I felt like writing a long one... it's been a while since I did so... the "important stuff" comes first...

After The Weather is about to start gearing up for the next 4 shows- There's two more Montreal dates left before we take a little hiatus(Everyone needs a month outside, I think.) to chill out and continue writing the new album.  So come see us soon or you won't be able to until February!  Unless you live in Kingston or Ottawa.

We've all been working on our own little babies recently, I've been working on my solo electronic stuff... have even posted it a couple of times only to freak out and delete it a couple of times.  And I've been just trying to, in general, play as much music with as many people as possible while I try and get back to square one, so to speak. 

Jay's got a sweet new little love child, called Subject-Object.  They recorded their demo in our jam space this week.  I haven't heard the result as my parents were in town for my birthday, but I've seen them before, had a beer and sat in their circle, and I really like it.  There is a jay that sings and plays, and he is quite different than the jay that just hits things.  Geminis<---- true story.

Rob's been working on his own little "mad scientist" style baby- so we're told.  We aren't allowed to see it.  I'm slightly scared, but mostly curious.



***

I am excited about that exclaim review, because I feel ms. Lewis did a great job describing the meaning of the album without actually coming out and saying "This is what the album means." and I thank her for that.  Made my day, anyways.  Whodathunkit, and what not.

***


I've also been working on some writing projects, and as a result(or perhaps as a prerequisite), I've been reading a lot, and I just found a new book of Kurt Vonnegut short stories.  And today I stumbled across a band from Rochester today that has a song called "So It Goes."

I wonder how it must feel to have so many indie bands, probably COMPLETELY independantly, snake your "catch phrase"<---it's totally unfair to call it this--- from a powerfully personal work, and apply it to a completely unrelated concept.

And I'm actually not being snarky here--- I think, sometimes, that art is an exchange of ideas, and the reinterpretation of them within your own framework. 

What makes me interested, genuinely, is the fact that so many people have taken "So it goes" and made it there own, all without realizing that the rest of the world has also re-interpreted the phrase.

I mean, I've done it.  It was a while ago, but I was writing this short story, about a dude losing his identity, by doing telesales, to the point that he couldn't even for sure declare what his own sexuality was anymore.  I happened to punctuate a paragraph with "So it goes."  and got immediately lambasted for it by a friend. 

I mean, my stealing of it is significantly worse.  It's a literary ... I mean, there's probably no other 3 word phrase in the entire history of literature that has as much
influence, and for me to put into a naive little short story I'd written?  It's like trying to write a song around "Ode to Joy" --- it might start out as tribute, but in the end
it's really just bullshit.  There is simply no context you can reframe something that simple and perfect in, without it becoming banal.

Anyways, I say again, every band that has ever stolen the phrase is doing so much more honestly and genuinely than I did.   At least the other people are changing the medium.

But isn't it funny, the image of the 16 year old songwriter(wannabe novelist, my case) picking up "Slaughterhouse 5" for the first time, having never heard of Kurt Vonnegut before(most likely, everyone's first Vonnegut experience is Slaughterhouse 5, mostly, right?).   And since you've probably never heard of the man before, you have this intensely private, selfish, experience of the novel, and it feels like it was made for only you.  And you get that phrase lodged in your subconcious, until it comes out on its own, be it in song or badly written short story?

A ringing echo of "So it goes," endlessly repeated by everyone who picks that book up... we're like birds picking up the cry?...    I mean, THAT is influence.  Completely spontaneous, unfettered, imitation.

Anyways... just a thought.   

(My first vonnegut was actually "The Sirens of Titan," and I felt just as privately engrossed by it as well, and named my band the WHOLLY unoriginal Malachi Constant before finding out that there were at least 30 different "Malachi Constants")


Love, everyone,

Matt