MR. ROSEWATER PRESENTS...

Campaignin'

2012-01-11T06:24:00.000-08:00

Hey everyone, it's that time again. The Austin Chronicle Music Poll is upon us. As you probably know, dear reader, my band, Quiet Company, put out a new record last year that we worked really hard on and are really proud of. Winning accolades in this poll could be very beneficial for us, both personally and professionally, and we'd like your help. This isn't the kind of thing where you'll have to vote over and over, every day for a month or anything. Just once. Just cast your vote and you're done. We've even taken all the thinking out of it for you and shown you how to vote to best support us. We could really use your help. Our friend Bob Schneider put out a new record this year and will get tons of votes without even trying, so please spread the word. Get your family to vote, get your friends to vote, get your co-workers to vote, etc. Know that you are appreciated.

AUSTIN BAND OF THE YEAR: Quiet Company

AUSTIN MUSICIAN OF THE YEAR: Taylor Muse

AUSTIN SONG OF THE YEAR: "You, Me, And The Boatman" - Quiet Company

AUSTIN ALBUM OF THE YEAR: We Are All Where We Belong - Quiet Company
PERFORMING BANDS
ROCK: Quiet Company

INDIE: Quiet Company

BEST AUSTIN MUSICIANS
MALE VOCALS: Taylor Muse

ELECTRIC GUITAR: Tommy Blank

BASS: Matt Parmenter

DRUMS/PERCUSSION: Jeff Weathers

STRING PLAYER(S): Tony Rogers

HORN PLAYER(S): Cody Ackors

SONGWRITER: Taylor Muse

Producer Name: Matt Parmenter

Album Title: We Are All Where We Belong

Republican Christianity, everybody!

2011-11-30T12:55:00.000-08:00

This reminds me of all those really awesome scriptures where Jesus talks about how important being wealthy is, and how awesome rich people are, and about how you shouldn't care about the health and wellbeing of those less fortunate than yourself. Billboard God is so cool, guyz.

I aim to misbehave.

2011-10-12T07:31:00.000-07:00

Alright.

The record is done and I am proud of it. Please go buy it and tell your friends you like it. Unless you don't like it, in which case, we'd appreciate it if you'd keep your mouth shut.

So far, only positive reactions, which is nice. Sure, there have been a few reviews from religious folk who've been uncomfortable with the lyrical content, but we expected that, and they make for interesting reviews. It feels nice to have it out there, finally.

Now comes the time of promoting the thing. Our partnership with Grooveshark has already proven to be nothing less than amazing. Before we partnered up, we had 2000+ Facebook friends, now we have 15,000+. It feels crazy. It is crazy. Only time will tell if this exposure will turn into something financially significant. We're all optimistic, though.

Done a lot of interviews lately. I think I'm getting better at them but always have, at least a little, self doubt about whether or not I come across badly. So it goes.

Been thinking a little about what our next full length album should be about. I know we just finished one but this is the first time that I haven't already had another album's worth of material ready to work on. Tommy said he wanted me to get political and satirical, call a bunch of assholes "assholes," and what have you. I don't know if I have that in me. I just never feel like I know enough about politics to voice too strong of a public opinion nowadays. I have been following the GOP primaries a little bit, though. To me, there only seems to be one decent candidate, and that's Jon Huntsman. He doesn't seem to be gaining the traction that I'd like though. Not crazy enough, I guess. I don't know if I'd vote for him even if he does win, but who knows, I might. My main concern is that it's the difference between getting to choose between a piece of pizza and a hamburger, versus getting to choose between a piece of pizza and a huge ball of shit. When a lot of people seem to be angry at the pizza, you really need that burger to fall back on.

A friend of mine died, unexpectedly, from an aneurysm the other day. I didn't know him terribly well, but I really enjoyed his company the handful of times we'd gotten to hang out. It made me think more seriously about something I was already thinking about. One of the cool things about playing music is that it has enabled me to meet a lot of really interesting people, many of which I like a lot. My life is full of guys I wish I knew better but never get the chance because my life is also full of a lot of other things, and so are theirs. Lately, I've been trying to make the effort to make the time. It's difficult because I don't want to sacrifice my time with my family, so it largely consists of me sacrificing sleep. I'll sleep when I'm dead, and all that, but I am tired today. Last night, after a late QC rehearsal, I went and saw a buddy who was in town playing guitar for New Found Glory. Got in at 2, but still got 5 hours of sleep. I've always felt like 5 is plenty because I have an issue of Batman where he says he only needs 5, and hey, if Batman can do everything he does on 5 hours of sleep, I can surely function.

Ate a fried okra & potato taco at 1 in the morning. Sounded great, didn't deliver on flavor. Shame.

The band is driving to Pensacola, FL tomorrow night to play Deluna Fest. Excited to see several of the other acts, mainly The New Pornographers and The Shins.
Next week, we're flying to NYC to play CMJ Festival and shoot a music video for "You, Me, & The Boatman." Really excited to be in NYC again. I haven't really cared for the city the couple of other times we've been there, but for some reason, I think I'll really like it this time.

Already dreading being away from Leah and Harper though, but I'm sure it will go by quickly and I'll be home again before you know it.

Listen: I have come unstuck in time.

2011-08-16T11:11:00.000-07:00

I think about super powers a lot. Probably more than a 29 year old man should. I don't feel bad about it.

Today, I'm thinking about a show from my childhood called "Out Of This World," remember it?

The plot was like this: Teenage girl who has never known her father and grew up with her single mother learns that her father (voiced by Burt Reynolds) is actually an alien that starts communicating with her through a large crystal night-light. He was apparently on Earth just long enough to knock up her mom and take off back to Gallifrey or wherever the hell.

Anyway, the girl (named Evie) starts developing alien powers on her 13th (I think) birthday. The first, and best, of these is an ability to touch her pointer fingers together and freeze time. Of course, she is unstuck in time and free to move around while everyone, and ostensibly everything, else is frozen in the moment. If she touched you, then you also become unstuck, or she could just place her palms together and release the hold in its entirety.

This is the best power anyone could ever have. This is better than anything Superman, or anyone in the Justice League have. Sure, flying is great, but it's second fiddle to this.

My biggest problem with existing is that time is not infinite, and I am not ageless. Now, I don't know if Evie was ageless while time was frozen, and that's something that would really determine the frivolity with which you would employ this power. You wouldn't want to age faster than your friends because you were popping out of the time stream too casually. However, if you did remain ageless during these moments, then the possibilities are endless.

I would never sleep, or rather, you would never see me sleep. Any time I was tired, I would just touch my fingers together, slap some gloves on (to prevent accidental time release) and catch some z's. I would be the most well rested man to be awake all the time.
Any time there was busy work to do, POP, Time Freeze, y'all, and no one loses any of our precious daylight.

There's just not enough hours in the day, but if I could freeze time, there would be.

Another question is whether or not machines are functional while time is frozen. If they were, then this last Quiet Company record wouldn't have taken nearly as long. Also I think I'd watch a lot of movies and play a lot of video games while time was frozen. Basically, anything that I'd like to do but is not something I'll regret not doing more of on my deathbed, would be done inside a Time Freeze. I could spend all my actual time with my family and friends and making music, and still have time to watch as many movies, play as many games, read as many (comic)books, and sleep as much as I want.

Also, you could steal things if you were so inclined.

Do you know the mother effing Muffin-Man?

2011-07-28T13:35:00.000-07:00

Duncan Hines used to make the best blueberry muffins I've ever had, literally. A while back they decided to scratch the old recipe for a new "100% whole grain" version. It was a terrible idea but they've stuck to it, leading me to believe that no one there tastes the food before it goes out. Whole grains are great and all, but come on...these taste like garbage.

I've written Duncan Hines before to let them know how I felt but I used a fake name. Today, for some reason, probably hunger, I was thinking about those muffins again and I decided to act, this time, as myself. Maybe this will get the job done.

So I went to their webpage and wrote in the contact box how terrible these muffins are and how no one likes them and how everyone loved the original kind and how if they are going to insist that these ghastly creations exist, they should at least make the other option available, as well.

They wrote back:

Dear Valued Consumer,

Thank you for taking the time to contact Consumer Relations regarding your recent purchase of Duncan Hines Blueberry Streusel Muffin Mix. You will receive a full value coupon in the mail in seven to ten business days. The coupon is for use on any Duncan Hines product of your choice.

At this time we do not have plans to reintroduce the prior version. Overall feedback on the new version has been very positive.

We take great pride in the quality of our products and ensuring consumer satisfaction is our greatest concern. We have taken the liberty of sharing your insight with our Quality Assurance management team so they can incorporate your experience into their ongoing improvement processes. We are always grateful when loyal consumers such as you take the time to communicate their experience so that we have the opportunity to investigate.

Sincerely,

Candy Cole
Consumer Relations Representative

This is my response:

Well, Candy, I hate to tell you what you really should already know by tasting these terrible things, but in actuality, everyone hates these muffins.
My entire family loved the original recipe. No one has purchased them again after we realized what a terrible change you guys had made. Literally, everyone I've ever talked to about this is in agreement.
A quick trip to Amazon backs my claim;

http://www.amazon.com/Duncan-Blueberry-Streusel-Topping-Pouches/product-reviews/B002861PW6

23 reviews and not a single good review of your new recipe, in fact, everyone is vehemently calling for a restoration of the old one.
Now go look at the page for the new recipe:

http://www.amazon.com/Duncan-Hines-Blueberry-Streusel-21-5-Ounce/dp/B0029JZ910/ref=cm_cr_pr_sims_t

10 reviews and only 1.5 stars. Everyone hates it and the only 2 positive reviews read like plants from your ad agency.
And it's not like these muffins are "OK, just not as good as the old ones," it's that they are actively disgusting. I threw out almost a whole batch after choking down almost 2 of them and wondering if you guys were now considering sawdust to be a "whole grain."

I think Duncan Hines makes consistently good products, and for a while, could boast the best muffins in the world. Who's idea was it to ruin them? Do they also hate puppies and America?

Best,
Taylor

I expect to get a letter admitting their mistake and pledging to restore the original muffins to my local grocer's shelf any minute now. I'll post it when I do.

The boy who lived

2011-07-19T06:32:00.000-07:00

Leah told me yesterday that she got sad when she thought about how I never blog anymore, so here I am again.

My problem is two-fold: No time, no inspiration. But since it's been a while, I may as well post a catch up blog.

A lot of stuff has actually happened. Our record is ALMOST done. It's being mixed and I think there are something like 6 songs left to do. We took a long time to decide who was mixing it because that hugely determines how the record will sound. We originally met with the legendary Tim Palmer. We were really impressed with his past work and after meeting him at his house and talking about the record, we were sure that he understood it, both musically and lyrically. But alas, he was expensive, and we (I) couldn't justify spending the money.

Long story short, we searched though a myriad of mix engineers and it was stressful and far too time consuming. We landed on one of Matt's friends, Adrian, and began working.

We've partnered with Grooveshark.com and Rocket Science to promote this record and I'm really excited about all the things that this could potentially mean. Suffice to say that more people will hear this record than everything else I've ever done combined. Because of our partnership with Grooveshark, and the mixed feelings in the band about how the mixes were coming back, we decided that we could afford to have Tim Palmer mix the record and it would be worth the investment. And it was. Every mix we get from Tim is the best I've ever heard our band sound. I'm so excited for everyone to hear the record when it's done. We're very proud. We're still using 2 or 3 of Adrian's mixes, which are quite good, as well.

We released a video for the first single from the new record called "Fear & Fallacy, Sitting in a Tree."
We've got another one in the works for the next single, and it's animated, which is great because it means we didn't have to be awkward in front of a camera for it. I believe that it drops in August.

Anyway, lots of QC stuff happening, both exciting and scary.
___________________________________________________

Leah and I just got back from London on Sunday. We were there for a week and it was lovely. Just lovely.
We:
-spent a lot of time with Leah's sister, Elana,
-took a double decker bus tour,
-ate lots of really great food (people told me that British food was gross and that the people were unfriendly, I found both of these statements to be incredibly untrue),
-saw some terrible theatre (Shrek:the musical, it was cheap and Leah read a good review, OK?!?),
-went to a cool Doctor Who exhibit,
-drank tasty ciders,
-napped in a beautiful park,
-saw my old friends Nathan and Ashley who are stationed close to London,
-took a quick trip on a train to Paris,
-saw the tower, the Louvre, and walked over what must've been half of fucking Paris,
-saw Ian and got to tour his laboratory,
-went punting,
-fed a duck,
-saw Harry Potter 6 hours before any of you suckers,
-saw wild foxes in the streets on the walk back from HP,
-walked around Oxford, saw more beautiful buildings (they've got them in spades over there.)
-did some shopping in Camden town
-ate Treacle Tart (and sponge w/ custard) because Harry Potter loves it, and it was delicious.
-did some other stuff, I'm sure.

All in all, a fantastic trip with a beautiful lady that I'm in love with. Lots of walking though, and my feet blisters are not healing as quick as I'd like. May be time for new shoes, after all.

Now let's talk about Harry Potter & The Deathly Hallows, pt 2.
It's great. Really great, and now that the entire series is finished I'm finally able to separate the books and the movies in a healthy way, view them as different things, and appreciate them both. I was surprised that the movie didn't capitalize on actually showing all the deaths of the main characters in the final battle, since it would have been the emotional equivalent of shooting fish in a barrel. But I can honestly say that I loved it, and can't wait to see it again and again.

We timed our London trip with the release of this movie because I just LOVED the idea of seeing the final Harry Potter and actually being in London when I walked out of the theater. I thought it would prolong the magic, and it did. Also on the way back to Elana's flat, we saw 5 or 6 foxes prowling around the streets. I've loved foxes since I was a wee lad, watching David The Gnome. I've always wanted one, and of course, it's name would be "Swift." So that was pretty great, too.

We missed the hell out of Harper, though, and we're so glad to be back home with her. It seems that she got even smarter, cuter, and more talkative while we were gone.

It's bigger on the inside...

2011-04-29T11:06:00.000-07:00

Leah commanded me to blog again so here I am...

In the past month, my job has become a real job and my days have actually become relatively full of work. It's weird, and a little bit stressful, but I still function.

I've also been trying to blog at Quiet Company's Patronism site. Patronism is a new site where people can sign up to support your band with a monthly contribution and for that contribution (which can be any amount) you get access to all our releases and rarities, exclusive videos and "behind the scenes" shit, and basically any other thing we can think of to throw up there. Paul says that if Quiet Company were a DVD, then Quietcompanymusic.com is the feature film and the Patronism site is the special features disc. We're still figuring out how to make it as cool as possible so it's very much a work in progress, but we've got some really interesting stuff up there and it's only going to get better.

I also agreed to be a guest blogger for the Vivogig site. I've been trying to think of what to write about and today the radio played a Bush song and it made me think of writing about lyrics.

Apparently, the pollen in Austin has been off the charts this year and as a result I have developed allergies. Or so 2 doctors have told me. I didn't know if I was going to be able to get through our show last night for KGSR's Unplugged at Shady Grove, but I did. At least the second doctor gave me a huge shot of medicine in my ass and an antibiotic to knock everything out. I'm improving, and hopefully by the time we play in Bryan tonight, I'll be something like OK. I have been feeling miserable for the past several days though. I hate not feeling like myself, or rather a frustrated, short tempered, impatient version of myself. Leah hasn't been a fan either, but she's weathered it well enough.

Leah brought Harper to the show last night because it was a fairly early one and a fairly quiet one. I got to watch her a little from stage but Leah tells me that she didn't stop dancing and she would clap for me after everysong, exclaiming "That's Dada!" She. Is. Perfect.

This is another busy weekend, full of shows, weddings, parental visits, and yardwork. I'll miss the new Dr. Who on Saturday but my DVR won't, so you know... Bowties are cool.

A democrat, a libertarian, and a horse walk into a bar...

2011-04-06T07:46:00.000-07:00

Are there songs that you never get sick of? I've been trying to compile a list of songs that I'm always happy to hear. Interestingly enough, most are from artists that I, otherwise, don't really care much about. I have some of the records, but all of them were bought at huge discounts. Here's what I have so far:

In the Meantime - Spacehog
Bittersweet Symphony - The Verve
Pepper - The Butthole Surfers
Out Of My Head - Fastball
No Rain - Blind Mellon
Friends In Low Places - Garth Brooks
Follow You Down - The Gin Blossoms
Semi-charmed Life - Third Eye Blind
All These Things That I've Done - The Killers
Flagpole Sitta - Harvey Danger
Hey Ya - Outkast

I don't know why, but even when those songs were still getting massive radio play, I never got sick of them. I'm still really happy when they come on. What are yours?

A pastor, a rabbi, and a horse walk into a bar...

2011-04-05T10:39:00.000-07:00

Got back from Canada on Sunday. If we're ever super rich, then it would be nice to have a condo in downtown Toronto as a summer home. We would have to be super duper rich though. And only in the summer. It's cold as shit up there.

It was great seeing everyone but we've certainly had smoother trips. I can always do without the food poisoning. Who knows when I'll be able to eat calamari again?

Last night we finished up all the trumpet for the record. Almost all that's left is putting the "choir" on everything. Soon we'll be figuring out who's going to mix the thing, whether Matt will just do it or if we'll send it over to some fresh ears, and we're in the home stretch. The art is being worked on now, and I'm sure we'll have it mastered at the same place we always use.

We've always used Discmakers for manufacturing but they've fucked up 2 orders now so I'm shopping around. If anyone knows a decently priced place with comparable services, please let me know.

I'm generally of the opinion that if you don't have anything nice to say, it's wise to keep your trap shut. Now if I ask a friend what they think, I expect an honest answer, regardless of whether or not it's a positive one. I think most people are this way. Some people are not. So it goes.

On the internet, it feels like that rule doesn't really apply as much. I find myself often wanting to interject my dissenting opinion where it was not specifically requested. In real life, this feels rude, on the internet it just feels like the status quo. "They posted their opinion where I could see it, so surely they expect me to shit all over it, right?" I don't know. I've lost sight of the line that separates good e-manners and good e-conversation.

Of course, I'm talking about religious people on Facebook. It's a good thing there isn't a "scoff" button on Facebook, because I'd abuse the shit out of that thing...or maybe I wouldn't, I don't know. I'd certainly want to. Facebook, like much of the internet, has become one big lesson on "Shutting-the-Fuck-Up" for me.

Long-time readers will remember that I used to molest religion on a regular basis here. I don't do that as much now for the same reasons I don't repeatedly bang my head against this wall. It doesn't accomplish anything and it makes my head hurt. I suppose I'll just keep erring on the side of caution and hoping that no one ever tempts me with that scoff button, and we'll all stay friends.

peanus.

2011-03-28T12:17:00.000-07:00

One of my co-workers just gave me an extra hamburger and fries that they brought back from their lunch meeting and it was easily the most gluttonous thing I have ever eaten. First off, the fries were a) delicious and b) easily more than 2 whole potatoes (and he didn't even bring back the full order, apparently).
Secondly, the burger was a) sizable, and b) filled with cheddar and pork. I don't mean that there was cheddar and pork on the burger, mind you. I mean it was meat, stuffed with cheese and another kind of meat. So good, and yes, I am now consumed with self loathing.

The place also serves a completely fried hamburger, a burger with cheese enchiladas on it, a burger with a Krispy Kreme donut on it, and a burger where the buns are two grilled cheese sandwiches and there's a fried egg on it. Ridiculous....and kind of impressive. What mad scientist has started a burger joint in Austin?

I miss my family. Leah and Harper have been in Toronto since last Friday and Harper does not agree with Canada. She has not been herself and it's been incredibly stressful for Leah, which makes me feel extra shitty about not being there with her. I'll be there in a couple of days but I hope things have gotten better by then. I think she's doing a little better today, at least she seemed to be when I spoke with Leah earlier.

Hours of energy now, no crash later! Sugar free! 4 calories!

2011-03-24T10:52:00.000-07:00

Listen: the thing about me and donuts is that I love them. Not the jelly filled kind (those sick me out), just the normal glazed and chocolate covered ones. I could probably eat about 20 donuts in one sitting, no problem, and enjoy myself the whole time. That is, if I did not care about my health and/or looks and/or the respect of my peers. It's unfair how many calories are packed into such delicious treats when you think about it.

Have you ever had Shipley's Donuts? For my money, there is no greater master of pastry than the mythical Shipley. The way the sugar crumbles when you bite into it is unlike any other.

Here is a list of foods that I wish I could eat with caloric impunity:

1. Donuts
2. Buffalo wings and ranch dressing
3. Pizza and ranch dressing
4. Ranch dressing by itself
5. Tacos from Taqueria El Lugar covered in their amazing sauces
6. Jambalaya
7. gumbo
9. Coke floats
10. Blue Bell Pistachio ice cream
11. Sodas
12. Gyros with lots of tzatziki sauce
13. The 75704 Burger at Phil's Icehouse
14. French fries from Wingstop
15. French fries from Pluckers
16. Strawberry Cream Pie Shakes from Sonic
17. Vanilla Dr. Pepper
18. Snickers bars
19. Cadbury Cream Eggs
20. That bacon pasta that Leah makes sometimes.
21. Anything that can be conceivably dipped in ranch dressing

Here is a list of foods that I wish I liked more:

1. vegetables

Harper ate something that didn't agree with her yesterday and we got to deal with baby vomit for the first time. It sucks to watch your kid suffer and not be able to explain to them what's happening or fix them. That being said, it did make her extremely cuddly, so you know....silver lining. Near the end of the night she seemed to be pretty much back to normal and I got her to eat some oatmeal which she was able to keep down. After her bath, I dressed her in her Batman PJs and we laid on the couch together watching Justice League Unlimited. It was perfect.

Leah took her to the doctor today, just to be safe, and she's fine. No fever or anything, so we think she must've just eaten something bad and needed to flush it out.

I agreed to do a photo shoot with Leah tonight after work and Leah and Harper leave for Canada tomorrow morning so this morning may have been the last time I'll see my daughter for several days. She gave me a hug, a kiss, and a smile this morning though and even called me back into the room for another hug on my way out the door, which she never does, so maybe she knows we won't see each other much in the next few days.

I am really tired. For the last week or so, my brain has been doing this weird thing in the morning. When my alarm clock goes off, my brain has been perceiving the piercing beeps as maniacal laughter. Seriously, I've been waking up thinking "Who is laughing at me?!" Maybe I should get more sleep.

Speaking of being tired, those 5-Hour Energy shots really work. I love them. I will be taking one in approximately 4 hours. I prefer the extra strength, but the normal ones are OK too. Just so you know.

I hope everyone that can is planning on being at our DVD release this Sunday. I really think it will be a fun night. If you still need a ticket or would just like to order a copy of our live DVD, you can get it here.

It gets cold in Canada, or so I am told.

2011-03-21T12:40:00.000-07:00

Now that the festival is over, everyone in Austin gets to remember what their real life is like. For me, it means I get to remember that we're still recording a record. Leah and Harper will be leaving for Canada 5 days earlier than me, which will make me lonely and sad, but productive where the record is concerned. We really should be done with all the tracking in the next few weeks and we've starting conversations with and about several people to mix the thing. I just got back from a lunch meeting with the artist and I'm really excited about the concepts that he showed me. Things are really rolling now.

Thanks to everyone who voted for us a while back in the Austin Chronicle Music Awards. We didn't win any of them but we came close in a lot of them. Some friends of ours, The Bright Light Social Hour, swept the thing. They had a great year and worked their asses off, so as much as that childish part of me would love to say they don't deserve it, it can't. So congrats to them.

Last year, we placed in two categories: #6 Best live Indie Band and #9 Best New Band.
This year, while not winning anything, we're still all over the place.

Band of the Year
The Bright Light Social Hour
2. Roky Erickson with Okkervil River
3. Quiet Company
4. Bob Schneider & Lonelyland
5. Los Texas Wranglers
6. Speak
7. Los Lonely Boys
8. One-Eyed Doll
9. Grupo Fantasma
10. Reckless Kelly

Musician of the Year
Roky Erickson
2. Bob Schneider
3. Julian Fernandez (Los Texas Wranglers)
4. Sahara Smith
5. Will Sheff (Okkervil River)
6. Jack O'Brien (the Bright Light Social Hour)
7. Taylor Muse (Quiet Company)
8. Carolyn Wonderland
9. Kimberly Freeman (One-Eyed Doll)
10. Alejandro Escovedo

Album of the Year
The Bright Light Social Hour, The Bright Light Social Hour
2. True Love Cast Out All Evil (Anti-), Roky Erickson with Okkervil River
3. Myth of the Heart (Playing in Traffic), Sahara Smith
4. Songs for Staying In, Quiet Company
5. El Existential (Nat Geo Music), Grupo Fantasma
6. Texas Treasures (Deep South), Los Texas Wranglers
7. Break, One-Eyed Doll
8. Hexadecagon (Peek-A-Boo), the Octopus Project
9. Up Close (EMI/Vortexan), Eric Johnson
10. Street Songs of Love (Fantasy/Concord), Alejandro Escovedo
11. Phosphene Dream (Blue Horizon), Black Angels
12. Let the Light In (Root House), Amy Cook
13. Plays Blues, Ballads & Favorites (Shout! Factory), Jimmie Vaughan
14. The Bright Lights, Saints of Valory
15. The Laziest Girl in Town, Elizabeth McQueen
16. Codename: Rondo (Trashy Moped), Ghostland Observatory
17. ¡Està Bueno! (Bismeaux), Texas Tornados
18. Green Diamond, Eric Tessmer
19. Downtown Church (Credential), Patty Griffin
20. New Morning (Hollywood), Alpha Rev

Song of the Year
"Detroit," by the Bright Light Social Hour
2. "How Do You Do It" by Taylor Muse for Quiet Company
3. "The Real Thing," by Sahara Smith
4. "Carrie," by Speak
5. "Who's to Blame, Senorita?" by Shawn Sahm/Doug Sahm for Texas Tornados
6. "Could've Been a Country Star," by Julian Fernandez for Los Texas Wranglers
7. "Back and Forth," by the Bright Light Social Hour
8. "Austin," by Eric Johnson
9. "Telephone," by the Black Angels
10. "Beautiful Freak," by Kimberly Freeman for One-Eyed Doll
11. "Anchor," by Alejandro Escovedo/Chuck Prophet for Alejandro Escovedo
12. "Providence," by Saints of Valory
13. "Green Diamond," by Eric Tessmer
14. "Faint Green Light," by Mother Falcon
15. "Lucky," by Kat Edmondson
16. "New Morning," by Alpha Rev
17. "If I Had My Way," traditional, arranged by Patty Griffin
18. "We Pourin' Up," by Lady & the Amp
19. "Summer of Love," by Josh Zee/Teal Collins for the Mother Truckers
20. "You're To Blame," by Elizabeth McQueen

Best Indie
Speak
2. Okkervil River
3. The Bright Light Social Hour
4. Quiet Company
5. Mother Falcon
6. One-Eyed Doll
7. Los A-T Boyz
8. Saints of Valory
9. The Shears
10. Marmalakes

Best Rock
Los Lonely Boys
2. The Bright Light Social Hour
3. Quiet Company
4. Okkervil River
5. One-Eyed Doll
6. Spoon
7. Saints of Valory
8. Vitera
9. The Mother Truckers
10. The Black Angels

Best Bass Guitar
Jack O'Brien (the Bright Light Social Hour)
2. Jojo Garza (Los Lonely Boys)
3. Harmoni Kelley (Lonelyland)
4. Chris Maresh (Eric Johnson)
5. Matt Parmenter (Quiet Company)
6. Danny Gomez (the Frank Gomez Band)
7. Gavin Jasper (Saints of Valory)
8. Francie Meaux Jeaux (the Jitterbug Vipers)
9. Aaron Davis (Vitera)
10. Ronn Roberts (the Eggmen)

Best Drums/Percussion
Julian Fernandez (Los Texas Wranglers)
2. Jo Mirasole (the Bright Light Social Hour)
3. Jason Rufuss Sewell (One-Eyed Doll)
4. Ringo Garza (Los Lonely Boys)
5. Gerard Bouvier (Saints of Valory)
6. Conrad Choucroun (Lonelyland)
7. Don Harvey (A Is Red)
8. Jay Nazz (Reckless Kelly)
9. Jeff Weathers (Quiet Company)
10. Brannen Temple

Best Keyboards
A.J. Vincent (the Bright Light Social Hour)
2. Oliver Steck (Lonelyland)
3. Matt Hubbard
4. Floyd Domino
5. Stephen Buckle (Saints of Valory)
6. Ian McLagan
7. Thomas Turner (Ghostland Observatory)
8. Earl Poole Ball
9. Pinetop Perkins
10. Taylor Muse (Quiet Company)

Best Songwriter
Sahara Smith
2. Bob Schneider
3. The Bright Light Social Hour
4. Quiet Company
5. Julian Fernandez (Los Texas Wranglers)
6. Eric Johnson
7. Roky Erickson
8. Kimberly Freeman (One-Eyed Doll)
9. Matt the Electrician
10. Alejandro Escovedo

Best Record Producer
Danny Reisch for The Bright Light Social Hour, The Bright Light Social Hour
2. Emile Kelman for Myth of the Heart, Sahara Smith
3. Will Sheff for True Love Cast Out All Evil, Roky Erickson with Okkervil River
4. Matt Parmenter for Songs for Staying In, Quiet Company
5. Ryan Radar for Texas Treasures, Los Texas Wranglers
6. Dwight Baker for The Bright Lights, Saints of Valory
7. Jason Rufuss Sewell for Break, One-Eyed Doll
8. Chris "Frenchie" Smith for Speak
9. Gurf Morlix
10. Erik Wofford

So I'll take it! I wonder what could happen when we actually release an album.

I'm really looking forward to the next month. Virtually no shows, lots of recording, our DVD release, and a trip to Canada. It's going to be a good time.

I imagine that if you're in Austin, then you're probably a little burned out on going to live shows after last week, which is why we decided not to have one for our DVD release. Instead, this Sunday, March 27th, we'll be doing things a little different at our DVD release party at the ND. First off, your ticket price includes a copy of the DVD, a copy of the poster for the event, and a digital download of the audio for the DVD. The night will feature acoustic sets from Brandon Kinder of the Rocketboys, and Ram Vela from Whitman. We will show the DVD on the huge projector screen while members of Quiet Company serve you free popcorn and Sweet Leaf Tea. We'll also be running drinks from the bar so you won't have to get up, and there MAY be some free cotton candy, if we're feeling saucy. It's going to be different and I'm looking forward to it. Go to our site to buy advance tickets.

Also in amazing news, I taught Harper to smile on command.

This is what we will do.

2011-03-09T11:56:00.001-08:00

Last night on my way home from rehearsal, I decided to take the non-highway route. Fairly close to home, I found myself stopped at a red light, waiting to turn left. There was one car behind me, and another car to my left waiting to turn the direction I was coming from, and absolutely no one to take advantage of the available green lights. So we waited, and waited for (what seemed like, but was probably not actually) a long time. I checked to see if the other cars were cops. They were not. We were all just citizens on a deserted road, held hostage by our respect for the rules of an indifferent light box.

I started thinking, "this is stupid, I should just run the damn light." But I didn't. I just sat there and waited.

So here's the moral dilemma...is it wrong to run a red light when there is virtually no reason not to? I say "No, who the hell cares?" What do you say?

Tomorrow is the first day of many crazy days in quick succession. Here is our schedule, in case anyone is in Austin, Dallas, or Houston:

Thursday, March 10th, we play the brand new Moody Theatre (ACL Live), for the 2011 Texas Social Media Awards, which we were nominated for but did not win.

Friday, March 11th, we play my favorite venue of all time, the House of Blues in Houston with Bob Schneider.

Saturday, March 12th, we journey to Dallas with Bob to play my second favorite venue of all time, The House of Blues in Dallas.

Sunday, March 13th, we come back to Austin for the first day of our SXSW experience and play the Most Awesomemest Journalism Party Ever party at the Marq.

Monday, March 14th, we actually have off. I will be doing nothing after work.

Tuesday, March 15th, we play the One Pulse Artist Group's showcase at Thunderbird Coffee in Austin

Wednesday, we do nothing.

Thursday, March 17th, I'm taking a day off from work and we will take to the streets as we do every SXSW to offer free hugs and Quiet Company paraphernalia. Then at 6 we will play a showcase at I (Heart) Video on the Strip, followed shortly after by our official SXSW showcase, again, at The Marq.

Friday, March 18th, I will work, and then go home and enjoy being there.

Saturday, March 19th, we play one more show somewhere, I can't remember where, around noon, and then will do a little more of our hugging/soliciting.

Sunday, March 20th, I will wake up and feel clean again.

A secular mantis

2011-03-04T06:53:00.000-08:00

January and February blew by, and March has arrived in a hurry. I am not happy to greet it. And I would be, if it weren't for SXSW. The thing is that I know that when the festival does actually arrive, we'll get around just fine, despite the traffic, and though we'll have to park and load a million miles away from the actual venue, we will survive like we always do. And we will probably have a great time, like we always do, but it just creates so much anxiety beforehand.

However, I'm excited to play in Bryan tonight, because our last couple of shows there have been really encouraging, and I'm super excited about next weekend, when we return to the two best venues I've ever played: the Houses of Blues: Dallas & Houston, respectively.

The record is almost done and we've lined up an artist to do the design. Things are coming together on that front.

Leah has recently broken through another career goal for the year and it's still early. I imagine she'll break through a couple more before the year's over. Another reason I'm looking forward to being done with SXSW is that right after that, Leah, Harper, and I are heading to the Great White North for a few days to see our family in Toronto. We're not terribly anxious to put our increasingly squirmy daughter on a crowded airplane, but I think she'll really love seeing her Canadian family.

Woke up stressed this morning because I had a dream where I was on a boat with an older Harper and her friends and the waters were full of sharks and killer whales that kept bumping into the boat, almost capsizing us. I'm somewhat phobic of large bodies of natural water, and the reason is probably not unrelated to a religious observance of Shark Week in my younger years. The dream ended with me chaotically piloting the boat down the hilly streets and busy traffic of San Francisco, frantically weaving between cars until finally coming to a stop when the boat became airborne and crashed. Everyone was OK, but it was one of those that feels too real.

I don't know much about Rob Bell, and by "much" I mean "anything," but apparently he's very famous, as pastors go. I've been seeing him take a lot of grief over his soon-to-be-released book, in which, I guess, he's making claims that are getting him called nasty words, like "Universalist." I haven't read it, but apparently there's no Hell. Great news! Well, I don't think it particularly noble to believe things based solely on wishful thinking and circular reasoning, but if you're going to do it anyway, why not choose the belief structure where everyone wins?

I don't believe in Heaven or Hell, but I really hope that I'm wrong and that Rob Bell is right.

But he's probably not.

So it goes.

Eat it, Player 25.

2011-02-22T12:12:00.000-08:00

After tonight, I plan/hope to be done with all lead vocal tracks on the record. Which should mean that only a handful of instrumental tracks stand between me and being done with all the recording that I am personally responsible for. So then my role gets to be purely one of supervision, which is a lot less stressful. Leah has been really amazing and flexible this week, giving me an ample amount of evenings to be in the studio. We're almost done, I'd say 75-80%. Maybe more, maybe less. Soon comes the mixing, which is a fairly tedious and stressful endeavor. Matt is a seasoned professional, though, and the more we work together, the more he knows how to make me happy. So I'm optimistic about mixing being pretty easy going this time around.

The last two shows we've done in Austin have been pretty discouraging. The first one was at the Mohawk with Fastball, which would've been amazing (great venue, great bands) if it hadn't been colder than a yeti's taint. The Mohawk is an outdoor venue, and one of the city's coolest, but not build with awful weather in mind. So the show had a small and shivering crowd, and we could barely feel our hands to play our instruments. It just wasn't as fun as I wanted it to be.

The last show was a sold out show at Antones with The Lemurs (who were fantastic). There were five bands on the bill, which in my opinion is always 2 too many, so of course the show was rushed to keep on schedule and we were not afforded the time for a sound check. Not even a line check, actually. We were basically thrown on stage and told to go, we didn't even know if all the mics were on. Before it seems like I'm being a diva, I should point out that that isn't typical of Antones which is an amazing venue, with (typically) amazing sound. It wasn't the sound guys' fault that everything was so rushed, but it still sucked for us. I think everyone still had fun, but everyone knew that it didn't sound like it should've.

Before the show, a guy told us that he was more excited about seeing us than he was about seeing U2. I feel really bad about disappointing that guy, because I know we must've. If you are this man, please contact us, we'd like to make it up to you.

I made bad decisions when making the setlist, too. Lessons learned.

Because I know people love voting...

2011-02-15T11:50:00.000-08:00

Austin has more than its fair share of musical accolades. One of the cooler ones is The Roaries. This year, we've been nominated for 4 of them, Best Band, Best Single ("How Do You Do It?"), Best Album (Songs For Staying In), and Best Male Artist (me).

We'd really appreciate it if you could take the 20 seconds it takes and vote for us. These types of things help raise our profile in the scene which helps us open doors.

I've been wanting to re-skin this blog, but haven't had much time/inspiration. If anyone else has ample amounts of either of those things, let me know.

29.

2011-02-11T06:17:00.000-08:00

I really want to write a blog about how thoughtful and amazing my wife is, but I've not yet been able to word it in a way that I feel does her justice (I've started over 3 times now).

Suffice to say that she is the best thing that ever happened to me and she understands me and loves me and I could not reasonably ask for anything more in a partner.

I turned 29 yesterday, at roughly 5:30 AM. Leah wanted me to make a list of 29 things I've accomplished. Cute idea, but I don't know that I've accomplished 29 things of importance. I guess I should think back about all the things I wanted to do when I was younger and mark off the ones I got done. Here goes...

1. Worked at a comic book store.
2. Worked at a toy store.
3. Worked at a pet store.
4. Played music in public (church).
5. Played music at a bar.
6. Learned to use 4 track recorder.
7. Found and bought issues #21 & #155 of G.I.Joe (Marvel).
8. Made a full length album.
9. Got signed by record label.
10. Managed to get off record label.
11. Went on tour several times.
12. Got passing grade in college course by (indirectly) threatening teacher.
13. Had sex with beautiful woman.
14. Made beautiful baby.
15. Married beautiful woman.
16. Grew beard.
17. Heard myself on the radio.
18. Saw a lot of the country.
19. Lived in a different state for a year.
20. Worked with kids.
21. Attended Star Wars convention.
22. Stayed up past midnight.
23. Bought a sword.
24. Ate sushi.
25. Owned pet rats.
26. Survived car wreck.
27. Lost 20+ lbs
28. Finished Harry Potter & The Deathly Hallows in one night
29. Camped out for movie tickets (Star Wars)

There. That was a lot harder than you might think. I'm not sure if the word "accomplishment" caries the right connotation, but there's a list of 29 things I wanted to do or was scared to do, but I did and things turned out golden. Now I need to start thinking about Leah's birthday.

When I was young, I couldn't stand them, but at 28, I can't get enough of those Reese's peanut butter candies.

2011-02-03T10:29:00.000-08:00

After seeing The Fountain, I swore I would never see another Darren Aronofsky movie, and I've held strong. But now he's directing the new Wolverine movie. I love Wolverine, even though the last 2 x-movies were sub-par, so now the question just becomes "Do I love Wolverine more than I hate Darren Aronofsky?"

I'm sure I'll probably see it, if for no other reason than the fact that even a blind, deaf, mentally handicapped squirrel finds a nut from time to time. If it gets great reviews from people I trust, I may see it in the theatre even. Especially if the reviews say things like "very un-Aronofsky" or "a real departure for Aronofsky" or "Finally an Aronofsky film that's not soul-crushingly pretentious and boring." Something like that.

Anyway.

March is looking like the craziest month ever. It always is, if you're a musician in Austin. The South by Southwest music/film/interactive festival rolls in and takes over the entire town. Every place of business with electricity becomes a live music venue. For better or worse, it's a big part of what makes this city what it is. I can't see a festival like this flourishing in any other city the way it does here, not any city in the south least ways. I always go into the festival with equal parts excitement and dread. I'm looking forward to it, but I'm also looking forward to being done with it.

The week before the festival, we've just booked two more shows with Bob Schneider at the Houses of Blues, Houston and Dallas, respectively. I'm really looking forward to those. We've always had a great time with Bob and the Houses of Blues are the best venues in the world.

At the end of March, Leah, Harper, and I are going to Canada to visit family. Leah and Harper are going 5 days earlier than me so they can see Leah's sister as long as possible. I'll be hanging out at the house alone. Probably bored, probably naked. OK, I'm kidding about being naked....or am I? Now you don't know where I'm coming from. In all seriousness, if there is still recording to be done, I'll probably spend all my time at the studio, and get in bed early every night.

How do we KNOW climate change is true?!

2011-02-02T12:43:00.000-08:00

One day, Harper may come to me and ask, "Why does life seem so unfair?"

To which I will reply, "Because sweetheart, sometimes you spend your entire childhood saying 'Nerf should obviously make swords' and they never do...until, of course, you're almost 30 fucking years old and it's no longer appropriate for you to buy them and even if you did, none of your friends will go along with it, so you'll have no one to play with anyway."

That is why these things fill me with a unique mixture of frustration, jealousy, and awe.

Hey Nerf, way to miss the obvious for decades at a time. Bunch of circus animals.

Naked Pastor remains poignant

2011-01-31T10:34:00.000-08:00

I feel you, Naked Pastor. I really do.

My daughter has impeccable taste. Recognizes characters of Futurama

2011-01-27T08:05:00.000-08:00

Matt and I had a great session in the studio last night. Spent the entire time working on a song that was virtually un-started, and got it pretty far along by the end of the night. I sat down to do what we call a scratch track (a reference recording that we have no intention of actually keeping) for the drums so Jeff could have something to go on, but then we decided that the part was simple enough and that I should just go ahead and do the real take. So now I'll have a drumming credit on 2 releases. Yay, ego. I get a little more giddy about playing drums on recordings because it's an instrument that I've never been terrible at but have never been confident enough to allow my inconsistently inconsistent drumming to stay on an actual release, though I've always wanted to be. So thanks to modern technology and Matt's recording savvy, even I can actually end up sounding like a decent drummer, and hey, I'll take it.

I'm looking forward to tonight. We have no plans, and that is exactly why I'm looking forward to it. Also, all the great Thursday night TV shows are back on, so maybe we do have some semblance of plans.

Went to the store yesterday to restock on Lean Cuisine meals, and then forgot to bring them to work. Guess I'll hit the Whole Foods salad bar again.

This is awesome:

The Swell Season covers Neutral Milk Hotel

Anyone know a good trumpet player in the Austin area?

2011-01-25T11:04:00.000-08:00

I'm very proud of my wife today. And everyday, for that matter. Today she met a professional goal that she set for herself, and I never doubted her for a second. I always knew she would be successful because she is talented and driven, and also, I thought her goal seemed a little low. She thought it was realistic, and I'm sure it was. I just probably have more faith in her than she does.

We've got a pretty full week ahead, with multiple rehearsals, shows, photoshoots, and even a recording session in there somewhere. I'm looking forward to Thursday night, as it will be the only evening Leah, Harper, and I all have together this week.

The record is starting to come along. I'd say we're about halfway done now, maybe a little more, maybe a little less. We're going to try to play a new song from the record at the shows this weekend. It's pretty simplistic, but we only left ourselves one rehearsal to prepare it. Better cross those proverbial fingers.

Yesterday, I engaged slightly in a Facebook discussion about Calvinism, and one of my best friends from school called me out for not capitalizing "god." I don't generally capitalize it because it's not a name, it's an occupation. I guess I probably should for the same reasons you capitalize "dad" or "mom" and I don't have any problem capitalizing Jehovah or Yahweh or Elohim or Osiris or Allah or Tash or Aslan, etc.

But if you think about it, it's weird that Xians call their god, "God," and not one of his actual names, isn't it? (Sub-question, if "God" has a personal name does that imply that it has peers [i.e. other deities], because why would it need a personal name if it had no need to differentiate itself among others?) I can't think of any other religion that just calls their god, "god." Anyway, food for thought.

I'm reading a book right now that traces a lot of Christianity's history through non-scriptural records and it's pretty fascinating. I think it's really interesting to see how old gods are created, renamed, combined, and then largely forgotten. Makes me wish I'd studied anthropology in college...and also finished college.

Hope to see people at the shows this weekend.
FRIDAY, JAN 28
THE PARISH, AUSTIN,TX

SATURDAY, JAN 29
GROUND HALL, HOUSTON, TX

So you won't be going to see Country Strong, then?

2011-01-19T12:37:00.000-08:00

Salutations.

Only 2 1/2 hours before that figurative whistle blows and I get to go see my girls. Tuesdays are always a little rough because, at best, I get to see my wife and child for about an hour after work before I head off to Quiet Company's regularly scheduled rehearsal/recording session. It's certainly better than not seeing them at all, and we really need to get the record finished so I'm sure we'll be in the studio more often and for longer hours in the coming weeks.

My dad came into town randomly for his work yesterday, so I got to meet him for lunch and then he took us to dinner after work. Harper was so excited to see him and behaved really well at the restaurant. She's often in the best moods for company. I'm sure she's very conscious of the impressions she makes.

When I got to the studio, the first thing we did was record the Vivogig podcast with Daniel, from Vivogig. He was British and it was fun. Thanks to anyone who submitted questions for it. It should be posted in a week or two, I don't really know.

After that, I re-tracked the guitar on a song called "You, Me, & The Boatman" which we're tentatively expecting to be the first single we push from the new record. I spent the rest of the night doing the main vocal for another song called "The Easy Confidence," which is easily the heaviest song on the record. I was screaming my balls off, y'all. It's not like Korn, or anything, lest anyone get the wrong idea, but it is very different.

I've been thinking a lot lately about the music that my friends make. I'm fortunate enough to live in a place where the local music scene can go toe to toe with the national scene (quality-wise) any day of the week, and more often than not, probably knock it on it's proverbial ass. All that to say, Austin has a lot of really good bands.

Lately, I've been finding music more rewarding if I actually know the person who made it, even if I barely know them. I guess my brain realizes that, "Any work of art is half of a conversation between two human beings, and it helps a lot to know who is talking at you," as papa Vonnegut said. Anyway, I wanted to blog about a few of the records I've been enjoying made by people I love, like, and/or have recently met.

Matt first told me about Stoney a few weeks ago. I don't know how Matt met him but he came to our show at Emo's and I met him there. Another nice British man living in the ATX. Matt had told me that Stoney's record was cool, so when I saw ran into him again at a mutual friend's show last weekend, I was pleased when Stoney gave me a copy of his EP, The Soar Before. I've been playing it incessantly ever since and my only complaint with it is that it goes by far too quickly. Four songs is not enough to satisfy me when something is this good.

The Rocketboys have been some of our best band friends for a long time. They are all genuinely lovely people and a phenomenal band. I've been especially impressed with their latest EP, Wellwisher. Brandon's lyrics are great, and there are a lot of really cool things about the production of this EP. Once again, my biggest complaint with this is the length. Fuckin' EPs, man! Four songs is just not enough.

Tommy began telling me about Buttercup almost immediately after joining the band over 5 years ago. They're from San Antonio, where Tommy went to college and he would regale me with stories about Buttercup shows he'd seen and the crazy shit they did on stage. Buttercup likes to periodically make their shows into strange events. For example, the first time we played with them, they took the stage in winter clothes and snuggies, playing slow, somber songs. As the night progressed, the tempo picked up and the layers came off, until they were dressed for summer and pumping out appropriate jams. It's weird. We've played with them a few times now and I finally got a copy of their latest record and now that I've had time to absorb it, I've realized how great their songwriting is. Joe has been sending me some demos of new stuff so I can also say that the best is yet to come for Buttercup.

Jason Poe is probably my favorite songwriter in Austin, which is saying a hell of a lot, honestly. On top of that, he's just one of my favorite people. I was also a big fan of his old band, Jets Under Fire, which had another one of my favorite people, Todd Meador, on bass. The songwriting hasn't changed drastically from Jets to this. Jason's more focused on piano than guitar now, but that's about the only change. If you enjoy thoughtful lyrics, emotive melodies, and distinctive voices, then Jason Poe is the man for you. I really can't say enough nice things about the guy.

The New Frontiers aren't a band anymore. Haven't been for quite some time. However, I'm including this album because it's simply that damned good. Their breakup is one of the sadder band break-ups in our band clique. They were great people, making equally great music, and they are missed.

If this isn't nice, I don't know what is.

2011-01-14T06:27:00.000-08:00

PERFECT.

Also, PLEASE go to the Austin Chronicle website and vote for Quiet Company in all applicable categories for the Best-of-2010 list. Getting on this list is really helpful so we really appreciate you taking the time.

Also Also, we're the first band to be featured on the new podcast, Vivogig, and you get to help shape the interview. Just go to the Vivogig page and submit any question to be featured in the podcast. It can be about anything, so go ask away.

I started singing and they told me to stop...

2011-01-12T08:13:00.001-08:00

2010 was a great year for me, musically and otherwise. At the end of 2009, I did a top 10 list and I remember it was really easy because I had only bought 11 records that year and really liked them all. This year, that is not the case. I've bought way more than 11 records and almost all of them are great, so it will actually take some thought to place them in a Top 10.

Someone posted a quote on Facebook the other day, and I forget who said it, but it generally said that listing your belongings in order of your favorite to least favorite is a behavior only appropriate for 8-year-olds. I agree...

Here's my top 10 list for 2010: (The two most important criteria are A) how addictive a record was, i.e. how much it was in my player, and B) how much did I connect to it on a personal level.)

10. Sufjan Stevens - The Age of Adz
I don't really feel that emotionally connected to this record, which is why it's at the bottom of the list. It is undeniably great though, all the same, which is why it's on the list at all. I expect to see it on a lot of other top 10 lists.
9. The New Pornographers - Together
I fell in love with the New Pornographers with Twin Cinema, but was disappointed when their next record didn't live up to the promise that Twin Cinema implied. Any disappointment was forgotten in 2010, however, when they released this gem.

8. OK GO - Of the Blue Colour of the Sky
I feel like some people look at OK Go and see just a pop rock band. Sure, everyone applauds their creativity where Youtube videos are concerned, but I don't think they get the respect they deserve for their song craft. Every record has them pushing themselves further into new territory, which is something few pop bands have the balls to do. To my knowledge, they have 3 full length albums, which means they have 3 very distinctive albums. With this record, they actually worked with one of my favorite producers, Dave Fridman, who apparently, in classic Dave Fridman style, showed the band how to make drums sound huge, fucked up, and awesome.

7. Eminem - Recovery
I don't know a lot about rap, I admit. But I know what I like, and I like Eminem, especially when he raps aggressively and with purpose. With this record, Marshall Mathers spends the lion's share of his time confessing his, very personal, shortcomings, thanking his fans for sticking around when even he thought he sucked, and proving that he is still the most articulate, and venom filled, artist in hip hop. It's not, by any means, a perfect record, the most noticeable flaws being with the beat programming, but I love hearing that angry son-of-a-bitch spit rhymes.

6. Autolux - Transit, Transit
It was starting to feel like we would never get another Autolux record. I absolutely adored their first record and was immediately ready for more, but it took a damned eternity for Autolux to comply with my desire. Worth the wait, though. Transit Transit is a simply beautiful record. A bit slower, in general, than the first record, but all the same noise, melody, and dynamics are still there, only more mature seeming.

5. Starflyer 59 - The Changing of the Guard
Starflyer 59's music almost feels like one of my oldest friends, we've been together for so long. I was a little nervous that their amazing streak was over, after their last record, Dial M, came out. Thankfully, it was just a minor and brief misstep into mediocrity. It's bound to happen when you're as prolific as Jason Martin, but The Changing Of The Guard is another bright star in an already vast and brilliant sky.

4. Stars - The Five Ghosts
I was blown away the first time I heard Stars. The song was "Your Ex-lover is Dead" off the album Set Yourself On Fire. That album was great, but that song certainly captured a level of brilliance they didn't touch again on that record, and even less so on the next record, In Our Bedroom After The War. It wasn't that the stuff was bad, just that they didn't have anything else as good as that song. I figured that Stars was just a band that I would be aware of and appreciative of but never enamored with. I was wrong. I eventually snagged this record on a whim because it was cheap, and I am so glad I did. There are so many powerfully emotive melodies on this record, it may very well leave you exhausted in the best possible way.

3. Belle & Sebastian - Write About Love
Now we're in the top 3. How exciting!! All the members of Belle & Sebastian must shit gold at this point, because it's becoming more difficult to imagine them producing anything that is less than amazing. I've read some reviews of this record that were a bit lacklustre, but I don't get that at all. All I hear is a damn near perfect collection of delicate pop songs. Plus, the Norah Jones duet, "Little Lou, Ugly Jack, Prophet John," may very well be the most beautiful song I've ever heard.

2. Menomena - Mines
The first time I heard Menomena it made me want to quit music. I'm not trying to be funny, I got seriously sad. I just started wondering why I even try. Well, I've gotten over it, and now when I hear them, I just feel inspired and want to rush over to the studio. This record is fucking amazing. Their catchy, they're quirky, they're brilliant, they're Menomena...

1. Arcade Fire - The Suburbs
I don't know what's left to say about this record that hasn't already been said a thousand times over. It's probably on every top 10 list in North America for 2010, and deservedly so. I think a new classic has been born.

Now I spend my days in ever increasingly complicated ways, convincing myself of the rightness of each word I say.

2011-01-03T11:00:00.000-08:00

I'm getting old, you know.

I was sick last week, and continue to be. My girls caught it and got to spend the holiday under the weather. By the weekend I was operating at about 85% so I tried to let Leah sleep as much as she could to knock the illness out, while I took care of Harper. We had a great time because she seemed to have no intention of letting her illness dictate her mood. I hope she's always like that.

She has such personality. Her laugh is simply one of the best things in the universe.

One of the things that I found/find so endearing about her mother is that Leah would do things to make herself laugh and if other people thought it was funny, then great. Sometimes, I catch Harper doing that, and it breaks my heart in the best possible way.

Leah and I spend a large part of the weekend watching Friday Night Lights, the TV show. I put off watching it because, frankly, the premise doesn't attract me. But the show is undeniably good, and speaking as someone who grew up in "small town, TX," they really nailed it. A lot of the characters were hard for me to like because they remind me so much of specific people I grew up around. So far we're into season 3 and aside from a strange, writer's strike induced, season 2 ending, the show is consistently good.

Leah and I recently watched Easy A, that movie with Emma Stone. It provided a few chuckles but the more I reflect on it, the more I hate it. I don't know if there was a single believable character. Clearly, the writer has never been or met a teenager. I was especially annoyed by the Christian characters. Speaking as someone who was part of the overly self-righteous, pious club in high school; nobody acts remotely like that. Amanda Bynes seemed to be playing a caricature of Mandy Moore's character in Saved (which I think is a great film), rather than making an attempt at any relatability. One of the things that I think the writers of Friday Night Lights do extraordinarily well, is capture the role that religion plays in the lives of small town teenagers in Texas. It's such a consistent undercurrent in their culture. The kids are flamboyantly impassioned one day and conveniently detached from it the next, which is what high school religion is mostly like. Peaks and valleys.

Anyway, good writing is good, bad writing is bad.

I don't really have any big goals for this year. We're going to be releasing a new record, which I'm excited about. Shortly after, we hope to release another EP.
Other than that, I'm hoping to:
-watch my daughter grow
-continue adoring my wife
-keep off the 20 lbs I've lost
-live simply
-simply live
-etc.

Easy peasy.

Looks like the fittest did a little surviving last night, huh?

2010-12-30T11:12:00.000-08:00

Tomorrow is the last day of 2010.

Shit.

That felt like a cruelly short year, didn't it? I guess they all do. If I could have one wish... Well, I was about to say that I would wish for longer lives and more hours in the day, but that could be considered two wishes, and let's be honest, if I had one wish, it would be for infinite money, or superpowers, or ageless immortality, etc.

Anyway, I wish we lived longer and that there were more hours in the day.

I've started reading Chuck Klosterman's latest, Eating The Dinosaur. I like Klosterman a lot because he over-analyzes pop culture in the way that I would like to have time to. I guess the over all message of all the Klosterman that I've read is that, no matter how petty or materialistic pop culture seems, these things matter. I tend to agree.

I'm reminded of the summer of 2002. Everyone gets at least one big, earth shattering, soul crushing, heartbreak in their youth; or at least, they should. You know, at least one time where something or someone happens that calls into question everything you believe about yourself and the human condition. Mine came by way of a breakup with my first longtime girlfriend in the summer of 2002.

I got sad. Real sad. Less so because I still wanted to be with that girl, really, and more so because I had based all of my hopes and dreams around being with that girl. If we're being dramatic, I got suicidal. If we're being more realistic, I got dramatic about being sad and, like many children of the 90's/Nirvana fans, channeled that drama into lionizing suicide. Anyway, that's not important. What is important is what got me through those times. Was it supportive friends and family? Sure, somewhat. Was is faith in a higher power? Nope...well, kind of, maybe, I guess. Do The Beatles and/or Star Wars count as higher powers? If they do, then yes.

During that time I had two great revelations:
1. That the arcade in the mall had The Star Wars Arcade Game, and...
2. That the Beatles are amaaaaazing but I did not own their entire catalog.

So I made the decision that I would not buy any new music other than The Beatles until I had every album. Also I began most of my days by pillaging the couch cushions and our apartment's dusty corners, looking for quarters or any spare change that was equal to or greater than 25 cents.
I played the Star Wars arcade game almost everyday that summer. What has two thumbs and could (at that point) beat the Star Wars arcade game with one credit? This guy!

I know that those things didn't solve my problems, but they provided me with enough distraction from said problems that I was able to function, and that has worth, right? I think so.

Ian and Elana got me Futurama: Season 5 for Xmas and I've been watching that almost all day. For my money, Futurama is possibly the best animated show of all time, least ways, nothing else springs to mind that is better. I'm so glad it was resurrected. When I am cancelled, I, too, hope to be ressurected.

This was a great year. I had a really great time. Thanks for having me, and I'll definitely recommend you to my friends, Universe.

The dude abides.

2010-12-27T08:00:00.000-08:00

I hope everyone had a happy holiday. We did.

I was nervous going in because I weighed myself before we left and saw the lowest number since college, 174.5 lbs. I was very happy. Progress, you know? But I knew that my parents' house is no place for a diet, especially on a holiday. However, I was pretty proud of myself, and although I did allow myself a shred of gluttony at Xmas dinner, I diligently counted my calories otherwise. So today, I weighed in at 176.0 lbs. Not bad, not great. It won't be too terribly difficult to recover from anyway.

Harper had a great time, and Leah and I discovered that, at her grandparents' house, we don't matter as much. We're not offended, we get it. Kind of a pain in the ass when she doesn't eat good because she's too pumped up, but oh well. She got to play with her cousins, which she loves, especially her cousin, Rylan, who is only 6 months older than her but the same size.

I got to see some friends that I haven't seen in a long time, ate some pizza, did some bowling, saw some movies.

We actually saw two movies, because having grandparents around is free babysitting. On Friday, we saw True Grit and we really liked it. Not my favorite Coen Bros. but still really great. On Saturday, we saw Tron: Legacy 3D. IT'S A JEFF BRIDGES CHRISTMAS!!! Tron was OK. Pretty forgettable, but OK. It was in 3D but after the movie we all stood around saying, "Was it in 3D? I don't remember seeing anything that looked 3D."

I'm rounding out the weekend by watching The Big Lebowski at work today.

I had designs to blog about the Old Testament today, and how Christians justify all the crazy shit within, but all the profound ideas I had in the shower escape me in this chair. So it goes. Perhaps I should blog about my ever dwindling desire to engage in religious discussions. I really had a stomach for it a year ago. Now, not so much. I'm sure this blog is significantly less interesting because of that.

I think I've just decided that if any real progress for free thought and/or Humanism is to be made in our culture, it's going to be made through art and/or humor, so I've been exercising those demons by working on the new record. Which I plan to do more of tonight.

Everything louder than everything else

2010-12-20T12:17:00.000-08:00

Don't Ask, Don't Tell was repealed this weekend. Good job, America. Way to fix your horrible, shameful ideas. Leah happened to be shooting a gay wedding on Saturday when everyone found out. That seems like a pretty great place to be when such a step towards true equality is taken.

Leah obviously worked on Saturday so Harper and I hung out all night together. It was really great, especially because last week found Harper in a strange, "mom is awesome, dad is less so" mood for a few days. By Saturday, she was over it, and she was a perfect angel for me. We ran around trying to find my father an xmas gift, trying to find a certain cable to remedy a band issue at Guitar Center, hanging out in Terra Toys and then getting some delicious tacos for dinner. It was a great day, though I did miss my wife something fierce. I continue to.

The next morning, we all went to IHOP for breakfast, which was lovely. Then Leah had more errands to run, so Harper and I played at the park and went to Target where we finally decided on my father's gift. So our holiday shopping is, more or less, complete. Yay.

After Harper went down for her nap, I trekked over to Matt's studio to record. Recording always takes longer than I think it will, and I always leave sessions feeling like I should've accomplished more. I've recorded 3 albums, I should know how it goes by this point, but alas... I apparently do not. It's not that we're particularly slow (well, I don't know, maybe we are) or lazy, it's just that this shit takes time. Setting up mics, taking down mics, setting up different mics, bringing in amps, moving out amps, bringing in different amps, tuning, re-tuning, adjust the tone, not quite, adjust the tone, not quite, adjust the tone, there it is, play the part again, I can do better, play it again and again and again... When I finally got home at 11, I was dragging. I did remember to take the Flip camera with me and got some footage of the process. I'm going to try and do that every time from now on. Maybe we can get someone to edit it all together for a "making of" thing.

Tonight, I'm back in the studio to knock out more acoustic guitar, and probably some vocals and piano. I always get so anxious about doing vocals and try to put them off as long as I can, but they always have to be done eventually.

I'd rather be a forest than a street

2010-12-17T11:53:00.000-08:00

So, several months ago, I weighed myself and I was not happy with what the scale said. "193 lbs." I've been telling people that I weigh 175 lbs since college, so the facts weren't going along with my story. I tried exercising, and I fucking hated it. I even tried Yoga for a couple of days, and while you can't argue with the overwhelming amount of success stories, it really hurt and made me feel stupid. So then I bought a fairly expensive diet pill, and actually saw some results, but upon introspection realized that it was probably only working because it was coupled with eating a lot less. So that's what I've been doing: eating less and taking a ton of green tea. And do you know what my scale said today? 175.5 lbs! Yay me!

I'd like to get closer to 170 before next week because I know the holiday food is going to set me back. So will the free BBQ that our regional manager just bought the office, and the free BBQ that is being served to the bands at our show tonight.

I've been wanting to blog a lot lately but couldn't think of anything to really talk about. That problem has not been resolved but Leah told me that she was tired of coming to the page and seeing the entry about my penis, so...here I am.

Tonight we've got a big show here in Austin. It's the celebration of KGSR's 20 year anniversary, and we are honored to be on the bill. We're sharing the stage with Alpha Rev, Joe Ely, and The Old 97's, so it should be pretty well attended.

Xmas is coming up. Leah and I went back and forth about whether or not we would celebrate it. We eventually decided to, for Harper's sake. It will probably be just like Halloween, where my level of involvement correlates directly with her level of enjoyment. We still haven't gotten her a gift though, which I'm not terribly worried about. She has toys, she has clothes, she has, generally, everything she needs. If we were smart, her gift would be the beginning of a college fund, but who knows.

Doing a lot of recording in the next couple of weeks so I'm looking forward to making progress on that. Tommy and I have been slightly obsessed with guitar tones for this record, but so far, it's paying off. Whenever I look at our recording "to do list" I start feeling underwhelmed by the amount of things that are checked off, but the next couple of weeks should make a significant dent.

Happy Holidays, true believers.

Cool band name: Shy Bladder and the Moral Highground

2010-12-07T14:32:00.000-08:00

I don't have a shy bladder. I can, more or less, pee on command.

A few hours ago, I found myself standing next to a stranger in the bathroom, pants unzipped, "Tiny-Taylor" in hand, ready to go, and then a booming, inappropriately loud, voice filled the room.

"Where is this rain we're supposed to get?!?!" December and May are supposed to be the wettest months but I don't see it!"

"God?" I thought, "This is a weird time to choose to speak,"

...but then I realized it was just the stranger next to me. I wanted to be friendly, I really did, but all of a sudden I realized that I couldn't pee, I was so unnerved by this unexpected conversation. It took every ounce of concentration to force the liquid from my loins, and so my only contribution to our discourse was, "....yep."

Sorry, guy. I'm usually much friendlier, but then I usually don't meet new people while holding my penis.

On why I would be a great superhero, or a really bad one, depending on your perspective.

2010-12-02T12:45:00.000-08:00

I've been watching Smallville a lot lately. It's one of those shows that I always wanted to get into, and thought I would probably like, but never got around to. So now, I'm playing catch-up with the DVDs. I like the show a lot, but all the back and forth, will they/won't they between Clark and Lana gets a little maddening. It got me thinking about what I would do if I had super powers.

First off, I'd tell everyone. Well, not everyone, but several people. The whole idea of a secret identity keeping your family safe is kind of bullshit if you think about it. As long as you keep your inner circle small, you'll be alright. Just don't get caught by strangers doing super shit. But if there was a girl I really liked, I'd probably tell her the first time it became a problem. "Oh yeah, I know it was weird when I inexplicably ran out on our date the other night, but the reason is that I'm actually an alien and I have super powers as a result of your planet having a yellow sun and my home planet having a red one, and some people needed some super help. You understand right?" Or, "Oh yeah, I know I was a total dick to you the other day, but what had happened was that I'm actually an alien from another planet and as a result of the radiation from your yellow sun on my cells for all these years, different colored pieces of my home world, called 'Kryptonite,' affect me differently, and someone slipped me some of the 'red' and I just lost my shit." And maybe at some point, you could do the reasonable thing and say, "Hey friends of mine, who I've saved on countless occasions and all owe me a life debt or two, could you all please make a point to find and destroy as much Kryptonite as you can, as there seems to be a disproportionately large amount of it lying around? Thanks, it seriously harshes my mellow."

Here in the real world, to really be a good guy, you'd have to be willing to get your hands dirty. How easy would it be for Superman to fix a lot of the worlds big problems? First, I'd make a bunch of big, brightly colored, hand lettered signs that all said something along the lines of "Be nice or Superman will mess your shit up!!! :-)" and place them all around. And then I would proceed to kill all terrorists and warlords. Totalitarian? Kind of. Fascist? Maybe a little. Everyone thanking me later? You bet your sweet ass. The question you have to ask yourself is this: "Is it really noble of Batman to spare the Joker's life, knowing full well that the prison won't hold him forever, and it's only a matter of time before countless innocents will pay the price for Bats' nobility?" The answer is "no." The truly moral thing to do is to kill the Joker at the first opportunity.

One of the reasons I've wanted to get into Smallville is that one of my favorite heroes is now on the show.

Green Arrow is a badass, but when you think about it, only in a comic book could someone get away with being Green Arrow. Now, if some kid in New York got bit by a radioactive spider, developed spider powers, and started using those powers to fight crime, then we'd all think "Ok that person is crazy, albeit good intentioned." Because dressing up as a spider and swinging around on webs and beating up baddies with your bare hands is quirky and endearing.

Green Arrow's M.O. is to shoot people with a bow and arrow. Usually not even "trick" arrows. Just regular ol', "assault with a deadly weapon," arrows. Now, Batman may break several of the bones in your body and hospitalize you indefinitely, but he won't stab you! He won't shoot you in the arm! He won't run you through with anything!

...Green Arrow will, though. I don't know, just seems....well, it seems like Assault With A Deadly Weapon.

Looking forward to seeing him in Smallville, but I'm only on season 3. I can't see him and Clark getting along, somehow.

It's comforting to come in after a long weekend and NOT find an avalanche of accumulated work.

2010-11-29T07:24:00.000-08:00

Happy belated Thanksgiving, true believers. I hope everyone's holiday was spent being well fed and surrounded by loved ones. Mine certainly was, though we didn't leave town to see family. Well, not blood related family anyway. We spent Thursday night with the Davis family and it was pretty great. Great food, great company, what more is there?

My parents went to Nashville to celebrate their 35 year anniversary/Thanksgiving and stayed at the Opry Hotel. Apparently, they had a great time and enjoyed everything that that spiritually bankrupt town has to offer. Don't get me wrong, Nashville is a great place to visit, so much so that a visit there years ago convinced me to move there.

My parents' marriage is a rare case; 35 years and never a whisper of divorce. I've never even actually heard them raise their voices at each other. I guess they really love each other or something. They got engaged something like 6 weeks after they met, and were married 6 months later. Quick! It was supposed to be 3 months but apparently my mom's family was hung up on the fact that my dad had been briefly married before and the Good Book said that that made my mom an adulteress, so they tried to convince my mom not to marry him at all. To her credit, she said "Eff that, I do what I want!!" They did, however, succeed in convincing her to wait a year. She told my dad and he said "Eff that, I'll wait 6 months." (I'm paraphrasing, of course. I don't know if either of my parents have ever said the F word. I tend to doubt it.) So, 6 months later they were married and roughly 4 years later they were pregnant with my brother, and 3 years after that, pregnant with me. Hooray, life! Boo to the fundamentalism that tried to snuff me out. Hooray to parents who have always shown me that all you really do need, is love! Hooray to parents who have always been slow to anger and quick to forgive!
Hooray to 35 more years!

This weekend we had our "Twitter show" where we projected a live Twitter feed on the wall beside the stage. It was really fun and interesting. Undoubtedly, it convinced everyone that they were a comedian, and as we predicted, it became really obscene really quickly. It was all in good fun, though, and I think everyone had a good time.

Slept badly last night. Zombie nightmares and cold sweats all night. The zombie nightmares I can explain because of The Walking Dead (How amazing is that show?!?) but the cold sweats are a mystery. Oh well, I guess my life is just way harder than everyone else's.

One of the best moments of the weekend was Leah getting Harper to say "Oh man!" but it coming out (like the native Texan that she is), "Oh Main!"

In the city of the future, it is difficult to concentrate. Meet the boss, meet the wife. Everybody's happy, everyone is made for life.

2010-11-17T11:34:00.000-08:00

If you're looking for a significantly tasty burger, Phil's Icehouse on Burnet Rd. can supply you with one, no problem. Most of the band just took Paul to eat there for his birthday and I was impressed. I'm not often blown away by burgers, and I'm not sure if the term "blown away" really applies here either, but it was pretty damn good, nonetheless.

Anyway, Leah and I just got back from vacationing in Orlando, FL, a place I would probably avoid (bad drivers, bad radio, and an absurd amount of televangelists on TV) if it weren't for that little slice of heaven, The Wizarding World Of Harry Potter at Universal Studios. I've had such a boner to see this place since I first heard they were building it and it did not disappoint. My only complaint is that the excessive amount of muggles crowding the streets in their wife-beaters, fanny-packs, and daisy dukes sometimes takes you out of the moment. Everything is so well done and authentic, though, that it's hard to be unhappy about anything while walking the streets of Hogsmeade or the halls of Hogwarts. Leah and I spent the better part of two days mesmerized by all things Potter, and thanks to Butterbeer, I regained 3 of the five pounds I lost the week before. Oh well, back on track now. Now we just have to figure out how to see The Deathly Hallows as soon as possible.

Leah and I had such an amazing time together and it was nice to get to do whatever we wanted as a couple without having to worry about nap times or snack times, etc... That being said, we missed the hell out of Harper and I could literally feel my heart lighten when we saw her at the airport. I know I've probably said this before and it probably doesn't make for the best blogging (but fuck you, this is my blog and I do what I want), but I love being her father so much, it's ridiculous. She's getting so smart and funny, so full of personality. I can't wait til she's a teenager and screams how much she hates me in a public place.

Quiet Company has begun working on the third record, in earnest. I have no idea when we will actually be done with it, but it's going well, albeit, slowly. Well, it's actually not going slowly, it's just taken us a long time to get started. Everyone is really excited about the new material, and I'm very interested to see how it all turns out. It's a different direction for us, focusing more on guitars and drums than pianos and synthesizers. Basically, we're just trying to pick up where Staind left off.........

Our episodes of My Generation are now available for streaming at Hulu.com and ABC.com. We're in episode 3 (though if you blink, you might miss us), and "How Do You Do It?" has a really nice placement at the end of episode 4. Episode 6 has "The Biblical Sense Of The Word" in it somewhere but I haven't gotten to watch it yet.

Really excited to catch up on our TV shows, especially The Walking Dead.

15 records that made my year (musically).

2010-11-05T10:45:00.000-07:00

This may be one of my favorite pictures Leah has ever taken. It's Harper, Estlin, and Olivia on Halloween. I think it captures all of their personalities pretty accurately.

Anyway, here's a list, in no particular order of 15 records that came out this year that are all very much worth owning. Some are even "must haves."

Arcade Fire - The Suburbs
Belle & Sebastian - Write About Love
The Thermals - Personal Life
Starflyer 59 - The Changing Of The Guard
Eminem - Recovery
Tim Kasher - The Game Of Monogamy
Menomena - Mines
The Toadies - Feeler
Sufjan Stevens - The Age Of Adz / All Delighted People
Stars - The Five Ghosts
Quiet Company - Songs For Staying In
OK Go - Of The Blue Colour Of The Sky
The New Pornographers - Together
Jason Poe - Now Is The Winter
Autolux - Transit Transit

There's a few records that came out this year that I'm sure deserve to be on this list, but I just don't have them yet. For instance, the new Colour Revolt and Rocketboys records.

The Life I Love

2010-11-01T06:46:00.000-07:00

Today is the day!

If you didn't know, my wife is an amazing wedding photographer, and she and her partner are launching their website/business today. I'm so fucking proud of her. She is so talented and works so hard and deserves huge success, which I'm sure she is destined for.

Click on the banner and go hire her for all of your photography needs.

Leah's sister, Elana, and her boyfriend, Ian, have been visiting this week from London and we've been having a great time. We went to the hockey game on Tuesday, barbecued on Wednesday, ate at Trudy's downtown and went bowling/karaoke-ing on Thursday, went down to the South Congress bridge and saw the bats, ate at the Green Mesquite, and saw Red(2.5 out of 5 stars) at the Alamo Drafthouse on Friday, took Harper to a lame ass fall festival, and then hung out at the Quiet Company/Bob Schneider Halloween show at Antone's on Saturday (which was awesome and we were all zombies), and went trick or treating with the Davis family and then ate wings and watched The Walking Dead on Sunday. It was a great time and we're sad to see them go today.

I've never celebrated Halloween. I wasn't allowed to when I was a kid, for religious reasons, and then when I was old enough to do whatever I wanted, I just didn't give a shit anymore. Most people are shocked when I tell them that this weekend was the first time I've ever dressed up for the holiday; I still don't think it's that big of a deal. That being said, I did have a great time being a zombie at the show on Saturday. I do feel like I'll care more about it the more Harper enjoys it. I'm definitely looking forward to many years of trick or treating with her. She was a shark this year...

...But she has the makings of a Jedi.

I caught the end of the Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Keep Fear Alive on Comedy Central. I'm sure I'll watch the rest of it eventually but I just wanted to comment on Jon's closing statements. They made me feel hopeful for humanity in America. Also adding to my hope was the fact that Glenn Beck's rally had 80,000 attendees to Jon Stewart's 280,000. Eat it, pig face.

Patriotism is something I've never excelled at. School spirit is the same thing. I just can't get all riled up with support for a team that has been assigned to me based solely on where I just happened to live. However, I find myself supporting the Texas Stars, which is the minor league hockey team in Cedar Park. I've been to 2 games so far this season and am planning on being at their game against Toronto this Saturday. Maybe the difference is that I chose to live here. I wasn't born here, I didn't move here with my parents, nor was I displaced here by some natural disaster. More importantly, I love it here. I love the people, I love the place, I love the community. I wouldn't want to live anywhere else (in Texas).

So, this happened...

2010-10-27T05:10:00.000-07:00

Sometimes TV shows get cancelled after 2 episodes.

2010-10-04T11:25:00.000-07:00

I've recently decided that I'd like to visit worship services for religions that I've never belonged to. At first, I just wanted to visit a mosque. The reason is this: I've read the Bible, and I've read some of the Qu'ran, and as far as I'm concerned, they're both terrible and beautiful fairy tales. Most of the people I love in this world are Christians and try to be reasonable, loving, logical people. They can be that way because, despite what they say, they don't actually take the Bible that seriously. They're "moderates." But every time an Islamic terrorist blows something up, every lovably PC liberal in the country insists that most Muslims are equally "moderate." I'm in no position to argue either way, really. I don't really know any Muslims. Not well, anyway. So I thought it would be nice to check out an Islamic service for myself and see if the teachings therein feel safe and moderate. To be honest, their book reads slightly bloodier than the Bible, and that is saying something. But if anyone can recommend a popular, hip, moderate mosque service in the Austin area, hit me up.

Then I thought that I shouldn't stop there. I'd like to see how things are outside of Abraham's shadow. There happens to be a beautiful Hindu temple here in Austin, and frankly, I can't wait to go check it out. From their website, the Hindu religion looks like a fucking ton of fun, full of parties and crazy stories, chanting and meditation. I don't know when I'm going to go, but if anyone wants to go with, let me know. I must admit, after seeing the Hindu temple, I feel like I wasted 20+ years in a boring religion, while I could've been wasting it in a much prettier one. I wonder if they let people film in there.

Since I last wrote here several things have happened. The highlights are that Quiet Company had almost all of our guitars and several other things stolen out of our trailer and then 3 days later we had to leave for tour. All of my electric guitars are gone, which sucks asshole, but thankfully I can file it on my home owner's insurance. So hopefully, I'll have new guitars soon. Don't worry, though. Amazingly, our community and our friends and fans came through in a big way and we all had great guitars to play on tour. Then my amp stopped working on the first night and a million other things went wrong and we realized that the thieves stole more than we thought and yada yada yada money money money... It could've been better and more beneficial but hey, it was what it was, and we did have a good time and have, at least, a handful of good shows.

This weekend, Leah had a couple of shoots and other things to handle, so it was Harper and I most of the time. The weather was amazing though (and continues to be) so I don't regret that it feels like I spent all weekend in the park. I'm planning on doing some more of the same shortly after 5 o'clock today.

Hmm...I forgot you could tempt me with things I want

2010-08-19T07:26:00.000-07:00

These are a couple pics from the ACL: Satellite Sets recording we did last Friday by photographer, Jonathan Jackson. There are more pics on his site.

That show was really fun and really crazy and really surreal. I just sat there thinking, "...Yeah...Ray Charles played this piano...Etta James sang on this stage....Michael Stipe sang into this mic..." I can't wait to see the final footage. The plan is to release a dvd of the show so hopefully, everyone will get a chance to see it.

My one complaint with the ACL taping is that, apparently, I am not a fan of Steinway pianos. Tommy said their action is notoriously heavy and I can attest to that. My hands were actually tired and hurting after 2 songs on that thing. Looked cool, though.

Leah got back from London on Thursday, we had to be at the ACL studio all day Friday, Leah had weddings all day Saturday and Sunday, and then Quiet Company had two more shows on Monday and Tuesday. So last night was Leah's and my first night, since she got back, to actually relax together. We went to the mall, had dinner, let Harper run around, came home, put Harper to bed, and then watched the most recent True Blood and Greenberg in bed.

True Blood was great, as usual. I could've done without Greenberg. I feel like there are a ton of indie movie directors that just got together and said, "Hey don't you hate how movies always have stories. Let's make movies without them or at least have as little change as possible take place in the protagonist's life, so much so that the audience comes away wondering what they just spent the last two hours of their life doing." I chuckled a few times during the movie but this morning I woke up thinking that I really could've used that time for sleeping or, at least, watching something where the story and/or characters develop.

So it goes.

I didn't really know what to think of the new Arcade Fire when I heard the single on NPR. I didn't think I liked it, though, and I was not optimistic for the rest of the record. However, a few days ago, I finally got around to listening to the record all the way through a few times and now I am convinced that it is easily the best record of 2010.

A close second is the new Starflyer 59 record, The Changing of the Guard, which came out last week. I've long been obsessed with this band. I'll buy anything that they put out, in fact. It's even more impressive that the band is still putting out some of their best work when you consider that this is something like their 14th record.

Harper has started saying "thank you" which is adorable, and yesterday, I think she found her first boyfriend in a little Indian boy at the Disney Store.

I'm just really glad that Leah is back and that she brought me back a replica of Harry Potter's wand. It chose me.

Damn!!! The new Eminem record and the Arby's value menu are both equally amazing!

2010-08-06T18:17:00.000-07:00

My brother, Cameron, once said that the mark of a classy establishment was when they serve Pepsi, rather than Coca Cola. I disagree. To me, the biggest indicator of an establishment's level of class is whether or not toilet seat liners are available in the restroom. Also, I prefer Coca Cola.

It's been about 4 weeks since I wrote here, and it hasn't been uneventful. Quiet Company did 3 more shows with one of my favorite bands of all time, The Toadies. One of those shows was a sold out crowd (1725+ people) at the House of Blues in Houston. I could get incredibly spoiled by the House of Blues. I've never been treated so well or played in a venue so nice. They carried our stuff for us, they fed us, we even had a real green room. It was like they actually cared about the opening band. We also played another show with Bob Schneider at the House of Blues in Dallas, and had a similarly awesome experience. That show wasn't sold out, though. We had to make due with only playing to about 1400 people there.

We had another song (The Biblical Sense of the Word) played on The Real World and this time we saw a huge spike in our Itunes sales in the following days. We made the top 50 on that first day, even.

Speaking of TV, there's a new show coming on ABC this September called "My Generation," and at least one episode features some pretty awesome montage acting by Quiet Company. So we're going to be on TV as a real band, playing a fake version of...ourselves. It's weird. Anyway, stay tuned to all the QC pages for more information about all of that.

Leah has left me to journey across the pond to visit her sister in London and won't return until the middle of next week. Needless to say, I'm having a great time. PARTY!!! PARTY!!! PARTY!!!!

I'm kidding, of course. I miss the hell out of her. My mom is in town to take care of Harper while I'm at work so Harper is having a good time, though I'm sure she would miss her mother if she could grasp the concept of Object Permanence.

I hate sleeping alone. It's just one of those things that you get really accustomed to when you're a married person, I guess. I didn't go to London with Leah because I decided that I should use my vacation time for Quiet Company to go on a small tour in Sept. It hasn't come together as easily as I wanted, which has me kicking myself everyday when Leah tells me how awesome England is.

After Harper goes to bed, I've been working on cleaning up a cabinet that I bought at the government surplus store for my comic books. I've been going to bed shortly after that. My mom has been making awesome food for dinner (chicken & dumplings, fried steak cutlets, English peas, mashed potatoes, and coconut custard pie). So that has made missing my wife a little more bearable.

Tonight, I may go see Inception after Harper goes to bed.

"...You're strange, but don't change..."

2010-07-06T18:07:00.000-07:00

So circumstances have arisen that will probably all but kill this blog. I typically only blog at work and today I arrived to find that blogger (as well as half of the internet) had been blocked. True, I could blog at home, but I've got shit to do and frankly, I think I've about run out of things to say. I'm not going to take the whole thing down and I'm sure I'll still post periodically, so this isn't "goodbye" so much as it is "see you around." I hope you're all happy, healthy, and whole.

So it goes.

What can I say, I just love nachos!

2010-07-05T09:52:00.000-07:00

Happy 5th of July everyone!

Last night we opened for Bob Schneider at the Nutty Brown Cafe. There were easily over 1000 people there and I think we made a lot of new fans. The crowd was really diverse, though, and a lot of it wasn't exactly what you would consider our target market. So I'm sure there were at least a few people out there thinking, or saying, "Who are these assholes? They suck!"

But we sold a lot of stuff and filled up over 4 pages on our email list, so we'll take it.

I think we played pretty well, though it did sound pretty weird on stage and whenever that happens it becomes really difficult for me to think the show's sounding good, even though I know that what the audience hears and what we hear on stage are two completely different things. It still gets to me.

Our parents all came into town for the show which enabled us to take Harper to the show as well. I didn't get to see her dancing from stage but Leah said it was adorable. The last time she saw her daddy play she didn't know how to dance, so I think this show was probably her favorite of the two. I don't know. She's a baby.

Dolores Umbridge is a bitch

2010-07-01T13:17:00.000-07:00

Listening to mewithoutYou makes 18 year old Taylor want to post lyrics in his Facebook statuses. So good.

I know I've been a bad blogger. No consistency. I've actually had a lot of work to do at my job, if you can believe it. Also, I don't suppose I've had much to say.

I'm reading Harry Potter & The Deathly Hallows for the 7th time. I don't know if it gets better every time I read it, but it certainly doesn't get any worse. I'm sure everyone has seen the trailer for it by now. I can't wait.

I will not be seeing it in 3D. That shit is lame, and I wish Hollywood would knock it off.

I hope I get to see The Last Airbender soon. The reviews aren't looking great, but I think it will probably be a good time nonetheless. Besides, I hate Ain't It Cool News' reviews anyway.

I'm quietly judging you...

2010-06-28T12:14:00.000-07:00

I'm not sure what you call it when babies try to talk, jibber jabber maybe, but in the past few days Harper has decided that she loves doing it. It is adorable. I can't wait until she can actually talk. Though, I guess I'll have to start watching my language around her soon, which will be annoying. When she's old enough to reason with, I won't have to, but it wouldn't be good to have a two year old shouting "SHIT!" with abandon. Although, you and I both know how hilarious it would be.

Our show on Friday was a pleasant end on an otherwise frustrating day. The show was great; lots of people there, lots of fun being had, four great bands, etc. I didn't get to watch Courier because the hot dog place we ate at took too long, but Royal Forest was great, as I expected them to be, and Oh No, Oh My was fantastic. I meant to get both bands' records, but alas, I did not.

The next day we were offered (and we accepted) a show with Bob Schneider at the legendary Nutty Brown Cafe on the 4th of July. That will be a huge show and we're really pumped about it. Combine that with the 3 shows with the Toadies, and the Rooney show and we've got a big few months coming up.

We've started booking our Fall tour. Hopefully, it will bring us close to some of you that we don't get to see regularly. So if you live in, or near, any of these towns, keep your eyes open.

Sept 17 - Friday - Tyler, TX
Sept 18 - Saturday - Little Rock, AR
Sept 20 - Monday - Chicago, IL
Sept 21 - Tuesday - Cincinnati, OH
Sept 22 - Wednesday -Nashville, TN
Sept 23 - Thursday - Memphis, TN
Sept 24 - Friday - Shreveport, LA
Sept 25 - Saturday - Houston, TX

Leah and I stayed up too late watching Magnolia last night. I was kind of hoping that we would cancel band practice tonight and I would get in bed at 9 or something, but that's not happening.

This is what my brain is often busy doing.

2010-06-24T13:41:00.000-07:00

Just got back to work from being on the radio. At 12 we were on KGSR with Andy Langer and we played a couple of songs (acoustic versions of "It's Better To Spend Money..." and "How Do You Do It?") and did a bit of chatting. It was a good time. Then we went and grabbed a bite at Subway with Mark, the music director, and came back to the same building but to a different radio station. At 1 we prerecorded a show with Trevin on 101x, which will play tonight from 6-10pm. So if you want to hear us be awkward, tune it to that shit.

It was a lot of fun and we really appreciate everyone at KGSR and 101X that helps us get played.

Both interviews spent some time focusing on this:

What that is, is a lunchbox with $1200 in ones, covered in blood and "blow."

Matt has never been paid for recording our EP and so we finally decided to start doing that. Paul and I thought it would be funny to pull the money out of the bank in all ones and put them in a brief case like in the movies, but then I decided to take it a step further. I just love picturing Matt depositing this money. Oh, the blood is real. It's my blood, actually. The "cocaine" is just flour but the effect is nice. I even smeared bloody finger prints on some of the bills so there's a real sense that it was gathered up in a panic. Attention to details, my friends. It's important.

Where will Phil Collins spend eternity?

2010-06-21T11:52:00.001-07:00

I'm not going to go through listing off everything Leah and I did this weekend, because Leah already did that. It should suffice to say that I had an amazing weekend with my wife.

My second Father's Day was pretty great too, save for the obnoxiously friendly waitress at IHOP that just would not leave us the hell alone. Here's some advice for those people who have absolutely no understanding of personal boundaries: Don't ever try to pick up a stranger's baby...You idiot.

The show on Saturday was OK. Not great, because I think everybody had some tiny fuck-ups throughout the show, but fun, nonetheless. I think I was dehydrated or something, because I had been drinking a ton of coke and very little water for the last few days, and my voice started feeling dry and weak and my hands started trembling when I was playing piano. So I'm trying to drink mainly water for the rest of the week so our show at the Ghost Room doesn't suffer for my gluttony.

The Target by my work didn't have the Mixed Berry flavor of green tea that I'd been drinking so I got Pure Green Tea instead. No, sir. No, this will not do. Good thing I got a big box of it...

I was walking my dog last night and listening to Switchfoot. I love that band and I know I've written about them before so I don't want to write a repeat blog but I had a thought as I listened last night. So many of their songs are about how lousy the world is and how lousy our culture is and how we're all imprisoned by it. I actually agree with a lot of what they say about our culture, where the two of us disagree is that they think the answer to the problem is faith, and, more specifically, faith in Jesus. So here's my thought: In America, easily 75% of the population professes faith in Jesus Christ (according to Gallup). Is that not enough to make a difference? If Christ's teachings are in opposition to our culture (and they are), then why does our culture thrive while faith diminishes when the majority of people claim to live their lives by those teachings? Switchfoot has a lot of records and they're still singing about the same stuff so, clearly, they haven't seen any improvement either. Personally, I think it's because, while most people still haven't figured out what works for them, more people are figuring out that Christianity simply doesn't. I hope I don't regret asking this, but what do you think?

Happy 4/7 year anniversary, me and Leah.

2010-06-17T08:23:00.000-07:00

Leah and I have been married for four years, today. As of yesterday, we've been together for seven. (We planned our wedding the day after our anniversary so we didn't have to bother remembering two different dates. Neither of us actually remembered to notice the seven year mark yesterday, though. Oh well.)

Without a doubt, these have been the best seven years of my life, each better than the last. She is my best friend.

I remember when we started getting serious, it was a problem for my friends at the time. I think they felt like I wasn't giving them enough face time, or something. I imagine it is a sort of rejection to essentially have someone say, "I'm sorry, there's just never a time when I'd rather be with you than her. I'm always going to choose her." This is probably a big part of why we have almost all different friends now.

Seven years later and there is still no one else I'd rather be with at any given time. It's such a cliche, I know, but I really do feel like I love her more every day.

Also, my sperm and her egg made a beautiful spawn.

Matt suggested that my love for the Taqueria El Lugar is purely nostalgic, if it hadn't been his birthday the next day I would'a punched his throat in

2010-06-14T10:47:00.000-07:00

Success is a funny thing. There are, of course, many ways to be successful, not all of them contingent on wealth or fame, but we all know that that's the kind we like the best/want the most/etc. The prospect of a real record deal looming has me thinking, somewhat philosophically, about success. What does it mean? Why do I want it? What does it say about me that I want it? Am I willing to make the necessary sacrifices to have it?

I like to think that success comes from maintaining artistic integrity and keeping your voice honest and true. If you can manage that, that's a win.

I also like to think that if you can make your voice heard and manage to connect to other people, any other people, then that's a win.

It's also true that there's definitely something admirable in managing to keep your artistic endeavor financially and emotionally self-sustaining (if not profitable) so that you can, at least, achieve a sense of longevity while countless others fail, or quit, long before you do.

But who am I kidding? At the end of the day, I'm just like everyone else, and there is, at least, some part of me that wants to be famous. It's true. Makes me feel like an asshole, but it's true. That being said, I'm the first to tell you that if you ever think you've met a truly humble musician, you haven't. It doesn't exist, it's an oxymoron. Which isn't to say that we're not nice people, most of us are. But humble, we ain't. We crave the stage, the attention, the constant validation. In the right light, we're disgusting creatures. But what would the world be without us, eh?

Anyway, these are mad times, right?

Leah went to Tyler this weekend to shoot a wedding, leaving Harper and I to fend for ourselves. So on Saturday, after she woke up from her first nap I took her to Toys R Us and just let her run around and explore. She had a great time, and I picked up some tacos from a local taqueria on the way home. The one good thing about Leah being away is that I can eat at places she doesn't care for.

When Harper woke up from her second nap, we went over to Matt and Jeff's apartment. Matt is currently recording somewhat of a farewell EP/album for Jeff's old band, Ethan Durelle, so we wanted to hang out with those guys a little bit. We all went and ate at a place called Pho' King, which is pretty pho' king funny....and delicious.

While Harper was sleeping this weekend I watched Justice League: The New Frontier, Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths, Oh God!, and a little bit of an Avatar: The Last Airbender marathon.

I think DC is a superior comic company to Marvel, which I expect a lot of people to disagree with me on. But I think one big indicator of their higher quality is their cartoon series...serieses....series'...(What's the plural on that?) True, Marvel has had some good ones, but DC has had ALL good ones. I can't think of any recent (from my childhood on) DC cartoons that aren't pretty great. Especially all the Justice League and Batman cartoons.

On Sunday, my beautiful bride returned to us. That evening, Robin came and kept Harper because Leah and I were invited to our friend Liz's work skating party. So we went skating and it was a blast. I only fell twice and pretty quickly regained my grace, though Leah will undoubtably mock me for consistently cocking my arm everytime I turn. I don't know why I do it. Just one of those things, I guess.

Anyway, ended the weekend on a high note.

Wrote this, and forgot to post it.

2010-06-11T09:57:00.000-07:00

There is a high school garage band that practices at a house down my street. A few days ago, they were playing "The Pretender" by Foo Fighters when we walked by. The drummer and guitarist aren't necessarily awful, and maybe one day this band will be good, but right now, it doesn't look like it's in the cards. Their singer is awful and I'm sure he's plagued with all the low self-esteem induced inhibitions that I was at his age. All this to say that Leah thinks it would be funny to walk in to their practice one day dressed in my suit and tell them I work for Columbia Records and that they're great.

It would be funny. And evil. But mostly funny.

Big-hearted and tall enough to cover you

2010-06-10T11:33:00.000-07:00

One of my favorite records of all time is World of Noise by Everclear. It was apparently recorded as a demo and wasn't originally intended to be released at all, let alone as a full album. But alas, it was, for whatever reason, and it fell in my hands long before "Santa Monica" made them a house hold name. My friend Casey's sister worked in the newspaper business and let Casey have promo discs of things they didn't plan on reviewing. Of all the bands to be thrown in that refuse box, the only two I still listen to records by are Everclear and Pink Noise Test.

Anyway, most people know who they are now, but not a lot of people have this record. There were no singles off of it, really, and the content is pretty different than what we've all come to expect from an Everclear release today. Nowadays, an Everclear song is all, "I used to do a lot of drugs, it really sucked and almost ruined my life," while the songs on World Of Noise are more like "I do a lot of drugs, it sucks and is ruining my life." Maybe it's that difference that makes World Of Noise shine with a lo-fi tenacity that they've never reproduced. It's gritty, it's raw, it's noisy, and it's perfect. The two following records, Sparkle & Fade and So Much For The Afterglow, are great records that I've listened to incessantly, but to me, they've never done anything as pure as World Of Noise again.

There's no real reason for the celebration of this record today, other than that I was listening to it on the way to work and thought "This record deserves some celebrating today." I met Art Alexakis at a Rooney show in Nashville once, and thought he would enjoy hearing about how World Of Noise was one of the more important records in my life. He didn't care that much and was a bit of an ass, which could probably help us understand why he's now the only original member of the band left. No matter, you're defined by what you love, not what loves you back, and I love this record.

A day of free meals

2010-06-09T07:19:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, a vendor took me and a few other guys in the office out to lunch. We went to a place called Bone Daddy's. It's, essentially, the same concept as Hooters but I think the girls are maybe a little younger and more scantily clad. Leah went there once with these guys when she had my job. I'm sure that when she went, she was probably the only female eating there. The food was actually pretty awesome, but looking around at the waitresses I couldn't help but think about that episode of South Park where they go to the restaurant that's like Hooters for kids called "Raisins." All the disingenuous flirting is pretty comical when you realize that that's exactly what it is. These old farts eating there really do seem to think they're being charming and these girls are clearly seeing nothing but dollar signs. Me, I couldn't help but think of better names for the place. "Butterfaces" or "Tramp Stamps" came to mind. However, that pulled pork sandwich and their "tailpipes" (which are a kind of southwest egg roll type of thing) were pretty badass.

And that was my first free meal of the day.

At 6:35 PM, I met Jeff, Matt, and Paul back at my work and we all drove downtown where we met Tommy for a meeting at/with New West Records. Apparently, they've been watching us for a long time and have decided that now is a good time to try and make us famous, or at least successful. We're excited about the possibilities, but my main priorities are being a good father, and a good husband, so we're being careful about what sort of thing we commit to and not taking anything lightly. It may work out, it may not, so we're not putting any proverbial carts before any proverbial horses. We chatted for a while at the office and then headed over to The Woodland, which I'd never eaten at, but there is a tree in the middle of the restaurant. Paul, Gary (The New West guy), and I had the evening's special, which was chicken fried steak with green beans and mashed potatoes, and it was delicious. I mean ridiculously good. It was also a surreal experience actually having a label treat you the way you've always heard labels treat bands they want to sign. I'm excited, and terrified, and nervous, and incredibly stressed about the possibilities, but the worst thing that can happen is that nothing changes, and I'm not unhappy now, so...we'll see.

And that was my second free meal of the day.

After all, shouldn't it be the goal of the feminist to be punched in the face the same way a man would be?

2010-06-08T11:56:00.000-07:00

Last night we had rehearsal and learned and relearned "Jezebel" and "Our Sun is Always Rising." They both came together nicely and should be ready to go at our show On June 25th at the Ghost Room. That will be a really fun show, I think.

Tonight, we're going downtown to meet with fancy people.

I thought I felt like blogging today, but it looks like I don't, after all. I have a lot of things that I want to say but few that I should. Cryptic and annoying, I know.

So it goes.

The problem with most books, really, is that very few of them feature teenage wizards.

2010-06-04T07:20:00.000-07:00

We have a show tonight at Threadgills, which is apparently kind of a big deal. These are the worst kind of days though, because on days like today, I don't get to see Harper at all. I usually get to see her at least a little bit in the morning. She, typically, wakes up right before I leave for work so I get to go get her out of bed. She's always so smiley in the morning and it is, simultaneously, the best and the worst way to start my day. So it goes.

Leah, will periodically, go have "girl's nights," to which I and my penis are uninvited. I'm totally cool with her doing her own thing, but last week I started thinking, "Hey, when do I get a 'guy's night?'" She said, "You have band practice every Monday." I tried to explain to her how, while we do have a good time at band practice, it is work, really. Work that is done in a small, incredibly hot, room. It's not the social event that some may think it is. So I decided that I would plan a "guy's night." So what was on the agenda at last night's "guy's night?" The band met at the practice space, went and ate some wings, and then came back to the practice space to work on music... Maybe I suck at planning social events, because on paper, my social event looks uncannily like practice.

There is new Lee Bozeman music, and you need to have it, mother effer!

2010-06-03T21:21:00.000-07:00

"I am a son of God. Hear this! Hear this!"

Harry Potter and the Busted Tire.

2010-06-01T12:00:00.000-07:00

We had two poorly planned shows this weekend. It's our fault, really. When Cody told us that he couldn't play the shows because he was graduating, it should've made us think that maybe other schools were also graduating, and that would probably affect attendance negatively. Oh well, live and learn. The Tyler show was still OK, just not nearly what it should/could be. The Denton show was par for the course, as Denton shows go, and by that I mean it sucked ass.

However, aside from the trailer tire blowing out, and Matt and Tommy having to stop and replace it and being late to the show Friday night, everything went swimmingly. We played really well, sold decently, and the people who were there seemed to connect, so we'll take it. We had a good time and my parents fed us tons of meat. It was great.

Leah, Harper, and I rode to Tyler together, but I left with the band to go to Denton so she could stay and hang out and do a couple of photo shoots. I got back to my bed at 6 AM on Sunday, slept about 2 1/2 hours and got up to try and finish some yard work before Leah and Harper returned. I was tired. I'm often tired. So it goes. I don't remember what else we did that day. I think that was the day we watched The Messenger, which was good but made me sad for every single soldier that has to see combat.

Then it was Memorial Day. I don't see myself as terribly patriotic, really. Both of my Grandfathers saw combat in WWII. My father's father stormed beaches, even. I forget which ones, specifically, but he was apparently is some of the bigger, more crazy, beginning-of-Saving-Private-Ryan type of battles. Kurt Vonnegut, who served in the same war and was a POW in Dresden when it was firebombed, wrote somewhere about how the men who saw the real face of war and survived were generally the most kind, gentle, and humble men and whenever you meet an arrogant military man, it was most likely someone who had never been in the shit. That made me think of my grandfather. He wouldn't even talk about the war. He never told me one war story, and I think my father could say the same thing. Dad says that the only thing he would ever say about it was that, if Dad were drafted, they would take him over my grandfather's dead body. I get the impression that he never thought of war as heroic or glamorous. It was necessary, and he did his part, but I think he saw it for the atrocity that it really is. He had been part of the atrocity, after all, and I imagine that he probably spent the rest of his life trying to separate himself from it.

But as I said before, I don't feel like a terribly patriotic person. In fact, most days, the idea that there are some invisible lines drawn on the dirt somewhere, and those lines make me an American and another person, Iranian, or Spanish, or Italian, or whatever, seems strange. Those lines, like most things that divide people, only exist in our heads (and, obviously, on our maps). I have a hard time being patriotic for that reason. That being said, I am so thankful that the universe spit me out when and where it did. There are a few countries that I would be just as happy to live in, sure, so I'm just glad to have landed in one of them.

Yesterday, Leah, Harper, and I finally got to meet Todd and Hollie's new son, Micah. He is adorable and healthy and they're taking to parenting very naturally, it seems. We're very happy for them and happy to know them.

And then...

AND THEN....

We went to eat with our friends, Glory and Matt, and I ate Sushi, and I actually loved it. It was all cooked (I'm still very leery of eating raw meat), but who knew I'd actually love the thing I've been staunchly opposed to trying for 28 years. It's a new day for Taylor Muse, people. I'm drinking green tea, I'm eating Sushi, it's CRAZY!

On the way back from Denton, Jeff and I were talking about the weekend, and Jeff had had a really drunk friend try to witness to him about Jesus. So we were talking about that and Jeff was talking about the power of words as ideas, or something and he pondered, "What if there is some obscure tribe that know one has ever heard of and they GET forgiveness and love more than anyone ever has before, but they've never heard the name 'Jesus.'" It's a small twist on the "small boy in Africa" problem, as we always called it in Sunday school. So we started talking about what the point of Christianity was. The point is not to make people good. We know this because not all good people are Christian, and not all Christians are good people. Also, if the book is to be trusted, the book of James more or less spells out how they view the relationship between goodness and faith. Ideally, goodness should be indicative of faith, but faith can easily exist without goodness. So Christianity isn't about what you can become here on earth. So it must be about what you can become after you've left earth. So it's about getting into Heaven. I realize this is an oversimplification but it's not wrong. The book says that "No one comes to the Father except by (Jesus)" which means, essentially, that it doesn't matter what you do, or what you don't do, or why you do or don't do it. All that matters, really, is who you know. So the moral of Christianity, is essentially the moral of the story of Paris Hilton or any other talentless socialite who's famous for the sake of being famous. It's celestial nepotism, where heaven is the A-list Hollywood party, and it doesn't matter if you've never contributed anything of value to society, if you know the bouncer, or if your daddy's rich enough, you're getting in.

When you simplify it, the message of Jesus is similar to the message of show business (or any business, I guess) : Nepotism > Talent. Nepotism > Character. Nepotism > Hard Work. It gives me the impression that Heaven could very well be an incredibly smarmy place. The difference is that show business does seem to be more forgiving in that formula, as it does allow in a handful of real talents annually.

Things are funny when you simplify them. I think that when we simplify, we can see that there is a big difference between thinking rationally, and over-thinking.

OK, hippies, maybe your tea does have some benefits.

2010-05-27T12:09:00.000-07:00

I'm feeling significantly better today, which I am chalking up to all the green tea I drank yesterday and all the rest I've allowed myself to have. I'm drinking more today and will probably shoot for another early bedtime tonight. Other than that, nothing much to say, other than that my stupid, annoying-ass dog threw up on the floor last night because she doesn't do well with human food and, the day before, turned over our trash can while we were gone and ate god knows what out of it. She really needs to do something awesome soon because Leah and I are not fans of her.

The Ipod's on shuffle again. Here's what these 10 songs make me think of.

1. Come Together - The Beatles
This was the song that made me stop and think, "I didn't know The Beatles were cool." I was in 6th grade and some older kids at my church "performed" this in a lip sync contest. My impression of The Beatles until then was just that they were "old people music." No doubt, 6th grade Taylor probably thought this song would've been better with an Eddie Van Halen-esque guitar solo, but the seed was planted nonetheless.

2. Yolanda Hayes - Fountains Of Wayne
There was, and still is, a guy I know named Jason Brint. We went to high school together, though he was a couple years older than me. He was in the coolest local band, The Dynamics, and was always nice to me, though his friends often weren't. Anyway, he always knew the coolest bands that I'd never heard of, and on one fateful band trip he exposed me to Fountains Of Wayne's first record as well as the debut effort from Superdrag. Both remain 2 of my favorite bands to this day, though Superdrag's work has, unfortunately, fallen off as of late. Too much Jesus does a rock god bad, after all, it seems.

3. Good Times, Bad Times - Led Zepplin
Chuck Closterman has written about how Led Zepplin is great because they effect all young boys in the same way and every boy apparently has a phase were they think Zepplin is the greatest band in the world. Well, I can't say that that was true for me, but I was never really exposed to them as a boy and really only gave them an honest listen a few years ago. They're pretty great, but I think I'm hearing them as too old a man. I've missed the opportunity to have a "Zepplin is the best band in the world," phase. I did, however, have a "Bride is the best band in the world" phase, that was undoubtedly less cool than a "Zepplin phase," would've been.

4. Turn A Square - The Shins
Another Shins song. I really like the lyrics in this one, especially the analogy of "my head's like a kite." I think his lyrics are generally really good. Smart, you know?

5. Good Morning, Joan - The Cardigans
It sucks that a lot of people view The Cardigans as a one hit wonder band, when they are so terrific and still putting out fantastic records. One of my favorite female singers, for sure. Their melodies are always so catchy with such a tone of longing. So good.

6. Yr Epic Heart - Viva Voce
Epic is exactly what this song is. One of their instrumentals from Lovers, Lead the Way, and definitely my favorite, maybe my favorite song on the whole record. I don't really get why bands like Mates of State are so popular and Viva Voce isn't enormously famous. I'm not having a go at Mates of State, their last album is great, I'm just saying Viva Voce is way better and they're a cute married couple band too. They used to live in Nashville and I was really excited about getting to see them a lot when I moved up there, but lo and behold, they moved to Portland, like, a month before I got there. So it goes. Leah and I saw them a few years ago in Austin and we were the only two people there. They were amazing but I felt bad for them.

7. Concrete - The Features
Speaking of Nashvegas, The Features are the best band from that area, I think. Technically, they're from Murfreesboro, but who gives a shit, right? Damn, I love this record. The melodies are so good and his voice is so weird and interesting. This song is mostly synths and drum machine so it's very different from the norm, but still....perfect.

8. Celebrate - Bleach
I got to know these guys right after they released this record and were touring a lot in support of it. I've said it a lot, but I mean it when I say that they really are some of the best, most genuine people you could ever hope to meet. If they'd had a manager who wasn't a total incompetent asshole then who knows where they'd be today. As it is, they've been broken up until recently. I talked to Davy the other night, and they're about halfway through recording a new EP. I can't wait to hear it.

9. Burning Man - Third Eye Blind
I don't care what anyone says, this first 3EB record kicks SOOO much ass. True, I could really do without "How's It Gonna Be?" but overall, the songs are great. They always kind of seemed like a bunch of frat boys, but I don't know if that's true at all, it's just the impression that I got. I just envision them all wearing a lot of sandals, cargo shorts, and visors. I don't know.

10. Of A Broken Heart - Zwan
I said it the other day, but if I could ask god one question, it may very well be, "What the hell did you do to Billy Corgan?!?" Zwan was OK...not great, but OK. That being said, it is a testament to how horrible the new Pumpkins stuff is that I find myself missing Zwan. I just feel like Billy has lost himself in what seems to be a delusional self image. By that I mean that he's trying to recapture the version of himself that we all loved, but he seems to think that all the stuff we hated was the stuff we loved. The songs he's been giving away on the Pumpkins site are just pitiful and I'm almost embarrassed for him. God, I hope no one ever says this shit about me. Well, now I'm sure I have it coming.

"If you're loved by someone you're never rejected. Decide what to be and go be it."

2010-05-26T08:13:00.001-07:00

Stared feeling under the weather a day or two ago. Harper has her first cold and lord knows we can't not kiss and cuddle that thing so Leah and I, inevitably, got it as well. I'm just hoping I feel better by Friday, because I really don't know how great my singing voice would sound like this, but I'd wager "pretty awful."

So last night, I thought I'd give my body some rest to help with a speedy recovery and was in bed, and drifting off to sleep, by 8:30. It was nice, and I'm sure that if I wasn't sick, my body would feel more appreciative of the rest. As it is, it didn't make for much of an improvement.

I'm even drinking hot green tea. Ugh, can you believe it?

Downloaded The Avett Brothers' I And Love And You, last night, and so far, I love it...just in case anyone was wondering how I felt about The Avett Brothers. I've been hearing their name for a long time but I finally caught a song of theirs on the radio and it moved me.

Time for lunch and possibly more dirty hot water, or "tea", as you elitists call it.

You have to let go, Jack.

2010-05-24T13:53:00.000-07:00

Well, Lost is finally over. It will be missed. By me, and others, I'm sure. Whenever a show as good as Lost goes away, it's like when a good friend gets offered a great job in a far away land. You're happy for them and proud of all they've accomplished but you know you're going to miss them something fierce.
For the first 10 minutes after the finale, I was really "What the hell happened?!?!" But now that I've had time to wrap my head around it and understand it, I think it was pretty great. Whether or not it was a great ending for the entire series or just a great ending for season 6, I don't know. I can understand how a lot of people would be annoyed by how much stuff didn't get answered or didn't turn out to matter at all, but I think that we all got what we really need to get out of a TV show...entertainment. Even if the Dharma Initiative wasn't as important as we thought it was in the 2nd season, it was still cool to think about and guess at the whole time. So I'm as grateful to the show as is appropriate. Thanks, Lost, for 6 seasons of consistently interesting, weird, and incredibly fun entertainment. I don't know if anything will fill its shoes, especially with Battlestar having ended a long time ago.

If I could design my own purgatory or my own heaven, I think I'd make it just like real life, but where we're all ageless, in perfect health, and we don't ever have to worry about pipes leaking in your front lawn, or how much damage our cars do to the environment. That would be nice.

Looking forward to practice tonight, just because I want to try out my new pedal board. It's the little things, you know.

Have you ever noticed how Mystery Men is one of the most under-rated movies of all time?

2010-05-21T11:38:00.000-07:00

Kozy Shack rice pudding is the thing that has been missing from my life. Put a little cinnamon in it and warm it up in the microwave and it's just like my mom's rice pudding. Amazing. Harper loves it too. She is her father's daughter, after all. When I decided that she'd had enough, she was none too pleased. I don't think I've seen her react to a food quite like that before. It was like I took a junkie's crack away. She got over it pretty quick though and then enjoyed a bath, a bottle, and then bedtime.

Angela came over right after I put Harper down and gave Leah a massage (she's in massage school and has to do so many). Later, I was informed that Leah suggested that Angela give me one, because it's not Leah's forte, and why should I live a life deprived of quality back rubs just because I married someone with weak little baby hands? I concur.

We had practice last night and spent the entire time working on a new song, "You, Me, & The Boatman." I think we've finally got an arrangement that we like. Matt said that all the new songs' arrangements, so far, remind him of "How To Fake Like You're Nice & Caring," and that that's a good thing. I'm inclined to agree.

I'm still thinking about Kozy Shack rice pudding...

Do you think Kozy Shack would sponsor a band?

I think my coworker is obsessed with The Descent. He's been talking about it a lot and he just suggested that QC do a video in a cave...oh yeah, with creatures dancing around like in The Descent.

Looking forward to a nice evening out with Leah, Tommy, and Betsy. We're going to the Belmont, and had to make fancy reservations. I hope I don't have to dress up. If I can't wear a tank top and jams to a place, then I really don't think I need to be there.

By this time next week, we will all know what the deal with Lost is...

2010-05-20T10:43:00.000-07:00

The Pizza Hut inside the Target food stand stopped serving the Buffalo chicken pizza. Well, there went the only pizza of value at the Pizza Hut food stand. They did begin offering pita chips with roasted red pepper hummus, but it's too little too late.

Harper already has so much personality, but today I was thinking about how much I'm looking forward to actually knowing what she thinks about things. I can't wait for her to be able to talk and ask questions. I wonder what things she'll be curious about and what things she won't care at all about.

So far, she has a strange love (if that's even the right word) for Doctor Who. She'll sit on my lap and watch Doctor Who for a long time. She doesn't sit still for any show like she does for Doctor Who. Leah thinks it's because of the accents, and maybe she's right, but I don't know. It's cute though. It's like our first father-daughter thing. I showed her the first few episodes of Fraggle Rock the other day and she seemed to think that was cool too. I didn't remember that show being so musical, but the songs are actually pretty good.

Speaking of musicals, did anyone else see/hear "I Dreamed a Dream" on Glee last Wednesday? I've always liked the songs from Les Miserables, but I'd kind of forgotten about it. It is so badass. Such a good melody and so many interesting changes in the chord structure. I really wish I'd written it and/or had the pipes to pull it off.

Also, I really wish Kent would do another English record.

Also, the song "Neon Tiger" by The Killers is pretty great.

Two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl.

2010-05-17T12:31:00.000-07:00

When I was a young boy, I think I envisioned that driving was going to be like living a video game, and would more often than not, be fun to do. Too much Mach Rider, I guess. I hate driving. I especially hate the drive to Tyler. Partly because I've done it so much, and partly because it takes you through a dozen small towns with their 35mph speed limits. It gets a little maddening, all the slowing down and speeding back up. But alas, we want to see our families, thus we persevere.

Leah, Harper, Darcy, and I had a great weekend in East Texas, all driving aside. On Saturday, my parents had a get together brunch to celebrate Harper's, and my niece, Kya's, birthdays. My uncle was there and somehow, he, Seth, and I, got into a lively discussion about alternative medicine and one's ability to write off a lot of it as bullshit. It felt nice to be on the same side as my brother for the first time in a long time. Seth got frustrated with the conversation and excused himself, but I soldiered on and eventually convinced him of my point (which if you're interested; he was making the relativist/accomodationist assumption that we can't know everything so to say that anything is stupid or ridiculous is arrogant, and my point was that while we don't know everything about anything, we do know a lot about most things, and therefore are capable of using what evidence we do have to inform our logic, and making reasonable assumptions based on said evidence/logic. In other words, it's not arrogant to call a spade a spade).

Later, Leah and my sister in law, Kara, went and shot a wedding in Longview, and Seth and I went and saw Iron Man 2, which is great. The next day we all ate Chinese food for lunch and then went to the park to take pictures. Then we drove some more. I had a great weekend but I did miss the new Dr. Who episode. No worries, it's on the DVR, after all.

Last night, I dreamt that Jesus and I were roommates. He was a cool guy and he wasn't mad at me about anything. My friend Steven was there too, except that he was gay and he insisted that I call him "Steve" from now on.

Fun with your Ipod.

2010-05-13T12:04:00.000-07:00

Nothing much going on here, so I'm putting my Ipod on shuffle and I'll discuss the first 10 songs.
1. Marvelous Things - Eisley
I had already left this band before they wrote this and most of their first record. I think this song is great, especially the melody of the chorus. That being said, this kind of showcases one of the reasons I was never 100% invested in the band. When words like "mermaid entwined shrubbery" are included in lyrics, I quickly lose any ability to relate. They've gotten a lot better with their lyrics, but for a while there they were way too surreal for my taste.
2. Under Pressure - Queen & David Bowie
I'm not a huge Bowie fan, but I love the hell out of some Queen. Whenever I hear this song, I always wonder what Bowie must've thought when Freddie started with all the crazy scatting. PEOPLE ON THE STREETS! DA BA DEE BA DEY!
3. Down With The Ship - Seven Day Jesus
I bought this record after I saw them live with Bleach. They really were great live and Brian McSweeney really does have an amazing voice. Years later, their guitarist, Chris Beatty, would fill in on bass for my old band, The Connotations, a few times. This song is pretty preachy. "The world sucks, only Jesus makes life worth living, etc." Still catchy, though, and that's all that really matters, right?
4. 2+2=5 - Radiohead
The best song off the worst Radiohead record, in my opinion. They could of cut Hail To The Thief down to a really great EP, but as a record, I think it's pretty weak. Everyone was so pumped about them picking up their guitars again, but I think we all expected that to mean another Bends or OK Computer. It didn't. But that's part of what's great about Radiohead, they're too smart to make the same record twice and if nothing else, they're true to themselves.
5. It's Good Coffee, Mrs. Stewart - Uncle Andrew
Uncle Andrew was my first real band. And by "real," I mean that we played shows at places other than our church. I was way too into the band Mineral. Whenever I hear this recording, it becomes clear that I could not have wanted to be Mineral any more. I don't know what I was trying to do with my voice though. Damn, this recording sucks. This song is actually not bad, though, all self indulgence and feigned teenage melancholy aside.
6. Window Of My World - Guided By Voices
Half-Smiles Of The Decomposed is an amazing record, from start to finish. The only other GBV record I had was Do The Collapse and I had mixed feelings about it, but I heard this playing in the record store and had to find out who it was. I was surprised it was GBV because I had all but forgotten them, needless to say, I snatched up this record and have remembered them ever since.
7. We Laugh Indoors - Death Cab For Cutie
God, I love this band, and this is the record that took me from casual fan to passionate devotee. The Hastings in Longview, TX only got one copy of it and I was fortunate enough to snag it on the day it came out. This was before The Day Of The Interwebs, when you occasionally had to work to find the music you wanted. Ben Gibbard makes bitter misery seem so cool, especially in the older stuff.
8. I Don't Know What It Is - Rufus Wainwright
I think that this was probably Rufus' last great record. His arrangements are always so amazingly textured and, if I may, flamboyant. My brother hates his voice, and I can understand that. It's the kind of voice that becomes painfully drony if it's not wrapped around a great melody or hook, which is why I hate his new record. Shit, that part around 3:10 where he says "It was my big moment" is so frakin' great!
9. Kissing The Lipless - The Shins
This was the first Shins that I heard and I hated it. Not really so much because the music sucked but because they had been recommended to me by a guy who was trying to, and succeeding in, stealing my girlfriend. It took me years to forgive the Shins for being liked by such an unsavory character. So after I forgave them, we had a sort of honeymoon period and I probably overplayed this record and Wincing The Night Away. They're great but I do want to say that their drummer sucks ass. He is so fuggin' boring it makes me want to punch kittens.
10. Power Doesn't Run On Nothing - The Thermals
When I moved to Nashville, Cameron had filled my head with stories about how he was always getting free records. My expectation was just short of rock and roll records growing on trees in the park. So, one day, I was at Grimey's Records and I asked them if they had any free records to give me. They looked a little puzzled but the guy behind the counter said "Here man, give this a listen." and handed me a promo copy of More Parts Per Million by the Thermals. It sounded like shit. Like it had been done on a 4-track by someone easily less skilled at 4 track recording than myself, but you had to hand it to them, they certainly sounded tenacious. I was sold. This record, The Body, The Blood, The Machine, is my favorite and it will kick your ass from start to finish.

Whole foods is tasty, yet over priced.

2010-05-11T13:14:00.000-07:00

I am excited for the next hour and a half to come and go. I want to play with my daughter and then enjoy a quiet evening with my wife. I think I will.

I really hate those signs. I've always wanted to make one that says "Stop putting words in my mouth - God." At least this one says something nice...well, not mean, at least.

Someone is writing a review of our new EP for the Austin Chronicle, we learned today. It's great that the Chronicle is acknowledging our existence, so now let's just hope it's a positive review.

------Addendum------
It's actually the Statesman who is doing a review. The Chronicle remains apathetic and Paul can't read.

It's the ones with the sorest throats...

2010-05-10T07:56:00.001-07:00

Damn, my feet hurt. Perhaps, it's because I've been running through someone's mind all day. Or perhaps, it's because I had to Superman dive-tackle my dog, to keep her from attacking a passer-by's dog, onto a bed of rocks, and in doing so scraped up my shoeless feet. Yeah, that's probably what did it. It wasn't this sore yesterday but today, I'm walking with a bit of a limp.

But don't worry; I'm fine, and so is Darcy, and so is the other dog.

I'm not sure where to start when talking about how great this weekend was. I suppose chronological order is as good as any.

Friday night was amazing. The show was sponsored by Simple Shoes, and as a result, all of the bands playing got free shoes. I really like mine. I've been wanting some slip-ons but can never find any that fit well. Plus, they're biodegradable and will do swimmingly in a landfill. Win Win.
A lot of people are saying that it was one of our best, most fun, shows ever, and I think it's very possible that that is the truth. We played well, and had a great time on stage, but the real star of the show was the crowd. We've never had a crowd that excited to see us. Not to mention that the crowd was huge and the room was packed. Everyone was singing and dancing and screaming and it was perfect. In that moment, we were all where we belonged. Everyone seemed to love the new songs, too, so chalk up that as a win. Leah was beautiful and she and Betsy and Angela joined us as background singers through much of the set, which always makes it more fun. Afterward, she was telling me how proud she was of me and she started crying. It was so cute. I don't think I could love her more, but I'll give it a shot.

Anyway, all the bands were really great. Well, I didn't get to see any of the Murdocks, and only one song of The Black and White Years, but Stereo Is A Lie was cool, The Rocketboys were as good as they always are, and The Eastern Sea was incredibly impressive.

So the next day, I woke up back in reality, and mowed the yard, vacuumed the house and helped Leah and our parents prepare for Harper's first birthday party. Leah did an amazing job decorating and organizing the thing. I like to think I helped, but in all honesty, if she wasn't around, things like this just wouldn't happen. Our parents were also a big help and so was my buddy John, who lent us a Moon Bounce for the kids, and a big canopy to help shade the back yard. Harper was in heaven: There were lots of other kids to play with, a moon bounce, a bubble machine, banana bread, and a ton of people that love her around. It was really fantastic.

I felt bad that I didn't get to stick around and help clean up, but all the guys in the band and I had to get downtown and load in for our show that night, and what are parents for, anyway? The show, that night, was for Music For The City's first compilation release and it was at La Zona Rosa, which is one of the few venues in town we've always wanted to play and never been able to. A shorter set that night, but another great one, and another huge crowd. It wasn't really our crowd, and by that I just mean that they probably weren't acquainted with us until then, but I think we made a lot of new fans, so, another win. Music For The City is a great cause, and we're glad to work with them whenever we can. I'm all for charities doing work in the third world and what not, but I'm especially for charities that realize that there's plenty of work to be done right here in our own communities, in our own neighborhoods, in our own cities, etc. Music for the City is all about facilitating the connection between local artists and that work, so we're glad to be a part.

Leah had to take pictures on Sunday morning, and I was counting on her time out of the house to prepare my gift for her. What I wasn't counting on was leaving part of it in my computer bag under the back seat of the van which would be parked at Matt & Jeff's house. I had also stashed 2 dozen roses at John's house but that was right down the street. So Sunday started with me frantically driving around town to pick up my computer bag, 1/2 a dozen of Leah's favorite kolaches, and the roses. It was stressful, and not a pleasant way to start my day, but in the end, I got everything done.

I'm sure that Leah or I will post a picture of what I did sometime soon, but I don't feel like going through the trouble of describing anything.

Perhaps this weekend generated the right kind of buzz for Quiet Company, because I have just been informed that, on Tuesday, we are being added to regular rotation on KGSR along with the new Pearl Jam single. We've been regulars on the non profit stations here for a while, but this is the first for-profit station to add us to normal rotation. This could be a big deal.

You've come a long way, baby.

2010-05-07T12:32:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow, my baby girl will be 1 year old. It's still surreal to me that she exists. This morning she wasn't feeling good or was overly tired, but for whatever reason, she was extra snugly. She isn't one to ever stop moving so if she actually stops long enough to give you a hug, it's a special thing. God, it broke my heart, in the best possible way. It did, however, make it extra sucky that I won't be home again to see her today.

Leah and I are so lucky. We could not have asked for a more beautiful child. I could not have asked for a more beautiful wife.

Tonight is the big EP release show at Encore in Austin. All the VIP tickets sold out, and I believe that the general admissions are doing really well too. This show is the brainchild of our manager, and one of my best friends, Paul. This is a picture of Paul's son, Ryan, and Harper (and my leg). I think it's fairly representative of Paul's and my relationship. He thinks up some cockamamie idea, smiles like it's the most brilliant thing anyone has ever thought of, and I go along with it, though always with the "what the hell?" look.

Should be a good weekend, though, a busy one, and, hopefully, not a stressful one. We have a show tonight, Harper's birthday party tomorrow afternoon, another show tomorrow night, and Mother's Day on Sunday, all while entertaining family.

Leah and I saw Kick-Ass last night and loved it. Really funny, really intense, and really well done all over.

DID YOU KNOW: It's considered an insult to tip in Iceland?

2010-05-06T08:25:00.000-07:00

It looks like Kyle T. Sims is the first to receive, and tweet, my thank you note and his new copy of Songs for Staying In. It's a good one.

If you can't read it, this is what it says:

I've always hated writing thank you notes but I haven't minded these. Probably because, usually, these things have to be so proper, like for wedding gifts from relatives you barely know. But with these, I can say whatever I want or do this: PENIS PENIS PENIS, and no one will scold me. Thanks for buying our EP. Taylor & QC

COMEDY GOLD!

So, today, I've promised to rant about tipping. First off, let me say that I have no problem tipping waiters/waitresses in a restaurant where they are constantly serving you. I understand that in that situation, you are paying one price for the meal, and then compensating the waiter/waitress for their services with a tip.

A gray area is a place like Sonic. Recently, my boss and I were at a Sonic and he pulled out a few dollar bills. I said "You're not going to tip the Sonic girl, are you?" He said he was, so I asked "why?" This is a valid question because, to me, they are not wait staff. They carry your food, at most, 50ft and then you never see them again. They have essentially added one useless middleman to the drive-thru experience. Surely, I thought, they are not paid like wait staff, as my boss suggested. We decided to ask. Turns out, they ARE paid like waitstaff, and rely on tips, but it's not exactly like that. They all pool their tips and then the company fills in the gaps to guarantee them all at least minimum wage. I kind of felt like an asshole for having never tipped Sonic girls, but not really, because I'm more than happy to walk the 20 or so feet and carry my own food to my car. They're not doing me any huge favor, really. So I'll still not be tipping people at Sonic and still think its ridiculous that they're considered wait staff, but I understand if people want to tip there and will no longer chastise them for doing so.

Now pizza delivery is a bitch. If I'm charged a delivery fee then you're getting nothing from me, because I've already paid for the delivery. If it's a "free" delivery, then I may throw in a few bucks if my pizza arrived in a timely manner.

The thing that really blows my mind is haircuts. There is a place in Cedar Park called Two Hotties haircuts. It's completely geared towards men and, one day, this man needed a haircut and the other place I go was really busy, so I ventured in. There was signage all over the place about tipping. "Be a big tipper!" "Join the big tippers club! etc..." and there was even a sign by the door that said "If you didn't tip, please tell us why." It made me really uncomfortable, because I cannot think of one good reason to tip for a haircut. Can you, really? The haircut is the product, the product costs $15, I pay $15 for the product, end transaction. Why would I pay $18 for a product that cost $15? If you think your haircut is worth $18 then charge $18, don't try and guilt me into tipping you. They haven't provided you with anything extra, they've only provided you with the service that you have paid for. So why tip? It's not like a came in for a shampoo and they threw in the haircut. Ridiculous.

Can you think of any other situations in which tipping is expected, though, completely ridiculous?

Also, I wrote a little something about Leah for Mother's Day on Offbeat Mama, if anyone is interested.

Jesus made me do it!

2010-05-05T07:17:00.000-07:00

The National Day of Prayer is unconstitutional as it represents a governmental endorsement of religion. Past that, it's also something that Yeshua found distasteful. Personally, I've always hated public prayer. Hated it when I was a Christian, probably more than I do now, because of this verse:

"And whenever you pray, don't be like the hypocrites who love to stand in the synagogues and on the street corners so that they will be seen by people. I tell you with certainty, they have their full reward! But whenever you pray, go into your room, close the door, and pray to your Father who is hidden. And your Father who sees from the hidden place will reward you." Matthew 6:5-6

So a judge, who actually read the constitution, decided that the National Day Of Prayer was unconstitutional, and now all of Texas' political leaders' panties are in a twist. "They can't take prayer away from us!!!BLAHBLAHBLAH!!!" I wonder if it will ever dawn on them that no one is trying to take anything away from them, but it's just not the government's place to endorse it. I also wonder if it will ever dawn on them that two hands engaged in labor are more useful that a million clasped in prayer. But whatever, pray your little heart out, Rick Perry. Whatever gets those votes, which is what this is all about anyway. If you ask any of them if they think there's any advantage in praying in public vs. privately, I'm sure they would all say that they believe god hears their private prayers just as well. So why do they insist on being "hypocrites?" Yeshua's words, not mine...well, both of ours I guess.

I'm not terribly concerned either way, just seems like a waste for our political leaders to be spending their time and energy on something like this, instead of the thousands of people unemployed, or underemployed, or starving, or uninsured, etc. in our country/state/county/city/neighborhood.

I was thinking about blogging about how much I hate the concept of tipping today, but maybe I'll do that tomorrow. I'm so full of RAGE!!!

Also, the final Quiet Company mini-doc is up at Quiet Company Music Dot Com.

The real injustice is that Muppet Babies is unlikely to come out on DVD.

2010-05-04T10:34:00.000-07:00

Rehearsal last night was good and all the kinks have been worked out, assuming that everyone remembers how we worked the kinks out when we get on stage. I think the rehearsal space felt hotter than it ever has, and after a few hours, we all felt like we didn't have much more to give, and called it a night. There's not a lot of ventilation in the room we practice in, and when you fill it with 6 bodies and 3 tube amps, the heat accumulates. We used to practice in my garage, which was pretty awful in the summer. By the end of a lot of practices, we would all have stripped to our boxer shorts, and we'd still be miserable. So, count our blessings and all that.

When I got home, I watched the back half of an episode of "Intervention" with Leah. That show is so depressing. But intriguing. At one point I turned to Leah and said "We just have to keep our kids off drugs." I'm not scared of pot. Almost everyone tries it at some point, and as those things go, it's virtually harmless. By the time Harper is old enough to care, it might even be legal and then who really gives a shit? But every time you hear some story about someone being brutally murdered, though, it's always drug related. Nothing good can come from being into real drugs, as far as I can see.

Tomorrow, I guess that Matt and I are going down to the News 8 building to record an acoustic version of "It's better to spend money..." for their Summer Rooftop music series. I fully expect it to suck since we will have maybe 5 minutes before we record it to rehearse it. I hate that shit. I hate "acoustic versions." I don't want to hear anyone else's "acoustic version" either, because what it really is, is the "boring version." It's like thin crust pizza. Maybe some people like it but, to me, it's like "Hey, can I pay you the same price for less food please?" After this one, I'd like to say that I'm not doing any more. Unless we know it's going to sound OK, and be something we're happy with, it's a total waste of time, in my humble opinion.

Smurf you, and smurf your family.

2010-05-03T13:02:00.000-07:00

The new record, Together, by The New Pornographers, is pretty great. I love that band.
I am concerned, however, about the new Apples in Stereo record. I've barely listened to it, but what I've heard hasn't excited me. So far, it seems like they took the handful of things that I didn't like about their last record and made an entire record out of those things. I really shouldn't say anything until I've had time to absorb the whole record. I really hope I end up loving it because I, generally, think that they're great.

I'm excited about practice tonight. Everyone will know their parts on the new songs tonight and we'll get to hear "Preaching to the Choir Invisible, Part II" fully developed for the first time. Should be fun.

I've been writing thank you cards to go with all our online orders of the new EP today. They're pretty random and sound more like an exercise in stream of consciousness writing than traditional thank you notes but they're a good time, nonetheless. My favorite one goes like this: "Hey pal! Thanks for smurfing our record. I hope you smurf it. If you don't, I'm going to smurf my smurf up your smurf. So don't smurf with us. Smurf, Taylor & QC"

Oh, may I join the Choir Invisible...

2010-04-29T11:31:00.000-07:00

Last night was an interesting night. We played in Waco at Common Grounds, which is on Baylor campus. It was the first night that we had our EPs so we went ahead and sold them. I'm not sure exactly how we did but Paul said we did well, so that's good. It was also the first time anyone heard "Preaching To The Choir Invisible, Part I." We all loved playing it live. I think, more than we expected. And we played it well, so I was really happy. Paul kept commenting on the strangeness of debuting that song on one of the most Baptist campuses in America. Maybe it was weird or offensive to some people, but if it was, no one said so. In fact, someone did come up to me and thank me for not censoring ourselves because of our proximity to Baylor. The song isn't obscene, but it may be uncomfortably personal for some people. Betsy said she liked it but she did feel "heavy" after we played it. Whatever that means.

We were talking about it on the way home and I confess that I do worry a little bit about losing religious fans, but at the same time I feel like even most liberal, self aware, Christians are going to find a lot to relate to in the new songs. Surely, everyone has felt like they're praying to nothing at one point or another, even if they're determined to hold on to their faith.

Anyway, Paul had the idea of having a contest where people make Quiet Company essay videos and the winner got to ride along with us last night. So, in the van, we had myself, Matt, Paul, Justin (our video director), Greg (from the Austin Music Examiner), and Jaqueline (our contest winner). Tommy and Jeff both took their own cars for their own reasons. Everyone was nice and cool and I think had a good time. I'm hoping that Greg embellishes on his adventures with us in whatever story he writes about it. Something like, "I woke up on the floor of Quiet Company's van with the band members standing circled around me, dressed in blood red cloaks, holding candles and chanting in unison. I had strange bruises all over my body and what looked like Stigmata..." You know, something more interesting than, "they fed me pizza and made fun of Owl City a lot." Which is what really happened.

Anyway, the show was fantastic. Since the other two bands also featured ex-members of Jeff's old band, Ethan Durelle, they had a reunion show after our set. It was really good to see them play again. I love watching Jeff play drums and I don't get to as much now that he's always behind me, so that was nice. I still love that band and I wish they'd just found another drummer when Jeff left and continued making music. They were, without a doubt, one of my all time favorite bands to play with.

So it goes.

If my friend, Matt, is ever eaten by a shark, I've agreed to hunt/kill that shark and feed it to people at his wake so that Matt lives on in all of us

2010-04-27T10:24:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, Leah and I took her father and his wife to Austin's Park and Pizza.

I don't know if anything kills my mood the way a bad game of Lazer Tag can. As much as I love the game, I seem to be on the receiving end of a curse. Whichever Lazer pack I pick will most certainly malfunction on some level. Usually, it's something small like, "My rapid-fire won't work." Yesterday, my pack would take hits, and my lazer would shoot, but it would not register on anyone else. I was utterly defenseless and just wandered around being murdered. I came in last place, with a whopping 0 points. I didn't want to play anymore after that. Besides, it smelled like B.O. in there, something fierce. And don't say that I just suck, I tested my gun at point blank range several times and it just didn't work.

Austin's Park and Pizza sucks ass. There are so many things there that should be awesome, lazer tag, go carts, video games, mini golf, batting cages, pizza buffet, etc. But somehow, nothing is as cool as it should be. The employees couldn't possibly care less and Leah said "Surely, these people are getting minimum wage." I proposed that, perhaps, they weren't being paid at all and were, in fact, slaves.

I think the best thing we did was the batting cages. I've always hated baseball because its so damn boring, but we had a lot of fun at the batting cages. I'm actually pretty great...as long as someone is lobbing softballs slowly at me.

We ended the evening by, unwisely, doing the spinning teacups on a full stomach. I can spin the shit out of those things and did so, at my wife's request. And that is why I felt bad for the next hour and a half.

Oh well, still not a bad way to kill an evening.

Todd and Hollie, graciously, babysat for us, so we got to hang out with them for a while when we got home, which I was glad of. We're getting pretty close to their due date, and then who knows how often we'll see them. I hope it's still often, though.

Also, when I got home there were about 7 boxes full of our new EP waiting in my foyer. They look and sound fantastic. Yay, discmakers!

So tonight, we'll be on channel 10 in Austin on the Infynit Hour, playing a live set (God, I hope it sounds good) and tomorrow, we'll be in Waco at Common Grounds and we'll be selling the EP a little early.
Good times.

Did everyone download the mix I made you? What were your favorite tracks? Were there any artists that you didn't know that you want to hear more of now?

That's some real conversation for your ass.

2010-04-25T19:35:00.000-07:00

When I first started this blog, I had an idea to occasionally make digital mixtapes and post them for readers to download. Leah didn't think it was that cool of an idea so I never did it.

Anyway, I decided to do it this weekend. I had to break it up into 2 parts though, so be sure to download both.

Here is part 1.
Here is part 2.

Here's the track listing:
1. Civil Twilight - The Weakerthans
2. Cactus Flower Rag - Harper Simon
3. Drummer - Coconut Records
4. Moses of the South - Colour Revolt
5. Bloodbook on the Half Shell - Danielson
6. Bearing Witness - David Bazan
7. Still Lost - The Features
8. What Should We Do With Your Body? (The Lightning) - The Paper Chase
9. Mama, I'm Satan - Cursive
10. The Songs of National Freedom - Richard Swift
11. Wait For Me - Sean Lennon
12. The Shadow Proves The Sunshine - Switchfoot
13. Die A Little - Viva Voce
14. She's Walking Out - The Stills
15. Beautiful Child - Rufus Wainwright

Enjoy!

Pure. Unadulterated. Shit.

2010-04-23T07:05:00.000-07:00

Last night, a lot of Leah and I's favorite shows were new again. Community is still my favorite new show and it did not disappoint. The Office was good, too, but I think it has plateaued. Glee is another of our favorite shows and Leah and I watched this weeks episode online in bed, because we didn't have room on the DVR for it.

I've caught a fair amount of shit from the other guys about liking Glee, but that show is generally great. That being said, I think this weeks episode was one of the worst things I'd ever seen. I should preface this by saying that I have a deep seeded hatred for the music of Madonna, so take that information and feel free to write off my opinions if you love it. That episode was really hard to watch for me. The whole thing was just one instance after another of trying-too-hard. "How much Madonna can we cram into one episode?" I felt like there was as much shitty Madonna music as there was story, probably more actually. I was really conflicted while watching it because I want to know what happens to the characters but I was miserable the whole time and really just wanted to watch something else (and/or rip my ears off). Even I was shocked by how much I hated it. Even I didn't know I hated Madonna that much. I think I hate her more than Lady Gaga... weird. I think I hate her more than The Police.

Why do I hate her? For, essentially, the same reasons that I can't stand Gaga. To me, the definition of being pretentious in music, is when your actual songs are secondary to your image. Image is important in music culture, I know that. But there is a big difference in an image that is an extension of your art and yourself, and one that is deliberately manufactured to sell. Madonna has probably been the most successful at periodically manufacturing a new image to sell, each as disingenuous as the last. At the end of the day, you have to look at her art and wonder if it's all bullshit. You see so many versions of her that it makes every version as unlikely as the next to be an accurate representation. As the wise man, Kurt Vonnegut, said "Any work of art is half of a conversation between two human beings, and it helps a lot to know who is talking at you."

Also, (and arguably, most importantly) I think her music is awful. Pure. Unadulterated. Shit.

All that I'm asking tonight, is that I make it back home alive. No explosions, no crashes, no fights, I want to get back home.

2010-04-22T11:28:00.001-07:00

I miss my girls and I'm ready for that next Doctor Who episode.

It's the terror of knowing what this world is about...

2010-04-21T11:12:00.000-07:00

If I could steal anyone's voice, my priority targets would go like this:
1. Freddie Mercury
2. John Lennon
3. Thom Yorke
4. Lee Bozeman
5. That is all.

This day is alive and this day is hungry.

2010-04-20T12:27:00.001-07:00

Right now, I'm listening to the practice recordings we made last night. Considering that they are, largely, the result of hanging one mic from the ceiling in the practice space, they sound pretty OK. Last night we brought Cody and Landre, tromboner and trumpeter respectively, in to learn the two new songs, so that we can start playing them at our CD release show on May 7th. The horns are pretty out of tune in these recordings but they'll be great on the 7th, I'm sure. Definitely not bad, considering it was their first time to really even hear the songs.

I'm really excited about each of these two new songs. Probably more so than I've ever been excited about a new song. Turns out there is some merit in everyone working together to shape a song. Well, it turns out that there is some merit in Tommy, Matt, Jeff, and I working together to shape a song. For most of my musical life, it was definitely more productive to arrange the song all on my lonesome, not to mention far more conducive to my "vision." *Pretentious. Anyway, when we were playing last night, it struck me, as it often does, how lucky I am to have these guys as my musical brothers. I didn't tell them that, though, because I'm always telling them that kind of thing, and they never tell me anything of the sort unless I compliment them first. What a bunch of assholes. Thoughtless...selfish...assholes.

I'm kidding of course. I have to clarify when I'm kidding because the internet has no sense of humor to speak of.

Leah's mom's dog, Sally, died today. She had kidney failure and the decision had to be made to put her to sleep. I am truly, truly sad, not just for Leah and her mom, but also because I will really miss Sally. She was an amazing dog. She was sweet and maternal and friendly, and when I first met Leah's family, I think it's fair to say that she was the most welcoming member right off the bat. Leah's blog about it almost made me cry at my desk.

This day is dragging and it won't stop.

All things good.

2010-04-16T11:10:00.000-07:00

I don't know if I'm fighting the "good fight," but I'm certainly fighting.

2010-04-14T12:03:00.000-07:00

The internet is full of people, this much we know for sure. All kinds of people, really. Just look at this blog! In this one tiny area of cyberspace we have quite the smorgasbord of intellects and ideals. Let's look at religion.

We have people like myself and Green (hope you don't mind being lumped in with me) who've done our time in one sect of Christianity or another and though finding it unfulfilling (to put it very lightly), we're still skeptically open to the possibilities.

We have people like the good Teresa, who is very sure that there is no god, and more power to her.

We have people like Travis, who is completely sure that there is a god, and although he has failed to convince me that the case is concrete, god bless him, he keeps trying.

And then we have people like my wife, Leah, who remain comfortably disinterested in the whole matter. This is the stance I envy the most.

So here we are, this quaint little community. I think everyone is, generally, polite, courteous, and pleasant. Even Travis, who opposes almost every single thing I say about religion, does so in a respectful, even tempered, way. For this, I am very thankful. It's not like this everywhere else, as I've just experienced.

Remember The Naked Pastor? I wrote about him, briefly, a while back. Well, David Hayward (the Naked Pastor), has recently decided to leave his church. He just feels like he doesn't belong there anymore for whatever reason and he is leaving on good terms. Of course, this is met with an outpouring of support from his friends and blog readers. I, personally, sent no note of encouragement because, while I enjoy his blog, I don't really care if he works at a church or not. But he seems like a decent guy and I do wish him all the best.

So then there is a blog called Remonstrans written by a guy named Norm who goes by the alias "Dissidens." I believe the blog is set up to be a critique on the "emerging church" but honestly, I haven't looked at it past the post in question. Dissidens doesn't like Naked Pastor. Seems to have a vendetta against him, to me. So he posted this blog about David's leaving. I didn't really find anything terribly awful in the post. He's entitled to his opinions. I thought calling David a "basket case" was petty, but mild.

The only reason I found the blog was because David linked to it in his response. But it wasn't until I saw the first two comments that I thought I should speak up. Here is the conversation, as it pertains to me, in its entirety.
Team Us is in bold.
Team Them in italics.

Dissidens said:

That’s true: the horror of this hits someone who has read Dave’s jitney creed and the sycophants he’s attracted.

When these people desire a theology that commends itself to their sad intellects, this is what they get and this is the price they pay! Hayward questioned everything but himself, and this is his legacy.

What a grisly soul.

So I said:

Sad intellects? Jesus, you guys clearly know everything. Better a sycophant than an asshole.

It was several comments later before anyone thought that what I said was worth commenting on and it came from someone calling themselves "The Divine Passive."

I can't tell if Taylor is both praying AND cussing, or merely cussing. The NP would be proud either way I suppose.

Well, I couldn't have people think I'm praying so....

The Divine Passive,
I'm just cussing.

Simple enough, right? I really thought that I was done there, but Dissidens couldn't have me leave without a dose of good ol' scripture.

Taylor:

Thou shalt not take the name of the LORD thy God in vain; for the LORD will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain.

Do you not fear God, Taylor?

Well, he asked me a question, so he deserves an honest answer. I've always thought the terminology of "fearing God" is strange, but I've had it explained to me in more ways than I care to remember so I get it. I know what Christians mean when they say it, more or less.

If there is a god, then I'm relatively sure it's not Jehovah, so I would say that I fear your god about as much as I fear Santa Claus.

Also, I guess I should clarify that I don't fear Santa Claus

Now here is where it gets really juicy. Dissidens comes out swinging!

Taylor:

Now see, this is exactly why I think Hell was a brilliant idea. You’re not sure there is a god, but you’re pretty sure it isn’t one particular god, and on the strength of that uncertainty you blaspheme his name when he explicitly told everyone not to.

If you can’t reason with such a person, what more appropriate future could there than eternal confusion?

So not only is this lovely soul glad that there is a hell (or glad he can think there is, anyway) he's particularly pleased that I'm going. Now the concept of hell is a discussion I'm not trying to have right now, but I will say that the idea that god will forgive child molesters, rapists, and murderers but has no room in his heart for people who are not easily convinced of the far fetched, is....weak sauce. Anyway, this was my favorite response because his was so primed for parroting. So I said....

Now see, this is exactly why I think cussing was such a brilliant idea. You've got no empirical evidence that there even is a god, but you're somehow certain that you've picked the right one, and on the strength of that unjustified certainty you belittle and condescend to people who differ from, but are still just as clueless as, you. At least the folks over at Naked Pastor seem to enjoy a sense of self awareness that you're apparently not privy to.

If you can't reason with such a person, what more appropriate future could there be than to be eternally called an asshole?

So he said...

Who says a) that I don’t have empirical evidence for the existence of Yahweh? and b) that only empirical evidence is sufficient for belief? Why couldn’t faith derive from logic and first principles?

You’re as good a philosopher as Dave is a theologian. I can see how you would appreciate his sense of self-awareness.

And then I went home and lived life and Todd and Hollie came over and we played in the park and ate pizza and watched Lost and went to bed. So I didn't have time to respond and in my absence, Mike The Infidel stepped in and said a lot of what I wanted to say...

I'm more than a bit amused by someone who describes hell as 'eternal confusion' in a comment on a post talking about people's attitudes being non-biblical. Where, pray tell, does this conception of hell come from?

As for:
a) Please, provide it.
b) Faith is enough for belief, certainly, but why should faith be valued?

Before Dissidens could get back to him, The Divine Passive was back and he had some questions for Mike and I...

Mike and Taylor

How should I (or any other Christian) understand your hanging around Christian sites if your "spiritual journey" has taken you away from Christianity? And what is it about the NP that you find attractive?

AND THEN I'M BACK AND I'M JABBING AND I'M SWINGING...

Well, I don't recall being much of a philosopher on here, but this is great, I've been looking for someone who has all the answers and here you've been all along. If it weren't for the Naked Pastor, I'd never have found the one person with empirical, testable, verifiable, evidence that not only does god exist but we know his name.
So, although Mike already beat me to the punch here, if you've got such evidence, prove it. My email is taylorglenmuse (at) gmail (dot) com. If you don't mind, write me an email explaining and demonstrating this evidence. If it is truly empirical, then you should be able to prove yourself right, beyond a reasonable doubt. Try to remember my "sad intellect" though and use small, concise words.
However, if you can't really prove it, then all you've proven yourself to be is an unyielding, arrogant, person who puts theology ahead of people. In other words, you're a pharisee, and we all know how Jesus felt about them.

The Divine Passive:
I can't speak for Mike, but I'm only on this blog because NP linked it, and then this guy called people that read NP "sycophants" with "sad intellects" so I called him an "asshole," and so on and so on. I guess the shorter answer is "because I have a lot of free time at work, and I find religion interesting even if I no longer partake."
What I like about the NP, is that he's often pretty funny and/or insightful, and while a lot of Christian blogs tend to sell what I consider unjustified certainty, while being completely unable to understand how anyone could disagree with them, it's refreshing for someone to be the slightest bit humble about their faith while understanding how some can not believe.

AND HERE COMES DISSIDENS...only he doesn't really want to talk...He'd rather talk about talking.

Taylor:

God works in mysterious ways, doesn’t he? I don’t guess we get many readers via nakedpastor.com, but then not many people get to Nineveh via a nasty fish. God appears to have a wicked--if I can use that word--sense of humor.

I can see you’re having trouble focusing here, Taylor. I understand how a steady diet of the assumptions and platitudes one gets from Hayward could encourage a habit of sloppy thinking, but let’s tidy this up a bit. Back while you were scrambling for a spell-checker you said, (comment #28) “You've got no empirical evidence that there even is a god…”. That is the kind of self-serving assumption a lot of skeptics make about my life.

If you read my answer more carefully than you read the opinions on NP, you will discover that I never said a) that I ever had empirical evidence, or b) that I could “prove it”—your words. I was challenging your own claim that I had no such empirical evidence; you don’t know if I have or if I haven’t. So here right at the beginning of your gymnastic routine you’ve already fallen slap off the beam.

Make A Note: I didn’t say I had empirical evidence, I said you couldn’t know whether I have or haven’t. That was your first faceplant.

It might—but probably won’t—interest you to know that I believe God is 1) invisible, 2) inscrutable, and 3) ineffable; I cannot see him, I cannot comprehend him, and I cannot explain him—even to myself, let alone to a miseducated skeptic. If God doesn’t want you to see him, he could sit on the bridge of your nose and whistle to you and you still could not detect him, even “empirically”.

Your second faceplant was the assumption that the only way I might come by reliable knowledge (or faith) was empirically. If your Mom could go to the bookstore and bring home an idiot’s guide to flossfy, you could look up the word “empirical” and learn that not all knowledge comes through experience or science. If your Mom won’t do that for you, go here and follow the links.

Read Kant if you can, he’s helped many people all over the world.

"Don't say I don't have evidence!!!" OK, what evidence? "I NEVER said I had evidence, you're stupid. Read Kant."

And then a newcomer joined in, by the name of Warren, and he's got a few assumptions he'd like to make...

Taylor:

I enjoyed the Pharisee slight from someone who believes that Jesus was wrong about Theology and therefore people anyway.

I also like the fact you borrow from Theistic morality to judge. Unless of course you can define morality from naturalism.

http://teampyro.blogspot.com/2010/04/atheist-i-have-honest-questions-dodge.html

I clicked on his link only to be unsurprised by the kind of up-our-own-ass apologetics that are so tiring. "If you want me to believe it I need proof" "You won't believe it no matter what the proof is!!" "Well, we'll never know until you actually show me some, will we?" "First you prove me wrong!" *Facepalm.

While I was drafting my final response, a fella named Joshua Allen joined in. I'm not sure what side he's on but I got a chuckle out of his response, either way...

@Taylor: You're challenging the wrong person. You should demand proof from God Himself. You should challenge God to a game of chess, and publish the challenge details far and wide, so that God cannot fail to hear you. If He shows up and beats you at chess, you'll have a story to tell. But if he doesn't show up, you'll be able to tell everyone that God doesn't exist, or at least that you are a better chess player than God.

Clearly, God would not let a challenge from a mortal like yourself go unanswered, since it would be so damaging to His reputation. Therefore, failure to appear is proof of lack of existence, or else fear of something even worse -- being a bad chess player.

Alas, I already know that I am a horrible, horrible chess player and I'm painfully aware of what a waste of time this has been and would continue to be. I just wanted to throw a little support behind David, call an asshole an asshole and be on my way, so I said...

Well, as fun as semantics and assumptions can be, I don't appear to have been wrong, do I? I said you didn't have evidence, you implied that that was not the case, I asked for it, and now you want to make the argument about whether or not you ever really said you had any. And you want to accuse me of intellectual gymnastics?

I know this is a complete waste of time, but if god is all the things you say he is, how did you come to know so much more about him than everyone else? There doesn't seem to be anything of substance here, just a theological "I know you are but what am I?!"

"...I believe God is 1) invisible, 2) inscrutable, and 3) ineffable; I cannot see him, I cannot comprehend him, and I cannot explain him—even to myself, let alone to a miseducated skeptic."

How convenient. You'd think those beliefs would lend themselves to a more humble approach but I suppose Kant can explain how you should be a dickhead to everyone that disagrees with you. I think we're done now. You talk a lot but don't say very much.

Warren,
Is it not possible to disagree with some things a person says and agree with others? Just because I don't believe that Jesus was god doesn't mean I don't think he said some lovely things. I would ask you to explain how Theists have exclusive rights to morality but I'm probably not going to be around to read it. I would also ask why you assume I'm a naturalist. Naturalists aren't the only thing you can be if you're not a theist, you know.

So that's what I've been doing. It was a good time but I won't be going back to see if anyone responds further, because I don't want to get drawn back in, and I know I could be. But it did make me appreciate the conversations that we have here that much more. I kind of understand them calling me names and saying I'm painfully ignorant or whatever they would say, but I think it's really weird to have that level of animosity towards David, who differs greatly on a lot of issues, to be sure, but still believes the same basic things. Seems theologically cannibalistic.

JUSTIN BIEBER TEAM EDWARD JOE JONAS MILEY!!!!!

2010-04-13T10:53:00.000-07:00

The third installment of Quiet Company: Behind The EP is up and now you can all have certifiable proof of what a ham Leah really is. She's cute though. So is Harper, who also stars in the new video.

I really want to hear their voices right now, but Leah didn't pick up when I called. Guess she's busy. Oh well, she'll call back.

I'm looking forward to tonight. Todd and Hollie are coming over for dinner. We'll be ordering Domino's Pizza, which I never thought I would ever do, but they've really turned themselves around. It's pretty delicious now. I'm always really excited for my friends when they have babies, and that's especially true for Todd and Hollie. They're going to be great parents. They're both loving and kind and open and talented. Anyway, suffice to say, we love them and are so happy for them.

Todd almost joined Quiet Company not too long ago, but then he didn't.

We had our weekly rehearsal last night, and it was good. New songs are coming along nicely and I think everyone is having a good time playing them. I think that I don't care if we ever play "Brother, I Think You're In Love" again. I like the intro and the chorus but overall, I think it's one of the weakest songs I've written in a long time. Some people really love it, though, so I don't know what we'll do. As it stands, I can't see putting it on a proper record. I'd put it on an EP, probably.

I used to be a Jimmy Eat World fan. I mean, I still think they're OK and that Static Prevails kicks ass. I think the record they started to lose me was Bleed American. That's when they went from "band that makes great records" to "band that has a few good songs on each record." Mainly, I think it's because I don't think that those lyrics should come out of 30 year old men. Anyway, I'm not trying to do an in depth critique, but earlier today I had my Ipod on shuffle and a song from their newest record came on. I had kind of a "ewww yuck" reaction to it and skipped ahead. The song it landed on was Marilyn Manson's "The Dope Show." I thought, "Yeah, this song rules," and let it roll.

Just weird to think that if I went back to 1999 and told Past Taylor that one day he would prefer Marilyn Manson to Jimmy Eat World, I don't know what his reaction would be, but I doubt that he'd believe you.

Also, I was killing some time in the Barnes & Noble music section the other day, listening to the samples from this record or that one, and I found Harper Simon's record. That's Paul Simon's boy, in case you were wondering. I only got to listen to the samples but what I heard sounded great. Has anyone heard the whole record? He sounds like his father before he tarnished his name with those awful, cheesy, African drums and other world music tomfoolery.

Anyway, I'm going to try and snag a copy of that soon.

With or without it, you’d have good people doing good things and evil people doing bad things, but for good people to do bad things, it takes religion

2010-04-12T10:41:00.000-07:00

I am of the belief that, if you do horrible things, or knowingly allow horrible things to occur when it is in your power to stop them, you should be held accountable, no matter who you are. That's why I believe that every Catholic priest who molested children should be in jail. That's also why I believe that the Pope should be in jail. That's also why I believe that, seemingly, half the Vatican should be in jail.

If your priest touches your child, he should go to jail, or into a body bag and I'd probably opt for the latter. But the Catholics just let that shit happen. They trust in their precious popes, and bishops, and sexless nuns, their Bill Donohues, and their personal priests. They trust that those people of "authority" have the best moral judgement, I guess because they know god so well. I'm flabbergasted by the naivety of it all.

Hey Catholics, you know who generally makes good moral judgements? The fucking police. Maybe call them next time.

I'm glad that someone is finally trying to hold these sex offenders accountable, but the fact that it took 11,750 cases of sexual abuse, 11,750+ lives ruined, all in the hopes of keeping the Catholic church from looking bad, is heartbreaking to say the least.

And let's not fail to notice how G.W. Bush stepped in to save the pope from accountability last time. To me, that makes George W. Bush an aider and abettor of child molesters. Which is just as bad as being a child molester. So rationally, George W. Bush is a child molester.

Here are a couple of gems from LOL god.

Addendum:
Leah has launched her new baby fashion blog, Lennon Closet, and it is adorable. Go check it out to see the best dressed babies and whatnot.

It's already Friday.

2010-04-09T07:57:00.000-07:00

I generally don't think that I am a person with a lot of pet peeves, but today, I discovered one capable of bringing about an immediate and fiery response. While in a political discussion (which I generally try to avoid, being the only Socialist in the office), one of my coworkers said "Ah, you're never going to change."

Seems simple enough, right? He said this because I made a statement about how I would never vote Republican (again). I've had a two friends say this about me before as well, and it always gets under my skin. While I would normally think that maybe this is a good indication to look at one's self and wonder if, perhaps, they're right about you, I'm just calling bullshit.

First off, what they really mean is "You should agree with me, and I'm unable to convince you to." Your inability to make a concrete case for your position actually says nothing about my inability to change mine. I think it's an even more ridiculous thing to say about me when I think about how much changing I've done over the years and how many people I know that I've never known to change their position on anything.
2000- I was a fundamentalist Christian. I thought it was wrong to intermarry races. I thought homosexuality was a choice and a sin. I thought George W. Bush would be a great president. I thought evolution was a lie. I was convinced that Michael Jackson was a pedophile. Militantly pro-life.
2003- I became a liberal Christian. Realized how ridiculous racism is. Began to understand homosexuality. Thought George Bush mishandled war. Realized there is probably no scientific conspiracy regarding origins of life. Remained convinced of Michael Jackson's guilt. Still pro-life, but not militant.
2009- Realized I could not find a good reason to consider myself Christian at all. Joined Socialist Party. Proponent of equal marriage rights. Evolutionist. Think's Michael Jackson was probably innocent. Not a fan of abortion, but pro-choice.

Those all seem like pretty big changes to me. So when I say I'm never voting Republican again, it's because I have before. If I don't switch to your side, it doesn't mean I'm stubborn, it just means I don't agree with you. I'm very capable of change and before you accuse me of being hard headed, perhaps you should wonder if your case is as solid as you think it is.

Anyway, that's annoying.

Side note: I think it's weird that more Christians aren't Socialists.

We found a magnet in the parking lot at work that says "MANWHORE." Now we just have to decide who's car it's unexpectedly going on

2010-04-08T11:36:00.000-07:00

I get awkward in front of a camera.

This is, I know, an unfortunate characteristic for someone married to a photographer to have. The truth is that, over the years, I've gotten much better and much more comfortable in front of her lens. That being said, I am still painfully awkward in front of a video camera. It takes me a long time to feel comfortable in my skin when that little red light is on. Making these small mini "documentaries" (for lack of a better word) is challenging to me, because I know when I'm being awkward, and if I'm talking about our music, I feel like I'm sounding pretentious and self absorbed, as well. All that to say, whatever gene people have that enables them to turn on their charm when the camera's on them...I do not possess.

So, next week, we're scheduled to release the mini-doc for "Hold My Head Above The Water," and fittingly, we thought it would a great idea to include Leah in the video, since she's the star of that show. So yesterday, Justin, our friend and director, came over to get an interview with Leah and I. I didn't perceive it when we were filming, but Leah later convinced me that I was not myself, and came off as somewhat cold towards her. That really bothered me all night. So today I asked Justin to come back out and refilm the interview, and he agreed to. Leah said we didn't need to do that, but I told her to be a good biblical wife and submit to my will.

She'll call me out for repeating this, but I thought it was a good line. I also told her, and I meant it, that "I would sooner have people think that I'm a Nazi sympathizer, creationist, Lady Gaga enthusiast, than think that I don't completely adore you."

I'm also looking forward to reshooting it because it provides us an opportunity to pay homage to my favorite celebrity power couple.

Separate...and far from equal.

2010-04-07T07:59:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, I talked a little bit about how I would feel if my child were bullied or was a bully. Today, I'd like to talk about what I'd do if my child was gay, wanted to take her same sex partner to prom, the school cancelled the prom because of it, the media got wind of the story, the school realized how bad they looked and decided not to cancel the prom and told her she could bring her date, and then organized a special prom for her and 5 other rejects while inviting every other student to the real prom, successfully managing to keep it a secret from her.

Yeah....That really happened.

Now, I don't know this girl, so it may be that she is a total asshole and even the people who realized it was an awful thing to do still didn't want her around. But I really doubt that that's the case. So how is it that not one single person, not one student, not one teacher, not one parent, stood up and said, "Hey, this is the biggest dick move ever?" No one. What an awful place that must be to live in.

I'm not someone who thinks that people should run and get a lawyer over every little thing, but if that were my kid, I'd sue the shit out of that school. And then I'd move. They'd be eating beans and gruel for lunch everyday after I got done with them. Someone needs to make an example out of these people.

Do you think Jehovah has a nickname for Yeshua?

2010-04-06T12:07:00.000-07:00

Today on the radio, they were talking about the shocking levels of teen suicides that are the direct result of bullying. It broke my heart, and it got me thinking about the ways that I was bullied, but more importantly, it got me thinking about how I would react if Harper was bullied. A lot of parents, I think, tend to have a "that's just what kids do" mentality. To them, I would like to say, "Wake the fuck up! That shit is serious." I think the only thing that would break my heart more than someone bullying my child, would be if my child were the one doing the bullying. I have no idea how I would react if I found out that Harper was bullying someone, but I'm sure that it's a version of her father that she would not like to see.

But let this stand as a formal warning: If anyone ever bullies my child, I am going to hurt you.

Anyway, looking forward to a relaxing evening with the family and a new episode of Lost. I'm enjoying this new season, but I'm not a guy that sits around and formulates theories about what's happening. I just trust that, by the end of it, I'll know what the hell is going on, more or less.

We had practice last night and spent almost all of our time working on "Preaching to the Choir Invisible, Part I." I'm really excited about what we've come up with. We had been starting the song with just me singing over a strummed electric guitar, but I really hated it. It reminded me of Travis. And I love Travis, but I hate when they do that, like in that song "Paperclips." Now it's driven by bass and Fender Rhodes, and I like it a lot. Anyway, who cares?

We went to the park yesterday, like almost every other day.

I am constantly reminded of why I love my wife.

2010-04-05T10:33:00.001-07:00

Here is the truth:
Ninja Gaiden 1, for Xbox, is way harder than Ninja Gaiden 2, for Xbox 360.

We went to Tyler this weekend to see our buddy, Ryan, get married. It was a nice time, but I really hate that drive. Leah was in the bridal party so her weekend was a lot more involved than mine. I mostly just hung out with my parents and Harper except for the rehearsal dinner and wedding.

The wedding was nice and the weather turned out perfect. Ryan cried like a bitch when Tori came down the aisle, and he got good laughs when it was time to read his vows and he said "I'll try and keep this short," and then pulled out a scroll which unrolled to be a few yards of paper. He also sang "Sweet Caroline" but I wasn't in the room to hear it. I was outside with the guys, decorating his car. The only problem is that no one would write anything awesome, funny, and obscene on it. I didn't feel it was my place to, really, since I wasn't a groomsman or anything and they all seemed pretty sure that Tori wouldn't be pleased. So it was my beautiful bride who came out and manned up. She wrote/drew some pretty amazing things, the least of which not being some stick figures having sex and saying "do my butt!" Everyone started saying how funny it was that a girl was the only one with the balls to do it, so I got to make the observation that yeah, she has my balls, so that's why she's awesome enough to do it.

Anyway, I'm happy for Ryan and wish them all the best.

My Apocalypse

2010-04-01T11:16:00.000-07:00

In keeping with my post yesterday, I wanted to post some more lyrics. These are new and I'm not really sure what I think of them yet. So I'm going to open it up to you guys. Tell me what you think. This next record is going to be fucking dark!

My Apocalypse
Claustrophobic
Crawl out of this skin
Hard explosive
Reaching for that pin

Feel thy name extermination
Desecrating, hail of fire

So we cross that line
Into the crypt
Total eclipse
Suffer unto my apocalypse!

Deadly vision
Prophecy revealed
Death magnetic
Pulling closer still

Feel thy name annihilation
Desolating, hail of fire

So we cross that line
Into the crypt
Total eclipse
Suffer unto my apocalypse!

My apocalypse? Go!

Crushing metal, ripping skin
Tossing body mannequin
Spilling blood, bleeding gas

Mangle flesh, snapping spine
Dripping bloody valentine
Shattered face, spitting glass

Split apart
Split apart
Split apart
Split
Spit it out!

What makes me drift a litter bit closer
Dead man takes the steering wheel
What makes me know it's time to cross over
Words you repeat until I feel

See through the skin the bones they all rattle
Future and past they disagree
Flesh falls away the bones they all shatter
I start to see the end in me
See the end in me?

Claustrophobic
Climb out of this skin
Hard explosive
Waiting for that pin

Violate, annihilate
A loser to my eyes
Obliterate, exterminate
At last accept, deny

Feel thy name as hell awakens
Destiny, inhale the fire

But we cross that line
Into the crypt
Total eclipse
Suffer unto my apocalypse!

Tyrants awaken my apocalypse!
Demon awaken my apocalypse!
Heaven awaken my apocalypse!
Suffer forever my apocalypse!

Songs For Staying In lyrics

2010-03-31T11:09:00.000-07:00

The official release date for the new EP is May 11th. However, you can get a digital copy of the EP now, when you pre-order the CD. Just go to our site and click the appropriate buttons. Also, you can see the first of six promo videos that we made, the first for "How Do You Do It?" You can also stream that track, if you like.

Since people are going to start having the record now, I figured I might as well go ahead and post the lyrics. They are, for the most part, pretty straight forward love songs. It's probably not my best work, which is why some of them were left off of Everyone You Love..., but there are some moments I'm pretty proud of in there as well. Enjoy.

How Do You Do It?
You belong to me, and that's that (no need for explaining).
And I belong to you, and I've got nothing to complain about.
I just want to see your smile in the morning. I just want to wake up next to you, love. Because you are the one, you know you're my only one.
And I don't know what I would do if I didn't have you. Oh, I'd probably die. I can't seem to take care of myself.
You're a part of me (the best part of me, darlin').
You're a part of me, so I try to be good.
How do you do it? You're always on top...of everything.
Oh, come to me. Oh, you never leave my head, so let's never leave the bed.
At least, not for a while.

Things You Already Know
The sun will be gold and the skies will be blue, when you're holding me, and I'm holding you. We'll pace ourselves until the sun steps over the hill.
Because nothing's as good when you're not around and I go quietly out of my mind. Oh, I come undone. When the sun steps over the hill...
I'm only saying things you already know. So close to perfect from your head to your toes, and I'm in love with you, body and soul. You know I am.
You can be sure, I'll make you believe, I am all of a man that you'll need. I've got what it takes, and my bones don't break.
I'm gonna love you for the rest of my days. I carved a place out in my heart where you'll stay, and I will always keep you happy and safe. You know I will. And when the sun steps over the hill...
When the sun goes down and the lights go off, well, you and I will frame up the scene. There we'll be slightly pornographic, but life is always better when your fairly obscene. So when the sun goes down and the lights go off, well, you and I will frame up the scene to be completely pornographic b/c life is always better when you're fairly obscene, and I'm gonna love you til I die.

Hold My Head Above The Water
Do you want to know me forever?
I do, I do.
Do you want to love me forever?
I do, I do.
Will you hold my head above the water when it's rising so fast?
I've never known any other that could make me feel so blessed.

Jezebel or 'A Song For My Friend About That Whore He Dated'
Jezebel, I can hear you moaning in my head. As I toss and turn, you do the same thing in some new lovers bed, while I'm wishing I was dead. Did the heart that was so soft just turn to lead?
It might be wrong, but I'm leaving. I'm gonna find me a wife, and it ain't hard to believe in love in a city of lights. It won't take long, because I'm leaving, I'm leaving tonight.Time will tell if I'm gonna make it through this little Hell, my prison cell. The walls all seem to shrink and swell, in the apt. where I fell and screamed "Oh god, don't let me rot here by myself!"
And after all that I gave you, you still want to be something a little less respectable. After all that I gave you, you still want to be so far away, so far away from me. Come back to me.

If You Want
Lift my head out of my hands, and I'm begging you to say, "would you please take me home with you?" I shutter to think of all the horrible things I could be if I'd never have held you. And if you want, we can go out tonight and be alone. And if you want, we can stay in tonight, be at home, let the whole wide world just worry about it's own. It's you and me.
I'm sure I'll give you plenty of reasons to leave but you won't. No, you won't leave me hanging. We spring from and return to the earth but in between, you will always belong to me.
It's you and me, a nation of two. Let's do what we please, let's love what we do.

The Biblical Sense of The Word
When the morning comes, we will wake, and the sun will kiss you beautiful face.
And if you want to know the truth, I can say "You are my favorite part of every day."
Oh, love ain't so tough, you will see. Just open up your arms to me, and don't make no vow you can't keep, and I'll lay my pride down at your feet.
Because neither the heavens nor the earth can equal what you're worth. I know you.
I would fall apart if I didn't have your heart. I know you would too.
We make our lives worth living when we love each other. Yeah, we can move the mountains with our love.
You whisper you love me in my ear. When you tell me you love me, suddenly, I'm not scared. You've got me right where you want me and I will stay here, because when you tell me you love me, suddenly, I'm not scared.
We make our lives worth living when we love each other.

Smile, like you've got nothing to prove. No matter what you might do, there's always someone out there cooler than you.

2010-03-30T10:57:00.000-07:00

Have you ever seen anything this adorable? C'mon 5 o'clock!

Last night, Tommy was feeling under the weather and couldn't make it out to practice. Rather than reschedule, Jeff, Matt, and I got together to start working up a new song. At the end of the night, we did a rough recording of what we'd come up with for Tommy to have to familiarize himself with. The song we were working on last night is called "Preaching to the Choir Invisible, Part I (What Do You Think Happens When We Die?)" We're almost done fleshing out "Preaching to the Choir Invisible, Part II (What Do You Think Happens When We Live?)" and it's coming along nicely. As you can probably tell, album 3 will see my return to ridiculously long song titles. On the EP, there's only one such title.

I'm trying to think simply with the writing of the third record. At least, as far as instrumentation is concerned. My default idea for any song is "make it build to the end and when we get there we'll put every fucking instrument we can find on it. It will be EPIC!" It's worked pretty well for me so far, but what's the point in making new art if you're not at least trying to push yourself out of your comfort zone?

I'm certainly out of my comfort zone with some of the lyrics. If I were to write a cheesy promo bio for the songs thus far it would probably be something like "Quiet Company comes to terms with disbelief while relishing love and fatherhood." or maybe just "Quiet Company calls 'bullshit' on organized religion, remains optimistic." This will probably be the closest thing to a breakup record I'll ever get to write, and sometimes it feels too personal for comfort. I wrote a lyric the other day that really kind of hurt a little. Songwriting for me is very introspective and revealing and the truth seems way more potent when you sing it. Anyway, if you've been waiting for Quiet Company to get more theatrical and minor chordy, then you just may be in luck.

If you are feeling sinister, go off and see a minister. He'll try in vain to take away the pain of being a hopeless unbeliever.

2010-03-29T08:13:00.000-07:00

Hey bands, if a band from out of town is playing a show with you in your town, then they're counting on you for certain things. First off, have the common sense and decency to not be playing in said town in the surrounding weeks. People stop coming to your shows if you play all the damn time. Secondly, advertise for the show, especially if the band from out of town has taken the time and effort to supply you with posters. This is how show trades are supposed to work. You do your best to give us a great show in your town, and when you come to our town we do the same. We're starting to think we can't afford to play in the DFW area if we can find any bands or promoters who are actually willing to promote.

So our show in Denton this week was pretty middle of the road. Not a horrible experience by any means but not a terribly profitable one. Unfortunately, we're all at a point in our lives were we really just can't afford to be constantly losing money on DFW shows. All the bands were great though and my buddy, Jerry, came out to the show, so it was great to get to catch up a little bit with him.

On Saturday, we went and hung out with Paul and Gina and Leah took pictures of them and their new daughter, Anna. We were really impressed with how good their son Ryan, who's like 2 and change, is with Harper. After that, Leah went to take engagement pictures for a couple downtown and Harper and I partied. When Leah got home I took Darcy to the park. Our park has a huge field attached to it and Darcy and I had the whole thing to ourselves. I have a phobia about my dog running away, because I've never had a dog who didn't want to run away. But I've never had a dog who was like a part of the family, either. So I decided to test my luck and let go of the leash. I was so happy. Darcy just wanted to hang out with me and run with me and explore the creek (yes, I'm 12 years old) with me. As long as there are no other dogs around for her to freak out about, she's a damn good dog.

The next day I tried my luck again and it was going well until she spotted an old lady walking her dog on the other side of the field and I had to haul ass to catch her before a fight broke out. I really don't think she wants to hurt the other dogs, she's just curious and nervous. Maybe I should spend some more time trying to socialize her with other dogs. Anyone have any suggestions about the best way to do this?

A lot of boring Quiet Company stuff that has nothing to do with religion or politics

2010-03-26T06:58:00.000-07:00

Time for EP news.

We're done recording, we're done mixing, we're done mastering. We are currently finishing the art and then it's off to manufacturing. I wanted to share the cover with you and get some outside opinions about something.

This is the original concept. I love it. I love everything about it, really. The dimensions will have to change to fit the digipak format but what I really want you to look at is the text. It's a little smaller but I feel like that puts the focus on the picture where I feel like it should be and seems very elegant.

Now here the picture has been cropped to the proper dimensions for the digipak and the text has been enlarged. To me, this doesn't seem as balanced, almost crowded or overly busy. I like albums where the artist and title aren't even featured on the front, because I'm cool and indie like that, but some of the other guys feel like having our name bigger is better for marketing purposes. What do you think? Which is cooler, is really all I'm concerned with.

It also just dawned on me that "Quiet Company Presents..." isn't grammatically correct. It should actually be "Quiet Company Present..." Is that awkward sounding to anyone?

None of this is terribly important, I guess, but it's the little things, you know...

Last night we all got together and filmed ourselves talking about the new EP (recording process, songwriting, instrumentation, whatever, etc). Our friend Justin, who did the video for "On Modern Men" is going to edit it down and we're going to start putting out a small intro video to coincide with a streamable track from the EP once a week until our release show on May 7th. So if you care about that stuff and want to see us being awkward, self congratulatory, a little pretentious, and very occasionally, (possibly) funny and/or strange, it will be available next week...I think.

If anyone is in or around Denton tonight, please come to Hailey's and see us play music at you.

What's better than texting while driving? Sexting while driving, of course!

2010-03-25T11:54:00.000-07:00

Nothing much to say. It's one of those rare days where I actually spend a lot of time reading a book. I'm reading The End of Faith by Sam Harris still. I take forever to get through a book. I just don't feel like reading a lot of times. Apparently, checking my email and other internet bullshitz 1000 times a day is more important.

I guess I've been on a Sam Harris kick since I saw his TED talk about science informing morality the other day. I thought it was good. Did anyone else see it?

One surefire way to lose a little faith in humanity is to read or watch or smell Ann Coulter.

2010-03-24T12:02:00.000-07:00

This image is in honor of my friends, Bleach, getting back together.

So health care reform has been passed. No matter how you feel about it, let's all hope for the best, shall we? My favorite thing about it, so far, is when Joe Biden leans over and says to the president "This is a big fucking deal." This is the kind of thing that makes me really like Joe Biden. I supported him in the primaries, and its partly because he's the kind of guy who says "This is a big fucking deal" when the thing in question is, obviously, a big fucking deal.

My least favorite thing about health care reform passing, so far, is that Rush Limbaugh promised that, if it passed, he would move to Costa Rica, and now it's passed and his fat ass hasn't gone anywhere. Oh well, I'm sure that if there is a hell, then there's probably a special realm of it reserved for the kind of hypocritical, right wing, assholes who have the gall to mock Michael J. Fox. He gave us Back To The Future and Teen Wolf. What has Rush done to make the world a better place? I assure you, he hasn't done anything even as good as Family Ties.

I'm still totally fine with playing shows for Church youth groups.

2010-03-23T11:15:00.000-07:00

Quiet Company has fans. Not a lot of fans, in the grand scheme of things, but a handful of devotees, nonetheless. And that is amazing to me. I try and do a good job of stopping and taking stock of the progress that we've made, periodically. I think it's healthy to look back and remember when I had no fans, and the lessons I learned when I was only a fan of music, myself, and not an artist.

I've been listening to a band called Stavesacre today. Unless you were into Christian music in the late 90's, you probably don't know who they are. But since I did, I do. I don't listen to them very often. Partly just because I've outgrown bands that try to sound like Tool, but mainly because I can't listen to them without reliving the experience of meeting them.

It was the summer of 1997 and Tooth and Nail records had almost single handedly saved and revolutionized Christian music. That label has put out some pure unadulterated shit, don't get me wrong, but they're also responsible for some of my favorite records of all time (Luxury, Starflyer 59, Bleach, mewithoutYou, etc). My brother and I were obsessed with the whole scene and spent all our money and time going to shows and festivals, buying cds, videos, and t-shirts. If it had a Tooth and Nail logo on it, it was worth checking out.

My brother and I grew up in a huge, east Texas, Baptist church called Mobberly Baptist. It was big then, it's a damn mega church now. Anyway, church was always the biggest, lamest, pain in my ass until 7th grade. In 7th grade, you became part of the youth group. Youth group was fun. I feel like that was about all we did, have fun. We went to camps and mission trips and bible studies too, of course, but even those things were a lot of fun. Because of the youth group, I met Jacob Bailey, one of the most ruthlessly talented, and good natured evil geniuses you're likely to meet. Jacob played guitar and he's largely responsible for me knowing how to play guitar, as I learned most of what I know from him, rather than my actual guitar teachers. So we started a band, or rather I joined a band that he and his cousin had started. 20 Watt Shed was our name and we were probably about as good as our name would suggest. Anyway, we were young, we were loud, we were in a band, and we had a demo tape.

So because my youth group was so cool, we brought in bands. And we actually brought in some good ones. The first one was Bleach. Strange that I would meet them as a 15 year old fan boy, and they would later become some of my better friends in Nashville. But in 1997 we brought in a tour featuring The Supertones, Ghoti Hook, and Stavesacre. Everyone was out of control excited about the Supertones and Ghoti Hook. Everyone but me. As far as I was concerned, the only band that mattered was Stavesacre, and I even liked the Supertones a lot. Their second record had just come out and I was obsessed, feeling like it really ministered and connected to me in a deeply personal way.

Jacob and I, being naive young musicians, had deluded ourselves into the idea that if we gave Stavesacre our demo tape, they would like it (we liked them so why wouldn't they like us, right?), and they would give it to Brandon Ebel, the owner of Tooth and Nail, and he would make all of our teenage rock star dreams come true.

Needless to say, that isn't what happened. Mark Saloman, Stavesacre's singer, manned the merch table for the band after their show, and Jacob and I hung around like flies on a carcass. I don't remember exactly everything that Mark said to us, but very quickly things weren't going our way. Here's what I remember.
1. He was annoyed at the gift of a demo tape, and obviously so, though he did take it.
2. He made it abundantly clear that they would listen to it but that they probably wouldn't like it and it would "hit the highway" because "Hey man, sometimes brutal truth is the only truth."
3. Almost everything he said was jaded beyond belief and when he wasn't being condescending or belittling, he was being dismissive.
4. By the end of it, I really felt like he was mad at me for liking his band.
5. He wouldn't sign an autograph (though the rest of the band did) and his reason was that he didn't think it would be important enough to me.

Now for self awareness:
1. I'm sure we were annoying to a degree, being awkward youngsters meeting their idol.
2. I'm sure we asked the questions that he got asked all the time.
3. I'm abundantly sure that the demo tape was, in fact, awful.

The experience shook me. When Tom Fest came around months later, I was scared to meet another T&N favorite, Jason Martin, from Starflyer 59, but I'm glad I did because it helped me get over the Stavesacre debacle. Jason was the epitome of "nice guy." He was appreciative of my adoration and was so encouraging when I asked him about music and his gear. It was the opposite of arrogance, cynicism, or any kind of rock star cliche', and I'm sure it plays a big part in why I still buy every Starflyer 59 record that comes out but I haven't bought another Stavesacre record since 1997.

I made up my mind then, however, that if I was ever fortunate enough to have fans, I would do my best to appreciate them and treat them like equals because that's what they are. Because I can string some chords and a melody together doesn't give me the right to belittle anyone, even obnoxious 15 year old fanboys. I hope to god that there's not someone somewhere blogging about the time they met that asshole from Quiet Company, right now.

Interestingly enough, Brandon Ebel eventually did learn that I existed and came to scout one of my last band, the Connotations', shows in Nashville in 2002. Unfortunately, it was in one of his "T&N is a really Christian label" phases, and Cameron had talked us into putting the lyrics "Shit happens" in one of our songs. It was apparently some sort of deal breaker. My foul mouth actually cost The Connotations more than one Christian record deal in Nashville. Maybe if I'd kept it shut, I could be having dinner with the Gaithers now or touring with Stryper.

So it goes.

SXSW or What I did when I wasn't blogging.

2010-03-22T07:26:00.000-07:00

SXSW is over.

It was a long but fun and rewarding 4 days. We were really happy with all of our shows and I'll talk about that in a second. First, I wanted to note that this SXSW marks Tommy and I's 4 year anniversary of playing music together. Also, the Austin Chronicle Music Awards results are in and we made the top 10 in 2 categories. After 4 years of playing in Austin we finally placed 9th in "Best New Band." While I'm really, really excited to have placed at all, I'm sure that the fact that we just now made it onto people's radars enough to qualify us as a Best New Band says something about how our career is going. We also placed 6th in "Best Performing Band: Indie." You can see the rest of the results here. Thank you so much for voting, if you voted. If you didn't vote, what's your problem, ass?

So on Thursday, everyone but Jeff got off of work around noon and headed downtown to the METV building where we were interviewed and performed an acoustic version of "My New Year's Resolution Is To Cope With My Mortality." Jeff couldn't make it and Paul was stuck in traffic, so we taught their intern, Wes, the part and had him stand in for Paul, in case you were wondering who was holding the E in the video.

Afterward, we headed down to 6th St. to begin promoting our show with some free hugs and some free music.

We handed out about 400 3-song samplers and hugged hundreds and hundreds of people. This continued for a few hours and eventually, it was time to load in to the venue for our official SXSW showcase. After load in, we had some wings or burgers and began to mentally prepare for our show.

I was nervous about the show being a flop because the crowd at the venue had been fairly sparse all evening, but I was pleasantly surprised when it came time for us to play and the venue was packed wall to wall. We had a fun, energetic, and entertaining show, and if you didn't know anything about music, you might have even thought it sounded alright, too. Apparently, the sound was pretty awful. I couldn't hear myself singing on stage but I guess it was all you could hear in the crowd. The biggest problem was when Jeff busted a hole in his snare drum halfway through the set and there wasn't another snare to be found. It still sounded OK for a little while but by the end of the set it sounded like he was hitting a lose piece of paper with a stick. Which, essentially, he was. But the show was still good because we felt like we still connected to the audience, so, no real complaints. A lot of people online were praising the show so we were pleased enough.

My only real disappointment is that Bill Murray was at our venue after we played and I didn't get to even see him because I was off retrieving the van from its parking spot in a neighboring county.

The next day at work, I was tired. Really tired, and my computer was down for most of the day, so I was effectively worthless. After work, I headed straight downtown to the East Side Art House where we played the Red-Blue Records/Vital Signs showcase. It was a great crowd and probably the best sound we had all week. We all had a great time, and Leah even got to come see the show. One of my favorite things about this show was that we played early and I was in bed before midnight.

On Saturday, we had planned to go downtown and do the Free Hugs thing again, but after feeling how rough my voice got on Thursday and how difficult it was to control after a day of shouting over the din of the festival to hundreds of strangers, I opted to take the day and rest. The other guys were supposed to go without me but the weather got really cold and wet, and no one seemed to be able to build enough steam to go. So I had a lovely day of rest and relaxation with my beautiful family, took treats over to our friend's family and hung out with them a bit, put Harper to bed, and then went downtown for our 3rd show, the Music For The City showcase, where we were the headliner.

That show, which was the 5th most RSVPed event for that day with over 1500 RSVPs, was great for a lot of reasons. The lineup was great for starters and included our friends Jason Poe, and the Soldier Thread. Todd and Hollie were there as well, and I finally met Jason's wife, so I guess I have to stop telling people that he made her up now. Mitch from The Rocketboys also showed his glorious face there, but possibly my favorite memory of this show is how we chose to warm up beforehand. The show went great and I'm told that the sound was pretty decent so chalk up another win.

Sunday was a beautiful day, and when I wasn't hanging out with Leah, Harper, and Darcy, I was doing yard work and pulling weeds. At least until I noticed the giant gaping hole in my hand where a blister had formed, popped, and opened. After that I was done for the day. I left at about 7:30 to head down to the Hole In The Wall on the UT campus for our final SXSW show. The show was good and though the crowd was pretty small, I think we earned some new fans.

So now it's over, and I'm looking forward to a calm, relaxing night with my wife. Sometimes, I stop and think about how amazing she is, and it's so overwhelming that it really does get hard to breathe. I wish I were making that up because I realize how cheesy it is, but I'm not. So it goes.

I also wanted to make this a post about my brothers in Quiet Company. I count myself incredibly lucky to know and play with Tommy, Matt, Jeff, and Paul (Paul doesn't play in the band but he's part of the team, all the same).

Tommy has been with me the longest and I hope that I can still say that 40 years from now. Our partnership has been a hugely advantageous blessing to me, and I'm grateful for and humbled by his devotion to my songs.

Jeff is one of my favorite people, he's also one of my favorite drummers. I don't just mean out of the drummers I know, either. I mean he's one of my favorite drummers in the world. I love watching him play and I'm really honored that, while he could've played for any band he wanted after Ethan Durele broke up, he chose to come play with us.

Matt is another treasure that Craigslist has bestowed upon me. I'm not sure how many people know this, but Matt is easily the most talented musician in the band. After a year of playing together, I'm happy to say that where music and friendship are concerned, I really trust him. I know that I can rely on him to give 110% whether it's playing bass, recording, or just bringing the van and trailer downtown (a job he got stuck with far more often than was fair this week). I've never heard him complain. He is the consummate professional and I love having him in Quiet Company.

Paul is the driving force behind Quiet Company. When we first started talking about bringing Paul in to manage, I was really apprehensive because he's one of my best friends and I was nervous about mixing business and pleasure. As it turns out, it was possibly the smartest thing we've ever done. I know very few people that work as hard as Paul, and you know he does it because he has genuine faith in his friends and the music we make, because obviously we're not exactly raking in the dough.

So in summation:
1. SXSW was awesome and we live in the greatest city in America, possibly the world.
2. I love my wife so much it makes me, and others, sick.
3. I love my band

Every head he's had the pleasure to have known.

2010-03-17T12:06:00.000-07:00

Just finished packaging 200 three-song Quiet Company samplers. Each includes two songs from Everyone You Love Will Be Happy Soon and one song from the not yet released Songs For Staying In. If you want one, you'll have to come find us on 6th street tomorrow afternoon. We'll be the guys with ridiculous sandwich signs on, offering free hugs.

Tomorrow, the craziness of SXSW will overtake my life. It started today for Matt. He plays bass for an English band, Toy Horses, whenever they play in the states, and I believe they've got showcases today. I probably won't blog much more this week, if at all, because I'll be tired and I just don't imagine that I'll feel like it.

Good luck and godspeed.

I'm peeing like CRAZY!

2010-03-16T11:15:00.000-07:00

So the Texas Board of Education is revising (conservatizing) the standards for curriculum for History classes. They've decided to eliminate Thomas Jefferson. I'm sure he'll be mentioned, but it looks like it will be in passing. Go figure.

They also voted to exclude "examine the reasons the Founding Fathers protected religious freedom in America by barring government from promoting or disfavoring any particular religion over all others," from the standards. I think it's important to note that there are 5 Democrats and 10 Republicans on the board and everything conservative was passed with voting being straight down party lines.

Damn you, Board of Education, now I actually have to teach my daughter things at home.

Don't worry though, they're making a conscious effort to beef up the emphasis on the Right to Bare Arms. Because it's really...awesome...?

I'm drinking a ton of water this week in an attempt to be ultra hydrated in the hope that that will help my voice survive 1 practice, 4 shows, and a few hours of promoting and talking to people on the streets this week. The immediate result is that I'm peeing like crazy.

Whenever the old man at work creeps up behind me and starts talking, I die a little bit inside. I start wishing the phone to ring so I can get out of the conversation. He's not an asshole, he's just annoying. I wish he was an asshole so I could justifiably tell him to leave me the hell alone. Sometimes, I really hate being nice to people. Is there a nice way to say "I hate it when you talk to me?"

So it goes.

Yes, there is a minimally invasive surgery for that.

2010-03-15T07:17:00.000-07:00

1. If we're not opening for someone big, we're not playing on any day other than Friday or Saturday from now on, unless we're on a tour.

2. I'm really glad to have April off because it means no more shitty shows in the DFW area.

3. The show last night was fun but disappointing on other levels.

4. I feel like death warmed over.

5. I'm really tired, and I plan on falling asleep at my desk or in my boss's office today.

6. Last night, in Denton, I ran into a couple of guys I know that are in that band, Midlake, and they were with Danny Mastersen from That 70's Show. He was nice. They didn't come to our show as they were on their way to another club where Danny was DJing.

7. I watched a TON of Avatar: The Last Airbender this weekend and finished the series. It is awesome.

8. If someone had made me choose between world peace and crawling back in bed with my wife this morning, all the suffering masses would be S.O.L.

9. Leah made me watch the new Lady Gaga / Beyonce video. I would say I'm disappointed in Beyonce, but I guess I don't really give a shit. I wish Lady Gaga would just go away, but it doesn't look like that's going to happen.

Well you should see Polythene Pam, she's so good looking but she looks like a man.

2010-03-12T11:08:00.000-08:00

My heterosexual life mate, Paul, and his wife, Gina, brought a beautiful new baby daughter into the world last night. Hooray! I can't wait to meet her.

I didn't blog yesterday because I left work early, didn't have much to say, and didn't want to.

We drove to Dallas to play a private party with The Rocketboys for a company that works in the advertising media field. We were well paid, well fed (tacos), and well appreciated by a handful of people. Most people there didn't seem like the kind of people who would be into loud rock music, and judging by their reactions, they weren't.

Tonight is Leah and I's last full night together til after SXSW. We'll be trying our best to relish in it.

Today my scale posted my lightest weight in a long time. I was surprised because I know how many free tacos I ate last night. I didn't stop until I hated myself. But I was happy to see that my dieting has been paying off.

When Leah and I were in the process of buying our house, I had to make copies of her Social Security card, as well as her green card, and send them to the bank. I brought both cards with me to work, made copies, and took them home at the end of the day, where I was sure I remembered giving them back to my wife.

In the weeks leading up to our last Canada trip, we realized that the green card was no where to be found. The last time we had it was when I made copies, so the blame fell on me. I was pretty sure that I remembered giving them back to her and repeatedly said so, but I know as well as Leah knows that my memory is shit. I held my ground but even I started to think that I had lost them or forgotten them somewhere. I could tell that Leah never really believed that I had given them back, and had, in fact, lost them.

Getting into Canada was no problem, but on the way back we were held in customs, almost fined $500 for not having the green card, and very nearly missed our flight. It was harrowing, incredibly stressful, and made me feel awful because I knew she blamed me even if she didn't say so.

So we've been figuring out how to renew and replace her green card. She came to the office today to make copies of her Social Security and birth certificate and whatnot, and when she pulled out her Social Security card, I'm sure you can guess what was hidden behind it. If you guessed anything other than her green card, you're powers of deduction are lacking. I'm so very rarely right about anything so I just want to drink in my victory. I am vindicated. It was so funny and ridiculous. While we were sweating bullets about not getting back into the country, we were holding the "missing" card all along. Oh, life, you got us again!

Harper has started learning to walk. I've seen her do about 7 or so steps before falling. Give her another week and she'll be solid, I bet.

Is it raining?! There wasn't a cloud in the sky 10 minutes ago. Yeah man...Nature's crazy.

2010-03-10T10:46:00.000-08:00

My beard is getting pretty big, as my beards go. I've decided not to trim it until after SXSW. There's no real reason behind it, it's just the way it's going to be.

SXSW, and all big opportunities that the band gets, always comes with a certain inevitable anxiety. I'm sure it's a combination of the stress of getting around in a people flooded city that I dread, and the fear of colossal failure or being overlooked. Not to mention how much I'll be away from my family and how guilty I'll feel about my wife having to handle everything at home by herself while I chase dreams all over Sixth St. The other side of this coin is that once we get downtown and we're looking a little ridiculous, wearing huge sandwich signs advertising free hugs & music, and we're each hugging hundreds of strangers and introducing them to our music and inviting them to our shows, it's a lot of fucking fun!

My boss brought me the last two seasons of Avatar today, so I'm pumped about that. I assumed that they belonged to his 9 year old son, but I found out today that his son actually gave them to him for Christmas. People always surprise you, you know.

If a double decker bus crashes into us

2010-03-09T12:25:00.001-08:00

All I want to do is watch leave work, go the the mall with my loved ones, go for a walk with my dog, relax with my girls, watch How I Met Your Mother and Lost with Leah, eat salt and pepper chips, and watch Avatar: The Last Airbender. That's all I want to do.

We had rehearsal last night. Spent most of it working on a new song, "Preaching To The Choir Invisible, Pt. 2." Some songs don't lend themselves to being played to a rigid metronome and this is a first for us, but we're figuring it out. We've always played everything to a click, so this is us, stepping out of our comfort zone. We wanted to have it ready to unveil at SXSW, but we decided last night that that isn't going to happen. We'll probably pull it out at our CD release show in May, with who knows how many other new songs. We're also discussing covering "There Is A Light That Never Goes Out" by The Smiths, which I think would be a lot of fun.

I've decided that I should get around to buying a road case for my amp at some point so I don't have to fix it every other year. So if anyone has a road case to fit a Fender 410 Deville at a reasonable price, let me know.

Harper turned 10 months old yesterday. It really feels like just yesterday that we were bringing her home from the hospital. Leah has written another sweet "birthday" letter on her blog. I agree with everything she says. Best 10 months of my life.