come as you are

lately ive been listening to all eras of nirvana. mostly in utero however. on repeat. i read "come as you are" by michael azerrad and i don't know why but its severely depressed me. it sounds overly dramatic to say that but it's true. the countless "blow my head off" references made by cobain throughout the interviews  literally made my stomach turn. i cannot imagine or begin to understand the physical and mental pain he was going through, but knowing that his only relief was opiate induced is just straight depressing. it makes me appreciate my position and standing in life a bit more. i liked nirvana before, when i was younger. everyone did. my first band "jammed" on come as you are and smells like teen spirit, just like every other band has. i don't want to pose that i'm some long time nirvana diehard, but at the age of 24, in 2008, i cant stop listening to and thinking about them. they couldve been anyone from anywhere in the world. cobains voice is more distinct than anyone in our generation. it is impossible to duplicate. i'm just straight disturbed by nirvana right now. the unplugged record is almost too sad to listen to at all. i know i'm 14 years late on the subject but i guess that goes to prove the test of time theorem. who is the kurt cobain of 2000-beyond? will anyone ever have that impact on culture and society again? "i miss the comfort..."

vegetarian?

myself and shawn foley have both fallen victim to the poisoning of chicken at subway. it hit me about 24 hours ago. we played in tacoma,wa. i ate a 12" oven roasted chicken breast sandwich. lettuce tomato only. plain jane. about 5 hours later i felt like there was a cannonball in my stomach. that night we played and then went to green river community college to record some tracks for a live radio gig. when we got back to the house we were staying at i was full blown screwed.. i woke up at 4 a.m. rushed to the bathroom and began violently vomiting. i ended up sleeping in the bathroom that night. this lasted through portland,or where we played and afterwards i sprinted for the bathroom for round 2. after a 10 hour overnight drive to orangevale, i woke up in the back of the van feeling better.  a bit relieved. i hadn't thrown up since my freshman year of high school. i'm not a big fan of it..i actually hate it more than anything. today im at about 50%. about 4 hours ago shawn started getting hit with it as well. he ate the exact same thing as me at subway. he is currently going through it heavy. we had to cancel our gig tonight. yeah it's that bad. 

and no big deal, just playing two shows tomorrow in so-cal, then driving back to san francisco to record a video. why would we all be healthy? that would make wayyyy too much sense.

love ya.

serve the serpents

this picture was taken in syracuse after our show there. we needed to send the booking agent for our australian tour a "press" photo. here goes one that was snapped. my personal favorite. we're about 10 days into a 41 day u.s. tour. currently we are roomed at a super 8 (our hotel of choice, strictly because of some discount card we get). today we played minneapolis,minn. the show was fantastic. before the gig we went to willie's american guitars in st. paul. this is easily the coolest guitar store i've ever been in, in my life. (www.williesguitars.com) i found the guitar head that i've been on the prowl for, for a great price...a 1986 marshall jcm800 2203, 100 watt, in fantastic condition.
along with that purchase, bean got 2 new pedals and an orange guitar cabinet. i felt like i was a little kid again..the only feeling i could compare it to was being 8 years old and getting my first pair of air jordans..the air jordan 8 in 1993, black and aqua. i was so excited to own those that i slept in bed with them. when they were re-released this past year i acquired 3 pairs for nostalgia exclusively. the shows collectively have been great. it's refreshing for blacklisted to finally be able to play material that we can all 100% get behind. not to say that older blacklisted has less meaning or is not important...but it's just a totally recharged emotion. a new feeling. i've been road doggin/giggin/hangin with bl since day 2. and this is something that's just exciting to be a part of. chemistry, physics, biology, all that shit. that's all i can really say. if you haven't, please pick up heavier than heaven, lonelier than god. www.myspace.com/blacklisted for tour dates. our cds are available at record stores/best buy/hot topic..whatever.
thanks for reading. sorry for the lack of updates. i just got a new computer but it's at my mom's office. i will be posting much more when i get that. black macbook. stoked.

R U DZL ?

THRASHER (record release mayhem)

our flights to los angeles were relatively painless...flying southwest isn't the nicest way to fly, but it is what it is. i think it was something like 85 in los angeles friday. i went to melrose with a close friend of mine while the rest of blacklisted hung out with the good man bob shedd. while in hollywood i saw jonah hill, of superbad and knocked up fame. i immediately started laughing..dude's funny. i call george for advice "yo would it be super gay if i asked him for a picture?", george says "yes"...so i take his words to heart and continue on my day. i also see a cute puppy at a dog store. i didn't know they had retail puppy stores. i got to the chain reaction in anaheim at about 6 p.m. i was lucky enough to see some very good friends of mine from when i lived in granada hills...jeff givens being one. jeff is probably the funniest human i know. we talk on the phone occasionally and it's about 30 minutes of non stop laughter. great guy. also got to see wig and tru...two dudes who i spent a lot of time with when i lived there as well. the show itself was great...and actually ended up selling out. we played with downpreser, alpha and omega (charley zanagan), bitter end, life long tragedy and ceremony. all of the sets were pleasers. we've also decided that when ceremony plays, its every kids 30 minutes to "be bad"..hahaha good stuff. after this gig we headed to shedd's american psycho esque apartment. shit was awesome. after the occasional dive bomber (this is when your head plunges to the floor in a thrashed sleep state) we made our way to the area of lax to get some food. ate at denny's...shocker. then pushed on to the airport. bean did a straight dive bomber onto kimpossible. kimpossible (sister) came along with blacklisted for our journey. she has documented the experience via photograph. i think she took something like 300 pictures..so when those get uploaded, i will have links. one picture comes to mind specifically while waiting in the airport...every single one of us, besides dave big jenk sausage, are passed out seated upright...hoods up or on our faces. its pretty good. we made our way to chicago for saturday. got picked up somewhere around noon by molly and carrie (if i spelled this wrong, crap). blacklisted typically stays with these people in chicago. they are good people and very hospitable. i immediately pass out on a couch. they have two awesome dogs, cyrus and evey...i think cyrus tongue kissed me in my sleep...no beasto. got to the gig later that night. saw tim smith (o.g. blacklisted/good friend). got a great bad brains shirt, took some photos. this night we played with convicted, dead city and holy roman empire. great lineup. convicted is straight up heavy hardcore, same for dead city.they both thrashed and sounded awesome. holy roman empire was super cool. female fronted. awesome guitar work..so many pedals. super good. we gigged and it was fun. two words: bum bag. don't forget it. after the gig, went back to the homestead. ate a delicious home cooked meal and slept. woke up at like 5 a.m. to head off to the airport for philly. now i don't know if it was the lack of sleep, or just ridiculous experience in general, but everything that occurred at the airport was hands down funniest thing i ever saw. one instance was george farting on the head of a baby. this literally dropped me to my knees. we arrived in philadelphia somewhere around 11. the blacklisted van was broken down at home with a dead battery (weird, go figure), so jd and chucky edge came to pick us up. went back to bean's house...got a quick easter sunday meatball sub from wawa...then headed off to the first unitarian church for the gig. i personally hadn't been to the church in about 3 years. which was crazy. i had alot of emotions going there. philadelphia is hands down one of my favorite u.s. cities. i was excited to be there again. the show went off amazingly. mongoloids opened up the gig hard as hell, with soul control, let down and shipwreck all singlehandedly pwning the whole club. cold world played before blacklisted. i used to play in cold world a few years ago. great band. really good friends of mine, i've been close with alex nick and dan since i was about 14...so that's almost 10 years, wow. seeing them was great, played alot of new material. i've determined that alex russin is the best guitarist and maybe best person i know. blacklisted played. we opened the gig with the lights out, cat power's "i don't blame you" song playing over the speakers. we love this song and it was something worth remembering. then we blasted through 13 or 14 songs...some old some new. and it was awesome. there was a young dude, maybe about 11, diving consistently right in front of me. joe hardcore would grab him by the back of his collar and bring him back to the stage so he didnt get lost amongst the lost (bjorn) and could continue to get his timmy no justice on. it was great. i feel like i had a smile on my face for 99% of this show. saw some good people i haven't seen in a long time and just had an overall positive experience. me, noles, courtney and mark drove back to richmond, and i was home by midnight. thrashed as hell.
i worked last night at verizon. this is pretty much my last week here for an undetermined amount of time. blacklisted has too much scheduled for me to know if i can guaranteed work at any point in time. right now i'm 9 hours into an 11 hour day. i didn't drink coffee today, so i'm feeling real megadeth. i'll get out soon though, and just live.
thanks for reading. love ya.

learn to fly

its 730 a.m. and i'm sitting in bean's living room. got about 4-5 hours of sleep. we're getting ready to board a plane with a little layover in st. louis, then off to lax to be picked up by new jersey legend bob shedd. i arrived in philadelphia yesterday around 2:45 in the afternoon after a 7 hour train ride which was supposed to be 4 hours. i woke up and we were sitting in the woods in alexandria, so confused. some railroad beef...finally made it to my favorite city. got picked up at 30th st. station then proceeded to pick up the good man g. went to primo's, are you kidding me? insane chicken pesto sub plus diet mountain dew. gtfo. ate that shit, loaded the van/trailer, then went to get foley. met him at the wawa across from his place...you know i had to get the liter of diet green tea. proceeded out to our practice space that is shared with let down (good band check them out)...and riffed out for about 4 hours. good experience. got some good ideas and pedals. also yesterday i picked up about 8 copies of the philadelphia weekly. blacklisted recently was photographed (im not in this as i live in richmond) for a write up in this free paper available in the city. the write up is pretty cool.  

first failure

i am now writing this blog in hopes to explain daily life occurrences and experiences. to portray ideas and relate emotions. to convince myself that i really am that important (tasteful). really i want to be able to document my experiences on the road with blacklisted..as we have some crazy shit coming up. today i sit in the chesterfield towne center, showing a customer a samsung u740, wearing a shirt and tie..dress slacks, black dress shoes. tomorrow morning i'm boarding an 8 a.m. train to philadelphia. thursday i'm flying southwest to los angeles, saturday to chicago, sunday to philadelphia...i'll take it.