Paint- Axis Mundi

Round about Aught 8, Jeff wrote another album called, Axis Mundi. Let's hear bout it.

Where Esuna was sometimes schizophrenic, an experiment by a songwriter finding his footing, Axis Mundi marked a sharper focus. Instead of writing whatever came into my head, I tried to achieve a specific sound and aesthetic. The result is a collection of songs that is dark, ethereal, and sometimes, tribal-- heavy on the keys, and light on the guitars.

Later Blamers's standards, "Nocturne" and "Lights Go Out," follow opener "The Tyger," which pairs lyrics from the famous William Blake poem with  frenetic Sufi-styled vocals and hand drums. Also featured is an updated version of "Summersong," a track that debuted on Esuna. My other favorite is "Monday Nights," which is a momento mori focused on the mating habits of fireflies, built upon a repeating koto riff.

The recordings are still a bit rough, as I was still grappling with the mechanics of home recording, but overall, the songs are fun and worth a listen or two. Axis Mundi is a record of a songwriter staking a claim and unstretching his wings a bit.

http://www.mediafire.com/file/2jmdlmndhdb/Axis Mundi.zip

Paint - "Esuna"

 Way back in Aught 7, when Jeff was known as "Paint," he wrote a little album called Esuna. This is it's story. 

Esuna represents a time when I was still finding my footing as a musician and a writer. I had given up on songwriting for a few years at the time, thinking that my future was leading me down other pathways. I was studying Art History, and though I loved it, I was starting to feel foggy and empty, always writing about other people's work and never producing anything creative myself. For me, Esuna represented a taking back of a past from which I had cut myself away, deliberately or passively. 

Esuna takes it's name from a staple spell from the video game series, Final Fantasy. In these games, you can cure all the negative spells effecting your characters, such as "slow," "poison," "blindness," by casting "esuna." For me, writing the album was a metaphorical wiping away of the spells telling me I couldn't do it; an unlearning of the things I learned that kept me from music. 

The songwriting is flawed, the recording, abysmal, but there are a few things I am proud of. My favorite is "La Fin d'Octobre," a waltz sung in French about a guy who is being haunted by his dead lover, who visits him in his dreams, but only if he drinks enough du vin. Fans of The Blamers will be interested to hear an early and zygote-like version of "Summersong," which has become a live staple for the band. Other stand-outs are the tribal opener, "Incantation," a dark and wickedly morbid duet with Future Pat called "The Magic Number," and "All out War," a blues song about the spirit of war personified as a red-haired and ultra-violent beauty (à la Neil Gaiman). 

Anyway, give it a listen if you feel so inclined. Sometimes, its nice to remember where one comes from. 

http://www.mediafire.com/file/nz0zhnmuktm/Esuna.zip

Come on, little life-giver. Give your life.

This blog post is about Joanna Newsom. Her new album, Have One On Me, which came out a couple weeks ago, is really fucking awesome. Seriously. Drop what you're doing and buy it right now. Worbs cannot describe...

Due to my unrelenting love for this person - whom I've never met and from whom I probably subconsciously rip off musical ideas - I will, so as not to appear overly creepy, withhold the discursive and pleonastic disquisition about her beauty and genius which has been percolating in my thinking-head for some great time now.

I've really only got one thing to say:

On April 3rd Joanna is playing at the Vic. So help me God, The Blamers, if we book a show for that Saturday night I will not play and probably take the opportunity to finally quit the band and become the first non-Jesuit to hold the Guinness record for slow-falling and abstract heuristics plagiarism. Fair warning, oh my brothers.

MAKE ME A BOAT

So, this somehow came out of a chat Caitlin and I had at work.
Caitlin: Are you mad at me????

me: intensely

moderately

slightly

barely

no

Caitlin: but...but then why would you not communicate with me all day?????

me: power

you see

now that you were the first to communicate, i am in the power position, and you have to do everything i say

MAKE ME A BOAT

Sent at 1:22 PM on Wednesday

Caitlin: speed boat size or like, noah's ark size?

me: oh sorry

no, MAKE ME INTO A BOAT

Caitlin: that will be fun!

I'm not sure about your buoyancy though...

me: details like that don't concern me.

i would like to be a catamaran

Sent at 1:25 PM on Wednesday

me: MAKE ME INTO A CATAMARAN

Caitlin: i dont know what that is

me: Then you shall make me into a rowboat

and we shall sail around the world

and see many beautiful sites. Until one day,when you will say, "Luke, you are leaking"

and I will say, "no i'm not"

and you will say "yse, yes you are. You are leaking all over me"

and I will say, "I bet that's not the first time"

Sent at 1:29 PM on Wednesday

Caitlin: and I'll say, "well I never noticed it before. What do we do now? We're at least 200 leagues from any land"

Sent at 1:33 PM on Wednesday

me: Then I will say, "Why don't you put something in my hole" To whit you will respond, "That's what she said"

Then we will laugh uproariously and be carried to the heavens on the backs of dolphins.

Sent at 1:38 PM on Wednesday

Caitlin: And we'll get to the heavens, and you'll be like, "I was warned about the punch up here, lets avoid it," as Zeus comes up to greet us with two glasses of punch

which we both politely decline but feel Zeus' mood shift when we do

Sent at 1:57 PM on Wednesday

me: Then Zeus will get all whiny and pushy saying things like, "I spent all afternoon on this" and "Why are you guys being so mean to meeee?" Then he'll offer us a sandwich, and I'll say "Fine, if it will make you shut up, I'll have a sandwich" Then Zeus will hit me in the face and I will fall softly into the cloud-floor. And Zeus will ask "You sure you don't want some punch with that knuckle sandwich" Then you will stare at eachother for a second and burst out laughing. You will say, "Wow, Zeus! A double double-entendre! I think I'm going to like this place after all" And I will say, "umm, I didn't think it was all that funny" To whit you will reply, "I guess it hasn't hit you yet"

Sent at 2:12 PM on Wednesday

me: and then you will hit me in the face

and I'll say, "oohhhhhh, I get it now. That is kind of funny"

Sent at 2:17 PM on Wednesday

Caitlin: And Zeus and I will erupt in laughter and turn away to walk arm and arm to the heaven collesium, where they have prepared a great festival for us. You lag behind, feeling defeated after being punched in the face twice within 5 minutes of being in heaven. You finally catch up to me as I stand on the edge of the stadium looking horrified

You look down upon the what I am so disgusted by to see the two dolphins we rode in on being forced to battle to the death. They have attached razor blades to all their fins and everyone is shouting, begging for murder

Sent at 2:20 PM on Wednesday

me: Seeing this, you are filled with rage. You hurtle yourself over the railing into the arena and take the two bladed dolphins by their tails and begin twirling them above your head like a deadly pair of aquatic mamallian nunchucks. And thus, the battle begins. A amazonian scream escapes your throat and in a tornado of fury, you circle the colliseum, hacking away at anything that gets in your way. Angel wings and cherub limbs fly everywhere. Mother Theresa very nearly bites one of your ears off, but at the last moment, you stab her in the neck with a dolphin. You fight valiantly, and with fury, but soon the tide of battle begins to turn, and you cry out to me. Thinking fast, I say to myself, "Luke - Form of...CATAMARAN"

Sent at 2:41 PM on Wednesday

Caitlin: Just like that you transform and a heavenly gust of win catches your sails, pushing you straight towards me. You chuckle heartily as Gandhi's blood spatters across your clean, white sails. You can’t help but utter the catch phrase, “it’s time to kill saints and chew bubble gum...and I’m all outta gum.” Just I’m about to be struck by Zeus’ lightening bolt, I’m scooped up on your starboard side, as you head, full speed for the gates. The dolphins, who are eternally grateful for the justice we bestowed upon them, use their rigged fins to knock off any heavenly creature who try to vindicate us. When you came to a sudden hault, knocking me to the floor, I start to yell that your driving reminds me of a woman’s, but my voice catches in my throat as I gaze upon who was waiting for us at the gates. The most feared creature in heaven...

Sent at 3:03 PM on Wednesday

me: It was the Koala of Shame, a strange mutated combination of a Jewish mother and a Catholic school principal, endowed with the humiliating powers of a report card from Chem 102, all put together in the terrifyingly cute form of a Koala Bear. It stood in front of the Pearly Gates with it's little arms crossed, and disgust in it's eyes. The creature said "Look at this mess! I'm going to have to spend all afternoon cleaning this up! Now what do you have to say for yourselves?!?" Instantly, our consciences shrivelled up and remorse became our only emotion. My sails drooped and your bottom lip began to tremble. Though we knew it was just an illusion, we wanted to take it all back. "It was the dolphins fault," you murmured. "Yeah," said I, "It was the dolphins! They made us do it!" "Is that so?" said the Koala, with a look of withering disdain, "then we will have to... take care of them. Back to the Colliseum with them!" Fortunately, as we all know, dolphins are insatiable gamblers, cheats, liars and theives, and have long since devolved the need for remorse. Menacingly they wriggled towards the little furry animal. "Impossible!" it cried, "Have you no shame!?"

"No." they said. and within five seconds the Koala was fricasse.

Sent at 3:33 PM on Wednesday

Caitlin: You and I breathed a sigh of relief as the Koala (who is actually a marsupial and not a bear at all) became a figment of the past, but soon realized we were now in more danger than ever! The dolphins narrowed their eyes at us and eerily jingled their razor blades, as if to indicate our fate. “You betrayed us!” they nayed and inched closer “No...no we knew you could save us all, we weren’t trying to put you in any danger!” you squeaked, and transformed back in to a human. Within two seconds the dolphins had as by the throat and were whipping back the way we came. “Lets see how you like fighting to the DEATH!” they cackled as we neared the coliseum. Amongst the corpses of thousands of Martyrs, the Dolphins placed us in the center of the ring and replaced each of our fingers with sharp knives. “What do we do now Luke,” I said through sobs. “Heaven is clearly no place for the likes of us. I wish we would have just kept sailing around the world.” “Kill! Kill!” the dolphins jeered impatiently. You dropped your head. “I know what I have to do,” you mumbled as you held the knife that was once your index finger up to your neck. “No Luke! NO!” I screamed. “There’s another way! Just try to read my lips.” In addition to being lying cheaters, dolphins are also rudely impatient, so they wriggled down to the rink. Just as they were about to force me in to the blades of your right hand, you suddenly transformed in to a TUNA NET, which we all know equals death to any dolphin that comes in contact with one.

(bring it home Luke!)

Sent at 4:10 PM on Wednesday

me: Just then, a light shown from above and a man descended on a cloud of cotton candy and landed in the middle of the arena. "Jesus!" you exclaimed. "Christ Almighty!" I said, astounded "Yes, it is I," intoned the son of God, "I hath seeneth the terrible deeds you haveth done, and I am deeply disturbed, my children. Knoweth thou not what will ne'er be to come of thy doings ere on this thy most terrible of days whence to be will be the comings of the time of reckoning?" "What!?" we said. Then Jesus said, "Never mind. What I'm trying to say is that you have completely ruined a glorious Festivus. The dolphins weren't fighting to the death. They were modeling the latest animal fashion. Idiots!"

Sent at 4:38 PM on Wednesday

me: After that, we all forgave eachother and had a great laugh. Jesus cleaned up the mess with a snap of his finger. A table laden with food and drink appeared and we all sat down. After a satisfying meal and many jovial laughs, we knew that heaven was not so bad after all. "Well," said Jesus. "I hope you all enjoyed dinner. It was great having you here, but now, unfortunately, I must erase your memory of this day, and send you back to your normal lives. But, before that" he added, meaningfully, "can I interest anyone in some punch?"......
Caitlin: We woke up next to each other on the floor of my apartment, not remembering at all how we got there. "Did we...?" I asked confused, wondering just how drunk we had gotten the night before. "No no," you replied. "I actually don't have a penis, so we couldn't have slept together." "Phew!" I sighed. "that could have been awkward. Let's go get some brunch" and we carried on with our lives. THE END

This post has nothing to do with music.

Sup Blamers-nia and Herzegovina. Just in case any y'all forgot, today is the day everyone goes out and votes in the primary elections. These elections determine which candidates are chosen to represent their party in next November's congressional election. The primaries, although they may seem "lame" or "pointless" are an important part of the American democratic process.

If you're at all like me, you cain't tell the difference between Dan Hynes and Pat Quinn for governor of Illinois. They're both Democrats and they both seem like legitimate assholes. They're marred with the corruption and general ineptitude one would expect from a Chicago politician. Which ever one you choose, it doesn't really matter. The middle class will carry the brunt of taxes while the wealthy sit back and scoff at the misery of the poor. Since this is Illinois we're talking about here, one of them will beat which ever social conservative free market fundamentalist the Republican party can cough up.

That's why I urge all you Illinois progressive to vote for Rich Whitney this November. Whitney ran against Blago four years ago and received over ten percent of the popular vote. That's pretty good for a third party candidate. Here's to an extra 3 percent this year!

We Share our Mother's Health

Ok, so this speech is a bit sensationalist... but man, its pretty cool, too. If you haven't heard Fever Ray's debut LP, I definitely recommend giving it a listen. Its dark and evil in the best of ways. Also, how wicked is the music video for "When I Grow Up"?

Bitches man

Thanks http://www.harkavagrant.com/ (via Luke)