The Noise Factory

the 700 billion dollar out would equal 2000 mcdonalds apple pies for each american. thanks jon stewart. odd.

but the real purpose of this:

i don't think "it's a good song, it's my ring tone" is viable colateral as to why i should play the song you requested. especially when followed by, "and i may or may not have done a lot of coke tonight."

if you want to play your own songs, get the job, otherwise you can play them at your house.


karaoke was canceled, again. which means i got to go home early, but means i don't have the cash i was expecting for gas to athens to see wade make music. still. going to athens to see wade make music. awesome.


but to top the night off, my water pressure was explosive and the shower i just took was quite intense. high power shower heads were a great invention.

see you sometime.

some kid at karaoke, a regular nonetheless asked me if we had that song by journey, don't stop believin'. honestly, he asked if we had don't stop believin' to sing for karaoke.

went to the print studio after buff to make some mono-types. Bill wanted us to get experimental, so i did. it was one of those...lack of sleep, logic cortex shutting down before sleep sets in so i get delirious kind of moments. so i did art.

that pretty much sums my night up.

WGUR did jack shit for this show tonight, yet i still have to pay them.

why? i can't quite tell, but i have this false ideal that if i tack that name onto the concert then i can pay the bands more, or more people will show. it's bullshit. over 250 people were at buffington's blowing their minds to The K-Macks and Carlos Greg James and that means those fools should be well paid for what they did.

Buffington's is already getting stiffed out of 50% of the door and then i have this looming feeling like i am stiffing the bands in keeping money for the station. It doesn't help that i'm friends with these kids, but in a business sense it goes both ways. Fuck the friendship, they don't know how much actually came in through the door, take a lil off the top, noone will know. That's what could easily happen, but no, I allegiance myself  more to those guys on stage then that shack of a station any day, and counting out that money and deeming what is fair just leaves a dark spot hanging over. it would be just so much better if i cut ties with that station and did it all myself, oh wait, i did do it all myself. the four people who did come out, GM included, didn't stay past 1230, they didn't announce anything, they didn't give anything away, just like with those fucking t-shirts they want to do, its like they're robbing everyone blind. Fuck. them. they can have their velvet elvis dream.

shit, if WGUR had nothing to do with it, i could've made money myself, pulled a bill or two and not felt guilty like i was stealing from the band, but anything i feel i deserve and think about taking out of the wgur pot (which i stiffed them anyway) makes me feel like i'm taking away from what the band could've had. 

So, what'd i do? the same thing the buff would've done +something they wouldn't. i cut it 50/50 from the cash BEFORE buff took their cut.

Then after talking to the guys after paying, i threw them another 50 on top, they left happy, they made what they would've if wgur didn't "throw" this gig and wgur gets the stiff. and i don't feel bad about it one bit.

Max threw me 20 bucks for t-shirt labor and flier supplies and we all go home deaf in the ears but not to each other.

that 20 bones is going to a good cause, i'm thinking... star wars, beer hell maybe even a cheap ass bottle of krogers finest 4 dollar wine and pizza bites, maybe, maaaaaybe bagel bites.  

anyone interested...?

downtown sober weighs heavily on ones heart, not from in the figurative sense, the literal sense. Ciggaretts become the steady substitute for booze.

keep in mind that the following conversation, the guy is d-RUNK.

I leave the buff after another karaoke night ('nuff said) to two girls walking the sidewalk towards Barbs walking hand in hand steadily paced and a fratster in toe. at first thought you might think 'yep, there ya go' but no, two girls holding hands with a guy walking behind them to me is an immediate sign that someone is trying far to hard. Sure enough the conversation becomes audible, "you sure you're alright? You're sure you don't need me to come with you? Come on, just let me come with you, come back with me, you sure you don't want to come back with me? Let's go back with me." and then the sealer "I bought you drinks." Each question answered with that jovial "No" that you girls practice so much the one that means "Are you fucking serious? I would never go back with you," but sounds like little girls making cotton candy at the state fair, you still wake up the next morning feeling sick and bent over.

I walk past on the way to the Postal lot and its over, right?

I'm waiting for some cars and fratster comes walking up on his cell phone talking to i'm sure his butt budy, "Where are you? Capitol?" (no surprise) "yeah, you're going to pick me up? what? I was just making sure they would get home alright  ...   i was just making sure they were getting home alright. no, Capitol? yeah, no, i was just making sure they got home alright."

There really are two sides to every story.

I'm tired.

going to atlanta tomorrow to burn stuf drink wine make noise and eat cooked meats with my old friend ray. its about damn time.

I got a reality check today. the kind that says there is a reality. It was similar to the reality check we got in New York touring the agencies, but much, much more... real. In NYC the reality was that there are really well paid people in really amazing offices doing incredibly fun and creative things with their lives. the reality today was that there is life outside the bubble of milledgeville/college and that there are a lot more people out there just living.  But more-so then anything, the reality that I want to live in a city was reaffirmed.

I love the city, any city. walking out of the marta station to a face full of tall steel, cracked concrete, prevalent aroma, pheonixes the explorer in me. It just makes me want to walk around and see everything. look down every alley, make awkward eye contact with every person i see, walk when the hand says stop, and get lost. well not lost, because everything is in 'that' direction, and its pretty much impossible to get lost walking, but yeah. the city just makes me want to "go". and I want to just "go"

Cassidy wanted to see some parks to go to so we road marta to Piedmont. Piedmont is the shit. there's nothing more serene then skycrapers poking out over tree tops, nothing more... slowing then escaping the city. A park like that is essential it's the only thing that (to me) reminds people that there is more to life then "the city" even if that reminder is right there in it.

I guess I didn't realize that my disregard for exact distance and local is not equaled accross the plane. so to Cassidy I say 'sorry' for 'winging it' however, i did know exactly where we were going, i didn't realize just how badly you wanted to go exactly where we were going.

Regardless. Centennial Olympic Park is fun as shit. There is no age gap holding back anybody from experiencing the refreshment of those super chloronated rings of water.  It was a good day.

but back to it. going to the city reminded me how much i want to be in the city. it reminded me that there is something past college, not that i didn't know that, but i had been needing something to...to...to... i can't think of the words. something that said, this is what you are striving for, here is your tangible goal. now go and do something about it.

There was a screen printing, cigar selling, something else store.

there was also a cope on a segway. It was a good day.

Karaokeactually didn't suck tonight, in fact it went rather well. i wasn't pissed off the entirety of the night, and i can attribute that fact to cordell not showing till 11 (known this time...) and therefore there wasn't any 'heat'. unfortunately i can also say this revelation comes to truth in that i drank tonight and unfortunately that is a deciding factor in non-karoake-suckage.

still though, had to make a run to velvet to, well, you know... or maybe you don't, regardless, Honey Hots (Yeah, I said it) leaves in 2 days and that is disheartening, yet at the same time it isn't because books never really have to end, you can always add another chapter.

some rando kid gave me a genuine ''you ran sound right? man, music was top notch, that's the reason i don't go to other bars' and that cranked me up a notch, which isn't to sy i was down, nay, that just took me higher. as much as i say i hate working there, the fact that I can accept (or at least jade denial that) inflitcing pain onto myself to see other people smile and have a good day, that is what keeps me going. It will ultimately be my downfall as well. and coming to that revelation makes me more then a bit uneasy... I know i've said it a thousand times that "there is no reason to sacrifice your own well-being for the benefit of another" to many a person, I just wish i could practice what i preach; unfortunately i cannot.


i left my keys at buffingtons. they are in the sound booth, i went back to get my bag and realized they weren't in it, but i had already made chris unlock the door once, didn't want to do it again. so I'm on jesse's futon and he doesn't know it. again, see above paragraph.

In all, i wish i could say that i could remember what i was going to put here, but i had begun to reread the above writing and lost track of my own diction. I will say this though: summer is over. and it's been a fun ride, but the thrill can't last forever and sometimes you need to know when to get off before you dilute a good thing. You (myself in this case) tend to try and hold onto those weird Summer...i don't know attitudes? styles? mentality? failing mental cognitions? and fail to combine them a more rigid schedule. Summer has always had that weird disposition. By 'dilute a good thing' I mean not forget that summer ends without notice, so I am trying to phase myself out of that summer mentality so it doesn't hit me like a brick when I all of a sudden have no free-time left.

The not black was added the morning after i wrote this. What was originally written (in reference to the directly above paragraph) I realized later could be misconstrued very easily to mean something that I wasn't trying to say at all. That's the problem with a drunken hand, asking it to portray what I want to say is tough task for it.

What had to be edited was a drunken attempt at being überly profound and grandeous about memories, and i realized later that it could be easily mis-read as saying that, "oh well, good luck topping that shit future self, ain't gonna happen best just go get a turkey sandwich and subscribe to HBO" (in relation to all the profound and grandeous things that have happened this summer). but what I was really trying to say, and should have just written so I wouldn't have to be doing this editing crap. was that

Summer doesn't end in August, the name just changes and we get to wear sweatshirts.

ok, back to the original posting, damn this shit is long. if you don't make it through it, shit, i don't blame you

i'm being far to profound, and that means i need to stop writing before i shine a flashlight into a deep recess of my mind i wish to stay dark forever.

see you sometime.
hopefully that will not be just another memory as well.

so i find myself writing a lot lately. all bad things, not in anyway bad as in about anyone, just bad writing in general.

I've already booked a show for the coming semester, a k-macks, greg carlos and james, + 1 other oredeal for a back to school bash at the buff. it's going to be on america day (septmeber 11) so wear your colors or something, regardless, I'm hoping plenty of the new freshmen will arrive and get arrested for being stupid, you know, get it all in quick or what not.

on top of that, i have a 2nd show in the works to bring back do2w (that should be interesting...) and ponderosa to do another stab at murdering the music scene. and i talked to this kid Bo about bringing metal-core to milledgeville, something I am very excited about. That one is a little iffy.

School is about to start. which kinda puts me in a bind. it means i have to actually start finishing all the things i said i would do this summer before classes pick back up.

Chris Averet, or however it is spelled, and myself are going to be millionaires. just to let you know.

I just want to be in a punk band.

there is no real reason for this post except maybe to put out some of the flames from the last one. writing at 130 in the morning after driving all day and being drunk the night before is never good. So with that said.

I don't really hate summer. I just don't like the fluctuations that long periods of time with little differentiation can cause. that's all. cabin fever. pain in ass. Needed a changes of scenery.

regardless. or irregardless as the kids are saying.

What up milledgeville, i think I'm coming back to you tomorrow (thursday). Two days isn't really that long of a time, but still, I wonder if anything has changed.

i hate summer. goddamn i hate summer. almost as much as i hate de ja vue. self denial. regret. and hating in general.  just can't f'ing stand it. Just put that tape on repeat and watch it over and over and over. and over. the faces and names may change, but the ending is always the same.

I don't hate summer. i hate the end of summer. with a passion because i always know it is coming and it means reality has to come back. and that is why i hate it. because summer has a stigma of being not reality. and that fucking kills me.

i'm bored, so bored. at my mom's new house. i wish i could say what i really wanted to, but i can't.

I hate summer.

I can't smoke here. Which is fine in a way because once the 'awesomeness' that is summer is over, i plan on quitting anyway.
I planned on sneaking out in the night to have one but the new house has an alarm system. it's pretty rough when you go from a pack a day to nothing. cold turkey is tasty on bread but horrific any other way. it doesn't help that nic fitting is stacked on top of just other shit and the only thing i really just want is a ciggarette. well, that and other things. but goddamn i want a ciggarette.

went to the brave's game, we won, it was fun. fireworks are pretty. driving usually sucks but it wasn't bad at all. Wasn't tired fall asleep just exhausted. almost hit a dog. Came to terms that I'm an absent minded fool (got hints of it earlier in the day when i locked my keys in the car, in the front seat but brushed it aside) regardless,  couldn't find 20 to get back, mainly because i was looking for 20 west, which is not right. darn. took the scenic route down 85/75. Fuck Atlanta.

Going home home Tuesday day til Thursday morning, i'm trying to find excuses why this is so i think i will be picking up an assortment (probably 1) of lawn chairs and porch stuffs, saying hello to the family and exploring the new house. Apparently the new alarm system is hooked up to an old rotary phone and you have to put the code in by "dialing" it in the phone, that should be cool.

Roommate asked the other day how hard it would be to break the lease, that sucked, then today he said that other kid Carlos will probably be moving in, so back to the original plan of three roommates. I'll believe it when i see it.

That nasty ass carpet in the front of the house? Dominated it. Ripped it up this morning just because I could. And because the landlord said it would be alright if i did. So the house shouldn't smell like ass dog anymore.

Summer is quickly coming to an end, which is humbling, and perturbing. Maybe I'll start turning that advice i've given to a few others and apply it to myself. No regrets.

It's hot.

addendum:

I don't usually read my horoscope, nor take it to heart, but i was reading the comics in The Union Recorder and happened to see Pisces next to them. Psychic Saunders has supplied three days worth of future telling and I read them.

...Fitting

in the minutes that past since finishing that last post, I've come to remember the things that made this day not suck at all. Things that definately shadow the shitty karaoke night. we'll start with the first:

-I took a shirt out of the CLEAN laundry this morning and it smelled like the beach somehow which was the last place it was, before being washed. That was nice.

-as mentioned earlier, that thing i bought

-seeing Bailey wearing the shirt i made her was very awesome, especially since i finished it last night and she hadn't even washed it yet

-telling a very Jerry Seinfeld-esque joke and someone laughing that 'i can relate!' laugh

-finding out that people are ordering FNclothing shirts that I didn't even know were for sale was over all bewildering experience.

-that cold ass shower i just took and no longer smelling of the bar



here's the joke:

I went to wal-mart the other day to buy new boxers. i go in, i get the boxers, only to return home and realize after opening them, that i bought XL ones instead. But it can't be returned, it's opened BOXERS. so it's now like i got three new swimsuits.

it was a lot funnier earlier, that's not real transcript either. it really was funny and someone laughed.

Eiter way, the next post is pretty moral shattering but it in fact is an overexaggeration of a shitty instense (shitty karaoke night). so read it with a grain of salt.

POST WRITING EDIT: this post is going to come off as seeming a lot deeper then it really is. it's not. it's very superficial.

well, if anyone would like to know how to NOT run karaoke at buffington's then you should've just come out to the deal tonight.

Icing on the cake. Old, crusty icing on a half eatin, half baked, half cared for cake left out for the flies. and even they don't want it.

That's a bit much, but you know what, it's been one of those timeframes. And in all actuality, it really wasn't all that bad, in fact it seemed fine until karaoke failed. It was just icing on the cake.

anything and everything that could've gone wrong short of halting the production (karoake) did go wrong. the sound was completely fucked up until about 1:00 am, a stupid fucking button being pushed for some unknown reason (a slipped finger, an inadvertent push, a neglect) caused 2 hours of mediocre sound from the machine, so the music was piss poor. Levels that were (i thought at least) never to be adjusted were. Which isn't a problem, however, when I don't know about these levels, it causes a bit of a problem. Levels being said to be adjusted not being adjusted meaning i'm sitting in that fucking booth on a pedestal for all to see looking like an idiot being squeamish about boosting the volume because I'M SUPPOSED TO BE SQUEAMISH ABOUT ADJUSTING THE VOLUME at that particular moment and NOTHING happening because  someone didn't follow up on their claim. Dumbasses on stage looking at me like i'm the reason their mic doesn't work when it's their foot fuck fought they turned it off...ON THE MIC.

and who the hell cares. why would anyone want to read about a piss poor karaoke night's details of shittatude. No one, i know I wouldn't.

POST WRITING EDIT: this next paragraph is bullshit. complete and utter bullshit.

But in all honesty, this funk is not purely based on the karaoke terribleness, of course it stems from elsewhere. The usual culprit is definitively not the reason...unfortunately i can't fall back and blame that scenario.
It's a pain in the ass somethin dreadful when one meaningless instense can be as heavy as a botched night of drunks thinking they can sing to, hell, i don't, ruin your day? like a careless biker running into a shotty scaffolding. One unavoidable event brings the whole thing down.

wish i could be more specific. one can only soar through the clouds so long before the dampness of the water droplettes soaks the wings and the weight becomes too heavy to bear...i think you can figure the rest of that one out.

I'm making this sound far more downtrodden then all it is. it was just a shitty karaoke night after all, in fact, that really is all it was.

the week really isn't shitty. the day really wasn't shitty. the month? not shitty. just this job that, to quote a very well versed person once told me was "the worst decision I've ever made was to work at Buffington's." Just trying to justify a shitty karaoke night as being as spirit blowing as it is. by tryng to tell meyself that there has to be more to this gloom then one shitty karaoke night, when in fact, there isn't anything at all. there is absolutely nothing in my life right now that i regret nor wish to change. not because everything is fields of flowers and sun and smiles, no, because i've learned how to see tomorrow.

It really was just one. shitty. karaoke. night.


Funk was cool in 76. Now? not so much.

so that whole block about honesty? a lie. i just liked the metaphore. it was funny to imagine a biker riding into a scaffolding. i like to imagine that when it fell, no one was injured. and the guy working thanked the biker because he was done anyway and now didn't have to climb down 15 stories, nor take apart the whole contraption.


----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


alright, in looking back on this day/week/ couple of days: today was a great day. it really, honestly was I bought something that in my full all out honest oppinion will be a phenominal addition to whoever is lucky enough to receive. and that realization, when i made the purchase, when i finally found exactly what it was i was looking for, when i realized that it cannot possibly turn out negative in any way shape or form was an incredible feeling. 

so yes, karaoke FUCKING SUCKED and was not a great way to end the day. but it was after all just a shitty karaoke night. and it is over and therefore moot.

today ruled. I'm just exhausted. absolutely exhausted. and i have to be up for work in 5 hours.

Chris averitte and i "jammed" the other day. I play metal, he plays not metal. it did not work.


that is all.

Well, the almighty cluster fuck of my living situation just got a little lot bit not as big a question mark. That means I think I found a roommate. That means that come monday when I find out officially on The Monday that I won't be paying double rent I finally be able to breath a sigh of contention. Plus I get the other half of the deposit back.

*****interlude*****
       Sandy, I just found another song for your mix, that brings the total to...let me see, carry the Y...2


6 degrees of separation is cool, but I prefer 1 degree of "well I didn't see that coming..." My new potential roommate is a guy I used to work with at Barberitos a loooong time ago for maybe 10 days during employee overlap (he came back then got fired from drinking on the job...) never saw him again, heard of/from again then adamo told me he needed a place. banzai.
                        Now I just need to hope that the landlord hasn't rented out the place despite my deposit... just my luck it would be.

I sold my Ipod on ebay for 240. sweet, i may just be able to afford next month.

last night was 4 hours of covers by Bongo Brothers. That meant four hrs. of old people dancing where the only limititations was the flexibilty of their joints. Needless to say, they could probably use some Celebrex; but they tried, and for that i won't be upset about the social security coming out of my next paycheck.

****interlude****
i'm listening to my iPod and a song came about and i though: hmm, i think cassidy would much enjoy this tune. Checked it and it was Rogue Wave, Salesman at the Day of the Parade, guess I was right.


Despite mosquitos being the seed of the devil. they do look cool, what with their black and white stripedness. still, suck on this mosquitos, oh wait. no, no don't do that.

Well, here i sit on the crack couch. I think it is safe to be said that I am no longer on Tybee Island.

I guess its a good sign that I've been deleting sentence repeatedly that attempt to sum up this little vacation.

A trip to the beach purely for the sport of vacation is something that hasn't happened for 2 solid years now, and I'm glad to be able to say with confidence that this was indeed a vacation. Granted in actuality we (cassidy and myself) were really only down in savannah for two days, it feel like we've been away from Miledgeville for years, or at least it does to me.

Without going into extraordinary details on everything, I'll just bullet the most notables, and talk about the sun later.

Not in any particular order.

-The trick that never gets old at Zaxby's
-Getting schooled in a card game that I taught
    -Getting schooled in every card game actually
-Buried Diapers
-spf 70
-manatees
-father's day
-sting rays
-Guess What.
-Jelly Fish
-Low Country B(r)oil
-Waking up way too early
    -and then sleeping In
-"Owner's Son"...I call bullshit personally...
-Original Plans
-Cheese
-Lynyrd Skynyrd
-Pearl Drops
-Porch Swings
-Townies
-Slushies, wait, I mean beers
-The sound of rain on the ocean, lighting, the tide coming in unnoticed, and glasses
-do we need gas?
-and of course: The Sun being it's completely awesome self. Euphoric.

I had never actually seen a sunrise nor sunset on the ocean until this past weekend. I must say now that it is something other-wordly.
Half the fun was waking up a good hour too early and looking outside to see traces of blue and exclaiming, "I swear, I think I missed this one too..." fortunately though, I had not. I did however get to sit idly on the bridge wondering what it was exactly that I was supposed to be seeing, I knew that it was to start at 6:21 according to the weather service but by 6:15 it was plenty bright and in my personal oppinion, not only was the sun up, but just about every bird on Tybee as well. I was spinning around to leave when Cassidy said, "Woah..."

It's something strange to be able to look right at the sun and not feel immediately blinded. A golf ball sized red orb was floating just over the horizon; not a cloud was there to block it, it was absolutely serene. It was awesome to be able to see it moving, being so close to the horizon it wasn't hard to judge that time was indeed moving with each new centimeter spaced between the star and the edge of Sol.

But as amazing as the sunrise was, I don't think it can compete with it's own setting.

There is more to a sunset then vivid reds and yellows. On the beach it comes with a constant breeze and the rhytmic hum of the waves. And as the night falls in and you realize that darkness is inevitable, the moon comes up from behind and eerily denies absolute shadow. But that was the impression I got from a "missed" sunset, we arrived to late to see the actual sun itself go down, only got the after effect of color. On the way back home tonight, however; while driving down hwy 16 we got to experience a sunset in all its hue'd glory.

I'm beginning to think that these rises and falls have a lot of variables and factors that contribute to making them upstage the other. The sun set on the way back had the helping had of sparse clouds reflecting the glow.

To sum it up in short (and to be redundant), I can't think of a better way for me to spend father's day. Thank you.

It's been three months TO THE DAY since i last did something with this online journal. Guess I've got a lot of catching up to do.

It's been an interesting time since that day on march 13th, 2008. that was 6 days before my 22nd birthday (a whale of time, to say the least). I don't quite remember what I did on that day of days. Oh wait, yes I do. That birthday was celebrated on the wed. before, the 17th, St. Patty's Day. Concert downtown and a field sobriety test in front of my house at 3:30 in the morning. No ticket, no DUI, just a missunderstanding...

But let's consider this a recap if anything.

It's been an interesting three months to say the least. Let's start off with the here and now.

I quit smoking. I write this as a stick dangles from my lips about ready to fall. Unlit, it awaits the inevitable strike that will inevitably set it off and will inevitably qwell the enormous nic-fit i have. Let me do that right now... 4 ciggarettes in 4 days. down from a pack every...let's judge for sleep and go 18 hours. I commend myself for that feat, yet at the same time it means 4 failures. Touché lungs, touché...

What the hell have I done.

I've gone through 4 housing situations and still things are not in the clear. Which, now that I acknowledge that is irresistibly daunting. From planning to live alone, to planning to live with a potentially great roommate, to losing an apartment unknowingly, to getting a house and placing a deposit with a big ? about who will take up the other room to living in a brick abomination for a spell. It's been a bit like those buddhist temples that sit on a mountain. Although the way up has been used for thousands of years and should be seemingly safe, there's always that possibly that it will all fall down at any moment.

meh, whatever. One day something, sometime, will make complete sense.

I find myself avoiding a lot with this entry. Why? I don't have but one 'friend' on this LJ thing who could potentially read this, so what's the hang up? It's just another Summer in Milledgeville wherein time shifts and reality is completely distorted. I didn't think last summer could be repeated, but it seems that in more way then one, I find myself in a bit of a stencil. The names and faces change, but the dejavu is nonetheless there. Also, the prediction at the beginning is playing itself out, I can't help but think I've created the last sentence of the story before the title, and therefore have already written every chapter despite having a shortage of ink and paper.


That might do it for today, hopefully for the sake of all parties involved this thing will be used for what it was intended and I'll actually be consistent with it.

I think I need another entry.

13ghosts-The Strangest Colored Lights
Recorded by Andrew Vernon
Mixed by Brad Armstrong
Mastered by Doug Van Sloun

Birmingham, Alabama's 13ghosts latest album, The Strangest Colored Lights, was started 10 years ago as a eulogy for Thomas Rhodes, the cousin of fellow founding member Brad Armstrong. It is now their second release on Skybucket Records. The album is a combination of dirty blues, rock, country-gutter, psychedelic, spaghetti-western and Pink-Floydian guitar riffs. This range of sound does nothing to impede flow; therefore, the back and forth between acoustic tracks and those electric serves to create a sound that fluctuates and breathes. The Strangest Colored Lights writes a story, a very personal, very well produced story. The album represents the first time since 2002 that the band has had a full and consistent line-up for recording.

Listening to the album can feel like a double disc on shuffle. The songs trade off between faster tempo tracks and slower, darker, lullaby-like pieces. The song "Faint Goat", a distortion heavy full band blues-rock piece with a little bit of BRMC and that hint of Floyd on the tail end, is followed by the track "King of The Thieves": a slow, longing piano/percussion piece with dirge-like lyrics ("Though they lay me to drown in blood, I'll always remember you dear"); the album generally sticks to this song for song format.

The guitar work can be edgy and free-form at times; definitively cowboy-west such as on "Riverside" (a track also accompanied by Chad Fisher and Chip Crotts on horns); acoustic on "Beyond the Door"; as well as to serve a bluesy fill-in accompaniment on "Go To Sleep".

Is this a crisper 13ghosts? Yes. A different 13ghosts? No. The Strangest Colored Lights is definitely on par with the sound of their 2005 album Cicada. Fans of Cicada will not be disappointed. But there is something more to this record; a deep connection is present between the artists and their work, a connection which is evident throughout the record. (Skybucket Records)

http://www.13ghostsmusic.com/

A taste of Morrissey's cry accompanied by a hypnotic durge that welcomes a day long state of relaxation and closed eye listening, Brighton, England's  Clearlake brings a warm addition to any collection with their 2005 album, Cedars. Cedars is a dark distortion blues experience nothing short of leaving you wanting to listen twice to get the full effect. Tempo change and a wide mix of instruments does well to let you acquire a good sense of what the band seemed to try to accomplish with this record: dirty beautiful.

It's hard to nail down a certain style for the record as a whole. Tragically sad violin graces The Mind is Evil, dark lyrics on I'd Like to Hurt You ("I wouldn't hurt a fly, but I'd really like to punish you, do you want to know why? 'Cause I don't have a good excuse...") teamed with the deep longing tones of Jason Pegg do set a telling mood. Clear influences from Morrissey, Radiohead, and early Blur are all there but Clearlake keeps it original and has a winner with Cedars. Do your speakers a favor.

Why do we listen to metal?

Killswitch: Howard Jones' vocals are stunning, both in scream and in traditional forms. And of course because Adam D's outfits can be even more bizarre in our imaginations.

Pantera: we know that Dimebag will chug harder than your uncle Randy at your sister's open bar wedding and the consistency of his Dean and MLs in riff, lead, fill, power, it is unequaled. That shit is just evil.

Zakk Wylde: The Pinch Squeal.
Just pickup a Floyd Rose, harmonic that A string on the 4th fret, dive bomb that trem like the war depended on it, and tell me you don't contort your entire head in a style you wish would stay that way if you did it long enough.

That is why we listen to metal. Avenged Sevenfold's self titled album; however, is not.  

I understand you screamed out a few blood vessels M. Shadows, and you've made it known that the album progression (or digression depending on how you look at it...) was scream on the first, scream/sing on the second, be Axle Rose on the third oh wait, I mean sing on the third, and then, do something to make all the fans happy on the fourth. Wait. No. No, Mr. Shadows. You can't do that. That's not fair, spread your Batwing army too thin and you will lose them Romanesque. I mean, come on, voice vibrato Celine Dion style on Lost. What "fan" wanted that?

It isn't all bad though, get past the vocals and you still have the tandem thrill of Zaky Vengeance and Synyster Gates. Two unbelievably talented guitarists, doing what they do best, guitar harmony. But I think what it really comes down to is that there are just too many cliff hangers.

When I listen to a song and a part comes up when I think the perfect squeal would work, but it doesn't, that isn't a disappointment, that lets me put the best pinch ever there. On this album, it isn't the lack of pinch squeals or breakdowns that makes album disappointing (doesn't help either...) its the false hope of heavy, or in the instance of Gunslinger its the very small amount. I listen to a song and think, ok, when's it going to come, bring on the heavy, chug please. Doesn't come. Or if it is there and you begin to think, "Yay! New life!"  it goes away after a few seconds to be replaced by some acoustics or Shadows' nasally loaded approach to singing. The track Lost is the best example of this. It's a pretty good song. I remembered hating it, but when I listened to it again, I couldn't remember why. Then it happened. Remember "If you believe in life after love", that little trill she puts on 'believe'? well, metal just got trilled. It almost comes down to the fact that this track alone, destroys the credibility of this whole cd. Unfortunately I can't say that the rest of the songs are great, they aren't. At least not great metal songs.

If you like metalcore, thrash, Sounding the Seventh Trumpet, Waking the Fallen, or scream metal then this is NOT for you. STAY AWAY! If you liked the direction of City of Evil or you like 80s ballads with way worse vocals, then pick this thing up. But be warned, even you might be better off just snagging some individual songs.

 I got into metal purely on the respect of instrumental talent and ended up loving the genre, I just wish the skills of Zaky, Synyster, Johnny Christ, and The Rev. could ressurect this one. RIP A7X. Don't ever play this live.