Song: Rivers Cuomo – Dude, We’re Finally Landing

Music, music, music. Must keep talking about music!!!

One of my favorite bands is Weezer. If I could have my band be like any other band it’d be Weezer, circa 1994. Nerdy, poppy rock where almost all the songs are killer. Their career has gone downhill since their early days, in terms of quality, but I recently saw their live show this year, and I can say they are still tons of fun performance-wise.

Well, Weezer is exploding this second half of 2010. Their new album, the almost destined-to-suck Hurley, comes out September 14 (just 3 days after Elementary hits the studios. I’m not particularly excited about that. BUT what I’m particularly excited about is all the other junk that’s coming out too. In November, Pinkerton, their second (and second-best) album gets the deluxe treatment with remastering, b-sides and collections of demos combined together (much like what they did for The Blue Album back in 2004.) Will we finally get band-performances of Songs From The Black hole tunes? Probably. But if not, we’re bound to get it on the other Weezer album dropping on the same November day: Death To False Metal. This will be a “compilation of previously unreleased Weezer material” that spans the life of the band! HOT!

And if that were not enough, lead Weez himself, Rivers Cuomo, will be releasing a third album in his Alone series. Similar to Pete Townshend‘s Scoop series, it’s a collection of demos of songs that (for the most part) never really made it to the Weezer stage. Being a songwriter myself, and a huge fan of Rivers, I find these albums highly entertaining.

Lots of potentially great music is on it’s way this winter, with the most anticipated being the Elementary one!

Song: Katy Perry – The One That Got Away

I just heard back from the producer of the Elementary album, Cameron. Looks like the recording sessions are set to go for September 11, 2010 – I’ll skip any easy, tasteless 9/11 jokes.

Things have been pushed back a bit, but I think it’s been alright. We were able to finish the second round of demos (one song got sped up, one got slowed down, and one was so new this was the first demo we did of it) and Mike has gotten a lot of “real drum-set” practice in. The only problem we have now is that our schedules have it so that the next time we can get together to practice is the Thursday before Saturday’s recording date. And the recording date is 2 weeks away – so that’s quite a bit without practicing. I think that if we keep up on our own it should be ok. And maybe this way our ears will be fresher.

I’m really, really excited about this process. When I plug in my guitar for take 1 it will have been 11 years, 2 months, 17 days since the last time I was in the studio! That last time was when we recorded No Way Out‘s self-titled album. I was 18 years old! Wow, that was a lifetime ago. We did it all within a weekend. Day 1 was drums, bass and guitars recorded live. Some lead vocals might have been put down, too. Day 2 was horns and overdubs. In the same amount of time for that whole album to be finished, I hope to just finish up the basic bass, guitar and drum tracks this time around.

I can’t believe it’s taken me so long to get back into a real studio, but looking back on the time in between, I am not more happier than I am now with the band I’ll be recording with. Allow me to rave about my band for a second. Nate is like a musical brother, but a flip of a coin. While we both write rock songs, mine are serious, vague, and pop-influenced. His are humorous, specific and punk-influenced. I think too much of either could stagnate, so I’m glad his is a different point of view. Arwen is our not-so-secret weapon. When people think of our band 9 times out of 10 they’re thinking of her voice, which balances unsteadily, but awesomely, between rough/rock and “girly” – I know she tries to limit that, but I think it’s actually a strength. She has written lyrics to two Elementary tunes so far, and I’m really looking forward to more from this third lyrical voice in the band. Mike has stepped up admirably in the drum position. He learned all the songs and played his first show only weeks after joining. Live, he brings a different element than just about every drummer out there in DC with his electronic drums. And because these “old” songs of ours are “new” to him he has been able to throw in fresh insight on arrangements, really sprucing things up.

I hardly gush like this – am I betraying emotion here? What can I say – I’m really eager for this crucial step in our life as a band, while at the same time, super happy with my band members. We are as soldiers about to take the battlefield. And we will take no prisoners.

Updates:

Updated the Max Martin page
Removed Where In The World Is Carmen Sandiego Mobile Game from and added Beverly Hills, 90210: Season 2 to Current Interests
Edited the links page
Removed The Spy Who Came In From The Cold from and added The Girl Who Played With Fire to What I’m Reading

Song: The Click Five – The Way It Goes

We got a lot of rain Tuesday night/Wednesday morning. So much, in fact, that it started to come in in my furnace room. The furnace room is connected to my room by what looks like a closet door. I’ve gotten used to the noise, and actually it’s nice in the winter because it keeps my room warm.

When I found the water just kind of sitting around in the furnace room, it didn’t look like a lot. But the rug in my room was extremely soaked on the end near the door, so there should have been more. If not for that rug, the water would theoretically come all the way up under my bed! Luckily nothing was damaged – my guitars where in a place that was either away from or above the water.

I took the morning off from work, called my landlord, cleaned up the area and went hunting for the source of the leak. I found a drainage pipe right near the furnace room, but it appeared to be working fine. There was no leaking from underneath it, and it ran away from the house. I cleared some of the gutters in the back of the house, but the front ones looked fine. So my next step, unfortunately, is to wait for it to rain hard again, and figure out where the water is coming from, inside the furnace room. The landlord mentioned we might have to dig out a sump pump in there – which actually wouldn’t be too much trouble, since I never really walk in that room anyway.

In other news, I’ve finished my running fun. It’s actually turned into something pretty uneventful: it was supposed to be running every day in July, but after some tender knees, I changed it to 5 times a week. I’ve now run 31 days out of 50, which I still think is pretty good. I’ll probably keep up running about 4 times a week, but I’m in serious need to getting back to the gym!

Updates:

Added a new photo
Removed Rapture Ready! from and added The Spy Who Came In From The Cold to What I’m Reading

Song: The Beatles – From Me To You

According to the Zagat survey people eat, on average, 6.1 fast food meals and 4.6 full-service chain restaurant meals per month. My fellow coworkers and I, along with detailing our progress on pull-ups and push-ups, have been chronicling how frequently we go to fast food restaurants. Now, what exactly is a fast food restaurant? We had to make a distinction somewhere, so we agreed to call it a fast food restaurant if the place has, or usually has, a drive through window. So this means Five Guys is not fast food, even though food wise it’s very similar to McDonald’s.

So far my average is a horrible 12.4 times per month. It’s almost as bad as my boss’ 12.7! So this month I am going for the absolute lowest score between us. He holds the record with 8 back in May (how crazy that our lowest is still higher than the average!?!?). We’re already halfway through the month and I only have 3. That is pretty unbelievable for me! I’m not trying to cut it all out – let’s not go crazy here! – but I’m finding it much easier than I expected. In fact one of the reasons I stopped was because it was becoming boring. I was getting sick of all that fast food!

I’ve been trying to push myself to do things I usually don’t. Among them include eating healthier as well as a larger variety of foods. I’ve recently been to a tapas restaurant TWICE by choice and each time tried things I wasn’t used to. I’d like to say that this is more of a lifestyle change than just a phase I’m going through, but only time will tell if that’s true.