anita's songs
how about the song that we uh, you wrote... and that i split up. "the iceland one?"
yeah. "why do you like that one?" cause its interesting. its something we havent
tried yet. "yeah its got some interesting lyrics. and i think that the changes you
wrote could be interesting. i mean it could be a potentially great song." yeah.
"like a really good one. like probably one of our best. its probably the best song
we've ever done. cause you wrote out so many different changes" i just felt like they
neede dto be there. "and then you gave me all these oppertunities to be creative"
but you can do that on your own too "not like this." different? "yeah. like, i like
how your changes are yours. you like put your stamp on the song" mm hmm, "and i think
thats pertty badass because we havent really done that before. like i think we just
figured out a way for you to get your stamp on a song," cool. "cause before you
were just singing my lyrics" yeah "and this way youre actually controlling the
structure of the song. and its in a way that i can totally work with." its fun
for me to do too. except for when youre like, im gonna record this entire working
process, and im gonna fuck with ya the entire time. and then when you run off to the
bathroom im gonna write a song about you pooping. other than that its great. "you've
gotta admit though, that the song when you were in the bathroom," mmhmm "i like this
song alot too ( semisonic made to last )" i saw that going nowhere "what?" that song!
"which song? the song... uh.. the bathroom song." yeah "i thought it was good. i
liked the changes" change the lyrics "yeah thats easy to do" but keep the ... the
music "it was pretty badass, i liked singing the notes i was playing," yeah "and i
don't think that i've done that with you before," really? yeah you have. kindof.
just not in a song. "but i think that was the first time that we did it in a song."
yeah, and recorded it, as it happened. "and i think there's power in that" oh yeah
definately, "cause when you record something when youre making it up, youve got all
that creative energy in it" yeah "and its like, you feel excited, because thats your
mind at work right at that second. thats why i like to record me all the time." well
its easier than writing, like on a piece of paper, cause i mean, you can talk faster
than you type. you especially. "yeah i mean this is how ive been uh doing it for the
past uh couple years so its kinda like something ive taken a fair distance from just
like the idea of it." i love howyoure reading, er youre takling and typing at the
same tmie. what gave you the idea of typing. like did you know thats what you wanted
the laptop for, or did you do something else." well ive been experimenting with this."
for how long "just since youve seen me do it. wait." what. "do you mean song lyrics?"
what? "that im typing" what are you talking about. no i mean that hehe, are you
looking back? "what do you mean?" im not taling about your lyrics, im takling
about when you're typing and youre saying what youre going to type to me. "yeah i
mean its like a writing excersize. if you can do it then its helpful and if you can"
see youre doing it now, cause youre like its helpful and then you type that and then
something else and it makes you takl and type slower, "yeah but its like all going to
something specific, so its kinda like, each word i write is kinda creating something
on this page. which is kinda like painting with a brush rather than just speaking
words that'd immediately get forgotten. see what i mean?" hehe, yeah. it makes you
talk and type slower. hehe. thats why its funny. i was trying to continue the conversation
that we had before. and i was like thats funny. di ont even remember the conversation
we were having before, it was like... some music thing. "well ive gotten it written
down. i could tell you." well let me see, or hear. "but do you really wanna know?"
no. "see" cause im pretty sure it'd start up a very boring conversation "you needa
start getting interested in your profession" hey! did you not look at my face. did
you not see my sarcasm? apparently not. "nope. heh" yeah see. took awhile to
respond. "i had alot of words to write" yeah i know hehe. "but the cool thing is we
can go back and we can uh get song lyrics from this shit," i mean from what we're
typing right now, "yeah from what im typing right now" ok "because these are just
random things we're saying, and if we're like ever out of ideas then this is like a
great source of just shit to wriet. i could write all day just typing the things
that you and i say to each other and there's so many like brilliant little bits that
could easily be turned into a sweet song lyric. and i could probably turn this whole
thing into a song. you could to. all you have to do is go through, underline shit
you like, take all the shit you underlined, write it on a seperate paper, then
youve got a bunch of cool lines, and you can see if those lines kinda inspire you
to write something," what're you listening to? "this's one of my oldest cd's, um,
semisonic, the one with closing time" hmm. i really like it. "yeah i do too, this is
um, one i used to listen to in my bedroom when i was going to sleep," hmm "when i was
uh, a kid, real young, id be in my bedroom, lights out, on my way to sleep, and this's
one of the cd's i'd use to help me fall asleep. but i didn't use it just to fall
asleep. i was just getting into music. and this was like one of the first cd's i
listened to. like i'd played... like i'd played um... music before, like, choir,
recorder lessons, violin lessons, piano lessons, harmonium lessons, i'd learned hymns
and uh, sikh religious stuff, and uh, i'd learned how to dance by then, the uh,
indian dance, so i'd done alot of music shit at that point, but i had never really
gotten into music," i thought youd been doing music for awhile, for like, since
middle school, "yeah, when i was listening to this i was like... in fourth grade or
something, and like, this was just when i moved from chicago to ohio, i went
to a high school, or a,... it would have been an elementry and uh, it was fourth grade
that was the year i was assigned trombone, cause they" wow forth grade really? "yeah
like there was this thing after school put on by the band that basically was like a
band audition and they handed you an instrument and saw if you could make a sound on
it, so the one i could make a sound on was the clarinet, but this one girl that i
liked at the time, and she's basically, so you don't get jealous," hehe so i dont
get jealous, "she got really fat hehe" what the fuck happened to my ankle, so youre
saying that she's not even attractive anymore, how rude, mean i mean, not rude.
"thats not rude to say" thats what i said, not read, mean. "i know but i was on
your original thing, and its not mean either, when we're speaking like, we don't
have to be nice," ok "when it's between you and me, im just telling you my actual
opinion, its not mean to think that, its only mean, according to some people, if you
say it, but honestly, if ive got a thought in my head, its gonna come out, because
thats what you needa fuckin do, and youll live in a much more honest existence,
even if some of the shit you say is kinda rude, cause, thats life," hehe "i mean
sometimes shit is funny" hehehe "and sometimes you've gotta like, say youre shit" you
should see your face "anita," huh? "do you think im... uh mean?" no! why would i
think that, "cause you said. you said i was mean." i said that was mean. i mean what
you said, not you, you are not mean. youre nice. "yeah but i dont even think that
that was mean." well i did. "yeah but youre wrong hehe" so! "because i mean, that
kindof mentality basically is just a fucking brace on your brain. if youre fucking
walking around telling people that they're mean, you know what that basiclaly is a
tool for?" what "censorship. people needa fucking say whatever the fuck they wanna
say. and im not gonna feel comfortable saying whatever i wanna say if people keep
telling me im mean or whatever. the point is, youre calling it mean, because youre
saying that if she ever heard it then she'd be offended," yeah "but honestly she isnt
hearing it, and so, because i said it to you, you imagined her, in your head, and
so" yeah "basically because you imagined this girl you didnt know gettin offended,
you decided to remind me, that according to your imagination, your imagined girl was
crying, and that i should feel bad about your imagined girl. i mean your entire point
is you should feel bad. why should i feel bad? because i made your imagined girl cry.
but if she was actually here, you dont fucking know if she'd cry or she'd laugh. she
might be one of those people who can take a joke," maybe "do you see what im tryin
to get across to you? cause thats a bullshit thing to tell someone that they're being
mean, you said yourself, people didnt respect you, didnt give you the oppertunity
to say what you thought, you said your folks wouldnt listen to you, your family
wouldnt listen to you." yeah "well i mean, this is one of the ways they get to you
stop bothering even trying. do you see how that fucking does that. we dont need either
of us constantly reminding the other person that they're mean. i should probably
stop telling you that you laugh at other peoples misfortunes. because thats a tool
given to us by someone else. designed only to make you feel upset. and my goal is
not to make you feel upset. do you understand?" mm hmm. "i mean firstly, do you even
agree, that like, saying you're mean, to someone, is desgined to inflict pain into
that person, and its asking, its basically fucking asking them to shut the fuck up,"
but i.... hehe, no... "but thats what it is about. cause if youre like, dude, that
was mean, if you really thought it was mean, then it would probably give you a bad
taste in your mouth, and you'd be like, fuck man that was mean, can't believe you did
that, see what i mean? and like, if you had that point of view, you'd be like, dude
if you keep doing that, i wouldn't even like you anymore. we shouldn't be trying to
fucking rate each other. i dont sort my life out by other peoples fucking scales.
but neither do you. see what i mean?" yeah. "like what if people called you disgustin
for being a lesbian. like your mom. and your sisters and brothers. and what if some
of your girlsfriends broke up with you and told you you were disgusting for being
a lesbian." hah that would usck for one, that would be rediculous. "it would break
your heart wouldnt it" yeah. "and thats how i see this shit." sorry! "when you're
like, dude you're mean." hehe "see what i mean" i dont want you to feel that way.
"but do you see what i mean." like right now you're really cute. its so funny cause
youre cheeks go back down, then back up, then somewhere in the middle, then back donw
and then pops back up. its so cute! hehehe. youre not mean. "well you said i was mean."
well i take it back, youre not mean. im sorry. "and you said, that uh, i was being
mean to you to." when did i say you were being mean to me. hehehe. "when i high was
high yesterday, you said i was mean." well you were being uh, "what? saying intelligent
shit" you were being a smartass "that exposed your idiocy" maybe "and i dont say
that meaning that youre an idiot, or that youve even done any idiotic things, its
just like a joke basically," well yeah, "like, the way it works, ive gotta do my best
to try and make you believe that youre at idiot," that... is that a goal, why is that
a goal if that is, and thats rediculous, "because the point is," no, "is that its like
" no "its like a" nope. "im gonna say it." hehehe nope. youre so cute. " the point
is" no "that when i say that" no "that its basically designed to make you feel like
an idiot." nope! "but not really think it, its just like, youre also supposed to like
try as hard as you can to avoid being called an idiot," so youre takling about me,
"yeah exactly, you try as hard as you can to avoid being put in a position where
youre like unavoidably," thats stupid. im rediculous, why do you listen to me, "
youre not rediculous, no but um, its like, youve gotta put em in a position where they
have to like avoid being called an idiot but youre gonna try as hard as you can to
beat them and make them feel like an idiot for like a split second and the second
they feel like an idiot you win and you give em a hug heh," ok. "its like," so right
now youve gotta give me a hug, "you feel like an idiot?" no. "then why do i needa
give you a hug." shit. "cause you want one?" you suck. yeah i want one, hugs are fun.
"i thought i suck." no, you want a ring? from grape juice. its like a grape ring.
would you like a grape ring? "grape ring thats a good thing to put into a song, we
wouldnt have come up with that if we were trying to write. you see what im sayin?
cause like, this process creates stuff we couldnt get if we were trying to write.
see what im sayin? shit that, well, if you had a computer right now, you'd like this
idea a bit more," probably ( burp ) "cause, youre like, I DONT GIVE A SHIT, heh"
no, no. "yeah." no! "yep!" well maybe im like, half and half or whatever heh, "see!"
well i do care! deep inside me! "the problem is man, that the shit that i think is
most important, you think is fuckin boring, and the problem is, that there's no fuckin
way youre gonna be able to work with me, if you cant fucking look at what i do and see
the use in it. im not just trying to fucking waste my own time here. this has a
fuckin use. and you should know me well enough by now to know that ive been doing this
for a long time, and i wouldnt be doing it ifi didnt think it'd be useful. like ive
been doing this shit for the past five years. and its not that long of a period of
time, but, in that time, ive founds ome shit that works. if you can admit that you
like a single song that ive done then you can admit that its had some effectiveness.
this is just like one of the ways you give like an extra dimension to the shit that
you do. cause if you just write words and music, then thats all it is. but if you
are like drawing from all sorts of shit, ok, take this, you know all those times i
write stuff and your eilke i remember that happeneing," yeah "what if i never did
that. what if i never wrote about shit that happened to us, cause i was like, oh it
would never be interesting," that would suck "but you see, you like that," yeah
"and if every time i were to play that, and you'd just fucking laugh, then maybe i
wouldn't put it in as many songs as i do," so i laugh at all of them? "no but you were
fuckin laughin just now, you were basically telling me i was a rediculous fuck for
doing what im doing, and the point is, that im hoping youre gonna be doing the exact
same shit that im doing, and so youre kinda rediculing the shit that im gonna ask
you to do, so of course that puts me in a weird position doesnt it, but im sure it'll
put you in a weird position too, because you'll be sittin there saying didnt i just
say i hated that shit, and i'll be like, yep, and that's how i write songs, and you'll
be like, mother fucker," heh "and, then you'll do it, and we'll write songs." tss
"but the point is, you've gotta have a fuckin open mind, you do shit your way sure,
and i'd love to see what you do, but you've gotta fuckin leave people's creative
processes alone. i do what i do because i like to do it. if i have to start defending
myself on my creative process then thats like kinda rediculous. i mean what do you
think? hmm? do you think im outa line to say respect my creative process? aka back
the fuck off?" yeah. "is that outa line?" no, not at all. "do you think im being mean
?" no. "or rude?" no. "then what do you think." youre just talking. "i know but i mean"
youre just trying to like... "what?" basically youre just guarding yourself, "im
not sure i like that." explaining yourself? "guarding myself, sounds shitty. you
think im guarding myself? huh?" no! "you just said it. i wrote it down." uhhh! no.
uh uh. "well then why'd you say it. "cause i cant think of another word. "i dont think
that im guarding myself. i think im explaining to you how my mind works," yeah that
makes more sense, "and i think ive been around the block enough to know that the only
thing that works for me, is the shit that i do now, and whatever the fuck i come up
with, but other peoples shit doesnt work for me, and my shit wont work for other people
and that brings up an interestnig point, my shit might not work for you, and maybe
you kinda needa bring your shit it, but the point is, if you wanna bring your shit in,
the way to do it is not to heckel the shit that i do, rathe takl about the positves
that you do, because any negative you find in what i do, i will never see that, cause
obviously its working for me, so then all i get from that, is that you dont like
something that i do, and then i just feel bad in a larger sense, you know, like,
someone you care about, whose opinion you value, tells you that something you think is
important, is actually shitty, and like, i know youre wrong, but, if i like, think
of you as my girlfriend, rather than my enemy, then that makes me feel sad, that you
dont like, you know, whats basically a part of me, you laugh at it, like its some
fucking joke or something, like youre giving me some kinda insult or something, and
what did i do to deserve that," nothing, "all i fucking did was showed you what i
fucking do, maybe i am sensitive, because this shit, when i show you how i write songs
thats stuff that uh, i keep clutched to my chest, nobody learns about how i do my shit,
but im telling you how i do my shit, so im not used to any sorta criticism, so like,
right now, i cant handle criticism, when it comes to how i write songs, cause im
just not used to it, so like, it's just weird, but i'll get used to it over time,"
so noone elses's done what i do, "huh?" noone else is used to... how i talk. "to how
you talk" to you. "what do you mean?" like.. whenever you say something that i find
rude or mean i tell you, and maybe noone else has told me. "no, its not that, youre
rude and mean comments im never gonna accept, because thats basically against what
im about. entirely." i know, i know, "im not talkin about what youre sayin, but that
youre saying it, i dont tell people theyre rude or mean, maybe i do, but i just
kinda feel like its wrong to say, like youre wrong, and that youre kinda doing
something kinda disugsting. i mean who the fuck are you say if im good or bad. right?
who... who fucking knows. and not only are one random person, but youre also trying
to tell me your negative opinion, which isnt gonna help me ever, its just gonna
slow me down, so at the end of the day you didnt give me a gift you gave me an attack
and its like, i dont really want to be fuckin attacked, what i want is someone whose
gonna support me in what im doing, not constantly question everything i do. everyone
else in the world is gonna do that, you cant avoid that, not if youre gonna put
yourself out there, but in here, i try to keep a different kind of a mood. more
constructive, less negative, less bullshit, straightforward, hardworking, positive,
and upbeat, and hardcore, but not bullshit. and i see that as bullshit. there's
nothing positive about it. do you see what im saying. do you think that im just
kinda not used to it." i guess "or do you think im just... that this is just how i
am." i think more of its... i know how you are. "do you think im being unreasonable"
yeah. "why the fuck do you think im being unreasonable." unreasonable or reasonable
"first one" i thought you said reasonable. i think youre being reasonable. "see, like
i said, all my shit, has worked for me," yeah, "like, when i was at my parents, tryin
to sort them out" mmhmm, "and then with my sister, and then with myself, i wrote 2,000
in one year, and that year, i only spent four months writing songs, i did 500 songs
a month," wow "for four months straight, because i decided i wanted to learn how
to write songs. that kinda jump started everything. before then i wrote randomly
here and there, like i wrote a couple songs when i was in high school. and like,
just for the fun of it you know? like youre sitting there youre bored you just write
a song." hmm. "and like, they were good songs, some of em, alot of em werent, like
before i was hardcore about it, but wheni went to college, in my dorm room, i was
around all these hardcore musicians, people who took it seriously, so they said, but
you know, people like to takl shit, so they mighta been taklin out their asses, but
basically i saw people, who basically spent less hours a day playing music than me,
but were doing ebtter perfances on the stage, because they were practicing for the
stage, and you remember that japanese guy?" yeah "how he was kinda playing for himself
" yeah "well thats what i spent my time doing at first. and then, when i was a sophomore
i basically, met vivek. and he got me into the whole... like... record shit on a computer
makes lots of tracks, complex shit, write three four parts, have like two guitar,
have vocals, have bass, eventually have drums, have like distortion, have like reverb
on the voice, have keyboard, all of this, was just additions to what i was doin
the year before, which was basically me and a shitty electric guitar, freshman year,
just sitting there playing like random notes and singing like stuff that like came
to my head, i hadnt yet figured out how to like fucking, um, come up with songs
on the fly, i hadnt learned that yet, i didnt even know that was possible, i just did
what i, you know, what anyone does when they first start, you sit there you play
random notes, and you like, have these eureka moments, where youre like, wow thats
awesome, and then you play it a million times, and the words just seem to come from
somewhere, and you like, play it a million more times, and then you bring like the
one friend, and youre like, hey ive got a song, come listen, and so they listen, and
they're not that into music, and they're like, yep. and you're like, so how was it!?
and they're like, oh it was good man it was good. give me some fucking good advice
you fucking motherfucker, but theyre out the door, so youre like oh motherfucker,
and then you go back to writing another song. see that was a step up over what was
happening in high school, cause id write songs and i wouldnt even show em to people.
but like, freshman year, thats when i started showin my songs to people, and thats
when i realized people actually liked my music. cause before then id never actually
had a moment where iw as like you know people actually like my music. so that was
pretty good, because i think from that point on, i wasnt jsut writing songs to you
know to make me happy, i was writing em cause ir eally wanted other people to like
the music. so that kindof was a change. so then like i said sophomore year, vivek,
i got cakewalk, got a computer, got a soundcard, got the loop pedal too, way back in
the day, five years ago now, thats a long time, ive had that loop pedal for five
years, so you can see why im interested in moving past it," yeah "its too self
satisfying of a tool because you... you kindof remove the need for like audience
participation, youre kinda like, self supplied, youve got everything you need, whichs
good, but its also bad, because you just become too self reliant, and you even become
like, like you dont even give a shit about the audience, cause it kinda makes you
a bit antisocial to work like that, see what im saying, cause like, you can write a
song, and you can play all the instruments, so like, you dont need anybody, and you
just, dont like how anybody else plays anymore, because you playing that bass sounds
exactly the way you want it, you know what imean, but i didnt want to like miss out
on the whole comradery stuff and side of the band that you cna have, i had that with
my first band in sophomore year, vivek gave me the cakewalk shit right, and i guess
like, something happened, i guess i kept seeing people in bands, i think i was like
18 at that time, yeah i would've been, so i was like living in an apartment, on the
twelfth floor of a building, best view in columbus, like luxurious as shit, the
apartment sucked, but the view was luxurious, and of course, the infamous, "ive got a
view" was written while i was sitting maybe this close, to the window, looking out
the window, with the view. and i was kinda like, yeah, so ive got a view, but its
like, ugly as shit, its industrial. but anyway. yeah, so i guess my point was, that
then junior year i moved into this shitty little apartment, it was way shittier than
my apartment ebfore, it sucked cause you know youre goin from best view in columbus
to like this shitty little fucking place like, footsteps on the ceiling constantly,
conversations outside coming through the walls, constant like partying and loud music
but, there were like massive amounts of silence, so im sitting here in this apartment,
and i think, ohio state had kicked me out, and i had only gone to ohio state, cause
a friend of mine applied there, kirby applied there, and i just applied wherever the
fuck he applied, cause i didnt give a shit, i could've applied to... i could've gone
to chicago or something, or even england, i could've gone to england in 2003, but i
was a dumbass, i was just like, didnt give a shit at that time, about school or
college, and i guess i never really thought id have to work or anything, like
actually give a shit abou tthe jobn i had, i could've just gotten a job at a record
store and just done that my entire life, or like, if i worked at a music shop, yeah
back then that wuold've been like my dream job, because like discounts on music and
shit, and like, maybe i could give lessons too, i could just see myself sitting at
the counter, just jamming all day, with all of the pedals and shit, and i'd probably
know how everything worked, i'd probably learn how to make myself a sweet ass studio,
like the dude we visited, who built it in his fucking garage," yeah that was cool
with the sound proof room and how he had it setup where you could talk to them in
the sound proof room " and i mean id probably own every pedal in the shop, heh, and
like have one of those pedal boards, but anyway... that didnt happen, because
something happened to me, i was there, i was like, i had cut my hair, so i was free
in my mind from my family, you know how youre like basically youre familys bitch
right now," yeah i suppose, no, yeah "well i used to be like that too, but like when
i cut my hair, i cut ties with my family, and so for like many years, we didnt really
speak, and you can see like how my sister is with my parents," yeah, always arguing
complaining about something, "well that used to be exactly how i used to be. but
it all changed because i was blogging at that time, basically one of the things that
happened to me freshmen in college was getting introduced to a website called xanga
and so all my friends that we made freshman year we all blogged and commented and
shit and yeah so that got me into blogging and writing and i was already into writing
like back in highscool i wrote this, well... it was an assignment, we had to write
twelve poems, and like one of my poems was an epic called the abacus baikal and it
was like you know um i was wriing the story about degawnys's lost son, well it wasnt
like as good, my .. my first poem, but it wasnt like terrible it had potential and
um, so the thing of it was that the poem, well i really liked that poem, it was about
like this mystical book, with like magical powers called the abacus baikal and i was
writing it like as if it was a legend, told by some king or something, you know like
the hobbit style basically, i was a big nerd back then, because unfortunately those
were the people i ran with because i was all introverted," whats wrong with being
nerdy "i never really got a taste for it, it wasnt my true personality, it was just
the only one i felt comfortable expressing myself, because, they were more accepting
people, but it wasnt like, how i thought, and i didnt even like them, like i thought
they were disgusting some of em," kinda like the kids who do roleplaying in school,
there's always a gaming club, "yeah kinda, like, im sure they all did that shit
back in high school," oh yeah i was in teh gaming club and we'd just go down in the
computer club and do fighting games, like from 230 to 500 and just fucking video games
and then there's always the video game.. there's a gaming class... note ven a gaming
club during school, it was during lunch.. so we'd go and do a roleplaying game
with a group of kids and i just remember looking at them and thinking why do they do
this you know there's so much out there you could do that you can appreciate besides
gaming, "for me it was more like, how they didnt wash themselves, the pimples, youve
got acne but yours has nothing to do with what they had, the way they were like whiney
like at the same time, i was on the soccer team, four years straight, the high school
team, and i was on the basketball team one year, so like, and i appreciated that whole
jock kinda deal although i wouldnt really call myself a jock but i do love competician
im competative, i dunno if you see that or not, could you see me like playing a sport
with someone," yeah "like, running..." soccer. or maybe even cricket. "nah." nah?
why not. "i mean i played it like with friends but i never really fell in love with it
like soccer, i mean i could talk about soccer all day, back when i was into it, like
we'd play a game, and all i could do for the rest of the day was talk about all the
shit that happened in the game, because it was alotta fuckin fun. the thing is." its
a fun sport, "it wasnt just the sport, it was like, being on a team, everyone working
together," yeah, helping each other out," i think that really had an impact on me
like in high school because if it wasnt for like that, and i dont think that i owe my
highschool anything, it was all the british schools that had us play soccer, it was
like an all boys school, at least it had been until a couple years ago, and you didnt
have a choice you played soccer," heh kinda like when you rein middle school you have
no choice but to play the recorder," yeah but i was playing recorder in probably first
grade," really? "yeah like in england first grade they taught us how to use the computer,
how to play violin, piano, recorder, singing in a choir, they taught us how to use
maps in the wilderness with a compass how to find north and stuff and they taught us
how to do oregami like making all sorts of," thats paper, "yeah" yeah, thats alot
of stuff to be doing in first grade, "and we had art class of course stamp collecting
these were clubs coin collecting and uh, bird watching, orienteering is what it was
called when you take a compass and a map and go into the hills and use the map to see
different mountanis and stuff," yeah "you'd put red in the shed, you ever heard that?"
no "really?" nope "i was in boy scouts in ohio, like... well what happened was i guess
so i guess i came here in like either halfway thruogh third grade or fourth grade and
so i uh made friends with this kid called uh jacob martni all american fat dude from
like a southern state and like roots deep into america the dude was all american and
like so uh all into nasa like even in fourth grade like... super young and all these
magazines about going in nasa and shit and he knew all these facts about the solar
system and shit and he was into boy scouts and so i guess he invited me to come down
sometime and so i went and i joined i guess," isnt this the guy that works for nasa
today," no because thats a guy that i knew in MVS in the 8th grade plus and i also think
i only met that dude in like 10th or 11th grade, this guy im talkin bout i met in like
4th grade, in a different school, in public school, remember the um, outdoor mall,
in dayton, with von maur, and the movie theatre where we didnt watch anything," oh
yeah yeah, "well remember those apartments," uh huh "those were where we lived when
we uh got a place that wasnt a hotel room. "you mean when you came from uh, england
to america, to chicago, "yeah like when we came from chicago or i guess england and
chicago before that to ohio. but we drove so we probably stopped for a bit in chicago
and then uh came here, i think my aunt gave us her old car, or maybe my uncle, and
uh, i can show you the picture, wanna see?" yeah "cmere... ( looks at pictures )
anyway, so yeah basically the whole uh thing was like we drove and like, moved in
and like, were there til we bought the house that you saw," the one in dayton? "yeah
and we were in a place called econo lodge which is a hotel for like two weeks before
we got the apartment, i can still remember when we like first came where my sister and
i were like just get an apartment we wanted one right now we didnt care what it was
cause the hotel was horrible," mm hmm " and it was like just we were tired of it we
were going to school right? and we were like in the elementary schools driving or rather
taking the bus from our fucking hotel heh. like the school bus would come to the hotel
parking lot and we'd take it to school. the school was called, main elementry, and we
were there for like two weeks. and i remeber all the kids kinda trying to ... well
they gave us like a guide two kids a guy and a girl they showed us around the school
and stuff, and that was cool, and then um, when we moved to stonebridge apartments,
then like, we fucking changed school districts, so you remember the farms and the
school where the farm was on both sides of the road," yeah, "well that school was the
school i transferred to from main elemtry to fairbrook elementry and im pretty sure
that either i... went to fourth grade there or fifth grade im not sure but im trying
to figure it all out because like i wanna be familiar with all the shit ive done
cause there's alot of it and uh, you never know when you'll need to use any of that
information, like in a song or, in a story or, like something you wanna take a
picture of, or like, yeah basically those, or if i wanna be accurate about my life
story when i make the movie. but yeah. so anyway, after writing 2000 songs, i started
being so hardcore about music, junior year," after? "the year they kicked me out. well
like, doing the 2000 songs was like an assignment, but like i didnt really feel like
id changed until after i did em, because then i felt like id achieved something, i
was like, ok, i set out to do 2000 songs and i did it, so i felt like i had proved
something to myself, i knew i had done something that alot of people could never do."
i feel like i should do the same thing, maybe it'll help me. at least as far as song
writing goes, maybe ill feel alot more comfortable, and then maybe i'll do it alot
more. i should do that. "but i should tell you that, thats all i was doing, like, it
takes alot of fucking time to do that," yeah, whats wrong with trying to do that, if
its something to do, i know i want to, "well the problem is, we wont have time for
the band, if youre gonna do something like that" sure we will "no i dont think you
understand, youre literally not gonna have time for anything," but what if i, what if
i just do 1000. i could do half that. "it really doesnt matter. i mean i dont think
i could ever be completely against the idea because i did it myself and its like a
major source of confidence even today its like bragging rights like if you win the
heavyweight championship of the world then like, thats with you," yeah "and i know
you need some boost to your confidence and i know we were talking about using our
time better i guess i was like since youre not working and that chick in ... whats
his face... the dude you hate..." oh kendall "yeah the chick in kendalls band is
outdoing you and she works and you dont and ist cause she's practicing more and you
dont practice ever so if you practiced you could literally put more hours into it
than her and you'd easily like outdo her because youre talented and we've got some
good songwriting between the two of us and the songs they do are so fucking boring
its like an easy fucking ruck to overcome like its a good first hurdle like a good
first challenge for us as a band is to go to the open mic and outdo kendall's band
completely and once we do that we know we can move on to bigger and better things."
oh yeah. "but not before. we needa do this. we need to either play the style songs
they better than they do, or we needa just get the crowd in more to our stuff than
theirs. then we know we've achieved our first goal." how bout we try to do both
well. so you wanna do the whole write 2 thounand songs thing" yeah. "why" because i
think it'll help me, i think if i di it'll be able to write as many songs as you if
not more. "yeah i guess you can see like how i am and if i say that alot of what i do
comes from that then you might be like well if i do that then i'll be like him right?"
pretty much, "well i mean it was my goal it may not do the same for you, like, maybe
it will, maybe it will," i dunno cause i used to write stories and the more i wrote
the better i got really, so i figured if i uh wrote alot of songs... that might help
me the same way i did when i did stories, and poems i used to write poems too. "yeah
like they say, practice makes perfect. its a simple thing," mm hmm "its not a fucking
secret of the universe, we fucking all know that if you practice," makes you perfect
"you get fucking good." yeah "and like" and everybody wants to improve somewhere.
"yeah and see im practicing writing while i speak and writing what you say which is
like" hehe "an interviewing technique. like if i was gonna do a proper journalistic
interview i'd be doing this shit. so yeah." kinda like um, in the courtrooms that
cant be recorded or anything, or how they used to be back in the day they used to
sit there and sketch out the pictures, and then they would have someone write down
and type what was being said by each person, "they still do all of that" well some of
them are recorded like video taped, "ok, but ive only seen them do it the old fashioned
way so you said although id ont even think its old fashioned but i dont think of that
when i do this i think of rolling stones interviews giving an interview with like
your favorite musician like that chick you thought was hot the 40s chick who wrote
the milf song hah what if you got the chance to interview her," oh hehe, yeah "cause
like thats what im practing for right now." yeah. "its a skill and uh, you'll always
need it," so i think i should write alot of songs "yeah i mean thats kinda what we're
already trying to do just you arent really writing lyrics i mean i dont think you
should go off and write by yourself i think we should both learn how to write together
and maybe we should have a goal of writing 2,000 songs together" i like that "because
when i wrote mine, my 2,000, i wasnt in a band, so like, it was all me and i didnt
need to work with other people but we're in a band and if you go off and write 2,000
by yourself and then bring 'em over firstly i'll be like what the fuck hah, cause it'll
be so many and secondly it'll be like hard as shit to key into every vibe youre going
for plus they'd be like, "anita songs" which i dont like want them to be songs we
both do together. equally." that should be our goal, "its already my goal, i already
told you that too hah, you werent listening ;p" i guess "yep. you werenting listening.
heh. but uh yeah, i mean writing lots together will make us better at doing it
together, ic an already write shitlaods on my own but im not as good as writing with
people so we both need the practice not just you. so it'll," well i still feel like
i do too, like just me, cause i mean i wouldnt mind writing songs, maybe not as many
without you, i wanna write alot more with you, it just makes things more interesting,
and i like writing with you, "i mean my opinion is i dont want either of us to write a
single song without the other person there. because otherwise its like we're not really
in this songwriting partnership. i want a proper songwriting partnership where its
done properly where we write everything together and then evetually we stop having
egos about the music and we start getting used to talking about how the songs are by
US and not my song from 05 or your song from myspace we have OUR shit we did TOGETHER
and that THAT means something, way more than anything that we can pull out our ass
when we're like fucking in a corner on a plane going to fucking tennessippy heh," heh
tennesippy, TEYNAHSIPPEH! "but yeah i mean i think the whole thing is that ive already
been in like three bands before this one, in the first one we basically did the whole
my song your song thing which sucked because i would bring them like 10 demos every
time and they would just be like, well, like this one, hate this one etc, when i liked
them all hah, so i was like, what the fuck dude, i didnt tell you to throw away that
shit, so they were like fucking with my songs, making em shitty, making changes i
didnt say they could do, so basically the point is, is you wanna like, come up with
the concept of the song, in the presence of your bandmates, with your bandmates, and
thats how you avoid the ego shit, where youre like, you cant change that, etc, we need
to have the situation where you can change shit in a song, and i wont feel offended,
and the way we do that is write the song together in the first place. thats the point
of a band. anyway. see?" yeah. "we're not really in a band if we're not writing songs
together, and if there's like fucking songs where you're like, this song isnt for you,
then it's like, bullshit, and if i did the same thing, etc, so like, when you're in a
band, and like people talk about side projects. our band is only like, 2 months old,
and its basically only been written down, we've never used it in practice, the name,
so like, technically we havent even started yet, and you're already talking about
side projects. look at radiohead, they never had a side project until they had like
three or four straight albums that fucking went to the top, my point is i wanna
focus on working with you, for now, and i want you to focus on working with me,"
i do want to, "and like, the point is, like, when you have two people focusing, and
like, working hard, then the product is gonna like have all this shit thats kinda
been molded from two different angles so the music would be 2 dimensional meaning
like not 2d as in boring but 2d as in more interesting than 1d. so the point is that
we have this oppertunity to explore this new interesting setup and i think we should
give it the proper go, you know? give it a proper chance" yeah definately "instead of
like, side project, before we even fuckin start heh. cause thats kinda stupid." yeah
i agree. "cause i mean" we're supposed to be working together. we are but, we need to
make goals, set out for... together. "yeah cause like you can only do so much music.
apparently 6 hours of piano bar is too many." mm hmm "so like we arents gods, and even
though we can work hard im trying to live like a normal life while also writing music
ive already done the no - life write music at all times existence and im avoiding
that this time around heh. maybe you havent tried that yet," i havent "but nows not
the fucking time to experiment with it, because you found me, and i found you," mm
hmm, "and like this is the oppertunity that we're giving ourselves by deciding to
make ourselves available to the other person, to listen to their music," yeah "accept
it, and like, add shit to it, to work with them, to jam with them, and we've like
taken it a step further and we have a relationship, maybe thats from a different angle
but i mean, if you think of it in terms of music, we've got this great support system
right now that we could use to make our band solid." yeah "that like normally when
youre just friends or less than friends that you dont give a shit," yeah and since
we're together it kinda helps put that more caring side out, " yeah and so we're like
supportive and caring and loving and also we're hardcore about the music we do so we
just need to get ourselves arranged in a position where we're not like taking away
from each other and instead putting our powers together to do something that perhaps
neither one ofus could have done alone? thats what i was thinking." yeah "and i know
youve got alot to bring to the table like you know how you want shit to sound and like
that whole thing you did yesterday was very impressive, but it was like, good, i liked
it, like, it was... different, compared to what you usually do, cause like..." you
mean when i broke up the songs? "yeah cause like it was like a totally new dynamic
like i was there and all of a sudden i had these instructions in front of me and like
" on your own song... i was weird breaking it down cause it was like... i was really
i was really concentrating on it because i wanna break it up and put like a sortof
order for it, and then i looked back on it and i was like maybe i put too many and
you were like, no, just leave it the way it is, cause i was just thinking too hard
about it, "well no cause like i didnt know you were thinking that i thought you were
just like second guessing yourself but like if you really just like had a better idea
then thats different but i mean i dunno i liked what you did and i ran with it
and i did all that recording shit and you saw how that went so like i felt like
those recordings kinda let us BOTH work together in a way that very DIFFERENT than
what we'd done before and i think that BECAUSE of that, that that was a GOOD thing,
because we NEED different stuff, if we're gonna have like, versatility and a complex
sound we wanna be able to explore all sorts of shit, and so this like was an exploration
of something we'd not normally do, it certainly wasnt a rolling stones song, and
neither was it sigur ros, it was something different and cool and like through these
experiments we'll figure out our own UNIQUE sound which is IMPORTANT heh. so we need,"
like the dance stuff that we've been trying out "yeah like that, like, you saw how
those kids were like staring at us," oh yeah, "we had," cause they were into it, it was
something different, "the entire piano bar was like suddenly transfixed on what we
were doing and suddenly they were intensely interested in it and it was surprising and
i didnt expect it but i felt their eyes burning on us," oh yeah i did too i saw sky
and james were standing behind the bar they were serving alochol and i could see
when we started playing music they came out of the bar and started to watch when usually
they continue working and then ick was laying down and he just popped up "and yeah i
mean i could feel the attention and even if we werent like fucking dead on, it was
ok, because the idea we had, was so fucking fresh, and new, and good, that people
were just like, holy shit," hehe yeah " and they couldnt even fucking talk about what
we were doing it was like one of those moments where people are just like... why the
fuck arent i playing that kinda music and like you could tell kendall was fucking
thinking it over why he wasnt playing dance punk because you could tell he was like
envious as fuck," oh yeah "i mean he already wants you back in his band, but then
he's got like this dude and this chick playing in this bar he's played for like a
fucking year, and he's probably done the same old shit for the entire year, and then
we come in, and like, in the span of a couple months, like, maybe even just like,
two, we've fucking gone through so many permutations, and he's fucking born witness
to like all of them. everyone in that fucking bar knows that somethings brewing,
somethings going on, that we're trying to figure something out, and that we're bringing
some energy to the place," oh yeah, "some excitement, and if we fucking like keep it
up, we could like try and build piano bar into like our own fucking little place,
like we could try and draw massive crowds and shit," oh that'd be awesome "yeah dude
like what if we, all the people we meet, all these musicians we tell them to come
down to the piano bar, ALL of em, maybe not musicians, but maybe random people,
anytime we find a fan of music, anytime we find someone who ikes what we do," tell em
to go to the piano bar on thursday nights "and that way we might have like 20 people
in the crowd ready to go to cheer or to dance, drinking and like, just into the music,
" then they'll be there jsut because of us, "but weneeda like, not tell people, at
the bar," no not at all, "and i mean even when they're there, we ask everyone to keep
it like, tightly shut, maybe we contact em through someone lse, like chris, we have
him get 'em to go here," yeah "so they dont know us, or they dont really have any
idea why they're there, or like, if someone asks them why theyre there, they couldnt
give a good enough explaantion so that someone could figure it out, so like, it'd be
a mystery, and so people'd come in, and we'd keep it like fight club, and like, try
and build a thursday night scene," that would be fucking amazing, "and we like try
and call it dance punk night or something all the dance punk fans in columbus we'd
try and get 'em to come down," oh yeah, "and so yeah that's one thing we could do,"
i like that idea. "this is going on blogger by the way," this's so long.
