Dig.

I keep spending way too much time on forums, and on Bandcamp, and on social media, and on the various other means I employ in my perpetual search for music, and Google Chrome is having a shit fit over all the tabs I've got open, so I figured I'd dump a whole bunch of links here so I at least have them stored somewhere safe. My Bookmarks folder is a goddamn wilderness, so Blogspot it is. If you've got an hour or so to kill, I'd recommend combing through the following links - there's gold in them thar urls.

http://caladanbrood.bandcamp.com/
Atmospheric Scottish folk/black

http://plaguesurvivors.bandcamp.com/
Gnarly Northeastern sludgecore

http://arsaidh.bandcamp.com/
Austin from Panopticon swears by this. Atmospheric black magic.

http://blackfuckingcancer.bandcamp.com/album/summoning-aural-hell
Black fucking murder. Formerly Necrite.

http://gracelessrecordings.bandcamp.com/
Horrible noisy evil. Run by Mike from Loss.

http://eternalkhan.com/
Really good. Doomy, gloomy, black and grim.

http://nomosdei.bandcamp.com/album/kia-escaping-the-pain-of-creation
Evil Greek black metal.

https://soundcloud.com/deathknellprod
LISTEN TO VTTA NOW.

http://terraforms.bandcamp.com/
Primitive one-man blight from Philly.

http://soilandash.bandcamp.com/album/iii-foul-skin
Droning, hopeless, and bleak as shit. Australia.

http://abstractspirit.bandcamp.com/album/theomorphic-defectiveness
Crushing Russian funeral doom.

http://templeofvoid.bandcamp.com/
I don't remember where I found this. It's pretty savage, though. Total death/doom from Detroit.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hBdwTH9YYXA
Just because Cobalt rule live and touring with them was awesome.

http://sangredemuerdago.bandcamp.com/
Weird neofolky stuff from Spain. Lots of nature sounds and gentle strings.

http://nuclearwarnowproductions.bandcamp.com/album/the-world-is-so-good-that-who-made-it-doesnt-live-here
Fuck yeah, early Mystifier rerelease!

http://timekillseverything.bandcamp.com/album/time-kills-everything
Nasty business from Winnipeg. Manic industrial black hell.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dp4jt5BYqeA
Marry me, Iron Curtain. Viva Espana, viva Motorhead!

Cold nights.

It's been a bad week. There's no use going into particulars. No one wants to read your sob story, they're too preoccupied with writing - or weathering - their own. Family stuff, man. It's hard. It's hard to think about, let alone write about, and this isn't the place to spin my own tale of woe and the backwoods. I'm not sure what that place might be, but I'm pretty certain that it's best kept locked away, stored in living room conversations and quiet bedside chatter. Writing that story about my mom was hard enough; I'm glad I did it, but it took awhile. This fresh heartache is too raw, too ragged around the edges, and too goddamn confusing to touch. It still stings, and I'm still wholly lost, and there's no room for that stuff on a metal blog (if this even qualifies - it's more of a graveyard/half-baked resume by now).

Sorrow, alienation, impotent rage, creeping uncertainty - extreme metal has a lot of time for these loathsome emotions, and the darkest hours often call for the most punishing soundtracks. It's always been that way for me - the harshest black metal tore through the asphyxiating paralysis, and lit a torch to illuminate the path out of Hell. Not this time, though. I've spent the last week wrapping myself in Order From Chaos, Teitanblood, Obituary - old friends, old favorites, a warm woolen blanket of hate to hide beneath. It doesn't feel right, though. For whatever reason, this latest struggle calls for something different.

Common Eider, King Eider and Steve von Till have been offering a great deal of solace. The Moon Lay Hidden Beneath a Cloud, the acoustic Royal Thunder tunes, Hexvessel, Southern Isolation, and Purson have resurfaced on my playlists, keeping me company while night falls and I'm alone, waiting for my man to come home from work and hold me tight. Being so far away from home makes dealing with family pain so much harder, given that my dad and granddad aren't the most computer-savvy. They tend to give up on emails after three lines, sending cryptic messages and leaving holes to worry into. Having A. here is the next best thing, better really, because he's not as jaded to the madness that we've grown accustomed to and knows when to hug tightest.

That's probably why I've been so drawn to these haunted, half-whispered songs - they sound as lonesome as those empty hours can feel.


Common Eider, King Eider:

http://commoneiderkingeider.bandcamp.com/album/amnesia
and


Steve von Till:


Southern Isolation:

BEST OF 2012

I made about a zillion "best of" lists this year. Here they all are in one place.

Metalsuck - top fifteen: http://www.metalsucks.net/2012/12/04/grim-kims-top-fifteen-metal-albums-of-2012/

Pitchfork - best albums/songs: http://pitchfork.com/features/staff-lists/9017-the-top-50-albums-of-2012/6/

American Aftermath - best demos: http://americanaftermath.net/2012/12/22/best-of-2012-grim-kim-kellys-favorite-demos-of-2012/

Unhallowed Nation - best ugly death metal records:
http://www.unhallowednation.com/kim-kellys-top-ten-low-down-ugly-evil-death-metal-albums-of-2012-5529

More are still waiting to be published, notably Brooklyn Vegan and Burning Ambulance, (or in Cvlt Nation's case, written - whoops) and a few are floating around in print form - Terrorizer, Absolute Underground.

I also lauded Pallbearer's stunning 'Sorrow and Extinction' on Invisible Oranges (http://www.invisibleoranges.com/2012/12/top-50-albums-of-2012-10-to-1/) and Pitchfork (http://pitchfork.com/features/staff-lists/9017-the-top-50-albums-of-2012/).


I really just spent all year listening to David Allan Coe and Venom, but, people like lists.

Best of 2012 (The Super Biased Edition)

It's that time of year again, when pretty much every music writer with a functioning cerebral cortex (and, seemingly, a few without) hunkers down in their undoubtedly stuffy, dirty sock- and empty juice container-strewn lairs and bash away at their respective keyboards, frantically arranging and rearranging and evaluating and worrying and eventually allowing themselves to experience that sweet, sweet second of release when they think, "Aw, fuck it" and hit the Send button. Yep, it's year-end best-of list time, the most wonderful(ly arbitrary) time of every music journo's year!

I actually really like making lists, but tend to get overwhelmed and contrary after filing the fourth one in a row. It is a frustrating, silly process, and oftentimes makes me feel like I'm choosing sides in one massive, ugly are-you-my-friend-or-hers middle school battle, especially since so many of my mates insist on making super awesome records every year. My day job as a publicist also makes things difficult, because there are always at least a few records that I desperately want to include, because I genuinely think that they deserve the nod (I choose with whom to work and I only work with bands that I think are fucking rad!), but am unable to because, duh. There's a grey area for sure, and I end up skirting it once in awhile, but I do try my best to avoid conflicts of interest. That's why I'm putting this little list up on here, my personal blog, and making it very, very clear that I am openly biased about these albums for various business/personal reasons (it doesn't help when your boyfriend plays in a band, or you spend weeks on tour with bands, or your former clients release side projects!).

They're still fucking awesome, though, and if you haven't heard them yet, you really should!

So here's my totally, utterly, absolutely, 100% biased top whatever list of some of the best records of 2012 that I cannot include on any of my published lists for one reason or another.


Panopticon - Kentucky (Handmade Birds/Pagan Flames)

Bastard Sapling - Dragged From Our Restless Trance (Forcefield Records)

Dragged Into Sunlight - Widowmaker (Prosthetic)

Saint Vitus - Lillie: F-65 (Season of Mist)

Aelter - III (Eternal Warfare)

Don Seantalamh a Chuid Féin (Into the Void Records)

Obolus - Lament (The Flenser)

Greed & Rapacity - Loki Bound

Ecocide - When Will It End (Tofu Carnage)

Appalachian Terror Unit - Black Sands (Profane Existence)

Sutekh Hexen - Larvae (Handmade Birds)

A Story of Rats - Vastness & The Inverse (Translinguistic Other)

Windhand - S/T (Forcefield Records)

Author & Punisher - Ursus Americanus (Seventh Rule)

Inperial Triumphant - Abominamentvm (self-released)

Pinkish Black - S/T (Handmade Birds).

BONG - Mana Yood Sushai (Ritual Productions)


I also really liked the Kaevum's 'Natur' record, but they're pretty blatantly NS and I just do not feel like dealing with all that noise. Great music, though.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZXKYEz6B8vE


So there you have it. I'll post my various other published lists as they go up.

Hallo, Deutschland

Al and I went to Berlin for this year's Nuclear War Now! fest - or "live ritual," if you prefer - and it ruled. We did a bunch of sightseeing, bought an old Soviet gasmask from a man on a bridge (you sort of have to, don't you), ate our combined weight in falafel and chips, drank far too much whiskey, hugged up on a bunch of buddies from all over the world, met some rad people, and, of course, watched some AMAZING bands. I've got a proper live review of all that coming out in the next Terrorizer Magazine, but suffice it to say, Revenge, Knelt Rote, Wrathprayer, and Dead Congregation alone made all the madness worthwhile.

Hey -

I'm horrible at updating this thing, and my grand aspirations of doing an actual tour diary evaporated around the same time I remembered how insanely hectic touring is. It's the same story every time; I sign myself up for a zillion projects and assignments, hop in the van, start telling myself about how much work I'm going to get done before doors...during the gig...at wherever we're crashing...before van call..oh, shit. I find myself scrabbling around just trying to finish the bare minimum - the assignments that pay, that have hard deadlines, that I can't afford to push back a week or three. That's where I'm at now. I owe loads of words to at least three places, probably more - only Gmail knows - and have between now and 11am Dallas time to get 'em done. C'est ma vie.

So here's a few things I actually did manage to get done since I last posted...

http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/17063-verdonkermaan/

http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/17149-the-threnody-of-triumph/

http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/17198-embers-and-revelations/

http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/17199-ye-are-gods/

http://www.metalsucks.net/2012/10/17/on-the-road-with-saint-vitus-grim-kims-tour-bus-playlist/#disqus_thread

See you soon, Americaland.

SAINT VITUS, WEEDEATER, SOURVEIN - 2012 TOUR DATES

9/14 Little Rock AR @ Rev Room *

9/15 Memphis TN @ Hi-Tone Cafe

9/16 Nashville TB @ Exit/In

9/18 Atlanta GA @ The Masquerade

9/19 Raleigh NC @ Lincoln Theatre

9/20 Richmond VA @ Kingdom

9/21 Huntington WV @ V Club

9/22 Boomslang Festival @ Buster's Billiard's & Backroom, Lexington KY

9/23 Pittsburgh PA @ The Rex Theater

9/24 Cambridge MA @ The Middle East

9/25 Brooklyn NY @ Saint Vitus Bar

9/27 Washington DC @ Black Cat

9/28 New York NY @ Best Buy Theater w/ DOWN **

9/29 Cleveland OH @ Grog Shop

9/30 Chicago IL @ Bottom Lounge

10/1 Minneapolis MN @ Triple Rock Social Club

10/2 Lawrence KS @ Granada Theater

10/3 Denver CO @ Bluebird Theater

10/4 Salt Lake City UT @ Urban Lounge

10/5 Boise ID @ Neurolux

10/6 Fall Into Darkness Fest, Portland OR

10/7 Seattle WA @ Highline

10/9 San Francisco CA @ The Independent

10/10 Los Angeles CA @ Bootleg Theater

10/11 Sacramento CA @ Harlow's

10/12 Santa Cruz CA @ Atrium at The Catalyst

10/13 Pomona CA @ venue TBA **

10/14 Santa Ana CA @ Constellation Room at The Observatory

10/15 Mesa AZ @ Nile Theater

10/16 Albuquerque NM @ Launchpad

10/18 Austin TX @ Beauty Ballroom

10/19 San Antonio TX @ Bonds 007

5. 6. 7.

My stint with Hull is over as of a few hours ago, when they dropped me off in front of Downtown Music Hall in Little Rock. I love those boys, and am hoping that the next year brings them the kind of attention and success that they really, truly deserve. They were so much fun to (mini)-tour with.

Day 5 was an off day; we bummed around and stopped in Memphis to hunt down some barbeque (success! Rendezvous did us right, touristy kitsch and limited menu be damned. Best sweet tea I've ever had) and crashed at their pal Jacob's house in Little Rock around midnight. We watched the Bobby Liebling documentary, which was infinitely depressing and made me really, really glad that I stay away from drugs, but also delighted to see my old friend Pellet looking so happy at the end. By the time we'd seen the last of Bobby, Jacob has headed to bed, and we followed suit.  He has four adorable cats that kept everyone except Jeff in paroxysms of delight, and an impossibly stocked cupboard filled exclusively with packets of Top Ramen and white rice, which gave me flashbacks to my first forays into "cooking" when I was in grade school. I like your style, Jacob.

Yesterday was the second day of Mutants of the Monster Fest II. There were a handful of bands I was really excited to see - Beneath Oblivion, The Ascent of Everest, Hull (duh), and Rwake - and a few I'd never really heard of before. I always forget how awesome Rwake's live performances can be, between CT's manic street preacher energy, B's spidery Moog manipulations and caustic howls, the crashing heaviness of it all, and the ragged synchronicity of the band itself. Also, John gives the best hugs. The Ascent of Everest are something really beautiful, too - post-rock with soul. I do still miss Evil Bebos, some of the members' previous band - an awesomely heavy psych-doom band that my best friend and I used to hang with and put on house shows for in college (she did the show-throwing, I did the nerding-out-about-them-in-print-ing). Those weer the best days, when we were a little younger and a lot wilder and way crustier. Hull crushed it - they really are so much meaner and streamlined as a four-piece, and have really impressed me on this run. Git it, boys. I hadn't seen Beneath Oblivion in years, since Kuma's Rock Fest in Chicago in 2009 (they remember my underage ass getting kicked out and summarily quarantined by the gear cases, too) but have been following them ever since, and was captivated by the suffocating heaviness they brought to the Downtown's stage. The Pallbearer fellas showed up and gave me a heavy-duty vinyl copy of their new record (best dudes, best present!) and I must have hugged half of Arkansas out of sheer happiness in being there. People here are so very kind, and honest, and passionate. They really fucking care about music.

Tonight, Pallbearer are the main attraction, with a metric fuckton of others taking the stage beforehand - I think the first band goes on in about fifteen minutes, and it's only 2:45pm. Gonna be a long day. Bought my plane tickets for London this morning, too, so color me the happiest girl in the world. Seven hours on a plane is nothing - I'd travel halfway 'round the world four times over just to see his face.

Spent some time walking around Little Rock earlier today in search of tea and a bagel, and on my way to the inevitable Starbucks (about a mile way), was struck by now much...nothing...that there was. Vacant businesses, empty storefronts, faded signs, nothing resembling traffic on a hot Saturday afternoon. The odd denizen walking - or stumbling - around in the heat. Nothing but fast food and a dubious-looking Chinese restaurant with shuttered windows seemed to be open, and I was on the verge of reverting back to tour mode and going the gas station breakfast route (Lipton tea and a packet of ramen crumpled into two separate Styrofoam cups of boiling water) when that blessed greenish mermaid rose up from the sea of auto parts and empty streets to beckon me into her air-conditioned, comfortingly bland gullet. It made me realize how little I actually know about this city that I've spent so much time visiting. I've seen the (awesome) woman who runs Downtown Music more often than my own mother this year, and been to Little Rock with four different bands by now, but I still haven't got a clue what it's really like. That's what touring does to you, I guess. All you see are snapshots. Sometimes they're good - endless wild nights in Chicago, the mouthwatering pizza and big-hearted staff at the Hi-Tone in Memphis, Ho Sai Gai's sesame chicken in Philly, the lovely couple with the hearse in their front yard in Orlando - and sometimes they're terrible, or worse, straight up boring. Driving through Mississippi or Detroit is awful. Wending your way through the mountains and over the painted deserts out West will fill you with life and awe. Swilling bourbon in Nashville and chugging forties on a stoop outside a basement show in South Philly is scumbag nirvana. Places I hate to visit, like Pittsburgh and Miami and Missouri and most of Texas - have their pros, but by the luck of the draw, I only see the cons. The neverending cornfields and truckstops of the Midwest will numb you. The arid, lonesome Southwest will parch you. The toll-heavy asshole-driven Northeast will make you see red. The swampy black magic druglust in NOLA and Savannah will take their pound of flesh. 

I can say all of these things, and know them, and mean them, but acknowledge full well that I do not really know these places. Some I'm very familiar with - Chicago, Portland, Philly, Raleigh, NYC, Austin - and some I've only passed through, but none of them are home to me. They're home to someone, though, someone who knows them like the back of their hand and can show you where they went to preschool down the street and tell you where to get the best sandwich in town. All I can do is draw upon my own blinkered experience, and draw my own conclusions, as biased and ill-informed they undoubtedly may be. I remember royally pissing off a blogger from Iowa after complaining about how shitty Dubuque, and by extension, Iowa, was. He got annoyed at my perceived "East Coast superiority complex," and I hated the fuck out of that lame little burgh with its rude youth and inhospitable vibes. I have never had fun in Iowa, and wasn't about to pretend. We were both right, and both wrong, and both had opinions about this particular slab of earth. 

I want to get to know these places, though. I want to see them through different eyes, and venture off the beaten path, and fall in love with them. The place I grew up probably seems like a hillbilly backwater to those who have never fallen asleep to a whipporwill's cries or seen the sun bleed out through pine branches, or picked huckleberries and played catch with an old hound dog all day then fallen asleep beneath a tanned deer hide, or known what it feels like to walk a ways into the woods behind your house and be the only human being within untold miles of dense, untouched, untainted forest. To me, it's heaven, but to someone else, it's hell. Pittsburgh is someone's heaven. Oakland is someone's heaven. Houston is someone's heaven. 

Guess I'll just have to keep hitting that asphalt, and wait for clarity.

2. 3. 4.

It's been a funny few days. We're in Atlanta, at the same venue I was at last time a tour brought me through town: 529, a tiny spot that has brushed off quite a bit of the sawdust and slopped black paint over the unfinished beams that had splintered up a passel of babythrashers at that Municipal Waste gig, and have closed off about half of the venue space for reasons unknown. The bar is a bottleneck, the bartenders pour 'em weak, but I dig this city, and it's always great to see old friends from the road. Nick's here, and Brent's playing with his new band Order of the Owl (bone-shaking tones), Juan's here with his side band Stallone, and the Royal Thunder cats just rolled through. I hit up the rest of the Zoroasters and Kevin Sharp, but it's tough to get even old friends out to Tuesday night gigs. One familiar face is worth the world when you're far from home.

Yesterday was eventful, to say the least. We woke up and hit a nice old diner in downtown Carrboro with Jenks from Horseback, then went hiking (well, wandering half-lost) through the woods 'til we found this "swimming hole" Jeffrey had told us about. It was really just a stretch of silty, stagnant river coursing sluggishly beneath an overhanging tree to which someone long ago had nailed a crude approximation of a ladder and diving platform. Of course we all had to have a go. My fear of heights surfaced well past the point of any safe return, so I eventually - and after much coaxing - jumped down into the muddy waters, and to my immense surprise, did not die. That fifteen-foot drop was more than enough for me; I'll never understand how Al went cliff-diving so casually in Malawi. After that, we shucked off out wet clothes, rinsed off, and headed over to the show, to load in Hull's mountains of gear down a flight and a half of stairs. Slowly but surely, my tour muscles are coming back. Mediterranean food, solid performances from Systems (who sound like a mathier Thou) and Caltrop (who should tour with Royal Thunder), my first time seeing Hull as a four-piece (way meaner), a lot of online flat-hunting between customers, and that was over. We stayed with one of their mates from Caltrop and his stunningly beautiful wife in their rambling old farmhouse, replete with a lazy hound dog, a nice collection of literature on the Cultural Revolution, and the cutest kitten of all time. It also featured some diabolical-looking spiders, no A/C, and a non-working toilet, so this morning found us a few rungs beneath bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. Van naps, a visit to Biscuitville, endless Skype mobile chat (if only my dodgy Android had Facetime [ultimate first world problem, I know]) and a ill-fated decision to nod off whilst listening to the new Nihill album. I woke up shaking. That's the first album that's ever, ever given me nightmares, but Jelle and Mikael managed to erode my psyche and bathe it all in blood. I'm still a bit shaken, which I suppose is a good result for a fucked-up black metal record.

The day before yesterday was just spent hanging about Sean's brother's house, more Skype, some work, and awesome pancakes. We made the six or so hour drive to Chapel Hill, had some ridiculously indulgent bar food, watched some horribly depressing Louis C.K. reruns, and crashed. Not a bad off day.

We're staying with one of the Royal Thunder dudes tonight; hoping to sneak off and do some writing and new music listening, as I'm woefully behind. It stresses me out so much, being on the road. Never enough time for anything. If I couldn't talk to Al all the time, I'd go mad. I love him more every day.

Birmingham tomorrow. I hate Birmingham. I've only ever had one good time in Birmingham - hopefully tomorrow will be a redemption of sorts. At the very least, I'll get some decent pizza at Magic Mushroom.

So I'm in a van again.

And I figured I'd write about it. I guess this is something of a tour diary, but really, it's just a diary. I'll be traveling through most of the country 'til October 1st, and odds are I'll find at least a few things worth documenting. Or not. We'll see.

1.

I feel like shit. Waking up hungover is generally not something I’d recommend for the best of times, like those lazy Sundays spent naked in bed with your similarly-incapacitated significant other, slurping down lo mein and watching old episodes of 30 Rock. Waking up hungover when you have an actual thing to do and a set time by which said thing must be accomplished is an extraordinarily unappealing prospect, one that I’d hoped to avoid for this particular task, but these things have a way of spiraling out of my control once certain elements come into play. Well, just the one element, really. The booze. I don’t drink that often – I’m too cheap, and just don’t feel the urge, anyway – but when I do, and it’s a special occasion of sorts, I’ll fucking drink. My poison is bourbon; the honeyed sting of it, that peaty musky taste and feeling of slow, malicious warmth spreading down your throat is just the best damn thing. It’s funny, whiskey. Whiskey is one of those things that it’s sort of cool to say you like, right? That’s how it seems, anyway. Whiskey is tough, and manly, and just expensive enough to be a bit of a luxury. Well, unless you stick to the rail like I do. Like I’ve got ten bucks to spare for a shot of Maker’s? Fuck outta here, this is New York. I barely have ten bucks to spend on groceries, let alone indulgences. I’ve got more scratch than usual right now, but even that slight wisp of financial security, or at least my approximation of it, dwells within the sort of number range a lawyer would sniff at, and a Kardashian would equate to Somalian orphan’s level of poverty.  What I’m saying is, I’m not pinching my pennies as tightly as I’ve had to do before, but I still ain’t buying the good stuff. Anyway. A few Solo cups of cheap red wine, mixed with Coke of course – calimocho, as the Portuguese call it, discovered years ago when that one gorgeous, spectacularly dull Spaniard introduced me to it out of the trunk of his beat-up red car – were doing me just fine, but once Lady Bourbon swaggered into the picture, my dreams of a cheery productive morning went the way of the dodo in under five minutes. Hazy recollections of Axl Rose impressions and awkward water-under-the-bridge-so-why-do-we-need-to-talk-about-it encounters and new friends and falling on my ass whilst screaming Hatebreed lyrics outside some hipster watering hole in Williamsburg swam in and out of my consciousness as I woke up, groggy and headsick. Fuck, what time was it? Noon? Goddamnit, I had to meet the Hull dudes in exactly one hour, and all I wanted to do was turn back over, hug my shitty Dollar General-brand pillow, and go the fuck back to sleep. The show must go on, though, and tour vans wait for no man, especially on the first day, so I eventually, unwillingly, managed to haul my pathetic carcass into Sam’s shower and into my dirty cutoffs. A few moments’ worth of waffling – clean shirt? Worth it? Uhh – accompanied a dejected glance at the now-empty Styrofoam container that had once held delicious, greasy noodles and was now nothing more than a cold reminder of drunk me’s stumbly voyage into the kitchen and gleefully wolfing down cold sloppy Chinese at 4am before passing out. Man, I’d kill for some fuckin’ noodles right now, but no time – I was late. Time to hit the road.

The drive down to Annandale, Virginia took two extra hours thanks to various traffic snarls, but passed quickly and pleasantly enough. Hull’s van is huge, and the boys’ commentary and occasional bursts of song (Carmine brought along the ol’ acoustic, which is already proving to have been a wise decision) were bright spots in an otherwise dully misery-laced nap. I slept away most of the gut rot by Maryland, but am still feeling pretty low. I miss Al. He had a gig tonight, so we only got to talk for about five minutes this morning. The time differences destroys me when I’m traveling; it’s hard enough accounting for five hours, never mind pulling it off when you’re in a different time zone every day. I wish I was in Leeds watching him shred, but, c’est la vie right now. The house show environment isn’t doing much for me, either; everyone’s smoking, it’s loud, wah wah wah. I have to switch back into tour mode – I’m going to be living rough and dirty for the next month, and can’t allow that bitchy little princess that I am convinced every road dog keeps secretly tucked away for emergencies and week eight of tour to come shining through quite so soon

Aaron and Rob from Salome – well, ex-Salome, Salome is dead but dearly, dearly departed – are here. Rob’s new band is about to go on, and I should probably start making some kind of moves, to go and watch them if not load stuff. The “venue” space is smaller than our living room in Bed Stuy, and can uncomfortably fit about ten people and a band. Loading in and setting up is going to be hilarious, and fuck knows what I’m meant to do with the merch, but I shouldn’t be complaining so much. This is rock’n’roll. This is THE LIFE. Right?

We were meant to hit Richmond tomorrow, and I was looking forward to seeing some familiar faces and hopefully getting Luna to pierce me, but the gig fell through, and no one’s really given me an answer as to what we’re going to be doing in its stead. I hope we get to RVA at least for a little while; I love that city, and am there so infrequently that it hasn’t gotten old yet. We’ll see. Tomorrow’s another day, and I haven’t had a single drink, so I’m pretty sure my perspective – and complexion – will be much brighter come morning.