emergency room

yeah we're playing bike punx
for punx who don't have bikes
we'll drive you to the store
we'll put your heart on ice
and drive
to the emergency room
we're just waiting to move
at the emergency room
we're scraping our knees
like we've got nothing to prove
it's a downtempo chill
for spanless attent(ion)
it's a cigarette butt
for every penny you've spent
at the emergency room
we're just waiting to move
at the emergency room
we're brushing off butts
and just trying to groove

this song is total nonsense.  it is the oldest song that we still play.

bridgebride
for some strange reason i feel clean in my sheets
though i've been dirty since i stepped from the shower
and these confessions in the dark can hardly conjure a spark
more than fleeting hope that i have any power
that's right i'm powerless and listless and i'm less than making sense
i'm hanging pictures on my wall no they don't help me to forget
intoxicated by what could have been
hello, here i am, won't you be my friend?

look out the window and i wish that i was breaking it
sometimes i wish that broken glass was all i had
i see that bridge and i wish that i was burning it
but seeing it just doesn't make me that sad anymore

'bridgebride' is about getting over things, burning bridges (and trying not to), and regretting a failure to act on past opportunities.

antarctica

my hand winds up with every hour that i sleep
i wake
the crack's a spell that i break
i sever ties with the worlds
that live in neurons far away
why am i willing to do oh-so-many things
the sting of open eyelids as they hear the morning sing
a mirror shows me
crestfallen
i only look at it for a second
i hold my breath
i close my eyes...
...and jump

i snarl and struggle with my heavy limbs
i smudge my glasses as the world's taken in
and for the first time in my life i feel like this happens every day
it's something you'd only see
on your hands and your knees
as you pursue with a bucket and rag
and that's how i spend my days
with arboreal waste
what a drag

i'm home now and i'm desperate
but your ashen face just shows you i'm gone
i'll fidget til you're turned off
but, oh, i'm so turned on
so it's come to this thumbnail
pairing me with a clove cigarette
i'm not tired i'm just desperate
to save myself from pangs of regret

the stylus spins in circles like an hourglass
i measure pages per minute- thirty-three rpms
i want a refill but i'm hesitant
cause it's one a.m.
and when i thought i couldn't take anymore
i found myself taking more
i measure hours in doses
then i flush them away

each stanza of this song is a writing prompt from our first appearance in melissa favara's 1000 Words writing series, a bimonthly underground literature reading.  more info at 1000wordspdx.blogspot.com.  the theme of the prompts was 'work.'

find someone

we are alone
lonely in this town
we burn our tongues
reaching blind in darkness
yeah we count ourselves out
no, we're counting on doubt
for our fingers to find someone

being afraid
praying never fit
so we burned our bibles
and wrote without regret
but we ran out of words
and now we're skirting the void
of never paying for it

this song is about falling in love in a town with nothing to offer.

castles

we are warm and able tribes of men
we have shiny tools
we think we understand it all
screaming that we are so tall
tall enought to tame this world
oh we are such fucking fools
and i am one of them

i am just an able-bodied fool
i try to tame the world
i only can when i am curled prone
unfurl me when i'm alone
you can be that special girl
who can make me feel like
i am not one of them

you unseat the world's thrones
i sit here
think only of myself
you read the textbook
oh, i try real hard
no
really try i do
i found a special root
i learned myself was the loneliest alone
i found some water in that stone
you exist, oh, i'm certain
how much further can we go

you are just the perfect proof i need
a simple little song
that i kick myself for knowing all along
you're beautiful and i'm not strong
but together we can build
shiny castles in the hills
i am not one of them

this song is about how other people can sometime make us feel like less of assholes than every other human being on this planet.

sustained tuning injuries

harpsichord strings
survive stay alive
greet all our ears
with vibrations for eyes
melt to our fingertips
meld to our bones
melt with the power
of being alone
snap under the pressure
snapping under skin
those same wounds they heal once again

rainy day playtime
please cease from my mind
i've had walks in the moonlight
and startling finds
there's clarity to get
when we don't just get wet
but umbrellas make patterns
we never forget
snap under the tension
snap under my skin
those same words
they heal once again

written on strumstick.  about healing, i think.

motion sickness

this is the song that the little children sing
this is my flaw, my sound
like pictures tried to bring
you to a thousand words
the stony tried to read their thoughts

i don't like your species, sir
you've given me a lot to think about
i don't like you in the least bit sir
but misanthropes aim for the heart

this is the last firm-founded real-rehershal thing
this is my flaw in harm's way
bleeding harmony
for it's own health
the stony learned to replicate it's wealth

street mother

oh i woke up
did not want to wake up
i smiled to myself
and curled into a ball of disgust
oh i've had dreams
i can't handle these dreams
the softness of her face
erased, a kiss goodbye and then away
oh i can't stay
in bed no here i'll stay
you won't see me today
tomorrow, or will we ever meet?
oh i don't know
all i can say i know
is that the seasons change
i might be here to sweep the leaves into the street

the street is hardly wondering
the color of my thoughts
who lives and dies in all of my dreams
she never cries
she harldy feels alive
only when people die
does she sigh in defeat

my mom is always wondering
what i write about
who lives and dies in all of my dreams
i think she cries sometimes
because we are alive
we see this when we die
we see this when we die

the first part of this song is about the astral plane.  the second part of this song is about mortality.

brain on teen

we ride our bikes down to the store
and return with bags of stolen macadamias
my friends don't buy things anymore
we're the vanguards of pseudo-revolution

hold back our growing teenage brains
dump toxins on the urge to explain

i cried so sparsely in the summer
it took a lot of rain to break down that door
then it came easier than slumber
suddenly autumn is closer than before

and in these moments of great pain we see with clarity
we see beyond the shards of broken bottle glass that bring us to our knees
and the ringing in our ears will somewhat clear
because how would we remember if it fully disappeared?

this song is about the ways we change, the ways we numb ourselves with chemicals, television, ideologies, alcohol, and a million other things, and a strange fixation for not paying for much of anything.

post crash again

i am seventeen
and you are twenty-something
i wish there was less discrepancy between us
i live in my parent's house
and you live somewhere else
but i wish i could visit
on mass transit
cause i don't mind
no, i don't drive

i think there is something i must get off my chest
i think you have the lovliest pair
of spectacles
you're so respectable
and you inspire me in ways i can't understand
and you're so fucking nice to me
i think i'll tremble if i get too close
so i don't

and nobody my age understands me
well reid, he's my age, i think he understands me
and ian's my age too
and zach, he is older
they both understand
i think you would understand me too

unrequited love with older gals... that about sums it up.

earth angel rides c-tran

i knew who to follow to find it
the man who was staggering and didn't seem to know where he was
maybe symptoms of collick
from the way he clutched his abdomen
and the girl with the basket
filled to the brim with supplies for a barren fridge
but milk is expensive, and she has a kid
and i just want to get drunk when i'm on the bus

i measure out my sixty cents
i climb the stairs and smell the rising rent
the cost of living
and i'm guilty of my circumstances
i could be driving
you know i could be driving
i'm the patent child of privlege
with my clean shoes
bike helmet
patched-up shorts
and literary novels
goddammit i read them

you know the feeling where you're the only middle class white boy on the bus?  yeah.

bahaus bouncehaus

i'll make it clear
cut my heart when your voice trills like that
one more time and we'll have to be friends

here's the story
we'll be migratory birds
and laugh at tired lives together
we'll see them every day and dread being like that
you ignore me
and i can't bore through your skull
saying we should be together
or that you should just ask me about my book

i skulk in my seat
my wing's a badge of self-defeat
my mp3s are on repeat
and you can't see my plumage
a dollar thirty
is the distance between us
love
a thought i'd never have on a city bus

to follow the theme of public transit, love on the bus.

kelvin

so i was more alarmed than anything
when i felt the bus lurch to a halt
a chorus of grinding gears
and crunching metal
and i can't be dishonest with you
i think you're the bomb
too bad it just went off
now it dusts its dust onto both of us

we look for escape in accidents
and accidents are a necessity
necessities are things we really need sometimes

so before you call the cops
or cry over the smell of dying
just remember it is not always this fragrant of a world
but it's the world you live in
and you choose one thing
and that's your attitude
and i happen to like it when the bus crashes

a song about collapse.

luna is no bonesaw

i'm getting so close to home now
your supple frame has ignited such a flame
in my stomach and intestines
hope you can respect that
respect that
and that transient man
was not an unexpected arrival
and oh, i so feel bad
but i can't think about his survival
all the drugs he does

because i only think of you
and i will visit too
we'll talk on the phone
and walk my dog each night
we are alone and we're feeling alright
because i only think of you
and i will visit too
and i will talk to my dog
and walk past the phone each night
we are alone and
we are never right

forest

i am unemployed
but i support weight of a thousand branches
i am just a boy
but i can spark a fucking deadly fire

we are pine needles
crackling in the fire's embers
we don't need this
run into the woods forever

hot scoreboard

i've got all of the scores
and the appetite
for something new
but i can't tell you why
do i fall into all these silly traps
i will
i won't
i cannot map this middle road

i'm cold
i'm a thousand degrees
i'm stable
i'm a mess
i'm a rock
i am radiation
you are dressed
up as your favorite movie star
and you are pretty
but that shit only depresses me

we were children of a thousand suns
and we marveled at the largeness of the heavens
but we are nothing but faithless men
doomed to conclude the bloody story we began
and so i sing

lovebus

let's talk about love
let's talk about our lives
let's talk about our bedrooms
let's talk about organized
shelves of plastic grooves and curios
and well-dressed people who you used to know
or they knew you
but you were too young to remember
remember that?

let's think about skies
let's think about FUCKING ESCAPING
let's think about dying
or the love that we could be making
in the time we spend at school or lawn mowing
impressing well-dressed people who can't stand sewing
their own clothes
cause they don't know how to do that
but we do that

because we are
the bad dreams where you're shot in the face
and you die but your soul lives on and decides
to inform the population that they haven't got much time
left on this miserable planet
we can be good dreams too where you're shut in you're room
with a person you love and you both know that soon
there could be jobs bombs or car accidents
but you are stuck right there in the present

long tunnel

we are walking to the store today
we are looking for our childhoods
our friends stole them away
we are taking time to feel complete
but we will lose ourselves and rain embarrassment
on all our sheets

what you said
to be the closest thing to friend
i'll ever know or feel again
is what you say to me each day

sometimes the world sucks and then i cry
and realize it is the only way
i know that i'm alive
so i make plans and i plot escapes
but i'm still waiting for this world i'm living in
to fucking break

and bodies stink because they were never pure
and i am learning that i cannot cry much more
before i die
we are alive

geffy!

ont ontta btrowgaine, yunntawny vetterate juttso. sleeby frig muyd ders tract ploje.  eswibbo bitren cappy nuntononics, re juttso sleeby. plipps frug hads? MYREESY!!

myreesy vun vun ribtog, qasten bazely tychodo op-nobblie prippons. wabs ders frug jub kak grub, fezoth drixy juttso.

geffy,
Reid and Ethan

we have a bass player.

his name is zach holcomb.  he is a very good person and you should meet him, if you haven't already.

it may be a bit before we are ready to make our trio debut, but have faith that it is in the works.

in additional wpq news, reid and i are recording an ep (sadly, sans zach, as reid will be playing on the session) in the land of port.  we are looking forward to this immensely.

but, to tide ourselves over, we posted two very terrible and terribly-lo-fi recordings; i must say that these songs were written under very questionable circumstances. 

love,

ethan.

hello everybody.

first off, our freshman attempt at a cohesive recording, 'sweating in sweaters,' was not much of a sucess and we sort of hate it now.  unfortunately, we still have like 40 copies left.  so if anybody wants one, we can give it to you for cheap, trade, or possibly free.  just let us know.

secondly, we played a show last night for melissa favara's 1000 words reading series.  it was loads of fun and a huge sucess... so much, in fact, that we are prospectively becoming the 'house band' of sorts.  check out 1000 words for yourself!

finally, we feel that it is necessary to record a new demo, because nobody has been able to listen to anything that we have actually been playing live for the past three months or so in any format.  so that should change in the next few weeks or so.  bathroom = studio?  eh???

hey stupidcakes good morning/you're stupid/you are an ugly fool/you're positively hideous/you make me want to puke/who loves you?/the answer/is a resounding NO!/yeah yeah yeah you're just that bad/i'm sure it's hard to be you when no one wants to see you/i'm sure that you would hardly want to see yourself/do you have a mirror inside your house?/well that would really gross me out/and it's not beneficial for your health/i'll wake you/this morning/it's really a disgrace/i lost a bet and no one else/wants to see your face/the others do not realize the stomach that this takes/yeah yeah yeah hey stupidcakes! smart people like boring things smart people like boring things/like, hook them up to a math machine!/and watch them do the problems in their sleep/and watch them do the problems in their sleep/smart people like boring stuff/like pbs and probably not trucks/don't tell them they could use the self-esteem/telling them would sure be a mistake indeed/we've got it all worked out/yeah yeah yeah eugenics/so go tell the town/we've figured it out… yeah yip-yanti-slavery act! our story bangin on tin cans/amateur rock band/yeah/plug in the power strip/let's take a chance/oh yeah!/and i'm counting on losing power in the bathroom again/forget equalization/without hesitation/yeah/reminding the neighbors/i'm sure that they'd rather forget biology dudes hey there biology dudes/let's go downtown try to reproduce/hey there biology dudes/let's reproduce/masculinity in an airport/masculinity in a car door/masculinity in a skate park/ masculinity…/hey there girls in swimsuits/let's go downtown try to reproduce/hey girls in swimsuits/let's go and reproduce/masculinity in an airport/masculinity in a car door/masculinity in a skate park/ masculinity in rock music! toys you throw away i threw you away/my memory grows distant from childlike days/i wished you could stay/but if you hadn't gone than i wouldn't be sane/am i ok?/just ignore these thoughts, just push them away/i guess i'll complain/and just dream of those wonderful days/i threw you away/you threw me away/you wanted to stay/i wanted to stay/now all i can say/now all you can say/you're better off dead anyway forcing structures forcing structures on myself/is forcing force just fending off?/or is it forcing off some block/of plague-infested cream of crop?/feigning force with every move/one step behind and out this door/try to know what to expect/expectations prove/not hard to prove/prove yourself for what it's worth/a penny's worth is saved and earned/when you pick it up/off a plate of gold j-pop-bop downtown baby and we'll do it our way/we're gonna sing plastic tuesdays like we do every day/ say HEY!/what you goin doin stealin my/days of the week today?/uptown bobby and we're wearing cute clothes/we're gonna drink us some boys until they shoot out our nose/say HEY!/what you doin with my cute clothes?/says mr. store/we're gonna buy sweet denim treats in the beach-sun galore!/goodbye old man wrench in the plans old man wrench had a little car/he drove far/old man wrench had a little fish/he made a wish/but the wish came true/whaddya do cause/the wish came true/whaddya do cause/the wish came true/whatddya do cause/the wish came true/old man wrench in the plans/old man wrench/had a little seed/he found his greed/old man wrench/had a little dish/he made a wish/ old man wrench in the plans had a hand in the making of a bomb that would soon destroy all the monkeys and the sheep/who would've thought that such a mean old man would have the brain to think of such a plot?/well i know now/i know now cause/ i know now/i know now cause/ i know now/i know now cause/i know now…old man wrench in the plans chex mix spent last night picking chex mix crumbs from the lap of my underwear/i spent the last three weeks in the daze of defeat/summer's end doesn't mean good sleep/and i'm trying not to care/but i'm begging you to not be there/this end's too much to bear/we're all going down with it/i didn't say it's fair/hastily misguided strokes/scratch away the hearts they broke/telling lies with every flick/of poetic liscence wrists the oceans are people, too yeah you've got it all figured out for yourself/you're all, textbooks, let's look, distribution of wealth/ok- you've had your say but i'm going all out/sandgrains are people and beaches are steeples go see for yourself… because…/yeah yes they are yes they are/the oceans are people too exploratory wonder exploratory wonder in the deep blue sea/riding baby belugas just you and me/hospital adventures and exploratory surgery/don't probe me with a shaft of knowledge/don't probe me with a shaft of knowledge/ride the high life like it's the edge of a knife/and i'm walking the rough edges of a partier's strife/walk the rough edges of a partier's strife/don't feed me to the wrath of the hounds!/don't feed me to the wrath of the hounds!/ride a moon beam like i'm biting a dream/and all the while i'm caking to the sides of your spleen doorbell hello hello/trembling voice or so it goes/burn me with your stare/i'm dying that you'll take me there/but all i manage/awkward glance/i'm simply not quite ready to compare vocal virginity sat down with james joyce's 'ulysses'/'ham on rye' by chuck charles bukowski/lymphatic glands were swollen up like tubes of paste/it's six am and it hurts to yawn/vocal virginity/losing it losing it strangers strangers/meeting up in paradise with/cell phones/pretty soon they aren't so nice/but i want to play phone tag with you/but i want to play phone tag with you/it wasn't too long/until we figured that the/arm-strong/would start to sing their songs/and capture all the good guys into pits/and spiky surprise treats were entreating on their wrists/strangers/they met in paradise with/cell phones/pretty soon they weren't so nice but/i got to play phone tag with you/but i got to play phone tag with you tootsie role, see yore, let me! and it goes to show/all that's left is tootsie rolls/i've got you and i'm never gonna give you back/these times we've shared will never end/little plastic knobs/wonderful space-things/little fuzzy noise/bringing good tidings!/it's you and me/we're never going back to that place/and if they ever ask for you back/we'll take you to the dungeon/that's not what i said!/but we'll do it anyway!

so it will be out soon.  within the month, we're hoping.  and it will be a very limited run (72, we're thinking).  and we have a new song that is insane, but you probably won't be hearing that for awhile.

love,

ethan

blogblogblogblog...go.

Ok, here we are.  It's Reid and Ethan here.  We just finished our second day of recording.  Boy, does it sound swell!  Just thought we'd let you know.  Some videos coming soon maybe.  And, of course, some recordings, in the form of a FULL LENGTH ALBUM!!!

Ok, enough for now.  Get thee hence.

love, us.