Mountain Goats show #2 was not nearly as epic.
Things that are probably to blame:
1. They played two super high energy shows in a row the two nights before in Portland (at least, I assume the second show was high energy; that's what it sounds like from what I've heard).
2. The fucking audience. Dear. Lord. I wanted to poop on them.
Part of me feels like they were low energy because they planned it that way -- they probably knew the two shows at the Doug Fir were going to be really high energy, so they planned out this show with lots of slower songs, and more obscure songs. Monday's show was mostly songs off the new album and their more recent albums. This show included a bunch of songs off their earlier albums and it would have been lovely, if it hadn't been for the crowd. I was standing right up front with Val, Rob, Steve and some of Steve's friends, about one person from the stage, right in front of John. The girls who were standing directly in front of us were obviously still in high school and had quite obviously come to hear two specific songs. How do I know? They made giant cardboard signs and held them up in John's face between every fucking song. And they were dancing all crazy and accidentally smacked Steve in the junk.
Because they were right up front, right in front of John, it seemed like he was trying hard to ignore them, and ended up just cutting himself off from the audience entirely. There was no banter, nothing -- just song after song. Part of it could also have been that the audience was all ages instead of 21 and over, so I feel like something kind of went funny in the age dynamic.
I don't want to make it sound like I didn't enjoy the concert, because I did. The setlist was fantastic - the other two times I've seen The Mountain Goats it's been mostly new music, so it was really cool to hear older songs.
After the show the 5 of us (Myself, Rob, Dylan S., Peggy and Val) went to Denny's, then drove back up to Portland. After dropping off Val and Dylan, the rest of us finally made it back to campus by a little after 2. Needless to say, I kind of need a nap right now.
Other news: it's the end of February and I'm already done with my taxes... hooray! Also, I'm basically caught up on all my other shit, besides German. Every day I ask myself again, "why am I not in Sound and Sense?" (Sound and Sense is a music class notorious for being an easy A elective at LC).
Con planning is going really smoothly at the moment. The early bird deadline is next Monday, so applications are rolling in. There are 37 people RSVP'd 'yes' on Facebook at the moment, so that's really assuring. We're now about a month and a half away and I'm getting pretty excited...
I really want to see this movie. Hella hella.
Two and a half months ahead of schedule the leaves on the trees were turning brown... Thursday, February 28, 2008
Goodbye Portland, you tried to kill me. I don't blame you, I can't blame you. Tuesday, February 26, 2008
Mountain Goats show #1 was epic.
They opened with Michael Myers Resplendent, played about an hour long set, came back for an encore, came back for a second encore, and finally ended with Palmcorder Yajna, which I think they have to play every time they're in Portland... I mean, it's the quintessential song off We Shall All Be Healed, which is all about Portland.
I should mention that the title here has nothing to do with my feelings towards Portland, it was a song that got debuted about Portland...
They were super pumped and high energy. And they told us they loved us. Several times. To quote John, "I want to make sweet love to every one of you. Even the straight ones."
Concert tomorrow night should be just as epic, if not more, since the adventure there and back will be part of the package.
'Cause I built you a hole in my heart Monday, February 25, 2008
Do you ever get the feeling you were way cooler in high school?
Mountain Goats tomorrow night at the Doug Fir. I would be more excited if I weren't so tired. This was a weird, kind of lost weekend. Friday night Lizzy and I got lost in and outside of No-Po while trying to find St. John's community center, where Nanda was doing a performance. We finally got there, half an hour late, and the opening act had just started. They were this terrible synthesized mariachi band and I was freaking grumpy from getting lost and not having had dinner yet... so we (Rob, Rachelle, Lizzy and I) went to Burgerville and nommed a little.
Nanda was wonderful and entertaining, as to be expected..
I gave Lizzy a ride back to downtown, then went back up to Vantucky for the night. Let's just say that Friday night kind of sucked after a certain point. Saturday was lost, all we really did was make cookies. Alphabet cookies. That spelled things like "Boobs" and "Your Mom". God, we're mature..
Saturday night was Once Upon A Weekend. Section Line Drive performed, along with Momo and the Coop, and I have to say it was a pretty successful performance. I'll put up videos later.
Anyways. I'm really am excited for this week of Mountain Goats that's approaching. Unlike last year, I won't be going to the Doug Fir show by myself, since Steve and Sara will be there, too. And the Eugene show will be awesome, because I'll have Rob there, along with an LC friend and that girl from UUFC I reconnected with thanks to Facebook.
It's 2:03 AM. I'm going to bed.
Just because I'm 22 doesn't mean I have to act it. Tuesday, February 19, 2008
THIS POST BROUGHT TO YOU BY JESSIE TAKING A BREAK DURING HER COMPLEX TAKE HOME MIDTERM.
Rob is the best adventure buddy/playmate a girl could ever ask for. After such a stressful week of too much homework, not enough sleep and PMS, this last weekend was absolutely amazing. Friday night Rob and I built a fort in his room with dining room chairs, closet poles and quilts.
On Saturday morning we made breakfast (yogurt banana splits) then went downtown for Saturday market. Turns out Saturday market is closed for a couple of the winter months, so we went to Chipotle for lunch instead.
After Chipotle we drove over to Music Millennium for KIMYA. She was wonderful and sweet and gave me a hug at the end of the performance, and also sang a song called "Alpha-butt" that starts "A is for apple, B is for butt".
Kimya singing "Underground"
After Kimya we went home for a while, made dinner, watched some Arrested Development, then Rachelle picked us up and we went back down to Portland for THE WANDERLUST CIRCUS, which was amazing, wonderful and lots of fun. We ran into fellow PNWDer, Lyle, which was also cool.
Dave Clay
Vanessa Vortex
The Crow
Brittany Walsh, doing the most intense thing I saw all night
Nanda, a performance group from Port Townsend (so Rob knows them all)
After the Circus Rob and I came back to Vancouver, got in our fort and watched the South Park movie.
This week has been good, just busy. I made banana bread last night, and then fed on it all day today. School-wise, complex is the most rewarding class I've taken in ages, Voting Theory is up there with Graph Theory for being a course that could be cool and interesting, but is taught in such a way that it's just confusing and boring, and German Lit is a downright awful class and I'm kind of miserable in it. Oh, and CS 1 is fun, easy and entertaining.
Mountain Goats concert is on MONDAY!!! (and WEDNESDAY TOO!). Section Line Drive is performing at Once Upon A Weekend this Saturday night, so that should be sweet too.
Now... BACK TO MY MIDTERM. I have 3 problems completely written up, 1 basically figured out, 1 about half done, and 2 that I... have yet to look at. It's due tomorrow at 5, so I'm pretty sure I'm in good shape. I hope.
Loose lips may sink ships, but loose kisses take trips! Friday, February 15, 2008
My apartment mates and I have a two-week long tradition of keeping the current Willamette Week in the bathroom. It's not as cool as the issues of Vice Chloe used to keep in there last year, but it'll do. Anyways. I was just in there, you know, doin' my poopin' thing, when I noticed an ad at the bottom of the page that was advertising that Kimya Dawson is giving a free show at Music Millennium on Saturday.
OMFG (that's "Oh-My-Fucking-God", dear parents) this week just keeps getting better.
We were already planning on making Saturday a downtown day, since we haven't just hung out downtown during the day since summer and I need more soap from that stall I love so much at Saturday Market. And while we're downtown, we might as well skip on over to Music Millennium to see Kimya Dawson play a live, free performance. Holy poop.
Free Kimya show + 2 Mountain Goats shows the week after next = this February is the best music month of my life, to date.
Rob and I went to Saburo's Sushi in Sellwood tonight for Valentine's Day. We both ate approximately Rob's weight in sushi, and somehow still both left with boxes containing at least 2 meals worth of sushi. And payed less than $40 for the whole she-bang. It was absolutely RIDICULOUS.
I feel like Lovecraft in Brooklyn Thursday, February 14, 2008
HELL. YES. Who's excited? Jessie's excited.
Kind of had a breakdown yesterday. Rob, Krispy Kreme and sleep helped that one. Rob also gave me my birthday present - He drove me to the music store, bought me new guitar strings and then once we'd gotten home he showed me how to put them on my guitar. :)
And I feel so proud to be alive Tuesday, February 12, 2008
Current favorite things ever in the entire world: Dill spears and Heretic Pride
Life is good, but I can tell I'm getting a little burned out. But in a way, it's kind of good. I don't spend a lot of time just lazing around, not doing anything. And the times I do do that (last night, for example), I relish it.
Yesterday was the day from hell-o. I was up late on Sunday night finishing my grading (after a weekend of not getting much sleep, due to somewhat copious amounts of alcohol, et al, and study groups that met at 10:30 am both Saturday and Sunday morning). I woke up Monday in a sort of a haze. I went to CS, completely unable to focus - I was tired and the professor has a tendency to shout loudly about his opinions while at the same time asking us to program something. In the gap between CS and Voting Theory I talked to Liz because I couldn't see any hope of getting my Complex hw done by 5. Voting Theory made me want to punch a kitten in the face. Complex was the bright spot in my afternoon. I worked furiously on Complex homework between Complex and German and realized that I could definitely get it done by 5, as long as I left German exactly at 4:30 and hightailed it back to the math dept.
German was fine, besides the fact that we had projects due that the prof wanted us to present... so she left 10 minutes at the end of class for presentations. Needless to say I had to leave before everyone had finished, and I just left feeling really annoyed at the prof.
The night was better. I went over to Rob's, we made double-decker tacos, watched some arrested development, made poopcorn, watched Best In Show, and then went to bed early. AND DID ABSOLUTELY NO HOMEWORK. It was beautiful.
Too bad the rest of this week is going to be busy.
I leave you with videos of Section Line Drive singing Saturday night at Manzanita Music Night in the Co-op.
Fast Car
Wannabe
My Heart's an Autoclave. Thursday, February 7, 2008
Current personal issue: Being too addicted to caffeine -- I'm at a two cup a day habit and the less sleep I get, the worse it gets...
SO. SDC this weekend was very good, albeit weird at times. The conference was designed for youth and adults, but this time it was opened up to young adults, which is how I ended up there. There were other people there who more strongly identified with the young adult community than the youth community, but they were all still 20. There were also young adults who were sponsors (over 25) who more strongly identified with the adult community than the young adults. I was in neither of these groups; I am firmly situated between these two communities. I turned 22 on Sunday, which made the age gap feel even more stark. Most of the people there were under the age of 16 or over the age of 35. The worst thing about being in that gap is that I spent most of the weekend worrying how I should act. I wasn't in a position of leadership so I didn't technically need to be setting a good example... but I was definitely a good 5 years older than all of the youth there, so I really couldn't have full camaraderie with them.
Whatever. The conference itself was fantastic. I didn't find it as intense as I feel a lot of the youth did, but I got a lot of great tools for leading worships, to the extent that I feel like I could be a worship coordinator at some con in the future and rock at it.
My birthday on Sunday was really positive, but kind of lame/boring. Saturday night they surprised me with cake and glowsticks and everyone gave me birthday hugs. Sunday I was just in the car all day. Listening to Dr. Demento. The entire way. Have I mentioned that I absolutely hate hate hate novelty music? I'm not going to make a blanket statement and say that I hate ALL of it, because I certainly do love me some Flight of the Conchords and Tenacious D... but for the most part, I can't stand the majority of parody/novelty music I hear. But I wasn't driving, so I really didn't have any say in the music. I got free stuff from Subway and Burgerville by telling them it was my birthday, and I spent the whole day with Dad and Rob, so I'd say it wasn't a bad day overall.
As far as getting back on top of my shit, I've done it. Everything that had to be turned in yesterday got finished: the complex problem set, the reading and two problems for voting theory, the two assignments for grading, and the CS lab (writing a program that could solve a quadratic equation). My reading for German is almost done, only 12 more pages left to go. Now that I'm caught up again, I still have more homework due Friday, but it's nothing I'm crapping my pants about. A couple of problems for complex and some reading for voting theory? Pff.
Last night Rob, Devon and I went to Sushi Takahashi for a birthday dinner. Rob got stuck in traffic, so when me and Devon got there we walked down to Jackpot records to buy a ticket to the Portland Monday night Mountain Goats show. They closed at 7 and we got there at 7:10... sad face... At sushi we told them it was my birthday (shh it was Sunday that's close enough) and they gave me free mochi! Then we went to Spartacus and bought hairdye. I'm going to dye my hair atomic pink once I get a free couple hours, (maybe while I'm grading tonight? Or more likely, tomorrow afternoon).
Speaking of Mountain Goats, an undisclosed source found me a leaked copy of the Mountain Goats new album Heretic Pride (it's not set to come out until the 19th... oops) and it's absolutely fantastic! It's funny, because they've finally officially added a drummer to their line up (for the last several albums it's just been guitar or piano, and bass). The drum really adds to the fullness, but also very drastically changes that "goatey" sound. And not in a bad way, either. I think it's a change for the better.
Con planning is going well... not a whole lot has been going on. We should have online reg up by the end of the weekend. We don't have a workshop coordinator, but I'm not sure we need one...? Facebook says that 28 people are planning on coming, and 68 more are considering coming. Wow. We're probably going to have to cut off registration at a certain point. I mean, it doesn't really matter right now, we don't have more than 5 people officially registered. Once online reg goes up, that's going to change very quickly, I have a feeling.
Campus UU group is going well, as... well... Me and Liz have split up the duties so she's doing programming and I'm sending out the emails and bringing tea. We had our first meeting on Tuesday night 4 other people besides me and Liz showed up. That's not so bad, right? It was at an awkward time, but hopefully next week when it's a half hour earlier we'll have better attendance.
Okay. I have about half an hour left of my shift so I'm going to drink some water, read the rest of my assigned reading in Saga of the Volsungs, and then go to class.
Also: I'M 22. HOLY EFFING CRAP. That kind of makes me an adult. Sort of.
Can she do it? Wednesday, February 6, 2008
Current goal: Be entirely caught up on my shit by tomorrow at 6:00 pm.
SDC was good. I will elaborate later in the week.
Stressy McGee. Friday, February 1, 2008
Music Stuck In My Head: Amity Gardens - Fountains of Wayne
Mood: Stressed
WHAT? I turn 22 in 3 days?
Are you crazy? I don't have time for a birthday!
Life is too insane. The Spirituality Development Conference is tomorrow and I feel completely unprepared. I haven't even packed. And it's after 1 am the night before and I'm getting up at 8... so... in less than 7 hours. But just the thought of not going to ALL my classes tomorrow, and not having any homework that's due tomorrow that I'm actually going to do, (oops), makes me so relieved. I can feel the muscles in my shoulders, the knots that have taken of residence, easing slightly.
And then I think about all the homework I have due for Monday and there they go again, tensing and growing and making my shoulders hunch forward.
- More grading for YP, even though I just finished a batch of papers tonight that were turned in today.
- Complex homework
- Voting Theory reading and 2 problems that I'm supposed to have turned in by tomorrow (but I'm not going to class because of SDC, so I'm taking that as an excuse not to do them for tomorrow).
- German Lit in Translation crap. Reading the rest of the Prose Edda AND finding 3 non-internet sources for a short paper on the Vikings in Europe? Are you out of your mind, Katja? "Oh don't worry!" she said in her slightly German accented English, "you'll have all weekend do this!"
RINSE.
REPEAT.
I was so proud of myself this week because I was so on top of my shit. Ah, if only it could have lasted...
Life hurts my brain.
