JAM!
you can get out entire new record for $5 right here - http://amzn.to/dqSTrain . comes with bonus track - steel train songs covered by tegan and sara + holly miranda. its wild. spread the word!
“I hope that our few remaining friends
Give up on trying to save us
I hope we come up with a failsafe plot
To piss off the dumb few that forgave us
I hope the fences we mended
Fall down beneath their own weight
And I hope we hang on past the last exit
I hope it’s already too late
And I hope the junkyard a few blocks from here
Someday burns down
And I hope the rising black smoke carries me far away
And I never come back to this town
Again in my life
I hope I lie
And tell everyone you were a good wife
And I hope you die
I hope we both die
I hope I cut myself shaving tomorrow
I hope it bleeds all day long
Our friends say it’s darkest before the sun rises
We’re pretty sure they’re all wrong
I hope it stays dark forever
I hope the worst isn’t over
And I hope you blink before I do
Yeah I hope I never get sober
And I hope when you think of me years down the line
You can’t find one good thing to say
And I’d hope that if I found the strength to walk out
You’d stay the hell out of my way
I am drowning
There is no sign of land
You are coming down with me
Hand in unlovable hand
And I hope you die
I hope we both die”
“No Children” by The Mountain Goats
“Your New Life (or What Have You)” by Seahorses!
1. How We Were Made
2. Intertwined
3. Your New Life
4. Like a Glass
Leaving for tour in a few days. Seriously looking forward to it … I need the distraction. In the meantime, I’m putting the finishing touches on these songs. By the way, this is the cover art. Photo is by Kyle Peterson. Layout by Patrick Emmons.
…
I have the worst creative block right now … I think it’s been induced mostly by italian family dinner. That and the wine. And the lack of sleep. But shit, it’s frustrating. I really want to be working right … I just can’t get past it … so I’m wasting time on the internet. I should really disconnect the wireless … I don’t have the willpower currently. Maybe tomorrow.
I’m two weeks away from leaving for headline tour. This last month has absolutely slipped away from me … I feel I’ve been so productive, but then I still feel so far behind. I’ll finish though, I have no doubt about that. And I miss Jack, Daniel, Ev and Jon. So I’m excited. It’s strange to spend every waking moment with people for an extended period of time and then go on to something completely different … I have to mutually exclusive lives.
I was talking to a friend the other day about this time capsule that I buried with my Kindergarten class when I was 5. Mrs. Stephens was the teacher. We were supposed to open the capsule in the year 2000, and I just now realized that I never got that stuff back. Mrs. Stephens stole all of it! It was a scam! I put some good stuff in there too. Do you want to know what was in it? I’ll tell you. I had a plastic dinosaur (a brontosaurus, if I’m not mistaken. Little Foot from The Land Before Time was a brontosaurus … and he was my favorite, so that was my favorite dinosaur), a picture of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles that I colored myself, and a picture of me and my mom. I put it in a plastic Easter egg, put it with the other stuff and we buried that stuff. I’ll bet Mrs. Stephens thought we’d all forget … but I never forget. If anyone knows where she is, you tell her I’m coming for her. With a fury.
I’m 38 tracks in and I haven’t started vocals yet. A minimalist might say I have a problem…
I discovered Joshua James over the past weekend … I’m so down.
Where have you been?
I’m so infrequent with this thing … I’m going to try and change that. I know that all of your lives are hinging on whether or not I post … so … sorry for being so wishy-washy. I’m ready to commit to you again if you’ll take me back. I can be better. Let’s try to make this work.
It’s been an exciting and trying past few months. We toured with some of my favorite bands and some of my favorite human beings in Tegan and Sara and Holly Miranda It’s hard to complain about being gone so much when I’m doing what I love with the people that I love … I am truly blessed. On the other hand, sometimes being on the road for such long periods of time puts me in this sort of strange cocoon where your real life and relationships and problems still exist (I’m aware), but you’re forced to separate yourself in a strange way simply for self preservation. And you have your friends who care about you and know your heart and your pain, and they hurt with you and help you to get through every day and remain professional. And then you come home and sleep in your bed for the first time in three months, and the pangs of real life start to hit you again. And the next few days, weeks, whatever, hit you like a wave … all of the things that you’ve put off feeling or dealing with come rushing back to you all at once. And everything is too familiar and too foreign all at the same time. So you start rearranging the furniture and you start giving away your things and trying to do anything that will make you feel something other than restlessness and unsettling. And then what follows it for me at least is another wave of creativity and so you devote yourself to it. (I don’t write anything when I’m on tour … ever) But at a certain point, you’re just not able to fight it off completely, and in a moment of weakness you simply lose it. I don’t really know where I’m going with this … I suppose it’s all just harder sometimes than I realize. It’s hard to be there for the people you love when you’re far away. It’s hard to maintain relationships, even with someone you are crazy about, when you never see one another. It’s so hard to deal with doubt and uncertainty when you’re already someplace unfamiliar … so you put it off … but it always comes back. And often times you see where you are and have no idea how you ended up there. It’s like having a conversation that starts innocently and somehow three hours later you’re in a horrible place and you’re wondering “what the hell just happened? how did we get here” But it’s too late. It’s all out. And where was the point that the conversation took that turn? There’s always a point. To that, I mean. I’m not sure there’s a point to any of this …
With all that being said … I’m releasing a free digital EP in June of a couple of tunes I’ve been working on. The EP is entitled “Your New Life (or What Have You)” and will be available for download … for free, mind you … at A CITY INSIDE (a creative house run by my photographer/designer/friend Patrick Emmons … all the Seahorses! photos that you’ve seen were taken by him … incredible guy) in June. The songs are really important to me, and I guess indirectly relate to all that mess I threw on you guys last paragraph, but at the same time were created out of an abundance of love. I have a lot of it (love, that is), but we can talk about all that later. So I hope you like them and it would truly mean a lot if you’d tell a friend to go download it, or burn them a copy or whatever.
In the meantime here’s a picture of me and some of my friends from said tour,
Justin
“Your New Life (Or What Have You)”
Seahorses! presents: “Your New Life (Or What Have You)” available for free digital download at www.acityinside.com on June 22nd. Details to follow.
