I'm Kevin and this is my life. I'm 22 years old, I'm trying to figure out what the hell to do with my life while working a dead end job, and I'm gay.
Email is in my profile for MSN or whatever.
I've been thinking lately, and I've decided that I'm going to stop blogging, at least for the foreseeable future. I'll still be around the blog world, and I'm going to leave this up, but I won't be posting for a while. I'd still love to email with you guys though. I just feel I've been a bad blogger for a while now, and it doesn't give me quite the thrill that it used to. This blog, and all of you, have helped me more than you will ever know. Shit, I'd probably be dead if it wasn't for the blog and you guys. So thank you. I'm going to leave you with a collection of songs that I've made. I've recorded these over a period of time, but never posted them. Some of them I didn't feel were good enough, others I just forgot about. They're of varying styles, and quality. Some of them I recorded with my full mics and everything, others were recorded with the mic on my laptop. And everywhere in between. All of them, except Anubis, are covers. Enjoy!
Don't Call Me White (NOFX)
Puerto Rico (The Big Wu)
The Outsider (A Perfect Circle)
Naked And Famous (The Presidents Of The United States Of America)
327 (Crankshaft And The Gear Grinders)
Anubis (ME!)
Diamond Eyes (Deftones)
Scream! (Misfits)
Bother (Stone Sour)
Spiders (System Of A Down)
The Fiddle And The Drum (A Perfect Circle)
Happy (Mudvayne)
Voices (Godsmack)
Attack Of The Butterflies (Graves)
Dammit, I Changed Again (The Offspring)
And because I'm such a fucking whore, I need to ask one more favor of you guys. Crankshaft (yeah, it's one of those) is in a competition to win $25000. All you have to do is go here and vote. You can vote once an hour. He's in first place, but it goes until September 8th, and he needs all the help he can get. I promise it's the last time I'll bug you guys about it.
And, come on, he can make one hell of an exit. (Watch until the end)
It's been a hell of ride, and I'm glad you guys were all there with me. I'll still be around, just don't expect a post anytime soon. I'm sure someday I'll post again. But like I said, I'd love to still email with all of you. If you don't have my address, it's in my profile. We can chat, you can drop a line, pester me with bands and contests like I've done to you. Anything. I'm a sucker for attention, so even if it's one word saying 'hi', I'd love it.
Gabe had a way with words. Something I don't usually have. He mentioned this was part of a collection of scribbles he wanted to make into the epic of the sidewalk junkie. I don't know if that ever happened, or got to see other parts. He had mentioned making it into a song, but didn't know how. I was a little surprised when I first started to get to know him, that he liked punk rock. He even said he'd like to have tattoos like Lars from Rancid once. Well, I can't write very well, I can't sing, but I can play music decently. So I took his Sidewalk scribble and turned it into this.
Here's to you Gabe. I hope this was somewhere in your vision for the song. I hope you're happy now.
What would have been the first part of an Epic Of The Sidewalk Junkie.
Hiya! Miss me? I missed you. We should get together more often.
So River's Edge happened last weekend. I won't go into huge detail, but it was the coolest thing ever! Most of the bands throughout the day we didn't care about, but it was nice to hang out with music going on in the background. A surprise was seeing Sublime (with Rome). I really like Sublime, but the videos I'd seen of the 'with Rome' (the new version of Sublime since Bradley died) weren't that good. It just wasn't the same, and I thought they shouldn't continue under the Sublime name. But seeing them live was a big surprise. They were actually pretty damn good. I had heard that the original drummer had left the band last year, but didn't know who replaced him. Then come to find out that it was non other than Josh Freese, from A Perfect Circle, The Vandals, and Devo fame, among others. He's been one of my favorite drummers for a long time, and I'd only seen him live once before. So that was a great surprise. That probably made me like Sublime better too.
Josh drumming with Nine Inch Nails
Then came Tool. It's kind of hard for me to remember everything that happened, but I know it was awesome. Seeing them outside was interesting. It was hard, since they have a lot of visuals and the sun was still up when they started, but they made it work. And they busted out some new visuals that were amazing. I tried to find good quality videos on youtube, but there really aren't any. I found one that's pretty good though.
Sunday, all I cared to see was Puscifer. They went with an airline theme (Vagina Air) and it was hilarious seeing Maynard and crew dressed as a pilot and flight crew for the whole set, even though it was 90+ degrees out. Again, I don't remember much, but I'd say it was the best time I've seen them live. I looked for videos, and they were even worse than the Tool one's, so I won't bother. I'm hoping sometime soon some good quality ones will show up, but who knows.
Also, last weekend was Minneapolis' gay pride fest. The timing sucked, because I was in St. Paul at the show, so I couldn't make it to any of the festivities. But I heard it was a great time, and I'm proud to live in such a gay friendly city. Yeah sure, we still have the fucking assholes that think it's an abomination and all that noise, but as a whole, I think we're pretty accepting. They even re-lit the new(ish) 35W bridge for the weekend.
Uhhh.....What else...Oh, I guess I can upload the other song I wrote for E.M.P. Again, it's a little different than how it was going to be with the band, but it's still fun to play. Oh, and it helps if you record with a metronome if you're not going to record drums first....
I guess that's about it for now. Working through the weekend, and a bit on the 4th. Going to see Crankshaft and The Gear Grinders on Monday with my mom, so that'll be cool. Have you guys checked them out yet? Have you gone bankrupt giving them all your money yet? Yeah? Good! (whore moment)
So yeah. That's it. I should go to bed now. It's almost 4 AM. Smoke a smoke, and we'll see what happens I guess.
Now that my band is deceased, I was disappointed that some of the songs I'd written never got recorded. I thought they were relatively good musically and lyrically, and they had a special meaning to me. But then I thought, I have the ability, and the technology (we can rebuild him) to do it myself. So last night I recorded this song. This one especially has a special meaning to me.
This one is a little different than what I'm used to, and I changed it a bit from how the band did it, but I like it. I present to you:
Well fuck, I've been a bad blogger, and emailer, lately. I could list off excuses, but would you care? Nope. So to all, I apologize. Hopefully I'll get it back together, but if I don't, please don't kill me.
Uhmm, let's see...I took my motorcycle safety class a couple weekends ago which was pretty interesting. Most of it was pretty easy, but there were a few challenges. Most of which were weather related. The first day wasn't too warm, but it was raining almost the whole time, so that made it pretty slick out. But I got to experience things like locking up the rear wheel and skidding in a controlled environment, which was nice. Then the next day it was 95 degrees out with way too much humidity, so we were all drenched in sweat. In the 5 hour class, I drank 4 liters of water, and another 2 when I got to work after, and I was still dehydrated. Took me a couple days to recover from the weekend. But at the end I took the test and passed, so I got my motorcycle license! That's one of my excuses for being a horrible blogger, I've been spending almost all of my free time riding the bike. Even getting home from work at midnight and going for a ride. It's awesome!
What's really cool, now that it's so fucking hot out, is I don't have to wear my big leather jacket anymore. Well, I guess I never HAD to wear it, but I like my skin on my body. Anyways. I found a company online that makes long sleeve shirts out of kevlar. They're really porous, so at speed it doesn't feel like I have anything on, but kevlar has a high abrasion resistance, so when I fall, I won't get smeared on the concrete. It doesn't have any padding, so I'll still probably break my arm or whatever, but my leather jacket doesn't either, so I'm basically at the same level of protection. And the company also makes kevlar liners for under your pants. They're basically long underwear made out of kevlar, for the same reason. So now when I go out in 95 degree weather, I'm not baking alive in leather! Yay!
Uh..I've got some concerts coming up that are going to be pretty sweet. June 23rd is TooL, and the 24th is Puscifer. I was amazed to learn that they were playing at the same festival. Usually Maynard (Tool, Puscifer, wine. Google it) likes to keep all of his things separate, but for some reason, he's playing with both. What's really cool, is Tool tickets are usually around $60, and Puscifer tickets are usually around $60, and the two day festival tickets were $120. But there are a whole other bunch of bands playing. Granted, most of them I don't care to see, but some will be worth checking out. I'm not a big Flaming Lips fan, but I hear they put on a great live show, so that might be cool. River's Edge
Later in the summer, I'll be going to Big Wu Family Reunion, but I'll talk more about that when it gets closer.
Most of you, if any, won't remember a band I mentioned on here a while back called the Mojo Spleens. They're a local surf punk band, self described as 'the fastest surf band around. It's kinda like Dick Dale on PCP'. Well it had been a while since I'd heard anything from them, and since I've rather dropped out of the local punk scene I was out of the loop. But I came across a new band the other day, fronted by non other than Alex Larson, guitar player for the Spleens. So I decided to check out his new project, Crankshaft. It started as a one man band, just him playing guitar, the drums with his feet, some harmonica, and singing. But now it switches between that and a whole band. Both versions are great in their own respects, offering different moods and feelings on the same songs. I bought a cd, and really liked it. Even my parents, who after hearing the Spleens were convinced they would hate it, liked it a lot. Then I went to a show of their's, and I feel in love. So now I'm kind of a Crankshaft whore, and am peddling it to anyone and everyone I know. So I'll do it to you guys too! Hey, who doesn't love down and dirty blues? So go to the website, buy some cds, give them all of your money, and check him out when he comes to your town. Alex quit his day job and is trying to make a living as a musician, so just start throwing money at him. After you listen to it, you'll want to anyways.
Well this got a bit long. Sorry about that. I'll leave you now with a Crankshaft video (or 2. Hey, I said I was a whore) and another cover that I did.
Andy, DJ, Jeff, Paul, and myself had been kicking around the idea of doing a song together for a while. I did my part waaaay back in February. And then it kind of fell apart....But now it's done! And damn, I am impressed. The last I heard it, was just my drum and bass parts. Now it's a whole song. Big shout out to Andy, DJ, Jeff, and Paul for putting in the time and getting this thing done. I'm happy.
I'll send you to Jeff's page, as he does a better job of explaining it, I think.
Kaija is finally trained, and I don't have to work as much! Thank god! I get a real day off tomorrow for what feels like years. Can you tell I'm excited?
Still rather messed up about finding out about Gabe the other day. I keep going through in my mind if there was something I could have done. I know there wasn't. I was just some guy on the internet to him. Hell, I don't even know what he really thought about me. But do we ever? It's impossible to judge what people actually think about you online. He could have hated me, and only tolerated me being on his blog. I doubt it, but it's possible. I just get so tired of sitting back helplessly watching people around me hurt themselves. There is nothing worse than watching someone self destruct right in front of you, and you know there's nothing you can do about. As time goes by, I keep hearing about people I know or used to know that lost the battle and are gone. It's fucking bullshit.
Ah crap. Now I've gone and gotten myself all worked up again when I wanted this to be a happy post. I recorded another song, but for some reason I can't get divshare to load, so I can't upload it right now. (Jeff, PUTV is coming...don't worry) So that'll be around when divshare decides to stop being a bastard.
I think I'm going to go to bed, and sleep for the next six years. Or at least the next 24 hours.
Hi guys. Sorry I've been quite lately. We had a guy quit at work, so I've been covering his shifts. Which means working 60/70 hour weeks without days off. Which means I'm a little tired. But my friend Kaija got hired, and will be training in next week, so hopefully my life will calm down soon.
Anyways, one of the perks of working so much, is I have money. So I've done a little splurging lately. And you might say I've gone a little two wheel crazy. I'm sure you remember our crazy ass bike rides we go on during the summer, and some of you might remember my low rider cruiser bike that I have. If not, here's a picture.
And yes, my pedal is on the ground....
Anyways, so I'd been searching craigslist looking for another bike. I like the long one, but it can be a bit hard to ride. And now that I don't have my truck, it's hard to transport, considering it's a little over 8.5 feet long. And then I came across this:
A 1948 Western Flyer that was slightly customized by the previous owner. That thing is awesome, but it's been a little cold lately so we haven't had a big ride yet, and I don't know how it will do. I'm sure it'll be fine, and I've ridden around by myself, but it's different in the group setting, you know?
And now I've done it again, although this time, a little differently.
2001 Honda Shadow 750. Went and got my motorcycle permit last Friday, and bought the bike on Monday. I've ridden it around town some, and it's a blast. It wasn't as hard as I thought it'd be, but I have ridden dirt bikes in the past, so maybe that's why. Now if I can figure it out with my work schedule, I'm going to take a basic riders course and get my endorsement. With only my permit, I can't ride at night, on the highway, or with a passenger. I also have to wear a helmet (MN doesn't have helmet laws) but I'm going to do that even with my endorsement. The only thing that sucks, is that they only offer the course on nights and weekends. And I only work on nights and weekends. I'll have to call in some favors to get some time off or something. Hopefully. I could just go to the DMV and take the test, but I'll learn a lot from the class, and I think I'll do better. Too bad their schedule sucks. I mean, you would think they would offer at least one morning/afternoon class, but no. Fuckers.
So that's about all I've been up to lately. Working, and now bikes. Now I just need the weather to a little nicer, and I'll be able to ride them all more.
Well, my parents are back in town, so this will be the last of the late night recording binge. They went skiing for the weekend up in Lusten (although, I don't know how good the skiing was, considering it was 60 damn degrees here all weekend). Thanks for all the support! I had a blast doing it.
This one isn't my favorite. It had been forever since I'd played it on the drums, so I messed up a few times. And, I can't scream, so it's instrumental.
Finally, after over 5 years, my dad and I got our old jukebox working again. My grandparents bought it for their old, old cabin, and when that was sold, it ended up at our house. It worked fine for years, until one day it just stopped. I was pissed, so one day I got deep into the depths of google trying to find anything about a 1964 Rock-Ola jukebox. Well, it took me a long time, but I finally found some stuff, and then ripped into the box to figure it out. One of the motors seized up, and it wouldn't work. I found some guy on a forum who rebuilds things like that, and after talking to him, shipped it off. He was pretty good, got it back in about a month. He said it would have been sooner, but he was in the hospital for a bit for some problem. Anyways, he sent the motor back and instructions for lubing it and putting it back in. Great, right? You'd think I'd just throw it in and all would be good? But no. I got a little lazy, and the install was more in-depth than the removal, so I was a little nervous doing it myself. So then it got put on my dad. Who also got a little lazy. And then we just kind of forgot about it. My brother and I would think about doing it at really random times. Him, usually during a party here and usually high. And me, at 3 in the morning really wanting to listen to it. But it never got done. Until now.
Finally, my dad found the motivation and time to put it all back together. So I come home one day and it's all together, but it still didn't work. Something else was wrong. So my dad spent the last week diagnosing it and fixing it. I got super excited (a little too early) and went on ebay and started buying all the 7 inches I ever wanted that I could get my hands on. All the records that were already in the jukebox were either my grandparents, or my parents. But because I'd grown up with them, I loved a lot of the songs. But some of them I couldn't stand, so I wanted to replace them. My goal was to make a punk rock jukebox. It kind of worked. I spent about $250 on records, and all but a few have shown up. So now about a third of the records are punk. Which is fucking awesome!
Anyways, to the point of all this. As I'm sure most of you know, I haven't exactly been the happiest person for the last month or so. Some things have helped to cheer me up, like my birthday, but overall I just wasn't doing well. I even went up to my aunt and uncle's on Sunday to get away for a night. That helped a lot, and I was relatively happy for a day. But once I got back home, and back to work, things were basically back to how they were.
But today, the jukebox is completed, and I got to listen to all my records, old and new, for the first time. Hearing all the old songs again brought me a pleasure I wasn't sure was possible. Some of the songs I'd heard on the radio, or youtube, but it wasn't the same without the vinyl pops or coming from the jukebox. But when I heard specifically the song 'The Wars End' by Rancid through the jukebox for the first time, I couldn't control my happiness. I had a huge grin on my face and I was jumping around all crazy like. This is the first thing to make me genuinely happy in a long, long time, and I can't get over it. I've been listening to all the tracks since about 8 oclock tonight, and it's almost 4 AM. I'm realizing that it's hard for me to convey the importance of all this to you guys, but I really don't care. It's so fucking cool! My mom was laughing at how excited I am. But I don't care. This is the first thing to go right in a long time, and I'm going to enjoy it, damn it!
I'll leave you with some pictures.
The track listing (still incomplete. I need to buy more records!)
I really like this title strip. It barely fit. Haha!
Hey guys. Well I'm back at my parent's place. It's a really long story that I don't really want to type out. It takes me about 30 minutes to speak it, so I don't want to know how long it would take to type it. Plus it might get a little confusing without all the background information, which would just make it all even longer. But long story short, an incident happened about 2 weeks ago, and I'd been asked to move out 3 times since then. The first two times were resolved, but the last time it wasn't, and I'd given up fighting. There were some outside influences involved that didn't help, and it was going to get messy if I didn't leave. So I decided to be the bigger person and do what was best (easiest) for everyone and move out. Am I sad? Yes. Am I mad? Hell yeah. But I've had time to digest it all and I think it'll be ok. If anything, I want to keep my friendship with Aaron, and if that means moving out, then so be it. Just sucks I had to move out 34 days after moving in.
So that's what was going on with the last post. Sorry for the lack of details. I haven't been sleeping too well lately, so I think I'm going to try and get some sleep now. Probably won't happen, but it definitely won't happen if I'm on here. I'll talk to you guys soon.
Hey guys. Sorry it's been a while. I've finally moved, and am getting settled in. It's kind of interesting not living at home, but I like it. The 50 mile commute to work every day kinda sucks ass though. Umm..Not really sure what to talk about. I realized this is my 100th post, and according to some unwritten blog rules, I think that's supposed to be something special, and I'm supposed to do something special. Am I? Well...Kind of. I just want to say thank you to everyone who has taken the time to read about my lame ass excuse for a life. And to those of you that comment, I thank you twice. And for those of you who have been around for it all, the good, bad, ugly, whatever, I thank you thrice.
And that's about it.
Oh yeah. And I found some of those weird, lame, totally pointless, waste of everyone's time, stupid, shitty quizzes about you that no one wants to read and filled them out. So now you're going to read through those, because let's face it, that's why you're here. To read what I type. Ahahahaha! I have total control.
Good. I'm done. That sucked. Never again. I figured there were some random things you guys didn't know about me, and I don't think those quizzes asked any of them. But there you go. Here's a song about moving out.
Hope you guys are well!
143
_Kevin
(Yeah, there'll be a more meaningful post sometime kinda, sorta soonish. Maybe. No promises. But yeah. I'm getting kind of bad with the whole regular posting thing. Sorry.) (Ok. bed.) (.) ()
