Christmas Evil

I'm on the bus coming back to Jersey for the holiday. I was going to post some pictures of the weekend's blizzard or my adventure getting the couch upstairs. They're coming. The bandwidth on the bus isn't cool enough to let me upload pictures, though. Well, just the same. It's a good holiday. I hope you're all well. I'll say more when I've got more room to say it.

<3 rj

sigh...

Palmer: Destroyed

We had a great night of bowling to 80's metal bands.

Next morning, we shook it off and recorded most of the vocal takes.

Kyle's town was really quiet and unassuming, it reminded Jake and I of our home in New Jersey and we gave each other many high fives to good times. I was in a weird place this weekend and felt really out of touch with the universe, so I hope that comes through on the record or else I'll know I'm a complete hack behind the microphone.

Still, we're over the moon, excited about this record and we hope someone will listen to it or whatever.

Big Ten Now

Holy smokes.

We got to Kyle's today and everything really fell into place. We tracked all the drums and bass and were like

"hey, jesus fucking christ, we got a lot of shit done today."

Then we realized it was only 6 pm. sooooo we started doing guitars and finished all the parts in 3 hours. I mean, I think. We may listen back tomorrow morning and realize that I hit an accidental 7th when I shouldn't have or, maybe I slipped out of Mixolydian at the wrong time. Whatever. It's been a gorgeous day and now we're going bowling. We'll post some results tomorrow, if we're lucky.

Let's Roll.
XOXOX

Collider

Here's the track list as I see it happening.

1. Sand Collider
2. Black Bear
3. Rain On Bee Hive
4. Shepherds of Apples & Bread
5. Wooden Face
6. Flower Sunday


[and Conrad:]
No word on the cover art yet. Once I hear it, I'll be able to see it a little better. Though Jake thinks it should have some shades of blue in it.

palmer

We go out and press record for the first time this weekend. We'll probably shove off, out west early Saturday morning, under one of those fuzzy winter sun rises, huddled, red-eyed, together with our equipment in Kate's car. (Kate, she's a dream come true so far, and Jake and I thank Kyle for having an MVP caliber girlfriend.)

I still have one more song I'd like to finish. And I only have tonight to do that, but things look good. Conceptually it's the last piece that the record needs. Tentatively we're going with "Collider" for a name.

Our second EP: Collider.

Went out and saw Milk last night. So rousing. Sean Penn is really phenomenal. I hope he'll like our music, because I really like his work. I wanted to stand up and cheer, but I couldn't even lift myself from the chair until the curtains closed.

You heard it here last.
Good morning.

Holiday thoughts

Spend your holidays with:

Tomato Bisque from Crema Café.

Daydream Nation by Sonic Youth

Almost No Memory by Lydia Davis

These are the warmest things I can think of right now.

Stay cool.

Big party

Time spent walking was hard on the cheeks this morning. I'm thawing out now, my belly's still humming.

Mr. Bookstore threw a great big party last night for our holidays. The new owner really wants to win us over and I think he's doing a pretty good job. Lots of bowling, yelling and rock 'n roll poses.

James got an electric saw, so our charge now is to cut up my couch, bring it up in pieces and reassemble it. We will be very comfortable, very soon.

I'm tired.


Christmas kisses,

Currently Listening To:

Deerhunter: Microcastle

For your brisk December afternoon pleasure.

Okay, back to work.

fucking rad

Whaaaat!!

My great grandmother is ghost riding the whiiiiip.

Thanks, mom, for the tip.

Everybody have a nice afternoon.

XMas List

I'll start Christmas shopping in earnest tonight. Let me know what you think I should get all my loved ones. I miss New York City an awful lot, but I sometimes forget what a pretty city this is to stumble about too.



I've got a relatively unintimidatingly sized list, but the folks on it are intimidating receivers. I'm trying too hard. Maybe it's just that the list shrinks every year, and I try to hold onto it with the perfect knick knack or my favorite record that they'll probably hate. Elves and shit.

XO

Baby Thomas

Christmas Week

I threw together a demo of a Christmas song I wrote. You can hear it on the band's myspace. It does not rock.

Beuatyful. Whaytever,

Maaaan. My isight camera's not working. I would have taken an awesome picture of my dad and I sitting here, huddled around the space heater, which I should have given a name by now. We went out and bought a box spring to put under my mattress, but the fucker's too big to fit up my stair case. We have to ask the people downstairs if we can use their doorway for some extra wiggle room. When either one of my cameras are working I'll show you. Then we went out to Chinatown and got some Taiwanese food, killer.

I wrote Jake and Kyle an excited e-mail about finding someone to play cello on the next record, but they haven't gotten back to me. Too busy dicking around with their families. Yeah we go out next weekend and start recording. Pops and I are listening to that Frances record right now. He hasn't heard it yet.

I'm wanna write a song called "Beuatyful. Whaytever," I'll let you know how that goes.

Good night.

All The While

My friend Paul just released an album with his band Frances. It's a rompingly gorgeous record. francestheband.com

Thanksgiving Over The Phone

As I did not spend Thanksgiving with my family, I phoned in around 4:30 to mom and 6:00 to dad.
Dad was at his parents, along with the rest of the Smiths. So I got passed around for about half an hour, reconnecting with my cousins and Mom Mom. I didn't learn much. They're doing well. And they probably didn't learn much from me either. Mom Mom keeps Brandon (cousin B) in her prayers, that he'll get his driver's license back. We'll see. He promises that we'll hit the open road once he does.
Similarly, my mom was at her parents. I always learn a lot from this phone call. Grandmom gives me the family's medical run down, that's nothing new, she hopes to see me soon and insists that she still hasn't gotten my e-mails. Mom's information is always the best. She tells me that my sister of 15 years is having an earlier dinner with her boyfriend of 3. The house is coming along and they'll be back inside someday. She painted the door black. She also gave me her review of the vampire/teen-romance/eye-gouging/blockbuster movie Twilight. "It kicked ass." ...Thanks, mom. Happy Thanksgiving.

Maker Big Style

This holiday is coming. I'll be staying in Boston and eating with new friends. But I'm realizing this blog is less captivating than it could be because my images are courtesy of google search.
I need to find my cables for my camera and pepper this with pictures of my feet or walls.

For example. I could have told you a remarkable story about a dinner party my new housemate, James, and I hosted. James prepared most of the food and I arrived from work 2 hours before people started showing up and helped mold his cookings into meals. With pictures I could have demonstrated for you how my ability to fold dough into Chinese style dumplings grew exponentially over the course of half an hour. James was a wonderful cook and we hosted about ten people. A great evening that you could have experienced visually if not for my technological short comings.

Happy Day.

An Inconvenient Fucking Cold

This new apartment of mine, it's got a great view from the roof and the three yahoos I live with are really great, doesn't have a heating system. And this morning when I got in, I realized that it was sitting at a cool 38 degrees. I picked up one of those small ceramic electric heaters two weeks ago and it can get things cooking at about 68 in an hour or so.

But what the fuck goes on when I leave? MaryAnne, she's a thin bodied Martin that I've had for about 6 or 7 years, must be freezing. I leave her under the blankets, but she doesn't produce any body heat of her own. How can I keep her safe? Right now we're at 46 and rising. I'm waiting for Kyle to pick me up for music time. She's not invited, cos she doesn't melt faces as much as a Telecaster.

And then I want some juice. Maybe some pear juice, do they sell that?

hundreday hollow

Dear, dear.

I won't make this mistake again.
So cold, gold gold. The view from my new roof is far reaching, especially with all those leaves dead and gone. Maybe I'll take a picture of it this evening or tomorrow morning. Both would be nice.

The biggest news in band world is that we found a guy named Kyle to play our drums. He's friendly, interesting and excited about being a part of our world. We're very happy to have him on board. And a new EP is on the horizon.

I'm Terribly Sorry

I've neglected this thing again. And it's all my fault.

The band has been very busy. We've had a handful of shows, all of which have been relatively successful, including one at the Abbey Lounge with a slew of great bands. We walked away with $40 split between the three of us. Oh yeah, Ian has left to pursue songwriting in Maine and he will return, with his own project, and stronger than ever.

I don't know what this blog is about.

Most importantly, it's baseball season again.



http://youtube.com/babyradiogoose for more videos

The First Rehearsal De Osos

I've been wrangling this whole musical project for a while now, under the name De Osos. Now I've found Joe and Ian, on drums and guitar respectively, to fill out the line-up and the sound. On Saturday we had our first rehearsal as a band, in Joe's basement. This video was shot and edited by Tom Stohlman, whose Vlog can been seen here: http://youtube.com/user/namlhots