Murder by death is playing...

Murder by death is playing... right now. you're missin' out...

Here is some good news for those of you who might be lacking in the record collecting dept. Definately must haves. I'm really excited about the Channels record and the Jawbox DVD footage.
Well, I'm off to the Braid show in Champaign. I've got lots to do before I take off. The list. Still not completed and I leave in 6 hours. Do they serve bloody marys on Amtrak? That's my travel beverage. I don't know why...I just got one on a plane to Arizona once and it just kinda stuck.

Oh yeah. Someone needs to be fired for this. A+ in the dumb idea department.

I'm at the DMV renewing

I'm at the DMV renewing the drivers licence. Guess how much fun i'm having.

Crap. I can't call this Lotsofpoorlosers anymore, even though I love Jane's Addiction. Now it's Lotsofkickassbands...I may even have to go. Mike Watt...

Good morning. I'm gearing up for my vacation...to Urbana. Which, as you should know by now, entails making the To Do list. I can't quite figure out why I get so much satisfaction from making lists. Maybe because things seem easier to take on when they're all written down in front of me. Vatevah.

Anyone looking for a used drum kit? Ludwig Rocker shells. Email me.

Yeah! I'm walking to work

Yeah! I'm walking to work and listening to Modest right now.

Testing...blogging via cell phone!

Testing...blogging via cell phone!

Holiday Road

I cannot get enough of this lovely weather we're having in Chicago. Your sarcasm detector should be reading a steady zero. I'm seriously loving all of the rain and thunderstorms. It's my favorite time of year. Perhaps I should be living in the northwest. I could see that. Maybe someday when I can afford to buy some land and a cabin in the woods. There will be campfires ragin' every night to get cozy with and enjoy nature's silence. Then to tip the scale, loud rock and roll in the basement recording studio I will build. Of course this will take money, and as of right now I have none. It'll be a big change from where I live now. Everyday. Almost like clockwork, we have a mixed bag of highly annoying and loud ambulances, fire trucks, drunk bums yelling at their drunk bum buddies about who gets to push the cart around, large garbage cans full of beer bottles being emptied into the dumpster right downstairs from our window (we never have to take out the trash. We can drop it from the window straight into the dumpster. Yeah.) by the 4 bars within 15 feet of my front door. Sometimes the crowdedness of the city really bothers me. And sometimes it doesn't.
For the last few years my annual vacation consisted of going camping in the Smoky Mountains for a couple weeks. This year...Urbana Il. Woo hoo! There will be no camping obviously. Though I will be seeing Braid's first show since the break up. You see when they were playing the last few shows, I was stuck in Dallas with no money and no way to get to Chicago. I was heartbroken. So this show means a hell of a lot to me. Is anyone else reading this going? Drop me a line. Plus, I get to hang out with Emily, Jason, Roy, and a bunch of other folks I haven't seen in a while. Oh, and I don't have to work for 6 days. That's friggin' cool.
On another note, (hee) our record is almost done being mixed. Maybe when we get a copy of the master I could get Kyle to post a track or 2 on the Hirudin page. I can't wait to hear it.

I've been listening to this a little bit. Even though I don't support Tower Records, and the fact that Steve Jones talks way too much, they actually play some good music. Last night I heard Sonic Reducer from the Dead Boys.

Hirudin also has a Friendster listing. Let's be friends. Let's befriend. Search under booking@hirudin.net. Now I'm going to attempt to put a new banner at the top of this page. I wish I really knew how to use Photoshop.

I Miss You, Mike

What the fuck? Will we ever rock again? Are we going to be one of those bands that records a seminal record (or something) and then never plays again? All because of Michael's love of bikes??? Bastard! Actually, his bosses are bastards. Who makes a man work until 10 p.m. every night? Michael, we want you back. And it's not like he's going to remember the parts to the new one. :)

And it's come to this: I had to request an interview with Bob fucking Weir. Yes, that Bob Weir. And 9 times out of 10, I type Bob "Weird," not Weir. Same difference, goddamn hippies.

So when can we meet up down at Peace Park to play with our devil's sticks, brah?

Songs I've Been Subjected To:

While getting a haircut: Party All The Time - Eddie Murphy
You Dropped A Bomb On Me - Gap Band

While grocery shopping: All Out Of Love - Air Supply
Didn't Mean To Turn You On - Koffee Brown

This sort of thing has been happening to me more and more frequently. I'm now carrying a notebook around to write down every ridiculous song that I'm unwillingly subjected to and what I'm doing while being forced to listen. Expect some funny ones, because you know there will be. AND these will all be true. Swear.

Wow, this is purty.

This new design looks so streamlined and neato.

Goddamn I'm sick of thinking about Wilco. Thank God we had rock practice to flush it all out.

THree new parts of a song down. We are on the road to rock! And there's a very good chance Mr. Jay Ryan will be doing the cover art. And that, my friends, rules.

Venturer...?!

Me to my roommate this morning "Hey, sorry about that. I'll buy the next one. What?! It was possessed by HAL*."
Do you see that thing in the bottom left corner of the picture? That is...was our DVD player. The "Venturer" DVD player. I think they only made one...I finally recieved the long awaited satisfaction of throwing it out the window. And yes, I made it bounce off of the brick wall next door. Then my roommate went downstairs and tossed it back up so I could catch it and proceed to smash it again. Now we'll be forced to buy a new one instead of painfully sitting through movies and cds that keep skipping and freezing and speaking Yittish. It was a fun night. We killed a 30 pack of Old Pyle between the four of us and listened to Modest Mouse Interstate 8 most of the night, and the Hot Water Music Live at the Hardback cd that I found which went missing some 6,7,8 months ago. Now it's safe and back in the stacks.

* HAL is the psycho computer from some 80's movie, War Games I believe, that has a mind of it's own and does what ever it wants to. HAL tends to possess most stereos and cd/dvd players that we own at some point. So we tend to go through 3 to 4 stereos every year because we end up smashing the hell out of them as outlined above.

High Life + BBQ = Happy

Aw yeah, Aw yeah! I'm now the proud owner of a shiny stainless steel George Foreman grillin' machine! I understand that I'm probably the last person in the world to pick up one of these ingenious contraptions. Next week perhaps I'll get one of those gadgets that can open aluminum cans. har. My roommate and I are giddy at the prospect of grilling. Once upon a time, and not so long ago in fact, we were extremely avid barbequers, but that was back when we had a yard. Now we have only a sidewalk in the front and an alley in the back. I'm getting a correlation between my apartment and mullets. Business in the front, party in the back. Which reminds me...have you heard about Tony Little's new haircut? You know, the guy from the Gazelle Elite infomercial? It was fucking hilarious before the transformation. Now I haven't actually seen it yet, but I hear there are tight perms involved as well as brown dye and A Flock of Seagulls style wave implanted somewhere into the mix. It should be very entertaining. I wonder if he's trying to upstage the new mustacheless Brawny man...

spring cleaning

ack. I hate when bloggin' folks quit bloggin'. Although, I do know that this does get boring. Anonymous blogs are the shite, though. I made one but I'll never tell where it is or what it's on. It's solely a personal journal anyway. You probably wouldn't be interested. I'm going to change it up 'round here soon. New links (to be stolen from Jennifer, plus some other links i've found) and I'm going to mess around with the design. Ok, I'm completely changing everything. But first I have to clean my apartment because I've been putting it off for days. Time to make a list.

Be our Friendster, friend.

Although I personally have avoided joining the ranks of Friendster's ever-growing field of stalkers and lonely hearts, my band is another thing altogether. As we're always in pursuit of news ways to shamelessly promote ourselves, we now have a Friendster account. Search by e-mail: booking@hirudin.net or full name: Hirudin Rocks.

And yes, I'm doing this instead of writing questions for the interview I have tomorrow. What of it?

dear you,

hey. just hopping in for a minute. i've got alot to do before the show tonight. laundry, because i have none that are clean. i figure i should atleast wear socks that match tonight. i hear it helps the beer drinking. fireside bowl. 8pm. be there. or...be.....somewhere else...where there's probably beer and.....music ...and ...other....stuff ...too.

Mallen

"I don't want you to be alone."

Two down, one left to go. Floor tom. It's hard work restoring a kit. When I have the time and money, there will be some serious work put into this one. But yeah, just the floor tom left and she'll be ready for the rock on Thursday.
I just heard the new Modest Mouse is #19 on Billboard? Really? I'm going to have to check that out.
I haven't had to work in 4 days so I'm enjoying the last few hours before the gates of hell reopen. Which is at 12:45 if you're curious.

Hey, I have a Jerker, Jerker

I have a Jerker desk, and it rules. Don't talk shit...or those death-metal Swedes might come behead you.

P.S. Come see Hirudin this Thursday at the Fireside. New song. And we'll be tight—ish. Tightish.

MIKEA

Someone IKEA product-namer got away with a good one. How do you get THAT job?

Chrk.

So, other than waking up my roommate sleeping on the kitchen-dining-livingroom floor by grinding up coffee to the tune of Jackyl's "LumberJack Baby", I've begun restoring this sweet mother-f-er. I've been traipsing around online this morning doing detective work to find out the history of this kit. Thanks to a law passed in '63, Ludwig started putting serial numbered badges on all drums produced after that year. I searched and found a site that compiled tons of serial numbers and came up with a chart. It just so happens that I've got a Ludwig kit here that was made in July/August of 1965, during the Ludwig mass production brought on by the Beatles Ed Sullivan Show appearance when Ringo had "Ludwig" printed on his kick drum front. Everyone wanted Ringo's kit. I want Ringo's kit. That is all. No wait. I am feeling a bit giddy right now. That is all. Chrk. J.T. McNugent, over and out. Chrk. Chrk. That was the last time.

"schoooool's out forever!"

I've never been the type of person for school, regardless to the fact that most of my friends have either finished or are close to finishing. I tend to kind of judge myself on that, but as of this morning I am no longer in denial. I have come to the realization that my mind just does not work in that sort of way. Or maybe because I just cannot care about college. I do not like it. I've tried and tried and I always end up just where I've come to realize as of this morning the point of where once again I've beached myself upon. I've just failed my entire semester. Which means...No more free student aid money. Which means I am hereby done with school. 12 years and 4 community colleges and still no degree. Not even a two year. It sounds really bad now that I see it in print. But I've tried. And tried. And tried. I am done with it. It's not that I don't understand the subject matter. It's that I always lose track of my classes because I'm out doing things that I actually want to do and care about. Like recording this weekend. Like playing shows. You know, the fun stuff. It sounds worse than it is. I'm actually extremely relieved. Denial is a heavy heavy apple in the lunchbox and I'm not going to lug it around anymore. I'm just pissed that all of that indecisiveness led to a ton of wasted time that could have been spent rockin' the kit.