Postblink

Note: If you’re reading this from my Facebook feed, you may want to stop reading here. I’m going to be writing about what direction the site is going in, what will stay the same, what will be touched on more, and what I’m going to be talking less about. Fair warning.

I’ve been writing music oriented articles on Postblink since the site was created. I don’t know if they’re good or bad but they’re my thoughts on what ever happens to be on my play list at the time of the writing. This will continue. Not only will this continue but I’m going to attempt to get more structured pieces together as far reviewing full length releases. This includes an actual rating system. I didn’t do this from the start because I’ve never looked at the site as anything more than an outlet for my thoughts. That’s changing. Judging from the site’s logs, I’m getting hits on albums I’m talking about, new songs, and shows I’ve attended. So I’m going to try being more consistent by applying the rating system. I’m still going to ramble on with my pointless thoughts — they’ll just be accompanied by stars or hearts or bunnies. Who knows?

I’ve also been writing a lot of personal articles. My life, my thoughts, my aspirations of music. This will also continue but with an exception. I’m not going to talk about politics anymore. It’s really fucking annoying — no, not what I have to say. I’m always brilliant, so screw you. It’s just annoying to keep defending a tired cause. Okay, and maybe I was a little annoying. I guess I feel a little jaded on the whole political spectrum. Left-to-right, it’s all a bunch of bullshit. I have my thoughts, my ideals. I have my beliefs and they are strong. I’m just not into talking about them on a largely public medium anymore. If you want to chat one-on-one with me about it, you know where to find me.

For a while I had intentions of having multiple authors on the site. It didn’t work out so well. The group I picked out either didn’t maintain an interest in writing or moved on to create their own blogs. That’s fine, and I’d even encourage it. What it means, and I’ve been thinking about this for a while, is that the site once again becomes more identified with me. That’s why I’ve gone back to writing longer, more personal articles over the last six months. Guest articles will always be welcome however.

I guess I don’t really have anything else to add. It’s cold in Iowa. Single digits cold. That’s not much of a conclusion but I’ll leave you with it anyways.

After road tripping to more than ten concerts or music festivals, I can officially say yesterday was both the least and most lucky trip I’ve ever experienced. But how can one day hit both sides of the luck pendulum, you ask? Because even my least lucky day usually ends up working out anyways — and so begins the story of the Motion City Soundtrack trip.

Let’s start out with my lost tickets. On December 8TH I bought two tickets from Ticketmaster. Those tickets never showed up. This was a first for me. I’ve always ordered and had my tickets delivered from Ticketmaster via USPS with no problems. After a couple phone calls and email exchanges I finally got my tickets changed to TicketFast so I could just print them out. Alright, obstacle one down.

Next up? The weather. This is only the second time I’ve ever assembled a group for a show in the winter, the first being The Matches opening for +44 at the same venue. There are good reasons to avoid winter shows, including but not limited to ice, snow, freezing rain, frigid temperatures, long lines in frigid temperatures, getting to the venue in the madness, and expensive coat-checks in which you gamble even getting your jacket back. So checking the weather for both Iowa and Minnesota became a twice-daily ritual. Again, we lucked out. Temperatures stayed above freezing. It was wet outside but not dangerous. Good news.

So we all committed to going. We meet up, we get on the road and we head west towards a town just off I35 to pick up another friend. A hour and a half later we arrive at a truck stop. Someone puts down a window. Said window doesn’t go back up. We try to guide the window up. The window falls off the tracking and is down for the count. Oh shit. It’s raining. It’s 35 degrees. What the hell do we do now? We procure duct tape and a garbage bag from the friendly truck stop. Doesn’t work. Fails catastrophically, actually, shortly after we’re back on the road. We search for another gas station and the second group following us saves the day with a towel. I kid you not, one of them gets out of the car and hands us a towel. Our ghetto cruiser officially becomes white trash.

We can make this work. So we’re off again, we spend a little more time on the road and then as we approach the cities we begin to get stuff ready. Some of us take a quick glance at our tickets to make sure they’re there. They are not. Someone is officially down one ticket. This is also a first. We often, believe it or not, have had extra tickets for shows. We’ve always had everyone covered one way or another. But we continue on. I’m confident things will some how work out. A little stressed, but confident.

We find a parking ramp a block away from the venue and park four floors up. Then we make our way to the elevator lobby and try attempt number one to fix the ticket fiasco, which is having the person that forgot their tickets call Ticketmaster to see if they can get the order changed to will-call. We’ve done this before, it’s a pretty simple process, and I’m certain it’ll work. It does not. After spending a huge chunk of time on hold, confirming he is who he says he is, and providing order numbers (his receipt, unlike his tickets, was still in the otherwise empty envelope), the jackass at Ticketmaster couldn’t press a few keys to assist someone who just traveled a few hours out of state. Awesome. I remain optimistic, though my confidence is admittedly shaken up.

We head towards the Hard Rock across the street from First-Avenue to grab some dinner before the show and avoid the growing line. People who stand in lines are suckers. I should know, I’ve frequently stood in lines. Once you’re inside a venue, you can make your way through the crowd to just about anywhere you want, but even then you’ll most likely bail on your awesome front-row, center spot when the crowd attempts to kill you. The energy will always be awesome, but it’s only tolerable for so long.

Two of our party split up to see if they can get a hold of a manager at the club, an unlikely chance at best. They do come across a couple of empathetic doormen who tell them they have a 50/50 chance of working with the venue and Ticketmaster in conjunction to get the ticket order changed, but they’ll have to come back after the doors open. They meet back up with us somewhat uplifted. 50/50 is better than 0/100.

We head to the venue slightly after the entire line has shuffled in. We wait inside the door while the last member of our group tries to reason with the front desk. He has his receipts and identification. The lady working the desk finally says he can purchase another ticket to get in. Hey — out another $18.50, but at least he gets in, right?

But no. Because this is both the least and most lucky day for a concert, it’s even better. Another lady taking tickets pulls him aside before he has a chance to buy anything, stamps his hand, and he gets in without any physical ticket what-so-ever. Thank you random stranger.

So in the end we caught awesome sets by bands I hadn’t been into (The Swellers, This Providence, and Set Your Goals) and a crazy kick off for Motion City Soundtrack’s tour in support of their new album My Dinosaur Life. MCS played stuff from all four of their full-lengths and even an earlier track from one of their first EPs.

And that stupid window? It came up on the ride home. Because everything works out in the end.

Motion City Soundtrack Set

Worker Bee
My Favorite Accident
Everything is alright
Delerium
Last night
Cambridge
Shiver
Disappear
Time Turned Fragile
Motherfucker
This is for real
Capital H
A Lifeless Ordinary
Make Out Kids
Her Words Destroyed My Planet
L.G. FUAD

Encore:
Even If It Kills Me
Throwdown
The Future Freaks Me Out

What, exactly, defines a good person?

This is the question that’s been on my mind recently. A question probably sparked last week after watching coverage of the Haiti crisis. The remarkable thing about the natural disaster was how many American lives were thrown into chaos so far from home. Last Friday I posted a link on my Facebook to a page displaying information on how and where people could donate to relief efforts. The further that information spreads, the better. In our advanced society we have the ability to support charities that save lives with a few key presses. I donated $10 via text to the Red Cross in less than a minute. No paperwork. No credit card authorization. It’s just added to my phone bill at the end of the month. I also gave $10 through Paypal to the Save the Children fund.

I have an old high school friend who keeps a blog that I would guess he would argue frequently discusses Christianity. I beg to differ. I think the majority of what he writes about is acceptance. Acceptance through forgiveness. Acceptance through love. Acceptance through open-mindedness. I think he might argue that these are all aspects of Christianity. I would argue that Christianity is an aspect of them. I enjoy arguing with this friend. In the end I think we usually come to the same or similar conclusions. I believe what defines a good person is continued faith that things will work out. I’ve come to learn that accepting the hand we’re dealt is also an important factor. That’s not to say we can’t change or learn from the hand we’re dealt. Quite the opposite.

A long time ago I was a very forgiving person. I was the guy everyone came to with their problems. Today that’s not quite as much the case. When I flunked out of high school there was a period of time before snapping back into reality and getting my life back on track where I was a huge dick. I didn’t see it then but I’ve since come to realize that I was in a pretty fucked up state of mind. No drugs. No alcohol. Just a really pathetic depression. I tricked and lied to my family and closest friends. I didn’t go out much. I stopped playing music. I stopped playing music with some of the best guys I know. I told everyone I knew I was fine. Fooled people I shared a roof with. After years of solidifying relationships I spent two years, starting early my senior year of high school, knocking down the walls. I did it without thinking. I did it subconsciously.

I did not mean to do it. I would not have let myself continue what I was doing had I known it was happening at the time.

I’ve only started apologizing recently, the situation becoming clearer as I distance myself from it through time. Discussing it with family and approaching my friends and explaining it to them individually. It’s a really weird experience to hear their thoughts on it. I realized that I needed to talk to my friends about where I had been mentally after bringing it up to one of them casually one day. After I finished explaining he told me me that our group of friends had literally had points in time where they said things like “I wish Luke was here.” It’s both incredibly uplifting and horribly heartbreaking to hear those words from a friend. I didn’t think I had low self-esteem, but knowing that I had left people hanging so much that they came to that kind of conclusion really put things in perspective for me.

And then, a few weeks after that encounter, I told one of my best friends and he told me he had realized something was up but never really brought it up. He seemed pretty upset about it and I understood his position because I’ve been there before. And no matter how much you tell that person they couldn’t have changed anything and that you’d have just gamed them like everyone else, they still think they should have done something more. But it’s not anyone’s fault. It played out like it did. We have to accept the hand that was dealt. We have to have faith that things will stay better.

Around four years later I am a different person than I was then. I’m rebuilding the bonds I busted. I’m in a much better mindset. I’m the dependable person I was before everything turned to shit and I’m working to show that to those around me without throwing it in their faces.

And I am writing again. I used to think people could be my muse. Then I thought it was conflict. But that’s all bullshit. Life is my muse and too much of any one thing can throw it horribly off balance and make for a terrible script. It takes equal parts faith in the future and accepting the present. Otherwise you’re just an asshole, a joker, a fool, or a crybaby.

This weekend, as I’ve mentioned in other posts, some friends and I are going hit up Motion City Soundtrack’s show at First-Avenue  in Minneapolis. Somehow I tend to get put in charge of organizing and orchestrating these trips, but that’s okay by me. It’s easier for me to shoulder the responsibility. Right now I’m just hoping that the weather doesn’t destroy it, because I could use a get away.

And hey, if you think I should have talked to you about this one-on-one, approach me about it. It’s impacted friendships with pretty much anyone I knew at the time and I don’t mind talking it through. And I apologize ahead of time.

• Most listened to tracks…

1. blink-182 – Feeling This
2. Frightened Rabbit – The Twist
3. blink-182 – I Miss You
4. The Spill Canvas – Lullaby
5. Matt & Kim – Daylight
6. Motion City Soundtrack – Hold Me Down
7. Motion City Soundtrack – Last Night
8. blink-182 – Stockholm Syndrome
9. blink-182 – Down
10. Phoenix – 1901

• Most listened to artists…

1. Motion City Soundtrack
2. blink-182
3. Death Cab for Cutie
4. Saves the Day
5. Dashboard Confessional
6. Angels & Airwaves
7. Dave Matthews Band
8. Say Anything
9. The Get Up Kids
10. The Format

• Most listened to albums…

1. blink-182 – Self-titled
2. Motion City Soundtrack – Even If It Kills Me
3. Frightened Rabbit – The Midnight Organ Fight
4. Matt & Kim – Grand
5. Motion City Soundtrack – I Am The Movie
6. Phoenix – Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix
7. Angels & Airwaves – We Don’t Need To Whisper
8. Bon Iver – For Emma, Forever Ago
9. Motion City Soundtrack – Commit This To Memory
10. blink-182 – Take Off Your Pants & Jacket

Tom put AvA’s new song out tonight a little early… Here are the lyrics, or at least what I heard after a few listens – should be close. Download link at the bottom.

And look real close ‘cross the winds and the roads
It is there to decode, will you fly as a ghost
Or a spark to explode – it’s the start of the show
It’s the part you love most where your heart will implode

And do you believe in hallucinations,
Silly dreams or imagination?
Don’t go away ’cause I feel you this time
Don’t go away ’cause I need you there this time

As the wind floats home, carry us back to shore
And up the mountainous coast where the sun starts to glow
From our head to our toes, to the stars that we know
And with you as my hosts it will keep us afloat

Again…
And do you believe in hallucinations,
Silly dreams or imagination?
Don’t go away ’cause I feel you this time
Don’t go away ’cause I need you there this time

Do you believe in hallucinations,
Any dream or it’s revelation?
Don’t go away ’cause I need you there this time
Don’t go away ’cause I needed you all my life

The science is taxing, I’m waiting for something
There’s images of love and war and everything’s here to explore
It’s all alike, unusual, a different place but beautiful
And it is not quite as it seems, I hear the children’s laughs and screams

(It’s beautiful, so beautiful, it’s beautiful)

Do you believe in hallucinations,
Silly dreams or imagination?
Don’t go away ’cause I feel you this time
Don’t go away ’cause I need you there this time

Do you believe in hallucinations,
Any dream or it’s revelation?
Don’t go away ’cause I need you there this time
Don’t go away ’cause I needed you all my life

(All my life, I needed you all my…)

P.S. – This song ends on the same synth chord that’s at the end of Adam’s Song/beginning of All the Small Things. Fuckin weird things I notice…

• (Right click, Save as) Angels & Airwaves – Hallucinations [6.8Mb]