New Aquisitions

I got this this week.

I pre-ordered these back in May and received them on the exact day the record was released, not a day sooner or later. I’ve been looking forward to this record much like the H2O record with intense anticipation, but not letting myself get to built up, knowing that bands who sign to majors often blow it multiple times before getting their head back on straight.

The full length (to the left) is on 180g, black vinyl and is so dang shiny I couldn’t get a good picture without the reflection of my arms over top of it. Some may say the weight of the vinyl doesn’t matter in turns of sound quality, but it is still insane how clear this sounds. I’ve been trying to hear the guitar/bass lines on “I Found A Way” (my favorite song on the record) for a week now and I can finally hear exactly what’s happening.

The cover is gatefold which is sweet. Although the art is kinda weak in my opinion.

I think the first time I saw Alkaline Trio was right before (or after, my memory is bad these days) they released From Here to the Infirmary at St Andrews Church in College Park, MD. Saves the Day and Dashboard Confessional played the show as well and I remember being pretty much blown away by every band. The church held many many many many good shows before some assholes decided to start lighting off fireworks inside the building and then the church raised it’s rent price up to $1000, which in turn made shows impossible. Anyway, that show was nuts and so has A3 been every time I’ve seen them since, although I hear they stopped playing “95” which is definitely a bummer.

So along with the full length, I got this 7″ single included with the pre-order.

It’s pretty sweet. It has their first single off the record “Help Me” on the A, and a cover of Tegan and Sarah’s “Wake Up Exhausted” on the B. Pretty awesome. Punknews is giving it away here. Good luck winning that. I just checked and there are already 6 copies on ebay. Ridiculous.

7 Years and Worth the Wait

IT FINALLY CAME

It’s been a long long long time coming. I pre-ordered it sometime in May and was hoping to have it before the actual release date (as is the custom with pre-ordering), but because of pressing delays (excuses excuses) I didn’t get it until last Monday (I thinkI need just one more set of parentheses in this sentence). I got it on white vinyl. I believe it’s number 736 out of 800.

So the cool stuff….My favorite first. On Side A the picture is from like 1995. They are all crazy crazy young. Toby doesn’t have his parental wisdom face lines yet, Todd Morse hasn’t moved to hollywood and become all fashioned-out, Rusty doesn’t have sleeves or gray hair, Adam looks like I did when I was 22 (meaning 16 (damn parentheses again!)), and Todd Friend looks exactly like he does today, which I think is awesome.

The second sweet thing about this record is the insert. Usually these are made up of pictures of the band at different shows, press pictures, etc, etc. This insert as you can see is mostly made up of pictures of the band members and their families. “Life after Hardcore” is not something that a lot of bands in this genre survive long enough to experience together. It’s pretty much what the entire record is about. It screams, “Look at us. We’re grown up, we have families, we have real jobs, we’re RESPONSIBLE citizens. WHAT?! WHAT?! WHAT YOU GONNA SAY?!” It’s something a lot of “real” hardcore kids say they never want or that they can’t achieve for whatever reason (throat tattoos, inability to hold down a job, poor parental upbringing). Anyway, the point I’m trying to make is that a lot of hardcore wouldn’t exist if it wasn’t for DMS and NYHC, and almost all of those guys found something outside of hardcore to sustain themselves. All the kids out there that think this is selling out, they got it wrong. This is the real world and you can’t be broke forever. It’s OK to grow up a little bit. If you don’t have kids and support them the way you’re supposed to then you can’t have kids like Max. You can’t take them to shows and show them everything that was (is) awesome about hardcore and the community. A lot of kids that are my age just barely caught the end of the era when it meant something that you listened to hardcore. Anyway, I’m rambling on and on and on and on and on. It could get ugly quick if I don’t stop myself. I obviously love H2O and have since the first time I saw them in 1997. I’m starting to think about an H2O tattoo. It’s gonna be sweet.

And so I’m Swimming…

Hi. My name is Jeremiah and I’m lazy. I’m going to get better at updating this.

I promise.

Who am I kidding? I probably won’t. Anyway…

So on the wreck cords front I got this.

I first bought this EP in the summer of 2004, shortly after I met Leah, I believe when she was spending 3 weeks falling in love with Dolores Park and San Francisco. This was really the last good MTB record IMO. The following full lengths, Menos el Oso and Planet of Ice, began to get more serious/experimental/electronic, and drifted away from the fun, partying inspired catchiness of This is What I Know About Being Gigantic and Highly Refined Pirates. If you get a chance check those out cause they will blow your mind with awesomeness. Anyway, the vinyl is a sweet rainbow (no homo) splatter. 1st pressing on 12″ and comes with a bonus track , Houston We Have Uh-Oh!, that was not included on the original CD. The song is alright, nothing super inspiring or mind blowing though. It fits very nicely with the rest of the record.

Let’s see, I’m pretty sure I mentioned that I pre-ordered the new H2O record, Nothing To Prove, like 9 years ago and b9 had apparently a million problems with the pressing plant, and as a result, it just shipped today. This is good news since I can stop accusing them of being the laziest label on the planet (when it comes to shipping) and also stop thinking of the 1000000 possible ways that I can probably improve the shipping process, because that’s my job. I know I did not mention before that I pre-ordered the new Alkaline Trio that also comes with a bonus 7″. I’m excited about that. The video for the first single is nothing revolutionary, but the song itself is pretty sweet.

Speaking of videos…(that was a sweet transition wasn’t it)…..

The H2O record release show was nuts!!! Sooooo much fun. Lot’s of stage dives, I acquired a new very small chip in one of my teeth and some sweet footie of me stage diving. You can check it here and here as well . I’m about 10 seconds into the ISHC video (the second link), the second guy to dive. I then show up in the fourth song of the H2O set. I’m doing a headstand for about 20 seconds on top of a bunch of people…definitely one of my finer moments.  If you don’t want to watch it, here are the screen shots. It looks way cooler in real time though. Toby’s son, Max, has lots of short little parts that you can hear, but not quite see. Lord Ezac was there…Dude has DMS tattooed on the back of his head. That’s some loyalty for real. The new H2O video for What Happened? is much better than the A3 video. You can check that here. Lou Koller’s part is killer.

What else has happened in the last month?….Well, Leah turned a quarter of a century and got a new bike, that actually just arrived yesterday. Our sweet friends Gabe and Kathleen cooked us dinner and we had 4 bottles of wine and a good time. Then we went wine tasting that weekend in Paso Robles, which was nuts. 15 people, 4 wineries, a party bus, and lots and lots of alcohol. Pretty awesome time. I remember more than Gabe (super tall guy in the back) which makes me feel a little better. Gibson (plaid shirt up front) discovered he has a gift for throwing pots. I wish I had some pics of the stuff he made, he must have sat at that wheel for like 2 hours.

Yesterday, Saturday the 14th, we had a pretty busy vacation type day. Leah got cancelled so we took the opportunity to go down to San Onofre and try to get her on a wave one last time. Which didn’t work out so well, but she came close and did very well for not surfing in almost a year. I’m going to try and talk her into going back next weekend and maybe bring Gabe and Kathleen with us. We then went to breakfast and headed back home for a hot second before going to experience “The Wedge”. The wedge is a ridiculous looking wave at the very end of Newport Harbor. The beach faces a ridculous South by South East angle (if that makes sense to any of you I’m amazed) and catches incoming South Swell very well. Well there’s a jetty that sticks about 200 yards out into the ocean and the swell bounces off the jetty and meets up with incoming waves, forming this bonkers looking thing that resembles a wedge. You can kind of see it in this picture. The white water on the left edge would be the wave coming back after bouncing off the jetty. Pretty famous body boarding and body surfing spot. Waves can get up to 40 feet when the swell is right. Many people have broken their necks/become paralyzed/died here. So Gabe, Kathleen’s brother, Hunt, and I went down for about two hours and tried to kill ourselves. Before you start thinking I’ve totally lost my mind, surf was only 4 foot to head high so no deaths occurred, but I did get severely worked. Gabe’s text to me this morning, “Me and Hunt both feel like we got in seven consecutive car accidents.”

So we only have 6 weeks left in Cali. It’s crazy. I’m feeling a little nervous now, but it will all go well I’m sure. Leah booked the moving containers we’re using this week. Those should arrive a couple days after we do. We’ve pretty much planned our driving trip. We’re going to take the southern route through Texas, stopping in El Paso the first day, Austin the second, then two days in New Orleans, then up to Nashville, and then to Richmond! That last one is going to be the hardest I think. Wouldn’t be surprised if we just got so excited to be back that we just blew it off and drove straight all the way from N.O.

I think that gets us caught up. I”ll be better from now on…..

Take a Swing at the World

Everyone at work is making me extremely angry right now, so I’m writing this while listening to ceremony and trying to escape for a little while. 

Playlist for today:

Except for today, life has been pretty good lately.  The NFG/ISHC show was INSANE! Sooooo much fun.  I swear NFG played for like two hours and they played soo many good songs.  The venue was sweet, there was no barrier, stage dives everywhere, MOSH MOSH MOSH.   The rest of the week was somewhat uneventful.  

Saturday:

I had an interview locked down for the afternoon, but the guy was on his way to vacation in Hawaii and was trying to squeeze me in a very short window of time that got closed when weather delayed his connecting flight in Phoenix.  We’re going to try and meet up after he gets back from vacation.  We’ll see what happens.  It was actually kind of fortunate because we ended up having some friends over for breakfast and mimosas on Saturday morning and I wasn’t in the mood to be responsible for business.   Finally made the trip to Will and Lina’s new house for dinner which was cool.  It’s in a somewhat fancy townhouse community and everything looks great.  I’m happy for them.

Sunday (funday):

Went to church and heard a pretty awesome sermon from Rankin Wilbourne, who is the pastor at Pacific Crossroads Church in LA, which is where our church is planted from.  He spoke about repudiating grace and how we much we resist letting God love us.   Pretty good theme for this week.  After church was Sunday Funday! No work on Monday = bike parade/pub crawl through Newport.  Very very very fun and very very very exhausting.

Monday:

Slept in (or at least tried to).  Went to a church picnic where we played a pretty intense game of softball that I wasn’t all that into in the first place, but whatever. Home to rest for the coming week.

I think that gets me pretty much caught up.  We only have 8 weeks until we leave here. Kind of crazy…I have a lot of surfing/hanging out to do.  I’m starting to realize that I may actually miss it a little. I won’t miss my job, that’s for sure, but I’m definitely going to miss church, our community group, surfing, the friends we’ve made, the beach, and not having any commitments at all.  Oh well, time to move on with our lives.
 

NOTHING TO PROVE

New Aquisitions

So I got these last week.

Pretty stoked. Check this post for some more detail. Both are limited to 1000 each.

ISHC is on sweet white with red/black splatter. NFG is on white with red/blue splatter.

I actually started writing this right before we left to head back to VA for a few days and am just now getting back to finishing it. Anyway back to the ‘cords.

The art on both of these is pretty sweet, but in particular the back cover of ISHC has all the dudes fighting different villains. My favorite is Captain Straight Edge (aka Chad Gilbert, Chadball) in the middle throwing madballs at a giant snake.

Since I last wrote in this b9 announced an LA show for NFG and ISHC. May 19, 400 tickets sold, and Leah and I have two of them! Sooooooooooooooooooo hyped. Not sure the last time NFG played a show this small so it’s going to get ccccccrrrrrrrrrrazzzzzzzzzy, and then only two short weeks after that is the H2O record release with ISHC! MOSH MOSH MOSH MOSH MOSH

New Acquisitions

Hyped on this! 300 pressed in this color, clear with silver splatter.

Side A: 1995 – Killer song, first time I heard it was a terrible recording and it pretty much sounded awful. Thankfully they reworked and made it awesome. I listened to it about 100 times in a row after I heard it the second time around

Side B: Nothing to Prove – Heard this the first time at bamboozled and was stoked. Roger Miret and Ezac have guest appearances on this song and their parts are pretty legit

Can’t wait for June 6th!

Picked up this jam on ebay. Good addition to my growing Rancid collection. Dude selling it said it was first pressing, but I’m not sure how to prove that. The engravings next to the label are pretty funny on this. On Side A it says “That’s a lot of radios”, Side B says “There’s Two E’s In Feeling”

Gibson picked this up a few years ago when we lived together on Park and then gave it to me for my birthday this year! Thanks Gibson and Robyn!

Matri(Cere)mony

last night was the first of three blacklisted record release shows. it was also the first show i’ve been to by myself in well over two years. kind of awkward. especially when ceremony covered california uber alles again and i couldn’t participate because i was holding newly purchased vinyl. over all it was an excellent show and i have three new records and a shirt to prove it.

so matrimony is a song on the new blacklisted record about how the singer (George) doesn’t understand why everyone wants to get married and how he can never picture himself making his life that much a part of someone else’s. basically he said that he’s too selfish to care about anyone much more than himself. at least he realizes it. i think now that i’m married, when people talk bad about marriage i get more offended than i used to. it’s something i believe in, that God has given to us as a gift and it should be treated as such. the new guy at work, has been with his girlfriend for 4 years and lives with her and is still acting like he’s not going to marry her anytime soon, and jokes about it all the time, and it kinda drives me nuts. i keep telling him he’s going to, and that he just needs to do it, but he just keeps putting it off. i just think it’s kinda stupid. just man up and do the right thing. grow up a little bit. not too much just a little bit. ugh, i shouldn’t say that. i never want to grow up. i’m a toys r us kid.

Heart Attack at 30

Let’s start with a playlist.

Polar Bear Club – Sometimes Things Just Disappear
Polar Bear Club – Sometimes Things Just Disappear
Polar Bear Club – Sometimes Things Just Disappear
Polar Bear Club – Sometimes Things Just Disappear
Polar Bear Club – Sometimes Things Just Disappear
Polar Bear Club – Sometimes Things Just Disappear
Polar Bear Club – Sometimes Things Just Disappear

x1000

That’s about how many times I’ve listened to that record since it came in the mail last week. I love it.

Right now I’m listening to the Permanent/Resonance Split 7″ since I received my turntable last week. I’m stoked on it. Took me about 2 hours to set it up because the geniuses that wrote the directions forgot the part about attaching the actual belt (long rubber band) to the drive shaft. Anyway, I got it working. The Resonance side of this record is stupid good. I’ve been a fan since Permanent played their last shows whenever that was all those years ago, even though then Resonance ended up back together. Oh yeah, I don’t know if I’ve mentioned that Permanent finally broke up, which is kind of too bad in a way because their side of the record is way good also. On the other hand, Greg’s a dick, Logan lives with his gf, as does James, and James apparently just bought a house. They all seem to be growing up about 2 years after Gibson and I did. Whatever…

Speaking of Gibson…James and Jennifer bought Leah and I some delicious beer and a bottle of Scotch for Christmas. Well, Leah wasn’t such a fan of Scotch and I’ve come to learn I like anything with the word “Whisky” in the title, so Gibson and I split the bottle of Scotch one night while playing Guitar Hero III. I didn’t go to work the next day. Thanks James and Jennifer!

Let’s see…I might be getting a promotion, but I doubt it will happen because Oakley sucks.

We’ve been riding a lot lately! Waaayyyy fun! It’s taken me a couple of trips to start getting my confidence back, but I’m getting there. No problems, straight riding but getting my air/rail technique and control has been a little bit of an issue. I just need to man up and bomb some hits.

My parents and Granny are coming out in a week! They will be here for 4 days which should be rad. Get to show them where I live, used to work, Cali in general. I’m getting better at the whole So Cal/Orange County tour thing. Of course all Moms wants to do is sit on the beach, but it’s just too cold right now for that. Maybe for a little while, she can watch me surf or something. Maybe I’ll take my dad, but I doubt he could handle it. We’ll see….

Last but not least, Leah switched to working day shifts! We have wayyy more time together now and she is not nearly as tired all the time, she’s been kind of sick lately, but that happens. Life seems to be better when we have more time to spend together, when we don’t see each other a lot we both get testy and irritable.

i’m lazy

Those two words pretty much define my life. I have a job I go to everyday and do maybe 3 hours of work at. The other 5 hours I waste away counting the minutes and scouring the internet.

Anyway…life has been alright lately. I got out of working nights and managing a team that doesn’t speak English, so now I will be commuting to Ontario, CA (not Canada) probably 3 to 4 days a week until we go to VA which is quickly approaching. I’ve been listening to the same 3/4 bands pretty much on repeat. In order of most listens:

1. Polar Bear Club- Demo; The Redder, the Better
2. Dag Nasty – Can I Say
3. Silent Majority – Life of a Spectator
4. Soul Control – Demo

I also started a wish list on Amazon which has lots of stuff on it. I’ve decided I love blues guitar and I really want to learn it.

I listened to Mike Ness this morning and decided he’s a genius. Rock and Roll Hall of Fame for sure.

I love my wife.

That’s all I got.