resolve

So Gavin Castleton's Home is incredible. I don't think I have liked a single body of music as much as I love this album. The music is amazing, and the words remind me of a time where life was really difficult for me, but I somehow was "saved by ladybugs," so to speak haha. It's really an amazing thing how relating to music can make you feel. It almost can make you re-cope with things but in a much better way, though some music i suppose could just remind you of bad things with overly negative lyrics. I suppose that's not as good. Buttttt, Gavin's music truly makes my life better and it's okay that he probably thinks im some dork fanboy because I've written him way too many fan letters telling him how great he is. OOP.

Something About Horses played a show on Friday at Firehouse 13. Minus some minor issues, and one song fuck up, we rocked hardcore. There were sound issues, as there's a lot going on in our music and if we don't double check what's going on it can get kinda muddy. We recorded it though, and the biggest problem was not hearing the synth which is most always the melody. We need to work on getting a good sound, but ya know we're a new band so it's understandable. I think if we could make everything clearer, we'd really floor people. Though at the show I felt a weird feeling from some people and even the other bands. I didn't feel very welcome, I didn't get many compliments after the show besides my friends. Not that I want everyone to tell me how amazing we are, but like even just a feeling of unity or something. I've complimented bands I've seen or played with that I didn't necessarily like that much, but I think it's really important for musicians to stick together and help each other out. I hate that exclusionary bullshit usually coming from groups who feel like they're better than anyone else.

I also really felt like some people, and I may be wrong, didn't "get it." Again, I never thought I was in some sort of hip LOOP of music. I know I write some strange music but, it really isn't that weird. I feel like people who proclaim they listen to a lot of music, or musicians who proclaim to play such "high" music, they aren't very educated about the kinds of music out there. Fuck man, something about horses is so conventional compared to a lot of other music. And I'm not talking about the obscure music some guy makes in his basement out in Montana, there's a lot of popular music that is really fucked. I just don't get what is so strange about Something About Horses. It's mostly tonal.

It also sucks when you face the inevitable group that doesn't like your music. Not everyone will like you, and even knowing this it's still hard when you're playing a show and you feel this small group, maybe out of a big crowd, but this small group who doesn't give a shit about what you have to say. During the end of our set, I heard a lot of people talking loudly and it really pissed me off. I felt so insulted. BUT, this is what EVERY musician has to face. Every artist for that matter too.

I really feel like there's such a problem, at least here in America, of just not giving a chance to things you don't understand. I suppose this is obvious, but it's weird when it's your baby, your art, your whole ENTIRE being that is just tossed aside. Even if it's 5 people out of 100. You will eventually hear or feel what those 5 think of you, and unless you are very sure of yourself, which Im not a lot of the time, it hurts. When I found out our sound got kinda muddied, I way over-reacted cause I felt like we may have turned people away because the information wasn't clear. But I also felt in general that a good amount of people didn't like us, and I even felt that one of the Other bands didn't really care for us.

It was different at our first show though. Our debut, for which we really weren't that tight. Had a lot of friends there but we did have a good number of people who didn't know us. And I felt like that reception was very nice. The other bands were very kind, and supportive. Herra Terra complimented us along with the other bands in the midst of their set, saying these bands were making "fucking amazing" music and that almost made me teary as weird as that sounds. And I had my fucking IDOL Gavin Castleton say we "fucking murdered it" and complimented us to my face. He complimented us before this night, but for some reason then I could tell he was being even more sincere. And the rest of Ebu Gogo was very supportive, as I have become decently acquainted with them over the past year or so.

It's probably good though for me to go through this. No, it's DEFINATELY good. I need to know these things. What matters are the people who actually take the time to listen to you. And I should be really upset or really happy at first when I hear good or bad things. Cause your music should be YOU, entirely. If it isn't, then what are you doing? Even if I'm imagining these things, I still need to deal with these thoughts. Some people will hear us and say "Wow, what the fuck happened? That was amazing!" and others will say "Jesus, you guys suck hardcore." Maybe even to my face. But what matters is I'm making the music that makes me happy, and once I discovered that approach to writing and performing, I've never gone back. Those who take the time will understand that there is a lot we're saying. It's plain and simply honesty, and just having fun.

I want to fucking rock and bring the walls down. Rock and Roll is all about people having a problem with what you do and not giving a fuck.

yea.

Whoa

So no post for awhile. I know you missed me. Well I'm back in North Dartmouth, MA at UMass for college. 2nd Semester of my junior year. It's really strange how fast this is going by.

Well, Something About Horses recorded some stuff yesterday for our 3 song Sampler we are releasing quite soon. It was a grueling 7 hours and there is still work to be done, but it will be worth it. It sounds great so far, and our excellent engineer Dan Warren will make it even better. I'm really happy to be in a band I love playing with that's actually getting things done, and might go somewhere. Who knows where music is going to go now? The interwebs have destroyed record labels and it's about time. Fuck.

We are also playing a show with California Smile and Irepress at Firehouse 13 on Friday the 13th. That should be swell.

What else? hmm. Well classes are alright. I'm learning how to use this crazy software called MaxMSP which can pretty much do anything with audio you can imagine. Gonna make some crazy noises. Expect that on a few SOmething About Horses releases in the future.

Also, now a composition major, and also preparing material for a composition concert in the spring at school. I'm really looking to do something entirely different lately, because I've been writing for the band for so long I wanna just do something different with different instruments. The first idea i have is to make a horror movie piece. Sort of an homage to the good and the hilariously bad ones. It will be for voice and maybe percussion, and maybe one more instrument. I'll probably use MaxMSP on it. I'm gonna make a lot of creepy atmospheric noise and put some loud screams and percussion and shiitt. It's gonna be terrifying. Some clips from horror films would be swell too. I'm really just gonna go as avant-garde as i can on this one. I wanna just push myself to not care about any sort of normalcy and just scream and make a lot of weird noise.

I have a weird relationship with avant-garde stuff. I go through periods of loving it, and times where i don't so much. Not like I hate it, but I for some reason don't understand it anymore. Not talking about musical phases either, I just don't get it at points. Though at my heart I am just a rocker, and avant-garde is just another genre, but it did change my music quite a lot and actually enabled me to write music I liked. I couldn't finish a rock song very often until I wrote my first electronic concrete piece. So it always comes back. It's like zen. Always coming back to me.

My other band now called "Impeach the Wizard," now needs a bassist. but we're writing some kickass songs. It's a lot more listenable than my other stuff but it rocks hard. It's cool to be in a band where I don't write primarily, and just come up with parts on my secondary instrument (drums). It's a lot of fun, and helps me out with my own music in someway.

I need to travel. I've been pretty happy at points lately. But I feel like I need to get away for even a day to just put some things into perspective. And plus, I've barely ever left massachusetts.

Oh and Gavin Castleton's album "Home" comes out next friday the 13th, and what he's released so far is amazing. I really encourage you to check out his page and buy the album when it comes out. This guy's music has literally saved my musical life so many times. It's incredible. http://www.purevolume.com/gavincastleton


Well, once the sampler is done and we play some shows I'll be writing more for my adoring fans (LOL).

ta.