Youthfullessness

This is post serves more of a reminder to me than to anyone else.

I feel that a lot of people have to tell themselves to not grow up so fast, and to enjoy youth while its in your fleeting ignorant grip. Youth is also a state of mind.

Being weighed down by the world, forgetting to dream, abandoning your optimism. These all lead to the decline of a youthful state of mind.

While i don't think that I'm losing my optimism or dreams, i would venture to say I'm getting a little weighed down.



I'm 21, 22 in a few months. I can still smell the fire smoke and summer air. I can still taste the endless waves of mountain dew. Still feel all the tremulous emotions of being a young kid confused by the world.

No, im not worried about losing my youth. Im worried about my youth losing me.



I guess I'm just afraid that this whole "growing up" ordeal will deprive me of my sense of adventure and humanity.



The world as I see it now is a lot more clean cut. I guess i just miss the dramatic wonder when the world seemed a lot smaller.







And let me tell ya, the world seems HUGE now.





It just feels like I'm just going through the motions now. I don't know how to describe it to you, but It just feels...easier almost.





What I'm trying to say here is this: I don't want to lose touch with the part of me that craves the adventure and excitement of the new world. I don't want to fall into a steady decline of steady job, 1.5 kids, and a white picket fence.

I just need to be left in the rock tumbler a little longer.

Weekend in the City.

Went to New York City with Whitey, Kate, and Amber to stay at our friend Ryan's for the weekend.

Needless to say it ruled; and here's why:

-Ryans tiny apartment and roommates
-Pizza and other awesome food/coffee
-Walking more than most people to in their whole lives in three days
-Hope Con/Blacklisted/United Nations/Mother Of Mercy show at the Cake Shop
-The Cake Shop in general
-Pizza and other awesome food/coffee
-Record Shops
-Moma/The Met
-Megabus Double deckers
-Chinatown
-Pizza and other awesome food/coffee


Times Square


The Met


Crucifixion By Salvador Dali at the Met. one of the highlights of the trip for me


Saint Patrick's Cathedral


Crazy Indian restaurant we ate at with a ceiling covered with lights and shit

I took a lot more pictures of touristy stuff with my Holga and once i develop and scan some of those pictures i may through them up on here because i captured some cool stuff i think.

Spend Spend Spend!


Uni Bubble Tea! strangest little drink ever.


Goodluck Cat! I've always wanted one, and I couldn't tell you why


Records i bought at various shops/the show. Includes:
-Capsule - Blue
-Cult Ritual - 1st LP
-Nations of Ulysses - 13 Step Program to Destroy America
-The Hope Conspiracy - Death Knows Your Name repress
-The Hope Conspiracy - True Nihilist

and of course lots of dude pics:















for more pictures and hilarity, go check out Whitey's Blog, because he loves to take cell phone pics so his is a bit more extensive.

NYC playlist: Dodewaard, Brume Retina, Hiro, Amalthea, Gantz, June Paik, Tristan Tzara.

I guess I've been on this big Euro Skramz kick recently. If you are a fan of the genre at all, i strongly urge you to check out the aforementioned bands.

I also read Watership Down, the Watchmen graphic novel, and Diary by Chuck Palanuck all over break, which is a big deal for me.

And i finally have a functional record player thanks to my mom and dad!

So now that break is over, its back to stress, classes, trying to get a decent GPA to get into the teaching field and this:



ugh.

my chest hurts.

road life pooping is hard





movember is hard too, for whitey.



sushi bar massacre



the launcher





casey was teaching.





fuck the man, man



i've been fucking around wayyyy too much

returnings

so like....i haven't posted on this in a long time.
that could be due to the fact that i
a.) didn't have internet for a long time
b.) have been super busy with school/cofair/Biter
or c.) forgot i had a blog.

so basically, the sum up the past three months, I will outline my activities. \
-Biter has played shows with Have heart, Rise & Fall, Harms way, Comeback Kid, Girlfight, and others. We are still under ten shows though, somehow. We are also writing some new jams that are pretty different for us. I feel like we are all really growing as musicians together.

-Started a zine with my buddies Casey and Bryan. Its called Broken Teeth Of The Counter Culture. We are two issues in, working on the third. It is blowing my mind how well its doing. Bryan is an animal. You can download a PDF file of it for free at the Broken Teeth facebook. Also at the Erieshows.com page. If you want to submit anything, just email it to brokenteethzine@gmail.com. Seriously, any art, writings, reviews, rants, stories, critiques, or just about anything else that has to do with Erie in some nature and the culture we have immersed ourselves in.

-I still work at Cofair, which isn't surprising.

-Amber and I celebrated our one year on September 16th. She's pretty ok.

-School is going surprising very well, though I'm failing the hell out of my grammer class. Shit.

- Halloween was a lot of fun. always is, though.

-I''ve spent too much money on records

-I've not spent enough money on tattoos.

So everything is going a-ok i guess. Things have been pretty low key in the Boro i guess. I'm trying to get out to Chicago this winter with Amber so that's about it for big plans.

go download the zine and tell me what you think!

thats it for now.

Riffs.

Shit i've been jamming lately that i think should be shared.




Chris Colohan (vocalist of Cursed, Left For Dead, The Swarm) and others. Sounds like Motorhead if turned up to 11 with an extra helping of evil. Catchy riffs with the vocal and lyrical stying that you would expect from a Colohan project. 6 tracks in under 11 minutes. So fucking good. I grew a handle bar moustache just from listening to it. You can to.

Burning Love - Demo 2009
DOWNLOAD



I saw this band at Dudefest and i was never more afraid of a female in my life. This female fronted hardcore/punk band plays at speeds that im sure all you wanna-be power violence, ceremony loving kids can get behind. Feedback drenched, old school hardcore jams about topics such as straight edge, meat consumption, and feminists. I'm in love. and it feels alright. Did i mention how fast this is?

Punch - Self Titled LP
DOWNLOAD



Friends of ours (Biter) from Syracuse, New York. Sounds like Cursed with smokey 70's stoner riffs overlaying all the crusty punk awesomeness. To top it off, when i bought my 7" from them, it came with incense and a pin. now all my records smell great! thanks Oak & Bone! They are playing my townhouse on September 29th along with us and a band called Mistletoe. More details on that later, but you are so totally invited because house shows are only fun if its crammed tight and the cops come.

Oak & Bone - Self Titled 7"
DOWNLOAD

And just for the record, you should buy these artists records/shirts/whatever because in the DIY community, these bands don't function without your support. So if they come close to you, at least go out and sing a long or head walk (boogie board). Or order their records like i normally do. Support the art that you are passionate about.

need i remind you...

...I'm still Straight Edge.

It's been 6 years.
I claimed when i was 15 to rise above the worship of a plant and a liquid.
I am now 21.
21...the holy golden gateway to bar culture and being the man at underage parties.

Fuck that.
I said it 6 years ago
and I'm still saying it today.

I find it really funny actually. My life with Straight Edge that is. You see, a lot of us got into the hardcore scene and found out about straight edge once there. Not so much for Whitey and I. Being AFI fans for years, we were analyzing the music video for the leaving song pt. 2 when we saw kids "x'ing up" in the so called "pit."

I had no idea what this was all about so i checked it out.
I discovered Ian Mackaye and his musical and philosophical adventures, got the album Soldiers by Embrace Today, and found out that members of some of my favorite bands at the time (Reversal Of Man, Refused) were straight edge also.

At the time i was making all these landmark discoveries, Whitey and I were also dealing with losing a lot of our childhood friends to drugs and alcohol.

And then one day we woke up and all the friendships we once had were gone. And all we had was in one another.
All because we refused to worship a liquid.

Needless to say it made the following years hard. It gave us scars, it gave us tears, and it gave us a bond that could never be broken.

We started going to shows and meeting others like us. Throughout the years, i meet more and more straight edge kids. And more and more throughout the years i realized how different our upbringings were.

You look at me and you will see a tall skinny awkward kid with straight legs, some punk band's t-shirt and probably some shitty haircut to hide my bulb like hair growth. I listen to a vast collage of musical genres and have a large population of friends who drink and smoke and whatever else.

Does that make me less Straight Edge than anyone else? No.

It seems to me that the reason that "we" are all in the punk and hardcore community is because we were sick of the comments about our dark clothing, taste in "music with yelling", and lack of substance worship. This is something i believe to be the uniting bond between anyone in the scene who went to a public high school and got ridiculed for not fitting the status quo.

But on a daily basis i see my peers judge, bully, look down on, practice intolerance and generally do the same things that were done onto us in our younger years to those who are new or different to the scene. Acceptance and tolerance are the only things that can truly unite people.

As far as myself and my other Straight Edge peers are concerned, we have a similar passion. We despise to see youth, at its peek of activity, creative power, and mental sharpness, waste it's time, money, passion, and overall interest in commercialized and romanticized articles of self destruction.

But for us to judge them for their choices and criticize them makes us no better than the kids in high school who made us feel like shit and cast us out because of our choices.

I have pride. I have pride because i know in my heart that i am doing something that betters MY life. I am Straight Edge for me. And for no one else.

big ole' life update.

dynamic duo is in full effect



working on the biter album stuff.
you'll see.
In this picture: giant scythe.




now the proud owner of Cursed - One on 180gram 12" vinyl. one of my top 5 records. thanks casey.

THE MUDPIT SAGA







mission complete.

summer is almost over and its like im just starting to enjoy summer for the first time this year.
im ready for classes because i just want to house them and get it over with.
im broke also so the refund check will be much needed.

biter show so soon. get stoked