Saturday, April 20, 2019

there's now a link to a consolidated rss feed, the 6 blogs + 4 youtube sites, which is the best i can do. i will update this link as it improves itself.

but, i cannot get rss feeds from bandcamp, noise trade, patreon or facebook, unfortunately. in a sense, that is irrelevant, as i should cross-reference everything to the blogs; this feed will give you everything, and double or triple a lot of it.

http://www.rssmix.com/u/8317252/rss.xml
i also attended a yamantaka // sonic titan show on monday night, before i left for toronto early on tuesday morning. i knew this was coming, but didn't want to commit until the last minute, because i didn't want to put missing the bus in question, and i knew it would be a long day. in the end, i decided i wasn't sleeping anyways, so i'd might as well go.

also, i hadn't been to a show in windsor in a long time and have reason to think i might not be to another one here in a long time, as well. there's just not much happening in the city that i'd be interested in...

...and, i needed the fresh air....

i decided to try an experiment with my new drink on the way in. i had already determined, through careful measurement, that the volume of a pill bottle (that is, the area of the circular opening of the cylinder as a cross-section of the imaginary plane that intersects the cylinder orthogonally, multiplied by the length of the cylinder itself) is roughly the amount of vodka required to emulate a mix of my now unavailable rock star vodka, and that simply dumping a pill bottle of vodka into an empty bottle of mountain dew, and then filling that bottle up with mountain dew, would be an easy way to rebuild the drink. while my sense of smell has it's limitations, i was not able to sense the slightest indication of the alcoholic nature of the drink, nor was i able to remotely taste the alcohol in it. success...

the walk was a little longer than intended, and i wasn't sure i was going to get in. the initial request was in fact denied, so i took a walk around the corner to think it through and came back with a compromise:

i know you're sold out, but i'm here, and i was actually just looking to see the first band, anyways. so, would it be possible to let me in for the first set, and then we can figure out who is staying and who is leaving?

"yeah, that works, just find me after the first set."

i'm not sneaky, i'm just rational. honest.

in fact, i wasn't sure if i was going to stay for the whole show or not; it was an honest claim of intent, due to the scheduling concerns around the bus ride out. i think i had decided that it was going to depend on whether i found some drugs or not, and of course i did, and rather fast.

it's legal, but you can't buy it anywhere.

"yeah. never stopped me before."

i had seen yamantaka // sonic titan previously, at zaphod's in ottawa, back in early 2012. i remember the show being kind of intense in a noisy kind of way, even while delving into this kind of japanese opera that just came off as kind of strange. i remember not fully understanding it, and not being particularly driven to; it was a strange cultural synthesis in the sense that it was a japanese noise rock band (something i thought i understood.), albeit from canada, that came off as more traditionally japanese than any japanese noise rock band i'd ever heard before, and i was really willing to just leave it at that. i've missed them several times since, but never at this small venue here in windsor, which is itself a draw when it gets the right acts in.

listening to the new(est) record a few times before the show led me to the conclusion that they'd toned their sound down a lot, and by incorporating a kind of syrupy pop layer that, to be consistent, almost sounded k-pop or j-pop in origin. but, the band the new record reminded me most of was actually ghost, in it's combination of prog-metal type guitar riffs with keith emerson style organ masturbating and sappy pop hooks, right down to the face-painting. i might normally write something like this off as silly, but i decided on this night that it was good enough for the walk...

it's a small venue, capacity less than 100, so you literally can't be more than ten feet from the stage. as such, an aspect of the show was the rawness of it. i must say that i wasn't expecting to get the full vocal treatment with the handheld drum and the whole bit, but that the first singer (they have two singers.) really managed to fill the room up with her voice, including for the tracks that i am presuming are traditional japanese chants, but could be easily mistaken for native american singing. the show was otherwise a competent working through a sampling of the slicker, glossier and proggier side of their discography.

i needed to get out of the house, and it was worth it....

i will eventually upload the last track they did, which was a cover, but there's a recent set here, for now:


as expected, i was allowed to stay for the second set.

i had seen the acid mothers temple before as well, and i'm really not much of a fan, although i do have a fond memory of the show as i got to watch a band i'd never heard of, mammatus, completely blow them off the stage. so, i remember that acid mothers show in ottawa as the night i found mammatus. if i weren't for the mammatus set, though, i would not remember the night so well, as the acid mothers were just kind of prodding and largely boring, terms i would use to describe them in general.

i will acknowledge that they were in truth better on this night than they were on that night in ottawa, more than ten years ago, and that a lot of it had to do with their drummer doing this kind of keith moon routine, where he demonstrated his displeasure with the mopiness of the singer by descending into these cacophonous outbursts, and then got visibly scolded and even drowned out by the guitarist for it. while i think that the routine was actually real - that there is a legitimate conflict over musical direction between the singer and the drummer - it could have just as well have been an act, and considering how frequently this band cites legacy rock cliches, nobody would have questioned it, either. as it was, intentional or not, i got the reference and a bit of a kick out of it on that level. but, the basic boringness of the act remains clear, and had the drummer not repeatedly misbehaved, i would have walked away from it without much to say.

this appears to be the set from the same show as above:


the walk home was pleasant, and while i told myself i'd get everything ready before i napped, i had to succumb to the intoxicants and get some rest. but, this was actually useful to me, as it ensured i got some actual sleep before i went into toronto.

Thursday, April 18, 2019

i almost never vomit, actually. but, i was feeling it all morning; it was inevitable, and probably not entirely caused by the vodka, but also contributed to by my diet and the travelling and even the coffee. it could have happened hours earlier, really. as it is, it was the tums that triggered it.

often bring antacids with me when i'm drinking, because the things we drink alcohol with are so inherently acidic. how many of us assume that that stomach ache you get after your third drink is because you've had too much alcohol? in fact, it's probably acid reflux, because you've consumed a litre of carbonated pop or whatever else in the process. maybe you want to take it as a cue to quit drinking, or maybe you don't - maybe you just want to pop a few grams of calcium to balance it out, and keep going. i find the latter usually works just fine...

so, i didn't think much about it when i started to feel it in my gut - i just got some tums at the corner store, scarfed them down and went back to browsing in the coffee shop. it was a little before 18:00, when i had to run outside...

i didn't take it seriously, at first. i put a shot in my coffee on the way in, but it was a tall cup, tall enough that i could have put in two. further, it took me five hours to drink it. so, i was only on my third drink in 10 hours. sure, i just had a big cup of coffee; sure, i hadn't eaten since early in the morning. but, i wasn't going to puke on three drinks in 10 hours was i? that would be lame.

so, i just sat outside the shop for a minute and waited. it's not going to happen...

...but, yes. it is going to happen.

i made it just past the band's vans for the first iteration, which was unfortunately directly on the sidewalk. well, i wasn't taking the situation seriously. i was able to get across the street into an alleyway for round two, to the concerns of some onlookers that were smoking something in the back.

"i'm alright. just a little too much vodka. nothing serious. i'll be fine in a few minutes. sorry for freaking you out."

this was met with some visually cautious skepticism, but at least the concern faded to indifference.

but, was it really too much vodka? i've never had difficulty with such little vodka, before. while i'll acknowledge that i hadn't had any alcohol at all since last may, it still seems like an absurdly low tolerance level. so, i'm going to reject the claim that i drank too much, and rather assert quite sternly that i wasn't even drunk. rather, i suspect that the coffee and the extra strength tums may have created an acid-base reaction that actually stimulated vomiting as a pressure release; this was more like a volcanic eruption in a grade school science fair project than alcohol poisoning.

i needed a third round before i was done and able to walk off.

"i'm fine. really. i'm sorry."

that was apparently more convincing, as i got a laugh and a wave.

the reality is that i wasn't feeling drunk before i puked, and i wasn't feeling drunk after i puked, either; the nausea faded a little, if not totally, but it didn't really make much of a difference at all, in terms of how i was feeling.

i made a choice, however, to stand outside, just in case - and to put my coffee away. it was about an hour's wait until doors.

there were some kids lined up early, so i just got in line behind them and waited.

"my friend is convinced he's in a coma and everything is just a dream."
"that's so ridiculously stupid, really. obviously false."
"i agree, but, like, how do you prove to him that it's wrong?"
"actually, maybe you can't do that, can you?"

*ahem*

that's right, kids. what you'd say is that that's not even wrong, that you could never disprove it and that it is therefore worthless as a hypothesis.

"makes sense."

the fact is that i've been to lots of shows with knapsacks, and nobody has ever given me a hard time about it before, so i couldn't imagine anybody giving me a hard time about it here. i expected there would be some kind of mosh pit, but moshing (or really dancing at all) to la dispute is like dancing at a funeral - it's inappropriate, in context. they're technically a hardcore band still, but they've always leaned towards beatnik poetry, and they're coming up on a flip over the cusp, to the point that i do suspect that there will be a time in a few years when the shows are almost entirely abandoned by hardcore fans. i didn't expect that to be true of this show, but my intent was to stand a little further back, out of the pit, while sipping on a beer and listening to the lyrics.

this isn't a rejection of the pit, it's just that la dispute is not really body music, it's more of an intellectual kind of thing, something that might even be better experienced at a seated venue than a general admission punk show. if you're showing up to a la dispute concert looking to dance it up and have a good time, you're kind of missing the plot.

so, in my mind, it wouldn't be much of a problem if i brought my bag in, considering i was going to be standing in the back, anyways. but, i wasn't able to get the point across to security, who just insisted they were sold out. well, they couldn't be that sold out; surely, they're not being reasonable. but, i simply wasn't getting in with the bag, so i had to relent and leave it at coat check, along with everything in it. they insisted it was safe...

so, i get in and learn it's $9 for a beer at the opera house in toronto. it was at least a big beer, but i only got one...

the place was about half full for the first act, called slow mass, which didn't make much of an impression on me. what they sound like is a parody of mopey 90s alt rock, without even the minimal amounts of tension that you got out of a genre that was intended to town done. there were some unnecessary outbursts of noise by the drummer and guitarist, but it just kind of added to the buttoned up feel of the show by telling the audience that the band itself recognizes that they are actually boring, and are even bored with being boring. while the self-awareness is perhaps a positive step, i don't have much else to say about this, other than to point out that this is indiscernible from any of the other thousand bands that have sounded exactly like this over the last forty years.


i let them finish, downed my beer and then went to retrieve my marijuana from my bag, which i had absent-mindedly left in there when i was unexpectedly coat-checked. i wasn't sure if it would be a hassle or not...

"sorry, there's just too many bags."

and, there were, indeed, a lot of bags.

"listen, i could understand if there was a long line-up here and i was in your way, but it looks like the place has mostly filled up, and you're just kind of sitting around, so..."
"were you in recently or near the start?"
"i was one of the first people in."
"so, i'm going to have to sort through this to the bottom. there's no way."
"well, you're going to have to do this eventually, right?"
"what?"
"well, i'm going to eventually pick the bag up."
"but, that's only if you're here at the start of the line."
"i need to catch a bus out."
"so, i'll have to do it anyways. ugh. fine. i'm making you pay to recheck it, though: $4."

it was a good night for logic in toronto, at least.

i've rolled up a lot of marijuana in a lot of toilet stalls in a lot of cities, but this was the first time it was actually legal.....

a few minutes later, and i'm overhearing some lesbians talk to each other, as they're standing a few feet in front of me.

"my grandmother thinks we're all monsters. like, she seriously thinks we're evil. it's crazy. i love my grandmother and everything, but it kind of scares me. so, i'm just never telling her. ever. we're just not having this talk. she'll die thinking i'm straight."

i had to interject.

until she starts bothering you about having kids, then you're going to have to bring it up.

laughs from the crowd, as always.

"she already bugs me."

it's just going to get worse.

"well, it's not like i don't plan to have kids. i'll have kids, just not with a dude."

you're still going to have to bring it up.

"well..."

listen, studies have been done on this. your grandmother is an individual, but homophobic people often find themselves with a change of opinion when they are confronted with queer family members, as it presents them with a reality rather than an abstraction. i mean, she's going to go to some church or something..

"mosque."

right. whatever. so, she's going to go to that mosque, and they're going to say all kinds of hateful, damaging things about queer people as though they're some distant other, as though they don't actually exist as human beings, but then she's going to go home and see somebody she loves, and she's going to have to make a choice to trust these words that are thrown at her abstractly by this stranger on a podium, or a person in front of her that she know and loves and trusts.

"i'm not telling her."

that bad, huh?

a passing homeless person then interrupted the conversation with a request for change, of which neither of us had any. but, the other lesbian was upset about it.

"i wish i had some change. i once gave somebody $20."

the male member of the group that included the two lesbians is upset about this.

"you gave him $20?"
"i'm a generous person."
"but, they're all drug addicts. it's really hard to be homeless in canada, you know."

ugh. not on my sidewalk.

poverty does exist, you know. i mean, it might be true that there's a high percentage of drug addicts in the homeless population, but you can't just jump to the conclusion that if you're homeless then you're a drug addict. that would just be wrong.

(some applause on the street)

but, he didn't want a debate; he went inside, and i followed not far behind him.

the fiasco with the bag, and subsequent detour rolling and smoking, meant i actually missed most of the second band's set. the place also filled up to the brim in the time i was gone, forcing me to watch from the landing, which was actually the plan anyways, but perhaps not in the space i ended up in. gouge away are named after a pixies track, and sounded like it. the following audiotree set has some generic pixies-type tracks and some noisier hardcore; the bit of the set that i caught was in the generic pixies-type track style, and didn't appeal much to me. in fact, i decided to find somewhere to sit and take a rest...


i went directly back to the floor when the set was done, trying to measure the size of the crowd and how to set up and came to the conclusion that the place was packed as tight as possible; they weren't exaggerating about the place being sold out, and there really wasn't room to stand with a bag. that said, leaving my bag in coat check didn't all of a sudden make me want to go into the pit - i was still hoping to hang back a little and just watch. but there was barely even anywhere to stand. so, i decided i'd wait the pit out a little and then try and work my way in.

they started off with some less intense tracks, so i couldn't really get a feel on the size of the pit, or what was going to happen when they clicked in. if i could get some separation so that i could stand on the edge of the pit, it could work, but there just didn't look like there was much space. i was hoping to wait a little longer, wait for them to tire themselves out, so i could move up. but, the opposite happened: i saw the train of frat boys walk by me from the back a few songs in, and realized i was going to need to hang back.

if i had a chance to escape the back at that point, it closed pretty quickly, as this annoying teenage girl decided she was going to dance in front of me all night. i've been through this before; the girl wants to dance, but she doesn't want to get molested at the punk show, so she parks herself directly on top of the obvious fag, after testing it first to make sure it's safe. it's then my instant responsibility to make sure she's safe until she walks off, whether i asked for it or not and she inevitably gets pissy when i don't react, which is really quite the contradiction. if you check my reviews, you'll see me point to this happening repeatedly, and pretty much always at punk shows. in general, i can handle this - i can even enjoy dancing, and often do - but the lack of space on this floor, combined with the nature of the music, just made the scenario comical. even if there was space to dance, i would not have wanted to on this night - i wanted to watch the band. a lot of these lyrics are really quite morbid. and, this girl wanted to dance too - bumping into me repeatedly, flipping her hair around and just generally trying to get me grooving. nope...

in order to get by her, i would have had to shove her out of the way, and i wasn't going to do that. i didn't see any obvious space, anyway, as the pit seemed to take up most of the floor, and nothing was opening up. so, i spent most of the concert trying to dodge tassled hair flying into my face from this hyperactive kid that was hopping all over me, apparently desiring some kind of response.

if they had played for another hour, i would have moved up. alas...

and, what of these moshers? is it not somewhat perverse to mosh to la dispute? if anything, they ate it up. it was lines like "we buried our son today!" that got the pit in motion. i'm not going to pretend i understand that, but so be it. i'd rather be a little bit more sombre about such things and watch quietly from the side...

how was the show, though?

this is the third time i saw la dispute, but the second time was an acoustic set in detroit. the first time i saw them was with touche amore & balance & composure at maverick's in ottawa in 2011, and what i remember about the show is that the songs were unrecognizable when compared to the recordings. at the time, i decided that i hadn't listened to the material that much, and i was just not following it because i didn't know it. but, the same thing happened in toronto, on this night - i could sort of make out the songs, but not really. i mean, some of them were clear, but some of them seemed radically different and hard to follow.

i'm left to wonder if the band radically rearranges it's studio material for performance - or perhaps radically rearranges it's live material in studio - and if there's an entirely parallel discography that i'm not aware of. the other option is that the sound tech is terrible, but this seems unlikely, given that i experienced the same thing in two different bars, in two different cities and separated by 7.5 years.

a quick run through the setlist suggests that it may have mostly been tracks from rooms of the house that were rearranged, and i guess i can get my head around that, even if it threw me for a bit of a loop. there's some bands you go to see just expecting something new, and there's some that you go to see with the discography burned directly into your cortex, and la dispute are really in the latter category.

i don't want to play the show down; i enjoyed the components that i recognized, even as i was spitting the hair out of my mouth and craning my neck around to get a view. but, there were tracks i only half-recognized, and it left me wondering what was really going on.

i can't currently find a recent show on youtube and don't want to post an old one, so we'll leave this space open until one appears.

(insert youtube link)

i wasn't first in line, but i was near the front of the line, and the coat check had it ready for me.

"see, this is actually better, right? 'cause the line moves faster."
"oh, shut up."
"ok. have a good night.."

i had to step into the bathroom for a few minutes, again.

i was out before 11:30, so i just walked back to the greyhound. the subways were all closed, unfortunately, so no late night sub on the bus. it was a short wait, meaning i have a working model, even if this is not a frequent trip.

the migraine and the rain started almost immediately, and almost simultaneously, leaving me crunched up in pain and kind of freaked out, at the same time. i tried to sleep the migraine off, but it wouldn't come. the rain was so heavy that you could barely see the streetlamps, making it hard to tell where i actually was. yet, the driver of this express bus was not interested in slowing down, regardless of visibility, of the slippery roads or of the potholes that the bus was ripping through. but, it actually seemed like a short ride, somehow. and, i was in windsor and off the bus in no time - and home by around 6:30 in the morning.

so, would i do that again? yeah, for the right act. i just wish the weather was a little nicer.
it's now thursday afternoon, and i'm typing from home in windsor. i wanted to do some typing on the bus on the way home, but the migraine hit as soon as i sat down, and i was really just done for the ride; i wasn't able to sleep it off as i like to, but i nonetheless didn't want to do anything except roll up in a ball. as mentioned, i was nauseous on the way in as well, so i'm thinking it was partly to do with the air quality on the bus. the third hand smoke was noticeable - even after i'd smoked a few myself - but i'm wondering if it was more about a lack of circulation. it was also raining very hard through a lot of the ride, and i know i'm sensitive to the weather. whatever it was, it actually made the trip seem very short, as uncomfortable as it was.

i wanted to eat and shower first, but i was passed out within minutes of coming in on wednesday morning. i've tried to wake up a few times since yesterday afternoon, but it hasn't really succeeded; i've mostly been asleep since i got home. well, i'm up now, so i'm going to pick up where i left off...

Tuesday, April 16, 2019

16-04-2019: slow mass, gouge away & la dispute @ the opera house, toronto

their music:

review:

event listing:
https://www.facebook.com/events/954857924720602/

link:
so, i'm in toronto, at the opera house grill, a small coffee shop directly beside/below the venue in toronto.

i believe that i'm listening to the drum tech doing sound check upstairs, and it's pretty intense in it's monotony.

the ride in was fairly uneventful, if a little bit cramped and a tad long. but, i spent the ride evaluating the band's discography, and i think there's a chance that this is their most substantive record so far, which is not to say it's their best necessarily, but that it is their most mature and consistent one. there were very strong tracks on both of their first two records, but they had different levels of inconsistency - there are some plodding hardcore tracks on their first record, although the vocals are really next-level throughout; the second record is bloated by lyrical filler that probably should have been cut off as bsides, if done at all. the first record needs to stand as it is, regardless of any flaws; it's too unique as a cohesive whole to split up. but, the second record could have been cut in half.

i think that the third largely missed the mark on both fronts.

this new record is a movement in a different direction, musically, if not too radically so, as the pieces of it already existed. but, it is for the first time a record that doesn't have some cringey tracks on it. not only is this so, but the lyricist seems to have returned to the kind of flow that existed on the first record. it's really a huge step forward for the band, and i'm excited about hearing them develop what they're doing further.

something else i'm noticing is that la dispute is in some ways very similar to my own dead project, rabit is wolf. sean didn't have the chance to write anything profound as la dispute, and i don't know if he could, but he has a very similar voice to the singer for the band, whose name i am not entirely sure of. jordan something, i think. i'm not going to look it up. but, some of the more plaintive guitar & vocal work strikes me as a very plausible end goal for rabbit, should it have carried forwads. and, it's interesting to me that you can hear sean and i play around with the same ideas that la dispute do/did, but way back in 2002. the record is too musically different, but you could probably trick somebody into thinking that acoustic demo ep was a lost la dispute demo.

i actually felt a little sick for much of the bus ride. stale air combined with third hand smoke and little bit of vodka in my stomach combined to get me a little oozy. the person that sat down beside me then added to that by eating an oiniony sub and a bag of doritos, which just had me on the verging of vomiting. it wasn't one thing but all of them...but i made it through....

i got off the bus and walked in the wrong direction, then corrected myself after a block. i had the map memorized, but i had to properly orient myself first. first stop was the marijuana store.

am i feeling over the permabuzz enough to get back to moderate use again? well, i want to go to the show, and that's what i do at the show, so it's like i have to move on with life, regardless. i may run the risk of imagining a more coherent state of existence than is realistic; i don't have a control, in the question of measuring the coherence of consciousness. it shouldn't take this long to wear off. this is probably as good as it gets.

but, my habits are likely to change now that i'm not worried about getting it out of the house. i'll likely hang on to the small amount that i bought for quite a while, just bringing it out occasionally.

i was there at about 1:30 on a cloudy, grey tuesday afternoon, and they were lined up around the corner, and carding people at the door. patrons were allowed in slowly, and asked to meet with a "budtender" who was supposed to help you find what you wanted. i knew that i was in search of a high thc:cbd ratio at the lowest price on offer, and informed the "budtender" of this fact. he proceeded to bring me to the sativa area, and sell me on a 15:9 ratio hybrid. i asked him repeatedly if that he was the highest ratio he had, and he said it was. this seemed unlikely to me, but he insisted. he then sold me an 1/8th, told me to go to the counter to buy it and said "but, feel free to look around". i then walked into the indica section and found what i actually wanted.

i'm not sure what the purpose of the detour was, but it's of little concern in the end, other than to put out a warning to be careful about these so-called budtenders. if he works on commission, he may have been trying to squeeze out a sativa sale; if true, the misdirection would be management's fault. but, i should have looked at a menu coming in, and will next time.

i picked one of the cheapest options, and it was still at the highest end of an acceptable price. when you buy in bulk from your friend, it's $5-7/gram. when you make a business transaction with your dealer, the expected price is $10/gram. and, when you're forced to find a pusher on the street, you pay $12/g for something you're afraid to actually smoke.

the cheapest option in the store was $11.99. to me, that is a warning shot to what should now be called independent growers - the corporate growers aren't planning on competing with them over a free market. when the government charges you $12/gram, that broadcasts that they're planning on enforcing the laws.

fulton street blaring at me from next door.

the transaction took roughly an hour, in total, and it was then less than an hour's walk up queen street to the venue, which is where i am right now, having a coffee. i of course made a detour to try out the product.

i'm kind of fried right now, regardless. i had a restless weekend, with little solid sleep. i then caught yamantaka // sonic titan and the acid mothers temple at phog last night, after having barely slept all weekend. this experience was at least enough to stimulate some actual sleep in me early this morning, but i was up at 5:30 to catch the bus for 8:00, and then sat on the bus for almost six hours. but, i bought a high thc strain because i like an uplifting buzz rather than a draining stone, and because i like to smoke pinners, infrequently - a small amount should last a long time. i may have sampled slightly too much. i'll be fine soon enough.

i think doors are at 7:00, so i've got some time to waste...

Sunday, April 14, 2019

and, here is the noise trade smashwords link for the july archive of this blog.

https://books.noisetrade.com/j/072013-music-journal-22
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/1026388
i first decided to remove myself from facebook some time around the end of 2013, not due to any kind of security concern but due to being fed up by the terrible interface and incredibly slow servers. a few years later, i found myself with a similar desire to extricate myself from the youtube comments section, as the interface changes made it almost impossible to actually use. but, old habits die hard, and it took several attempts before i could really pry myself off, not having any kind of permanent success until i designated the migration as a time-wasting tactic while i successfully kicked the tobacco addiction, in the first half of 2016. this left me with thousands of pages of writing that i was going to need to eventually repost to a more user-friendly platform, which ended up being the blogger interface on google. faced with the need to build liner notes for my very first recording at the end of 1996, it was at the beginning of 2017 that i first sat down with the intent to rebuild my music journal as a singular whole, with the eventual plan of cutting it up and appending it in installments within the discography.

my life hit a roadblock in the middle of 2017 as a consequence of a shift in ownership of the building i was living in, which led to multiple legal battles (still ongoing) and two separate moves. the situation eventually worked itself out for the better, but it slowed me down dramatically and left me with a very large back log in working through the loose ends around closing my first two period discs that i am only finally beginning to clear in the spring of 2019. this added period of reflection has allowed me to think this through over and over, and add increasing levels of detail to the journal, and subsequent pending liner notes. while not every month is going to be equally exciting, the level of detail in what was initially a journal is now more like a series of novellas. the first entry, which is only the second half of july, is 222 pages long.

i am not going to summarize the story, but it is available on the web over here: musicofjessicamurray.blogspot.com/2013/07/.

this is a compilation of written correspondences that includes facebook posts, messenger chats and emails with friends and family members, in an attempt to build the context around my move from ottawa to windsor in early august, 2013. this was a pretty heavy two weeks, and the narrative consequently has an arc of it's own, but the story being told here is how i rebuilt my studio over the second half of 2013. the contents of this download are the dummy track, a word doc file and a pdf file, both written in a more readable, chronological ordering. i've also added the respective files for my other three blogs, for general interest.

the events documented in this journal occurred in july, 2013 and were compiled into a narrative in several stages over the years 2014-2019. journal completed on mar 31, 2019. released and finalized in doc and pdf format on april 14, 2019. doc0713.
 

credits

released August 1, 2013

j - editing, participant

esa - participant
illuminous - participant
mom - participant
sister - participant
nana - participant
step-mother - participant
the youngest aunt - participant
jeff - participant
dad - participant

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/07-2013-music-journal-2-2
ok, so we're going to do this in two ways.

first, i've set up a noise trade account, where i can post all of the pdfs. i've done it like this rather consciously, as it allows me to accept donations without explicitly charging, and i think that this is important, in context.

however, i'm also going to set up downloads for the music journal entries in the bandcamp store, which means i have some exciting news: i will finally have a new product for sale within a few hours

here's the new link:
https://books.noisetrade.com/j

unfortunately, noise trade did not work out as a hosting solution, and i never got a clear answer as to why. but, i decided in the end that the site was full of ads and unworkable, anyways.

readable archives are now at the following sites:
https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/deathtokoalas
https://www.lulu.com/search?contributor=jessica+murray
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1NI_sEi1t9NxTeOB9Es3A2Ge8ji4iTXit?usp=sharing