blood-ridden hands are the first thing to come through the bed

The Pointless Forest in its quartet guise is going to be pretty unique, I think. We’re moving towards a very slow-core influenced sound. Matt picked up pretty quickly that bands like Low, Bedhead, and Louisville groups like June of 44 and Slint are big influences on me. We both share an equal love of Tortoise. I like the idea of being a very melodic, clean, quiet ambient band, with simple repeating patterns while not getting too jazzy, and still keeping the familiar post-rock signifiers. I think it’d make us unique and stand out from bands like Goodbye Titan who are closer to the more Mono/Caspian side of post-rock. I still want some noise but I want the dynamics of quiet hush before the storm. Jesse is very good at basically just producing distant ambient thunder with his effects while I stitch gentle picking or chords underneath, hovering in the background. Jody is a very intuitive bassist with a smooth style, and Matt’s drumming is very fluid and intuitive, as well. I’m excited to see where it goes. I think this could be killer. And Matt certainly was a find, not just for drumming. He has a small label, a website, and awesome recording equipment. Jody is learning bowed bass, as well. Now as soon as we move to the bigger 20 X 20 unit, we can do some real recording and work out a good setlist for shows. I would love, too, to have one song written as an instrumental but ask someone local with a great voice to write sparse lyrics and sing over it. Just one track. Perhaps Natasha from The Last Track, she has such a haunting, lovely Cat Power-type voice. Time will tell. Right now I’m happy it’s all developing so nicely.

Spent time before practice last night recording bits of weird YouTube samples and found sound onto my microcassette. I like the distorted, warpy, shitty lo-fi sound of the microcassette for sampling. Nothing too clean, y’know? I have clips from movies, a woman narrating her experiences with schizophrenia, a pilot describing having to crash-land his jetliner, Paul Anka violently berating his crew (“Paul Anka slices like a fucking hammer, you’ve seen it!”), two black street preachers warning that NATO is the Antichrist/Beast from Revelations that will lead to nuclear holocaust, a woman relaying a near-death experience, and on and on. As I said on Facebook, it’s like a tape of the damned. I love the idea of accentuating instrumental music with weird little sound samples. Thanks, Godspeed.

I need to work a bit on photography and writing, too, as I’ve neglected those things lately due to all the music. I need to see my girlfriend more often. I need to finish The Stand for the billionth time. I need to finish my weekly round of reviews for PM and TSB. I’m busier than ever, but it’s a good kind of busy, and I’m so very grateful for it. Beats the alternative. Last year I was lonely, friendless, single, in a band I didn’t want to be in, lying in a freezing unheated farmhouse in Durham watching the endless rain. This year there’s sn0w, love, and the promise of success. 🙂

A year can change so much in a life.
ZC

so when you lay me inside of a coffin, bury me on the side of a hill, that’s a good place to get some thinking done

Dear Reader,

Up until now all my posts on this blog have been privatized. One because I instinctively feel that journals should be private and I question the compulsion that leads people to spill very personal information to the internet community at large. Two because I find it doubtful that the three people who will read this are very interested in mine or Denny’s day to day activities, or three because I’ve said personal things here mentioning certain folks or events, and I don’t wish to hurt anyone I love by broadcasting such things better kept between myself and the keyboard. Still, I guess I’m writing partially from boredom and also because my Facebook links here to blankness.

So sorry, you’ll have to suffer our dull daily existences at least until I get sick of blogging and give it up again.

What for today? The Triangle is still on lockdown. Amusing that a tiny bit of snow falls here in the South and its as if a huge epidemic of apocalyptic proportions has struck. No school, impassable roads, mail slowing. I watched a snowplow on I-85 in Durham trundle along with its plow above-ground, the driver clearly unsure how to operate such a device. To think, I walked a mile to school in three foot drifts as a child in western Massachusetts…

The bad result of this is less work, due to inability to access Durham. And thus, utter boredom. Also, one CD has come for my first review for PopMatters, but not the second. I’ve also been assigned a 1-3K word essay on how technology has changed the act of listening to music (I know, hoary old subject, maybe I can inject some wit and life into it, we’ll see). So my days have been watching Weeds on Netflix and petting the cat. So very enticing!

This is the scandolous life of Zach you’ve come to this blog for, I know.

What else, you ask? Clamoring for more of the seedy Hillsborough, NC life? Um…reading Joyce Carol Oates’ latest, and still struck by the power of her unique, plaintive style. I had emailed her once in a bit of stalker fandom weakness and she wrote a lovely email back to me, not to namedrop too much. Still working with this new expanded full-band lineup of The Pointless Forest, readying myself for shows (i’m going to take a sabbatical from solo shows following playing to a crowd of four at Local 506 a couple weeks ago, I think). Our bassist plays an upright with a bow! Oh the unknown possibilities! And our drummer, late of a respected Danbury, CT post-rock cornerstone (Daybed) has his own small recording setup and label. It gets better! Perhaps Our Hero after over a year of despairingly looking for post-rock comrades has found his proper squadron? Only time will tell, Reader…

Snow has impeded my photography lately. Not much more to say about that. Anxious to use the new camera!

Still attempting to diet, we’ll see how that goes. I’m frightened for my health either way. Fingers crossed.

Still attempting to finish one of many unfinished novel projects. More crossed fingers, dear brethren.

But what of Our Heroine, Miss Wilkerson? Denny seems tired from her new job with Lola and Keir, ages 3 and 7, in Carrboro, but sufficiently less stressed than she was at her previous employers (the less said about those folks, the better). We had a very nice few days together snowed in over the weekend, reading companionably side by side with the cat between us, watching our favorite TV addictions (the aforementioned Weeds, Six Feet Under, Charles in Charge…yep). We still have our epic four hour 4AM conversations about all manner of things.

I simply love her more each day. There’s no finer way to put it. Why muddle it with words, journal?

Oh, I could rant about many things here today. My ongoing debate against Kindle and its ilk, CBS deciding to air an anti-choice ad during the Super Bowl after historically turning down similar liberal PSAs, the reckless decision to have ten nominees for Best Picture at the Oscars this year simply to include box office dreck and up viewership…but I’m in a contended, reflective mood tonight, and I don’t have the bile in me. I wrote a long letter to a lost friend I hope to reconnect with tonight, extending an olive branch of sort. It was emotional but cathartic. Now I’m spent both mentally and physically. I only hope it was worth doing. Either way, there’s closure now.

If I think of anything else to add to this, I’ll do so tomorrow (excuse me, later today).

I’ll leave you with this, dear WordPress –

Two silkworms were fighting. They ended in a tie.

Regards,

ZC