I Found the F

In less than 12 hours I will be out of my home and closer to hitting the road. I officially leave Tuesday, but in the days between now and then I'm still going to be away from home, staying with my girlfriend and bringing in the new year. I haven't seen Amanda in ages, but so far we've planned to spend a lot of money by seeing Brokeback Mountain, eating at Mikimotos and buying shit at the mall.

I'm trying to really think hard about all the shit I need before I leave. So far I have packed my razor, an extra pair of jeans, three or four shirts and two books (My newly acquired copy of "Metamorphosis" by Kafka and my work-in-progress, Burrough's "Junk"). I hope my copy of Blue Velvet comes in the mail before I leave tomorrow so I can bring that with me too. No matter what, I can't forget my blankets, pillows, ipod and/or my cellphone charger, otherwise I'm fucked. I also need to figure out what kind of food I plan on bringing along. Speaking of food, I just finished eating some microwavable mini-quesidillas, and they were quite impressive.

The show last night was pretty fucking crazy, like I expected. There must have been over 400 kids there, and the show was set up so it had alternating stages, so when the band finished all the people in the fucking place marched to the other stage. I just remember being all set up and just standing around waiting after we were all sound-checked and then all of a sudden seeing 400 people start marching towards me. I was so fucking nervous- at least, the most nervous I have ever been at a show. My heart is always a little racey, but this was a lot more intense. The crowd of 400 was probably cut down to 150 by the time we finished two songs. As I prophesied, people really didn't want to hear our shit. I think certain shows we play we really turn people off because most people just want it to be really simple, unchallenging and ultimately predictable. All in all, I wasn't heartbroken after I thought about it. It was a nice little tour warm-up and I am glad we played it because it would have sucked going into tour without having played a show for close to six weeks.

Let me also say that we should never go that long without playing a show. I was sore as shit today. I woke up at like 2pm and went straight to the shower. My post-shower painfilled day consisted of one almost compelete game of Genus III version of Trivial Pursuit with David, Ryan and the Dougler, one Old Milwaukee, one 40 of O.E. and 7 or 8 Ibuprofen. Passed out for about one hour. Woke up to being screamed at. Confrontation with family about not getting out of bed to get the vacuum cleaner from across the street, ended with me crying in front of everyone and walking around the block on the phone with Amanda until i regained my composure.

Phew.

I also need to update my musical devices so I can have new things to listen to. the ipod is already taken care of (NEW Bleeding Kansas, Mount Eerie, Broadcast's "Tender Buttons", One Dead Three Wounded, Entombed, Low, Pig Destroyer and Serena Maneesh), but I still need to update my phone.

Go to sleep Matt. Nobody cares.

Wouldn't Have it Any Other Way

Words cannot express the level of stress I have been experiencing the last couple days. Tomorrow we are going to be playing a really interesting show in Aston, PA with August Burns Red, Bela Kiss, The Divining, The Burning Season and quite a few other bands. So needless to say, I'm a little worried about My America's placement on the bill. It is a great oppurtunity, and it's really cool to play with some very recognized acts, but at the same time I hope we are well received. We are going to be playing a slightly revamped sort-of-tour-setlist. Mainly, we will be playing a new song that we just finished about two hours ago today.

I think we can safely say this is the first song written for our next release. This song represents the sort of direction we are heading in with the next batch of songs, and is sort of a little precursor to all of the things we want to accomplish when we hit the studio this spring.

I hope after this song that some of the songs come together a little easier. Working on this song and finally completing it was an extremely difficult undertaking. Today was I believe our 5th session on that particular song. We rehearsed aruond four hours on Tuesday and Wednesday last week, as well as Monday-Wed. this week if I am not mistaken.

I don't know if we are just more picky now and have really high expectations (and the song is really tight and well practiced) OR it's just deteriorating musical talent and exteremely difficult shit that is taking forever.

We have some beginnings of some other songs/ideas too, but they are all in their most humble stages. We have decided on the next idea we are going to be working on, but we have a lot of stuff to do before we get to that. We are still so stressed out getting prepared for tour. So finishing this song, and playing a show tomorrow hasn't made any of this shit any easier. It's been a challenge to say the least. I can't say we have ever really worked this hard, at least in the songwriting department.

Brian and I drove seperate from David this afternoon so he could leave earlier, meeting up first at Earl Teat's so I could get a pack of back-up guitar strings. Then we pretty much just played the completed instrumental of the new jam, a little fine-tuning went on, but mostly repeating parts over and over so David could work in his parts. After David left for his dinner engagement, Brian, Andy and I worked for another hour or so and then watched the Flyers game.

We rounded out practice by throwing a nice little area rug on the bottom of our trailer, which works out really well. Then we loaded it up, and went our seperate ways and now I am finally just settling in at home. Maybe eating a pot-pie?

I don't know how I have been doing it lately. All I have been doing is band shit, which is extremely frustrating. It's going to be nice to have a little break after this show tomorrow. I need to have fun for New Year's, hang out with my girlfriend, eat food. Relax. Sleep. Shop? Things I haven't been doing much of. After tomorrow's show, I'll be back at home for maybe another night that is completely free. I imagine I'll be headed upstate for New Year's engagements on New Year's eve, during the day. Get to see my girlfriend, who I haven't seen in close to two weeks, see some other friends, have some drinks. Then after that I'll stay with Amanda for two more nights before we head for Altoona on the 3rd.

So after tomorrow I should have a little breather. Let's hope so.

Although, I feel like I am complaining entirely too much. I feel really bad for Amanda, who has worked like 100 hours since I last saw her. I have just been hanging out with my friends writing songs. It's still sort of tough though. I guess I'm not sure. Maybe it just seems that way?

Terrifyer

Sometimes I feel like I have a lot to say. I hold back a lot. I think if I really plan on being a writer someday I need to exercise my fingers and my mind a little. It's not that I like my life that much, or I think I am that interesting, this is just practice for me.

Maybe I will actually stay relatively up-to-date with this thing. I hope so. It could be a good thing.