First things first: my phone's been partially shut off. In a mischievious twist, Verizon has made it so I can receive text messages and phone calls but I can't make them myself. In the words of the Pharcyde, "Aw, shit!"

Last night I saw the devil's own show at the Silent Barn. Chrissakes. Fact: the Dirty Projectors, when performing as a band, are actually mindblowing. I was shocked. Easily the best thing all night. The Shape of Folk to Come, all derelict guitarwork and intricately askew stomps and unbelievable female harmonies. Fact: Awesome Color were also the best thing all night, but for completely different reasons. They basically played four riffs ("songs") for about thirty minutes, but energy-wise it was comparable to Les Savy Fav. Slam-dancing, crowd-surfing, little girls being thrown into drumsets. The speakers almost toppled over several times. Crazy shit.

Black Moth Super Rainbow also played, and they were pretty alright. I missed Deerhunter.

The thing about this show was that the venue only comfortably holds 150 and there were 400+ in there. Without any windows open or anything. It was like being in the hold of a slave ship, only with good live music and less scurvy (though equal vomiting, probably).

What else: I finished my mix for Dina and sent it off yesterday. I put in an app for an artists co-op in the Northwest as well. I saw Altman's The Long Goodbye on Thursday and must emphatically tell everyone who will hear me to rent it. Oh yeah, and my phone was shut off. But you knew that already.

Ryan
xoxo

I can't remember if I complained about taxes in here. If not, I'm complaining now. After writing two checks totalling $611.48, I still owe the government $1416.74. Where'm I gonna get $1416.74? This self-employment stuff is for the birds. It's like normal work only you have to be "responsible" and keep "records" of your "business expenditures." Just give me some goddamn money and be done with it, people.

I keep hearing about the death of things lately. People dying (Virginia Tech), idealism dying ("Slouching Towards Bethlehem"), venues dying (Tonic). Evem the weather is rather withering. I could've sworn this was springtime. We haven't had a blue sky in a few weeks.

Oh yeah, it seems I'm gonna be in the Midwest in mid-May.

Ryan
xoxo

A new Elliott Smith record - that is, a new record of Elliott Smith sides - is shipping May 1st from KRS HQ. The tracks are mostly old news, b-sides and demos that've been floating around ad nauseum since the dawn of P2P, but there are several there I don't recognize as well - "New Monkey", "Riot Coming", "All Cleaned Out", and a few others. The art looks bizzarely friendly, mostly because Elliott's meek, lonely visage doesn't figure prominently as is usually the case. I'm not gonna pretend I'm not psyched by this thing. Elliott Smith is a big musical hero of mine. I'm thinking I'm gonna pick it up on vinyl and grab the MP3s from somewheres in the meantime.

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Most of the time, I love being self-employed. The freedom is extremely satisfying - I could never suffer working under someone else at this point. However, there are some drawbacks. Health insurance, for one, is more or less an impossibility for a relatively inexperienced freelancer like myself. "Spending money" isn't always there - hell, it's hard to even save for anything. But perhaps the worst is the tax situation.
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I didn't save a solitary nickel for taxes this year, which means I'm gonna get real fucked. Not only that, but I worked a normal job and two separate "self-employed" jobs, so I have to fill out like ten forms.
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Ryan
xoxo

When do I write in this blog? When Kurt Vonnegut Jr., dies, that's when. I suppose my experience with Vonnegut has been similar to many other curious, searching types' experiences with him. For one, the man more or less taught me how to Read. He made me feel more certain of my own ideas and reassured me that it was okay to question and investigate any and all things, even (perhaps especially) "common sense." Etc. etc. In short, he made me care. It's good that he's finally at rest.

Elsewhere in my life: Todd P recently began booking shows at a venue not three stops from me, a hole-in-the-wall artists' loft off of the Halsey L known as the Silent Barn. It's a really cool place - it's supremely painty and dressed up and makes me feel like there's something small and good happening in Brooklyn still. What's more, I met a cool couple of girls from NYU last time I was there, and I even discovered an okay band, this sampler-perc-vox duo called High Places. Live, these two come off a bit like a placid suburban antidote to Gang Gang Dance - lots of thrum and hitting contact mic-ed things with drum sticks, but with lazy no-frills vox and not much attitude to speak of. On record, they're more just simple kitchen-sink electro pop. The fact that they regularly open for YACHT makes a lot of sense to me.

Speaking of music, I finished a pretty good track today. The track, you'll probably notice, is shot through with the sounds of trains passing by. This is because I live on the M line - I could reach out my window and touch the M train as it passed if I wanted to, it's that close - so I'm including it, even if I don't much like it. It's like writing a short story on candy bar wrappers or toilet paper, I guess. You get to experience the author's terrible prison, where niceties such as clean paper and unpolluted silence are few and far between.

On that note, adieu for now! Feel free to comment on the track. I doubt that anyone reads this journal 'sides my brother, but hey, it's possible.

Ryan
xoxo

I was reading the NYTimes Magazine a month or so ago and came across this interesting article. The article addresses a ton of stuff, from the dubiousness of any preprocessed product making health claims to the adverse effects caused by meat industry lobbyists in 1977, but the sentiment that most stuck with me is - and I'm paraphrasing 'cause I'm too lazy to go back through the whole article and find it - "Don't eat anything your great-grandmother wouldn't have recognized as food." Stupefyingly simple, obvious, and great advice.

In other news, just got back from Baltimore a few days ago. I didn't do much down there other than work, play music, and watch Seinfeld, but damned if I'm not feeling totally refreshed and refocused.

Ryan
xoxo