"I'm spinning round the room in awe" ryan adams

Wednesday, August 31, 2005

reason #348 why i shouldn't play with fire

Today was Danielle's 23rd birthday - so we got her a cake in the office because we all can never deny sugar. They are not aware of my ineptness with things that are hot and flammable...until now...

Laura got a small cake and a pack of candles. Did you know that candles have directions on them? Well neither did I until today.

So I put the whole damn pack of 20 on the small cake because that is fun. 8 of the 20 were sparkler candles - candles that not only sparked but also were trick candles. With Rich's and Laura's help, we ignited all 20 candles...then they started to spark and there was a slight inferno on top of the dessert. I called out to Danielle and told her that her cake was about to explode, we sang a very fast "Happy Birthday" and watched her spread the fire, not extingushing it with her breath. She can't blow any more and the cake is still on fire.

We bring the cake into the supply room and we try to get ride of the fire, but it just isn't happening. I quickly grab some water, but it into a used coffee cup. We pluck the candles and toss them into the cup only burning our fingers a few times...all while trying to avoid the sparks flying at us. Needless to say, I dropped a lit candle on the carpet and slightly freak out.

Wax was everyway on the table and our fingers were burnt - but luckily nothing was ignited aside from the cake. And I wonder why Tanya and Dan said it was imperative that we put 9 volt batteries in the smoke detector...

miss juliana in the news

most of you know about my infatuation with juliana hatfield. i got my hands on a tape of hers while i was in middle school and it changed my whole outlook on music. i <3 jh.

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Juliana Hatfield on a twisted trip to 'China' By Dean Goodman
Tue Aug 30, 9:02 PM ET

Even when she's in love, Juliana Hatfield is miserable. Not that she always realizes it.

The durable singer-songwriter, who says she is "always frustrated and anxious and pissed-off and depressed," has just released a cathartic, aggressive album with sonic dissonance worthy of Neil Young or John Cale.

Life was actually going well when Hatfield, 38, recorded "Made in China," a low-budget effort on her own label, Ye Olde Records. She collaborated on the project with her boyfriend, a guitarist 15 years her junior, and says she was "having a great time" with the youngster. But her subconscious had other ideas.

"In looking back at the relationship, I can see that there are all these things happening, that I didn't want to admit or acknowledge, and I think that stuff got into the music," Hatfield told Reuters in a recent interview before playing to a small but ardent hometown crowd at the Paradise club.

"You can feel that in the music, just the unease and the distrust of the things that satisfy people, and make people feel good."

ALONE AGAIN, NATURALLY

Several months after the album was recorded, Hatfield and her boyfriend, Joe Keefe, ended their 18-month romance, by mutual consent, she says. It was her longest and most fulfilling relationship, and now she has a lasting souvenir: he played on eight of the 12 tracks alongside his bandmates in local band the Unbusted, and co-wrote two of the songs.

Hanging out with Keefe and his equally youthful buddies was a pleasant experience for Hatfield, who sought his help in harnessing a deep source of energy she says has been trapped inside her since she was 12 years old.

Now she is back to her default setting: alone, sharing her digs in Cambridge, Massachusetts, with her Labrador retriever and tomato plants. Her eerie, newfound skinniness notwithstanding, she swears she is not miserable, and has even cut her therapy sessions to twice a month.

Only one song on the new album is about Keefe, "Digital Penetration," a joyous ode to her "island boy." Keefe is from Martha's Vineyard, and he saw her perform there when he was 14, though Hatfield stresses they did not meet then.

Her favorite song from the album is "Oh," one of four tracks on which she plays all the instruments. It sounds as if it could be a Neil Young outtake, which was not a conscious style choice. But she cites Young, as well as the Rolling Stones' Keith Richards and Dinosaur Jr.'s J Mascis as her favorite guitarists "in that they're all sorta sloppy."

Hatfield claims to be a "disgrace to guitar players everywhere" because she never practices and is insecure about her inability to play fast.

ALIVE, NOT BITTER

The album title is drawn from a line in the song "What Do I Care," in which she disdainfully recalls her days as a commodity on Atlantic Records in the 1990s.

Back then, she enjoyed such hits as "My Sister" and "Spin the Bottle," and it seemed that Hatfield -- along with female rockers like Liz Phair, Aimee Mann and Bjork -- might become a permanent resident on radio playlists.

That was not to be. Hatfield returned to the indie world, and an accordingly more selective audience, but she doesn't mind. It's another theme that comes through in the song, with the line "You're over me, but I'm alive. So what do I care?"

"I'm totally fine with my place in the universe, even though sometimes I question it and I get frustrated," she said in the interview. "I still think that the path I'm on is the path I'm supposed to be on. I really do. I'm not bitter."

Still, she is sick of touring -- which is not really a big money-earner anyway -- and plans to focus more on recording, writing and drawing, as well as "my own development as a person, just getting healthier in my head and heart."

Her talents as a photographer are evident on the sleeve for "Made in China." The cover is a shot of her torso, one of a series taken a few years back as part of a bizarre experiment "to lose weight just to see what happens." Inside the sleeve, she is sitting naked in the bathtub of a posh European hotel, having just had a good cry because she was, yes, miserable.

Reuters/VNU

a nice mid day conversation

On Augustana.......

[12:26] jaypass0313: dude, i love this band
[12:26] jaypass0313: are you sure they arent a mirandaband???
[12:26] jaypass0313: they should be
[12:26] jaypass0313: you know that, right? they damn well should be
[12:31] mirgoes2eleven: i will def check them out
[12:31] mirgoes2eleven: what do they sound like?
[12:32] jaypass0313: piano driven rock
[12:32] jaypass0313: or whatever
[12:32] jaypass0313: very...miranda-ish
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[12:35] jaypass0313: so do you like them?
[12:35] jaypass0313: because you better, we're seeing them in concert
[12:35] jaypass0313: they're playing at the mercury lounge on oct. 11...dont you go there alot?
[12:40] jaypass0313: seriously, i'm in love
[12:41] jaypass0313: 'boston' is my new...life.
[12:42] mirgoes2eleven: uh oh - STN may get jealous!! see this is why i dont bother with boys, music is always there for me
[12:42] jaypass0313: i need lyrics for my away message/profile, ASAP
[12:42] jaypass0313: hahahaha
[12:43] jaypass0313: yeah, music should count as a significant other
[12:43] jaypass0313: as should stn
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[12:58] jaypass0313: so can i brag about discovering a mirandaband now???? :-D
[12:58] jaypass0313: is it bad that thats like, an accomplishment to me
[12:58] jaypass0313: like, i feel like my day is complete
[12:58] jaypass0313: like, i actually was able to do something with my life

Tuesday, August 30, 2005

goodbye tuesday

I am almost unpacking except for a few non-essential boxes and my box of band stuff to go into the office.

Dan set up the airport speaker thingies so we can all rock our itunes and hide our laptops, as Dan put it, "where beer cannot be spilled onto them".

Both online Tetris and Simon are addicting and a great find.

I have a headache. And I do not lick things...as per Tanya's myspace picture and the subsequent comments. I do bite though when things get loose.

Good night!

Monday, August 29, 2005

my take on monday hodgepodge

If Jen can do it, well so can I!

- Note to self: purchase mace
- 2nd note to self: purchase Spanish/English dictionary, because I can dabble in Italian and though I do know the catcall “hollllaaa chiccccaaaaa!”, I am sure the catcalls will become a lot more colorful
- Both Jen and I think that owning a deep fryer would be beneficial to our lives
- “Jay Pass” does exist in Vermont and there will be a road trip there during the winter months where it will be both life altering and threatening (note to everyone else in the world not associated with STN: Jay’s screen name and email and everything else is “Jay Pass” due to his name being “Jay Passarella” and Jen’s find is fabulous)
- Why the fuck did my PATH card not work this morning causing me to be 10 minutes late to work this morning?
- Why the fuck did my subway stop and chill for 10 minutes before a stop causing me to be 20 minutes late for work this morning?
- Why the fuck did I get off at some random stop while coming home to wait 15 minutes for the next train to Journal Square to come?
- I discovered everywhere you cannot park your car in Jersey City
- I miss Newark at the end of August
- Tanya rocks when it comes to straightening things up and putting things away in the apartment
- I don’t think twice when it comes to anything STN related - STN GAmeday, bring it on!
- I still have no idea what to do with my upcoming 3.5 day weekend
- “Heartbreaker” by Ryan Adams is one of my top five albums of all time
- There needs to be a word in the dictionary that defines “beyond frustration”
- Akiva has badass merch coming out, and that’s no bull
- I listened to a fabulous CD today that isn’t out yet and the creator of said CD is super great and we are going to book next years VMAs – ha!
- I think “That 70’s Show” may be my favorite non-reality television show
- Don’t assume someone is a man if they have a feminine name, though someone else who you thought knew this person said that she is a he
- Shaun gave Tanya “rockstar scented” candles…we can’t really imagine that being a selling point of the candle – in our experience, “rockstar scent” is beer, sweat, and cigarette smoke, which does not seem appealing in candle form

Sunday, August 28, 2005

two girls, a guy, and a betta fish

Helllllllo from 192A!!!

I am too tired (um, hi - Eva Longoria is wearing lingerie on stage) to unpack any more. I really don’t have too much to go, just boxes of CDs to shove under my bed (don’t worry – they’re all on the ‘puter and iPod already), a shelf to put up (once my door is on), and picture frames to hang. Hmmm…I have four rolls of film still to develop since I have moved here, maybe I will do that this week as well.

I went home to Delaware on Saturday to bring my car back (I hope it’s ok in the Spanish Harlem that we now live in…). Same ol’ one traffic light, one gas station town, no Starbucks (!), town. We hit up the bear Wal-Mart around 10 pm on Saturday to pick up some new apartment essentials such as toiletries, storage crap, and cleaning stuff. 10 pm Saturday night was prime date night at the Wal-Mart in Hickville. Entertaining to say th least. Again, it reaffirms that if you watch “Sweet Home Alabama” that is my life (and my cousin is in it ;-) ). You know, there’s a whole great big world out there. We grabbed Chinese take-out and went home to watch SNL. I also don’t have a room any more and slept on the air mattress in my mom’s living room.

Woke up early to a great home cooked meal of omelettes, fruit, coffee, and orange juice. I hit the road for north after I loaded the Go-Go Cabrio with my clean laundry, groceries, and apartment items. Rarely do I listen to the radio, especially since they took y100 off the air, but flipped around the stations for nostalgia’s sake. I do have love for WSTW and WXPN so I had to absorb it all while still in range. Crazy when I got back into my car with Wawa coffee in hand (they have newly designed dome lids!) Mellencamp’s “Small Town” was playing on WSTW.

Surprisingly I didn’t hit beach traffic – but I did ht another Wawa to grab lunch for tomorrow. Jen is correct when she preaches that soggy Wawa is better than no Wawa at all. As I neared NYC, I realized that I had no idea how to get to my new apartment. If you ever have driven with me…you could guess that I really didn’t care and just decided to wing it. Yeah…I am sure there is a quicker way than the way I went. Came home and unpacked. Exciting.

Around 4:30, Tanya and I got restless, went to Target and filled up a cart of things we needed and didn’t need but looked fun (such as cookie ingredients!). It is so awesomely wonderful that I have my car here. Hopefully it’s ok…we live on the “main street” and we can park there anytime during the weekend, but during the week it has to be elsewhere. I found a spot two blocks away and I just have to move it tomorrow night for street cleaning…so I guess it’s ok…

We’re now watching the VMA’s and they suck. Hey, you know what? Manhattan is outside of our window! I think we said that about 28 times this weekend. We cracked open a Yuengling earlier in the night and toasted to ourselves for being awesome (sorry Dan, we thought of you…).

Back to the VMA’s…seriously, we all understand that most of the performances are lip synced – but does it have to be blatantly obvious? Specifically, R. Kelly and Mariah Carey…I heard their voices, but their mouths were closed. Ugh. For the most part, I agreed with the winners. I’m especially critical of music video – especially since I thought I would end up doing that. Did you see the trainwreck that was Jessica Simpson? First of, her hair looked like mine in the morning before I straighten it. Second, half her outfit was missing. If I walked down the streets of Manhattan like that, my friends would not walk with me. On that note, it’s time for Friends with Tanya and then off to bed. Yay for the Killers and My Chemical Romance performance…yay for Green Day and Kelly Clarkson winning (Billie Joe Armstrong – wanna make out?).

This is like a sleepover! But the sleepover lasts all the time!