A ROBOT THAT SMOKES CIGARETTES AND TELLS LIES

 I thought about tweeting this but there might be like 5 people who see it and that's too many.  There's no reason for anyone to come here anymore.

The only thing I want is for it to be 1989, and for my dad to have just come home with an Indiana Jones VHS he rented at Hastings and one of those long paper bags with two pizzas from Little Ceasar's.  

Nostalgia is a hell of a drug and I am a heavy user.

There's too much. I miss simple.

On Divorce.

I recently had a reasonably insignificant interaction with a person that stuck with me,  and as such I wanted to address something.  If you feel weird about being friends with Leah AND myself because we are divorced, don't.  It's cool.  I promise.

I didn't want to get divorced, which is to say it's not how anyone envisions their marriage playing out, but as divorces go, I think we're killing it.  In some weird way, I feel like I chose a good wife because of how well we've handled our divorce, and I know how counter-intuitive that statement seems, but fuck it, life is a highway and I want to drive it all night long.

Years ago, I took a vow to love and honor Leah, and I still aim to.  I don't feel like divorce has freed me of that vow, though that love certainly looks a lot different than how we originally thought.  Harper's existence is, of course, the thing that makes this so important.  When you have a kid, it doesn't really matter if you get divorced or not, you're never really done with that person.  And divorce doesn't change the fact that Harper will always look at my relationship with her mother as the blueprint for how a man should treat a woman.  It's still just as important to me that when she looks at us she sees what love and mutual respect looks like, and hopefully, she'll recognize when someone treats her with it or doesn't.

I don't want to paint an unrealistically sunny picture here.   Divorce fucking sucks and I've had a fairly unholy year.  I wouldn't wish it on anyone in a reasonably workable relationship.  I wish I'd done things differently and I'll probably always have regrets in one form or another, but that's probably true of any relationship old enough to be in the conversation.

But at the end of the day, I want Leah to be happy, and she seems to be.  She remains an amazing mother and Harper is the most well adjusted kid on the planet, so what could be more important than that?  Even I will probably find someone, eventually, that makes me happy, as well.  There's just too many people on this planet for the numbers to not be in my favor, even if I am more like George Costanza every day that goes by.

So be friends with me.  Be friends with Leah. There aren't any sides to choose, just a couple of imperfect people rooting for each other.

I keep none for myself.

So I haven't been here in a long time. Too much to do, too little to say, I guess. It's not you, blog, it's me. A lot has gone on, though. Working backwards; I put in my two weeks notice at my job yesterday. So in two weeks I'll play The Austin City Limits Festival and it will be the first show I play as a full time musician. I have a lot of emotions about this, as I'm sure anyone can imagine. I've been working the last 15 years to reach this point and I really hope that a year from now I'm not looking for another job. I'm excited and anxious and nervous and proud and frankly, scared out of my wits. Please tell your friends about Quiet Company, because now, my family's livelihood actually depends on my success.

 It's also imperative that our next tour goes well, because this is somewhat of a trial run with this booking agent, who is the booking agent we most wanted. So if you live near any of the following towns, please, please, please, make it your beeswax to be at these shows:

Oct. 20 - NYC, NY @ The Mercury Lounge (Official CMJ show, but you can buy tix at the door)
Oct. 21 - Rochester, NY @ Dubland Underground
Oct. 23 - Columbus, OH @ Rumba Cafe
Oct. 24 - Akron, OH @ Musica
Oct. 25 - Grand Rapids, MI @ The Intersection
Oct. 26 - Chicago, IL @ The Beat Kitchen
Oct. 27 - Chicago, IL @ a house show
Oct. 28 - St. Louis, MO @ Cicero's
Oct. 30 - Pontiac, MI @ Pike Room
Oct. 31 - Pittsburgh, PA @ Smiling Moose
Nov. 01 - Washington, DC @ The Black Cat
Nov. 02 - Philadelphia, PA @ Milkboy
Nov. 03 - Hoboken, NJ @ Maxwell's
Nov. 04 - Cambridge, MA @ The Middle East (upstairs)

All shows, except NYC, are with Brick + Mortar.

 We just returned a couple weeks ago from our first tour in a long while. We were out for about 2 weeks and I can say with no hesitation that it was our best tour ever, both financially, and emotionally. We had a great time, had generally great shows, and I had a real sense of purpose in what I was doing for the first time in a while. It also felt really nice to be playing outside of Texas. I love Texas more than anywhere but it's been feeling like too much of a good thing. 

Last Friday I played my second solo show at the Cactus Cafe. My position on solo acoustic performances is well known to those who know me well. For those who don't: I'm not for it, generally. I've been doing them for a few reasons, 1. it allows us to keep up our presence in Austin without having to play a show 2. it allows me to test new material 3. it gets me out of my comfort zone and forces me to develop further as a performer and 4. because the other guys in Quiet Company told me I should.

This last one was especially interesting for me, as I shared it with Chris Simpson and Lee Bozeman. My obsession with the work of these men is well documented, but getting Lee at the show was a special treat, as he hasn't played a show in 8 years. Friday night was proof of why that is such a tragedy because he was phenomenal. If I could steal anyone's voice, Lee and Freddie Mercury would be at the top of the list.

I played 6 new songs and 2 old ones. My setlist was:
The First Sonogram
The Road To Perdition
Red & Gold
The Parthenon
Hold My Head Above The Water
The Blood
The Pyre
Midnight At The Dairy Palace

 Titles are tentative.
Leah sang with me on "Hold My Head Above The Water" which was lovely, and Matt played piano on "The Pyre" and "Midnight..", which also did not suck. Reception of the new songs was good. So good that it made me more excited about writing the new record. I hadn't realized how excited I was about writing something that wouldn't offend 80% of America until that show. I don't regret anything I said on Belong, I meant every word and I needed to say it, but I am looking forward to not having to worry about other people's reception of the thing being affected or determined by preconceived beliefs. I'm sure our parents are looking forward to having their sons do something new that they're not apprehensive about sharing with their friends, as well.

 I flash between courageous and terrified with bipolar rapidity these days. I'm going to go have a panic attack now.

Kid farts are the worst.

Two records that I've been listening to lately are the newest Cursive and Nada Surf records, I Am Gemini and The Stars Are Indifferent To Astronomy, respectively.

Cursive is a band that is great because they are ever-evolving. Every record is pretty different from the last and incidentally, every record is great, in my opinion. The idea of this new record is one of the strangest ever attempted in indie rock; A concept record telling the story of two twin brothers that's demented, dark, and beautiful. I don't really want to talk about why I like the record as much as I just want to talk about the intensity with which I like it.

I love it. A lot.

Okay, moving on.

Nada Surf doesn't change, least ways, not in the past few records. Honestly, when I played the 1st track on the record for the first time and heard Nada Surf doing exactly what Nada Surf does, my initial reaction was "Really, guys? We're still doing this?" Maybe they don't know how to push themselves out of their comfort zone or maybe they just don't want to, but Nada Surf is comfortable in doing what they do, that much is clear. Thankfully, "what they do" is write really great songs. So after a listen or two, I found myself being pretty damn comfortable too. So while I would still love to hear Nada Surf come out of left field with something drastically different and amazing sometime soon, The Stars Are Indifferent To Astronomy will most likely end up on my Best Of 2012 list, all the same.

In personal news, SXSW and the Austin Music Awards have come and gone and both went well. I think we're all in agreement that it was the best SXSW yet.

In the Austin Music Awards, we did well...very well, actually. We took home 10 awards between the 5 of us, so if you voted, thank you very, very much. Our awards were:
Band of the Year - Quiet Company
Album of the Year - We Are All Where We Belong
Song of the Year - "You, Me, & The Boatman"
Performing Rock Band of the Year - Quiet Company
Performing Indie Band of the Year - Quiet Company
Producer of the Year - Matt Parmenter for We Are All Where We Belong
Drummer of the Year - Jeff Weathers
Songwriter of the Year - Taylor Muse
Male Vocalist of the Year - Taylor Muse
Musician of the Year - Taylor Muse

Now, I'm very grateful for all of these but I am aware of the inherent flaws in the awards. I know it's not about who's actually the best in town and is, at the end of the day, a popularity contest. I know I'm not the best vocalist in town, I can name several off the top of my head that make me look like a rank amateur, and "Musician of the Year?" I'm not even the best musician in our band! That being said, it is with great reverence to the universe's grand indifference to rhyme or reason, that I have accepted these awards. Past that, I am so fucking thankful for everyone that voted for us. Here's to an even better year.

Facebook: Where Christians get to be the majority and the martyr

Someone on Facebook posted a meme that said:
"Dear God,
Why do you allow so much violence in our schools?
A Concerned Student

Dear Concerned Student,
I'm not allowed in your schools.
God"

I find this type of thing annoying because it's super lame how the Christian right wants to shout at you about how this is a Christian country where everyone is Christian and the majority should rule, and then two seconds later play the victim like this. Facebook is rife with this sort of thing. Well, I crafted my own "god" response and posted it, and even though it was deleted by the person who posted the original meme, I was so proud of it I just reproduced it for you here:

"Dear Concerned Student,
Jehovah here. I hope I'm who you were looking for. You just said "god" and frankly, that could be any number of people up here, and since America alone is home to hundreds of religions worshiping different deities it's important to specify.
What I meant to say is that I'm actually just as welcome in schools as I ever was, it's just that the constitution prohibits any publicly owned institution, such as a public school, from forcing you to worship or acknowledge me in anyway if you don't choose to. This has always been the case, but I suppose it's becoming more and more important to adhere to as your country's culture continues to diversify. I'm sure you can see how the separation of church and state allows both things to flourish without the other's influence or control and protects your religious, or non religious, freedoms. Your founding fathers understood how terrible it would be to have any governmental authority figure mandate how, when, or what you should worship, if anything. I don't know why this concept seems to be lost on so many conservatives. Anyway, I'm rambling.

As far as your question goes, I have to quote Epicurus:
'Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able?
Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing?
Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing?
Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing?
Then why call him God?'

I hate to admit it but he did zing me with that one. Violence in school is a bummer though. Did you see that Youtube video where the fat kid is being bullied by the skinny kid and his friends and eventually he just has enough of it and picks up the skinny kid and body slams the crap out of him? That was awesome! I watched that thing like 4 times in a row. Anyway, I digress.

Look, I'd love to help you out but I don't really like to get involved, I'm more of a "hands off" deity. You guys are great, though, I'm sure you'll figure it out.
Best of luck and peace in the Middle East!
God.

I had another line in there that had god talking about watching old Wrestlemania videos online, but it just seemed like too much.

Campaignin'

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!

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.