no idea if this will be the finished cover, it depends how it comes out, and how the guys feel about it. All yesterday and today I've been working on illustrating stained glass wings. Working on really detailed eagle wing shapes made of church-like stained glass fragments. As with anything you see in your mind first, there is going to be an amount of trial and error to get there. It's definitely not at that point yet, but hopefully soon that element will be finished. There is still a massive amount of artwork to do after the wings are finished on the cover alone, but I'll just need to take it day by day. If you have to eat an elephant, you can only do it one bite at a time. We begin mixing the record next week. Looks like we'll be splitting the work up between Ryan Williams and Chris Lord-Alge. Very excited to finally be putting the music through this last creative filter before setting the album in stone. I've been playing the music for a select group of friends, a homemade focus group of beta testers. Since I am so involved, it's really good to some fresh takes on the album as a whole, to gain some new perspective. ___ Listened to the 3rd part of the John Lennon Rolling Stone interview podcast last night. Highly recommended listening. The first two parts were really good, but this part is just so juicy. He slags off the other Beatles, talks frankly about drugs, people's misconceptions, and the band's cultural impact. Not that hearing Lennon rip on the other Beatles is great or anything, but his honesty is pretty fascinating overall. To hear it, just go search in iTunes podcasts. Been listening to cellist Yo-Yo Ma's "Silk Road Ensemble" project's "Silk Road Journeys: Beyond the Horizon". It is somewhat of a world music concept record, where Ma collected a group of musicians from the countries bordering the "Silk Road" to make a collaborative musical project. The Silk Road is a network of trade routes that connect Asia with Europe and cross through a great many countries and cultures and rich musical traditions. The record is really fantastic working music. When I go into computer art mode, I can't really "get there" listing to rock or most lyrical music, it's gotta be floaty, atmospheric, mellow or classical. This might explain some of the more mellow selections in my recent "listening to" list. Battlestar Galactica season two started up on Friday, and it was great, put all my fears about the show jumping the shark to rest for the moment. Really good start to the season. Oh, almost forgot. How could I forget. Watched R.Kelly's "Trapped in the Closet" chapters 1-12 DVD on Friday. Beyond saying that it was truly amazing, there's not much else I can say. Largely because when I think about "Trapped in the Closet" all motor skills completely shut down, and I mentally wander off into my "happy place". update: the image above isn't the actual artwork, by the way, it's one of the reference pieces I am using. And to answer Michael C.'s question, I am using just Photoshop and Illustrator for the artwork.
The New Year. We defiled the first half of the twisted 2000's, and now on to the second half. Congratulations. Let's take a look back. Here are a few things that made some kind of impression (more like dents) in/on my brain. I'll list a few things, but am not saying that these are the "best" of the year. That would be presuming that I have absorbed everything that came out this year, or that I feel my opinion has more worth than yours, which it doesn't. Unless you listen to Ashlee Simpson. Then it does. So let this be a list of things I have some recollection of, that made some impact, and that I would like to take the memory with me into the new year, to assimilate it into my collective. Movies I Paid For in the Theatre and Didn't Feel Horribly Ripped Off By:
Cinderella Man
Constantine
Memoirs of a Geisha
Episode III : yes, hated the first two, but enjoyed this one, warts and all. Movies I Rented From Netflix and Found Very Enjoyable.
Oldboy : "I want something live"
Office Space
Ikiru : "life is brief"
DIG! Movie I Downloaded Illegally, but Was So Good That I Felt Guilty:
The 40 year old Virgin Music I Bought and Dug:
The Mars Volta : Frances the Mute
Kanye West : Late Registration
Kate Bush : Aerials
Queens OTSA : Lullabies to Paralyze
NIN : With Teeth Music I Downloaded, but Would Gladly Buy:
Elliot Smith : From a Basement On a Hill II : demos compilation found online
Fiona Apple : Extraordinary Machine I : original Jon Brion version Floating About the Ether:
Zombies - people LOVED the Zombies in '05! All shapes, all sizes!
Clouds (as information navigation, as soothing game) Songs I Dug:
"King of the Mountain" : Kate Bush
"Hypnotize" : System of a Down
"Helena" : My Chemical Romance
"Heard "Em Say" : Kanye West
"Beside You In Time" : NIN
"In My Head" : QueensOTSA Television Broadcasts of Merit:
Rome
Lost
Extras
The Daily Show : may Jon Stewart live for one thousand years
The Biggest Loser Jumped the Shark:
The Apprentice : now reduced to a one hour network television "create a commercial for this weeks sponsor" contest.
Possibly Survivor : please God, not another "arrange the colored tiles" game...
Possibly Lost : You better make all that "monsters in the trees" shit mean something ... soon!
Possibly Battlestar Galactica Re-considerations:
MySpace : hooker-heavy, but still fun.
Radiohead : Hail to the Thief
Jack Johnson : can be a good thing even without bong rips
Egg Whites : not just for breakfast anymore
Hip Hop Epiphanies:
Joseph Campbell Technologies (worth the hype):
All Google : Gmail, Google Maps
Xbox 360 : loved it til mine died
digg.com/spy
Current TV : Al Gore invented Internet TV
Firefox
CSS Bullshit:
Sony's rootkit anti-piracy technology
Most of what comes out of our President's mouth, in my opinion.
4 magazines at the supermarket checkout with the same 4 people/couples at the same time.
Parking Enforcement in Hollywood, CA: May you all wage a painfully unsuccessful lifetime war against hemorrhoids. Shit That Should Bail:
Paris, Lindsay, Nicole, and anything ending in "Simpson". Except animated Simpsons, they can stay.
RealPlayer
Internet Explorer
Pictures of Johnny Depp and Angelina Jolie on MySpace profiles to express one's "individuality" and "non-conformist attitude". Fave Blogs:
goldenfiddle
boing boing Podcasts:
Ricky Gervais
43 Folders
Rolling Stone interview with John Lennon Games:
Perfect Dark
Karamari Damaci
Call of Duty 2
Kameo Favorite Words:
Pwned
Brokeback : "dude, you're getting all brokeback about it, chill out" Moments to Remember:
Nine Inch Nails /Queens of the Stone Age show at the Hollywood Bowl:
when NIN played "Beside You in Time" with the scrim lowered in front of the band, and the wonderful transcendent projections...
Working with Ryan Williams, Brian Virtue, Josh Abraham and Chris Lord-Alge in the studio.
The showing of "Some Like It Hot" at Cinespia this summer. Moments to forget:
June Couch Tour '05.
2005 MTV Video Music Awards.
Multiple phone and utility disconnections.
The Music Business. All My Respect and Thanks:
All the Panic Agents and people for hanging with us in '05
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