Clyde Webb, Blah Blah, Vipe, Blah Blah

I can't sleep so here's an update. 

I'm moving again. Maybe some more music will come out of it. I've been breaking my rule about being prolific. 

I've been working occasionally on a post about 10 albums I think are "near perfect". I might never finish it but having the list is nice. More importantly:

http://clydewebb.bandcamp.com/album/into-it-im-growing-up

I'm surprised no one has talked about this already. Clyde "went electric" and made an album with Ryan in Moscow a few months ago. I think Ryan took a bunch of pics he might post when he has time. It's definitely his best yet. I played a few of the songs with him in "Clyde Webb and the Seans" a year ago or so. It was a lot of fun but when we tried to record it turned out terrible. This album sounds way better than we ever did. Also a lot of the songs I heard every night on the summer tour we did together but they sound way better electric. I'm just rambling but really I'm just glad it was made so I can listen to it. To me it's easily the best thing he's ever done and that's exciting.

Feel free to not read any of the rest of this:

There's new Vipe stuff in the works. I have to mention it occasionally so I don't forget about it or something and also to get other people excited about it. Ian and I have written about 15 or so songs. Vipe was the easiest and surprisingly most satisfying musically overall of any band I've ever done. There was plenty of difficulty getting stuff to work but I always thought the music worked too easily well and came off sounding how we wanted. It always felt like we were pushing ourselves without any of the baggage that sometimes comes with that. Getting along and getting the recordings together was always a stressful hassle but whatever.

My songs are mostly from stuff that was initially written for other projects but came out sounding like Vipe songs more than anything. Actually I don't know how much they sound like Vipe as much as they were written in the Vipe frame of mind. Once I decided they were Vipe songs they changed a bit. I don't know, they were written all over the place and are kind of varied but to me they sound super cohesive. Who knows, varied and cohesive probably mean different things in my mind than they do to someone else's ears. I also have some ideas for more jammy parts which we never did as much as I think we might have wanted to. Either way, lot's of blast beats and 4/4 so, you know, rock and roll. 

Ian wrote six songs a year ago or so. I think he wrote a few more that turned into a couple Smuts songs and maybe something else. Either way the six songs sound to me like more extreme versions of his stuff from the Downsided split. But they're also weirder in a different way. I'll have to just see how they come together.

I don't know when it'll get started and it will probably be a year after that when it gets finished at the rate stuff's been going. It also might end up being two releases depending on how it goes recording. If it happens it will probably be a continuation of the first two recordings but maybe more removed. As in more dissimilar from the second recording than the second was from the first. Mostly because of the amount of time between them. It's like I (and I assume everyone else) has already had ideas for a hundred new recordings instead of the dozen or so between the first two. 

I feel like musically Vipe was always solid but the recordings always turned out weird and were recorded under kind of strange, stressful circumstances. Or maybe the circumstances were normal but the way we came at the music was different? I think the circumstances this time are going to be a lot stranger. With the bands I've been in, most of the time we each record our parts days or weeks apart from each other but have practiced together quite a bit before recording. The last Tim Blood wasn't that way cause we weren't all in the same town and I don't think this new Vipe will be either cause we're even more spread out. 

Despite everything I feel like if it happens it will be the best thing we've done. I have too many ideas and trust everyone too much for it to not come together well. If the genre concept for the first recording was "hardcore and skate punk" and the concept for the second one was "post punk, proto grind and skate punk" then the concept for this is maybe "thrash, screamo, jangly alternative, grind and skate punk... and hardcore".

Fox Council Explanation

http://controlforce.bandcamp.com/album/5-more-or-else

Finally got around to putting this thing up. This recording was written at two weird times. Here's an overlong explanation because I'm unemployed and sentimental, if you like that kind of thing:

 The music was written on a broken twelve string I found in the trash on a 15 minute break at work using a couple leftover Fox Council riffs to get started.  Ryan and I practiced a few hours later and I came up with two lines I repeated for every song. Then we played a show opening for Stable Comings (the first one at One World). 

About a week later we recorded them in the garage of the Pink House in Moscow. I dubbed a bass track too but I don't know what happened to it. I hadn't played any music in at least a year besides recording myself breathing into a re-verb pedal or some shit in my room. About a month later we started Tim Blood so it was kind of forgotten.

Eight months later when I got back to Moscow I moved into the garage of the Pink House then slowly leeched my way into the house. I remembered the recording and decided that finishing it was probably the most important thing I could be doing. Let's see I kind of lost my momentum; I wanted to say something about how I was feeling when I wrote the lyrics. I wrote lyrics in this notepad I had written a bunch of shitty lyrics in while traveling. The lyrics that ended up in the songs were the best of the bunch. I finally threw the notebook away a few months ago.

Um, I was feeling weird all the time. Really good and really bad. I would stumble home after hanging out for days and days, walk into Tim and Bethany's room, drop my pants to my ankles and fall asleep. Compared to my whole life that was pretty atypical behavior. When I would wake up in the late afternoon I'd go into the garage and blast music with garage door open. It felt pretty cool. Right outside the garage was a huge hill and then some shitty apartments beyond it that I liked to look out at. I'd sit there and try to write positive lyrics while everyone else was at school. 

The first song is about driving back and forth from Seattle to Pullman and then playing some Loose Cannons shows. The title "Angry Suns" was the working name of the band when we first recorded. I think it was a play on the Indian Summer song "Angry Son" which I was listening to everyday, but "Angry Sons" sounded too goofy at the time. 

The second one was about not being a wuss all the time or something. Also about realizing I could be equally miserable or happy almost anywhere. 

The third one was about sleeping all day I think. I must have enjoyed it cause it's called "Good Day". The long quiet acoustic guitar part at the end was recorded at this time too.

The fourth one was about waking up for a split second and seeing snow out of the huge windows that took up the whole southern wall of the bedroom, then waking up later that day to no snow on the ground. I'm pretty sure the third and fourth song were written as one song initially but maybe not.

I felt like the last song needed more lyrics and syllables than the other four but had run out of anything at all good in my notebook or head. I tried to get Ryan to write some but he was too busy with school so I just left it.

As soon as I finished it I put it on the internet. I felt pretty good about it. I decided to call it Fox Council cause a few of the riffs were written right after we recorded the first Fox Council and I get nostalgic. A little while later we somehow played a show with Microbabies with Ian on bass. We tried to do the end part of the third song but fucked it up. Other than that it went well. I missed Microbabies because I immediately left to go to Seattle with Peter, but that's a whole other story (involving Kurt Cobain!). 

I didn't realize how short it was until I listened to it months later. I think initially I'd had some idea about screamo songs with grind mini-song structure or something silly, but I forgot that pretty quick and it just felt right to end a song after ten seconds or whatever.

Thanks!

NEW YEAR POST

Favorite New-to-Me Music of 2012:

1. Steve Roach - Mostly 'Structures From Silence' and 'The Magnificent Void'. As soon as I got internet at home again I got serious about getting into New Age and Ambient music. Steve Roach is my favorite so far. This is the most recent fave but it's on my mind the most.
2. Disclose - I've known about them for years but really started listening to them all the time this year. Every release is great but I listened to 'Nightmare or Reality' the most.
3. Enya - I found some Enya cassettes at a thrift store which reminded me that I liked New Age. When I was an early teen Enya was the only non secular music my dad would play on Sunday.
4. Darkthrone - I didn't really get Darkthrone till this year. I don't know why I didn't try earlier.
5. Death Metal - I continued listening to lots of Death Metal as usual. My favorites that I got into this year were Grave, Dismember and Bloodbath.
6. Billy Bragg - This was my walking around music for the first half of the year. I only listened to 'Back to Basics'.
7. King Diamond - Also from earlier in the year. I don't think I could have appreciated it any earlier in my life. I listened to 'Conspiracy' the most. 

I listened to way less Pop/Rock 'n Roll music than the year before. Also I feel like I didn't spend as much time listening to music as past years but that's probably cause I broke my mp3 player in a car door halfway through. 

Music Goals:

• Record at least two Smuts releases
• Record at least two solo releases
• Practice guitar more
• Listen to more Jazz and Classical music

Personal Goals:

• Read as many novels as comics (read less comics!)
• Write more (letters, journal, lyrics, etc.)
• Start School
• Be less negative
• Take care of myself more.

Better Times.

To those who might have cared...

There does exist a bridge that no longer serves a purpose. We, also feeling as though we serve no purpose, came to this bridge. Whether for a celebration of life, or one last "hoo-rah", no one was/is/will be sure or cares/believes in much.

We might all die. Who cares. This bridge might fall down. Who cares.

Caring or not, here is a record of better times:

My darling sister, Ashley Kay Beitz, exudes an attitude of independence.

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Again, with such grace, she is independent.

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Our new friend, Emily Jenine Forsberg, was very impressed with the vivacious spirit of Control Force.

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Control Force veteran, Timothy Kent Anderson, trying to steer while I (Ryan William Beitz) snapped this gem. How humble it is to drive without sight.

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Only on the Moscow-Pullman highway, Jared Karl Houston already missed the place of his dwelling.

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Seen here is some evidence of my mode of being: chip-fingers and cheap soda; sometimes things are all right.

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From the left: Timothy Eston Berge, Ashley Kay Beitz, Keith Joseph Feltis, and Emily Louise Feltis enjoy the scenery before my crew. (Tim A. drives safe/slow/vile.)

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Seen here is proof of Tim Anderson's murderous rage. Jared and Emily Jenine flee.

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Tim B. and I contemplate the power of romantic suicide; too bad we ain't no fag. (And that we know each other.)

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Radio Edit. This big " "!

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Jared and Emily Jenine venting.

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Tim B. had a brilliant idea for a military defense system based on the classic "I am rubber, you are glue" concept. I hate the military, but agreed to help with the "R&D".

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In the last days of the Sun, they shared an eternal moment.

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Keith J. had a theory for generating biodiversity in the creek: he raised the sugar levels in the water to encourage the growth of bacteria that might serve as an elementary food source for an organism higher on the food chain. As per the predator pyramid ('cause you know: WE'RE ON TOP), Keith did us all a favor.

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Tim B., Jared, and Emily Jenine being.

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Ever the spirit of adventure in action.

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Someone forgot to keep walking.

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With Emily Louise keeping an eye out for predators, myself, Tim B., and Keith J. explored the plausibility of eating a wet pair of black, folded dress socks.

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You haven't seen through the eyes of the I-beam. Vehicles drove over, it was loud.

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Tim B. thought about it, then got down gracefully.

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Like the goats of the mountain I sprinted to the top, stopping for nothing but my own breath. But in the haste of determination, I ruined the hillside for all others to pass. Tim B. and Keith had to turn back.

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Nuf sed.

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"Friends are the family you choose."

-Alana Christine Lujan

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The saying above still applies, only this time on the ground.

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REPEAT: Ain't no fag.

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Happiness is fleeting...

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Fleeting.

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They came for the view of pastoral nature their mind's created. I came for them.

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Prospect and refuge provides a vantage that allows the user to feel safe yet aware.

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Youthful spirit/cautious wisdom.

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"Where could she be going?" Ashley thought, just as Emily Louise contemplated her own path.

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Under the influence of our heroes (Rousseau and Sade), Jared and I had one another in a carnal fashion.

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Ashley was second (I was first).

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Tim A. was third.

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Emily Jenine fourth.

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Jared fifth, Keith sixth.

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Emily Louise peacefully placed.

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This is cool/tuff/stupid/rad/pointless/necessary.

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The size of the sword is no measure of the person.

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Non-stop cool/cruel.

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We go way back (420).

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Under the gaze of society, all but my sister (Ashley), suffering from mountain madness, renormalized.

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