The Avett Brothers - Four Thieves Gone: The Robbinsville Sessions

Download: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=NTTTH1DR

The first time I listened to the Avett Brothers was in the summer of 2007 on a humid as fuck day in Greensboro, North Carolina. They were so good that I just kept listening in my friends housemates car and forgot about how humid it was in the south during that time of year. Needless to say that they are from the Carolina's themselves.

Anyways, since that time they have gotten huge. I also made the stupid decision to not go see them when they played Santa Cruz because I was lazy to get tickets and didn't want to be around hipsters. But yeah, enjoy. I'm going to sleep. Tomorrow = Portraits of Past and Dangers at the Smell. Wooooo.

Go It Alone - Vancouver Gold

Go It Alone hails from Vancouver, B.C. a.k.a. Rain City. They have been one of the most influential hardcore bands that I have listened to since my start in the hardcore scene almost 6 years ago when I started going to shows in later half of 9th grade. I continued to support them throughout the years due to their sincerity (especially Mark, who did vocals) - even though I got more and more unsatisfied as to where the general hardcore scene (especially within California) was going and how kids acted within it. Along with Go It Alone, there were other bands I saw sincerity in at the time of my engagement with Go It Alone. Bands like Allegiance, and Verse - both who were on Rival Records at the time (later turned into Rivalry Records) after Go It Alone had left Straight On records. It was times such as these when I had fun going to most shows that I attended. At the time of their existence, I would say they were one of the only few bands on the West Coast within the general hardcore scene that tackled issues such as gender roles, sexism, societal conformity, and macho assholes in the hardcore scene. I wish I saw more bands with similar sincerity in the general hardcore scene today (although it is heavily present in the radical hardcore scene with bands like 7 Generations). It's kind of sad. Luckily I got to go Vancouver in the December of 2007 to see their last show. It was amazing and I experienced snow for the first time!

Anyways, below is their first 7 inch EP titled "Vancouver Gold" and a few pictures I took at their last Southern California show at Chain Reaction and second to last show ever in Vancouver, BC.


Go It Alone - Vancouver Gold



Download: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=B16LLYD9

Pictures:

Tattoo!

So I finally made an appointment to get tattooed.
Adam Barton at O'Reilly's Tattoo in Santa Cruz is going to be working on it.

I'm basically going to be getting a half sleeve on my left arm in black and grey. It's going to consist of a Peregrine Falcon perched up on an epic looking clock tower with a city in ruins in the background (think of the scene after the occurance of the 1755 earthquake in Lisbon).

I've scheduled two sessions so far. May 16th and then one in mid to late June (the 20th or 27th, its on my card which is in Santa Cruz!). Since he is booked until May, the only way I could start on it early is if someone cancels and I take their place! I have no problem waiting until May though.

On another note, my mom made a joke how they got me a diamond stud earing and then I joked back saying "I'll get my nose pierced and put it in!" My dad looked at me all crazy and was like "If you do anything more to your body then you aren't stepping into this house again." I LOL'd of course. Too bad you wont see my half sleeve until I graduate suckaaaaa.

Here is some work Adam has done:













Here is his site/blog: http://adambartontattoo.blogspot.com

Pale Eyes

So about a week and a half ago I started playing drums again. It started with a practice with two of my close friends in Santa Cruz, CA. In that week and a half we wrote five songs that we could play although it wasn't sound perfect. Whatever though, we are playing shitty bay area style pop punk anyways!

So yeah, the point of practicing all week since our existence was to play a house show in Poway, CA two nights ago where one of my band mates also played in a Blink 182 cover band. I was nervous about the whole things but when I got behind that drum set it was the funnest thing ever. Especially since a lot of my good friends were there. We fucked up a lot during our set but got through our 4 song set nontheless. It was fucking releiving to know that we did decent. With more practice I'm sure we will be way better the next time we play. Afterall, we only practice for less than an hour every day for an entire week.

Stay tuned for more shows.
Here are some pictures!

The Ride Down

Today I had one of the most interesting drives of my life from Santa Cruz to LA. It was spent with a friend who is in his mid 50's and a self proclaimed "hobo".

For the entire 4 hours and 45 minutes that it took to get to his drop off point, we conversed. Music wasn't turned on until the last 45 minutes of my drive which surprised me a good amount. Before the drive my friend was more of an acquaintance but within those 4 hours and 45 minutes he became a good friend. Hearing his life story was amazing: growing up in the mountains, being a train riding hobo, hunt sabs that could get you beaten severely or killed, squatting for almost half of his life, living an anarchist life style and so forth. It was really influential to hear him talk about his life and even issues that we both face together today even.

We talked a lot about what it means to be "radical" or an "anarchist" by examining alot of how self-proclaimed anarchists act: the usual snobby kids who say they are so anti-authoritarian and consistently say "fuck landlords" without actually attempting to get their hands dirty and trying to create the lifestyle they wish to live - they instead mooch off people without any recognition or appreciation. An example are kids that abuse the priviliges of the house that I live at: basically squatting the back yard when they are too lazy to go to their own squat or if its raining, using the house computer/internet and not being social with the people who live in the space, etc. It straight up sucks.

Other stuff we talked about was taking spare amounts of time to do small deeds. One major example we talked about was habitat restoration/invasive removal. ANYONE (with proper knowledge on invasives within your bioregion) can easily remove certain small growth invasive plant species on any walk, hike, bike ride, etc. If a good amount of people started doing this in a place like California there would be significant benefits considering California has the most invasive species out of any state in the country - I think about 70% of existing species in our state are invasive but I'm not positive on this.

Another example we talked about was people putting volunteer time into local projects and spaces rather then just abusing them and mooching off of them like I had mentioned earlier. If everyone in a community just took that little time to do such work, community outreach would be even more effective because it would should show people that radical communties are actually capable of achieving goals rather then having a bad name based off the media.

It's getting later into the day and I should probably hang out with my mom and dad so I'm going to do that. I just needed to blog about my ride today to get good feelings out!

I will post more music soon. I promise!

-Reesh

Two nights ago the power went out all over campus. Although I was stressing out about getting a show started for my Canadian friends, I couldn't help to realize how much the the stars, wind, and redwoods stood out. It was truly one of the most beautiful moments of my life in last few weeks.