Migraine and Miller, webcast and fifths

It's been years, but I should have seen it coming. "Sinus headaches" for three nights straight, every ten days for the last 2 months. Then it got bad. Sunday night like screwdrivers in my temples. Mazochi speaking but unable to understand. Spots. Woke up feeling fine, assumed it was nothing. Last night, four in the morning, stolen from sleep, eyes fix immediately to pulsing yellow light emitted from Brian Doell's Xbox. So painful I want to scream. Realize I am sweating streams of liquid, hair is soaked. Where? Mangs' couch. Frightened confusion. God. A Plea. Thoughts of a stroke, or a brain tumor, or any of those things that haunt my mind in the dark. Remember the terror of going into surgery. Laying, staring straight up at what could be the final image (of this life). The injection and the gas. The dark.
I paced around in the dark. I attempted to sleep. The heart beats in the ear, the only rhythm heard above the ringing. Hours pass. The memory is foggy. "The occasional foray into madness is perfectly healthy." But not when it hurts so much. Eventually I pass out.
Trapped today. A nearly broken down car. Regardless, I'm too fucked up to go anywhere. Watch Bobby Lam play rock band. Drink tea. Try to play an instrument. Write a blog to get the mind off the mind. I ate some eggs and veggies, orange juice and coffee, a banana and two glasses of water. Almost threw it up immediately. Showered for an hour, just to breathe in the steam. Meditation took twice as long as usual. Like someone pressing thumbs into my temple. More nausea. Don't even think about exercising. Can't spell a simple word; so bad that not even spell check can help. Obsessively read the articles for 'Migraine' and 'Brain tumor' on Wikipedia.
This will pass.

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Last year, during a cool and dark evening on the ranch, Mike Miller wrote one of the most beautiful songs that I have ever heard. Here is a video of us playing it during our webcast:






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Our friend Julie Mintz, a local singer-songwriter who we have worked with in the past, has a show tonight at the Cat Club.

Check out her myspace:

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendID=118617829


cheers,

Tedd

Once again, Radiohead set the bar for the rest of us

As part of our new band 'push' I've been thinking about new media and its possibilities in relation to the music that we create. Some of you may have seen our webcast from late last year. It was an interesting, frustrating, and ultimately successful endeavor which I hope to repeat and enhance in the future. Radiohead have created three of them since their new album In Rainbows debuted, and I am of the opinion that they were top-notch.

Here is the second one. Broadcast on New Year's Eve, we find the band performing most of the new album. The video remains, from a fans perspective, engaging and interesting from start to finish.

Aint no train Session I: The best laid plans

A Video (edited by your's truly), depicting a performance of 'The Best Laid plans' recorded from the basement of the internet.
Oldie but a goldie, complete with bird and mountain imagery.

Fragment 1: Eleanor Rigby; Musical autobiography

In which Tedd’s musical history (or lack there-of) is (loosely) traced.

Ah, look at all the lonely people.
Ah, look at all the lonely people.

First lyric heard. First melodies remembered. The Beatles, of course. They caused me to spell it wrong for years; caused me to be a terrible speller. Moonlight sonata falls in at some point; favorite melody, like to think one of the earliest heard, but that may just be wished for nostalgia. But if I believe it, was it?

Eleanor Rigby picks up the rice in the church where a wedding has been,
Lives in a dream.

Final Fantasy III soundtrack. Understanding of narrative styles and musical themes.

Classic rock then, and always. Mowing the lawn with Zeppelin, the who, floyd, more Beatles. Tommy. Everyday. Tommy. First two years of high school. Everyday. Came up with stories, theories – expounded upon, analyzed, air-guitared. Fucking Sparks.

Blonde on Blonde/ The White Album

Zeppelin’s lightening sound tracked earliest writing. Would walk a mile after school to see a waitress, always listened to Bron-Y-Aur-Stomp. Would lose my virginity to her – years later.

Waits at the window, wearing a face that she keeps in a jar by the door,
Who is it for?

- This is Radiohead. This is Marijuana.

Father McKenzie, writing the words of a sermon that no-one will hear,
No-one comes near

First heard Kid-A while home from school with a sinus infection while playing Zelda: A link to the past for Super Nintendo. In Limbo still sounds like the swamp level.

How to disappear completely sounds like my life feels.

Chris Cimino handed me a bass guitar during my senior year. The Crooked beat.

- These 4 notes.

- How will I know when they switch?

- You’ll know

Band in a basement; band in a yucky house.

Two high school rock concerts.

Listening to OK Computer while driving away from High School for the last time.

Exit Music.

Look at him working, darning his socks in the night when there's nobody there,
What does he care?

College. Two years. Zero practice, almost. Summer. Porcelain. Chronic throat gland swelling. Persistent pain. Chewing pain pills and washing them down with cheap beer. Tre’s apartment. Opium, Ithaca, waterfalls and rain. Modest Mouse/ The Moon and Antarctica. Playing Music in the yucky house with Tre, Brian, Brady, and Cimino. Porcelain. Wrote and recorded songs for the first time, together.

One year later.

Some weird playing a song in the blue frog when all I want to do is drink coffee and write. Cold Tom.

Jam Band. Horns and guitars. Jeff, a 16 year old gunslinger. A house on a hill outside of Cazenovia. Jumping in the pool during a jam, taking a swim, then jumping back into the melody. The beautiful drive between Cortland and Caz. Route 13. I’m wide awake, it’s morning.

The music in Segio Leone westerns.

Eviction.

Michael Mazochi’s couch. Listening to Michael and Sandra record an album. A chair thrown through a door. Matt Sneed. Booze. The Bad Beagle. Ian Thomas. Michael Miller. Josh Oxford. Folk Music. Mississippi John Hurt.

They move to California, I stay and take over the apartment.
Central Ave. Vinyl. The White Album/ Blonde on Blonde. Music from big pink. Danielle buys me Bringing it all back home. On the beach. The flaming lips.

Three piece with Jeff and Micky. 12 bar blues. Rock music.

Eleanor Rigby died in the church and was buried along with her name.
Nobody came.

Driving across the country with Michael Miller while listening to records.

The Buffmilox.

Panic Attacks; starvation. The Ranch.

Ox. Apricots and Rice. Scales. Theory.

Laura. Michael. Miller. Tedd. Mazochi.

The Band.

Jake Blunt.

A dozen names.

The Hotel Café.

Performing regularly.

The first time that I realized that people liked our band.

Practice.

Karabal nightlife. Justin Miller

The Widows.

Cortland. A jam in a church; a buffmilox reunion at the Blue Frog.

Cd release.

Shanti Shanti Shanti Hi

The Best Laid Plans

Father McKenzie, wiping the dirt from his hands as he walks from the grave.
No-one was saved.

Hope.

All the lonely people, where do they all come from?
All the lonely people, where do they all belong?