Dear god, I'm watching the news and I just saw Mike Huckabee on a Segway. My nightmares briefly unfolded onto the television. And without Jon Stewart to reconcile this! January 7th can't come soon enough.

Also, I realized last night that there's a good possibility of Daily Show correspondents being at my school when the debate goes down.

I went to see The Evens last night and it was great. Gallery Mystique is a weird little warehouse just past the Radner tracks. I know that it's near a train depot because I was stuck waiting at the intersection for one to pass for literally 20 minutes. I considered trying to find an alternate route but I figured that would just make things worse. The place was just on the other side of the tracks, afterall.

I don't particularly feel like writing about the show right now since I'm burnt out from writing about Smashing Pumpkins, but I will say that it was a great show. I would go as far as saying that it was the best punk show I've been to since the first time I saw Against Me, way back in 2003 at The Muse. So many things were different about this show from what I usually see in Nashville that I'm not sure where to begin. The "epic chorus fade-out" alone ranked the show up in the top 5 of the year. The entire vibe of the show was different and I wish Nashville would foster that kind of attitude again. Maybe it's just that kind of folk-punk music that promotes a more communal mood, I don't know. All I know is now I want to see Defiance, Ohio play in some weird non-venue venue.

It certainly made up for Regina Spektor cancelling at least. That was unfortunate. I know she'll be back in December, but I was dead set on seeing her this week. At least I know that I have pretty decent seats now. Which is more than I can say for Feist, since the press people stuck me in the balcony. I hope that the Ryman doesn't give me crap when I try to get pictures taken during those first three songs. But I know they will.

On a non-show front, I'm apparently writing and directing a short film. Technically, I'm doing it along with my other group members but it's my story and my creative vision for all intents and purposes. I think we're filming the last week of November or the first week of December now that we have a star. If it doesn't suck, I'll probably put it on YouTube. If it does, then I will throw it in a vault out of shame, like Howard Hughes and that awful movie that starred John Wayne as Genghis Khan.

( One last note, I made a CD for a friend of mine from high school. )

I think I'm going to make some more. Anything to distract me from doing real work, I guess.

I just found out that Ian MacKaye's new band is playing in Nashville next Friday. Oh man, I'm excited! The Evens are playing in this venue I've never heard of called Gallery Mystique at 8:30. I'm listening to a fan MySpace and I really like the songs in their crappy little MySpace player, they're certainly a far cry from Minor Threat or Fugazi though. It's a bit more like Ghost Mice or This Bike is a Pipe Bomb, although just as a duo. This is going to be tremendously cool.

It'll also probably be a better show than Smashing Pumpkins on Sunday. I'm getting increasingly pessimistic about the show now that I know Explosions in the Sky won't be opening. And because I haven't gotten a response about a photo pass yet. Ugh. Amy Lewis won't respond to my e-mails and it's starting to anger me. The Ryman is such a pain in the ass to work with. I'm sending another e-mail tomorrow, I no longer care if I'm being annoying, I only need passes to two more shows (Pumpkins and Regina Spektor) since Feist's publicist contacted me directly about covering her show on the 21st.

Speaking of Feist, I love The Reminder. I Feel It All is a regular staple on my iPod.

I'm still deciding on whether or not I want to go see Rogue Wave tomorrow night. Their music just hasn't clicked with me. I'd love to support a former Beulah band member, but I dunno. I think I may save my money and buy a ticket for Aesop Rock since Def Jux hasn't gotten back to me. I'm also going to pay for Man Man (am I really seeing this band twice in one year) because they're awesome.

I feel like the only thing I have to talk about these days are shows I'm going to or articles I'm writing. I would transition into something that is neither, but I got nothing. I meant to talk about the odder parts of Mute Math the other week.

The first thing, I met a cute girl named Allison in line and wound up giving her my spare ticket since she got turned away at the door and would have had to go to the back of the line. I'm just chock full of Southern hospitality. And there wasn't a scalper around. I'll probably never see her again, but I felt like a nice guy. That story doesn't have a point. I also met another girl named Kristin who goes to Belmont. Apparently she was at Nada Surf too, so I'll probably see her often. I thought she was kinda cool, we talked about shows and Smashing Pumpkins. I feel like kind of a chump though. I feel like I'd never meet any of these people if I weren't carrying a camera and feverishly scrawling notes at shows. I guess it makes me a mystery. Or just some weird dork.

I tried looking her up on Facebook but I guess she's not on there (or she's not in the Belmont network). Or I didn't hear the right name. Either is likely.

Also, my Kanye West pictures are being used in a British student magazine with a circulation of 200,000 because they're better than Universal's press photos. Suck on that, major labels. The editor's going to send me a copy when the issue gets put out, I'll scan the article when it gets to me.

I haven't posted most of my Kanye West pictures since I still need to clean them up, but all of my Brett Dennen and Guster photos are up.

When I mentioned that I was going to write a review of the Kanye West show for the paper, somebody told me that Belmont was offered discounted tickets (since we're basically neighbors) but the director of student activities refused to accept them because of the purported "Christian environment" of the school. What the fuck? Now they've done it, they've raised my journalistic ire. I'm already starting to get in touch with bands who may have had to sign a absurd content agreement and am going to work this into why Belmont will never have a cool concert like Vandy Quake because its administration is so fearful and closed minded that they won't allow anyone who could disrupt their silly moral majority environment.

I thought at first that it was because Vanderbilt is a bigger school with more resources, but it's looking more like Belmont is just stubborn and not with the times. The Curb Event Center is about as big as Memorial Gymnasium, so it's not like the school couldn't logistically host such an event. Hopefully, if enough people read the article on campus and get angry about it, something will be changed and Belmont won't suck so damn much.

And there I go again, placing faith in a staggeringly apathetic student body.

I covered The Brunettes' show on Thursday night, it was great. Even though there was only about 20 people there, The Brunettes still put on one of the most fun shows I've ever been to. There was a dance competition, they introduced themselves with the name game and they did a song in tribute to Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen. They were all pretty charming people, I wish I had done the interview when I had the chance.

I've learned that having a camera and looking like I'm a big shot draws people to me like moths to a flame. I spent most of the time between sets talking to a girl named Kara. We talked a bit about Ferraby Lionheart (the opening act who is apparently from around here) and about her plans to teach English in Korea. She's a psych graduate from MTSU who is doing nothing with her degree, so we lamented majoring in something we enjoy instead of slaving for the man. She was pretty cool and was really into The Brunettes (who are probably one of my favorite bands now). I was surprised that so few people were there though since so many saw them with The Shins two years ago. Most of the people there were friends of Ferraby Lionheart's family so they all bolted after he finished.

He was pretty alright too, by the way. A bit like Rufus Wainwright or Elliott Smith. His songs have really great piano hooks, I wouldn't mind seeing him play again sometime.

I also covered the Kanye West concert tonight at Vanderbilt. Usually I'd hold off talking about it but it was kind of a fucked up night. I got my press pass around 6, but since I already paid for parking, I had to hang out for 2 hours until the show started. I was allowed to take pictures for the first 3 songs, no flash (which was fine since I never use flash anyway), then retreat to the obstructed view press area. The first two bands, Brett Dennen and Guster, were from some campus tour that was tacked on even though they're not really compatable with the hip-hop headliner. Dennen sucked, by the way, and Guster was pretty good. Never has a band rocked the bongos harder. It was pretty intense. I also didn't know they did a cover of Aquarela do Brasil either.

By the time Kanye started, we all forgot about the first two bands though. Mostly because most of us had aged several years when he finally came on stage. Seriously, it took him an hour. I stood by the stage for a hour with the other photographers I was with for a hour. The security guards near me were pissed. So, eventually he did come out. I'm minding my own business, diligently snapping pictures hoping to catch a good one (as a side note, I did get one really great one, I'll post it in here when I go through the photos) when all of a sudden, a guy identifying himself as Kanye's manager makes us stop taking pictures and pushes us to the side of the stage. I didn't quite hear what he was saying, but it was something about not being authorized by him as members of the press. We were all confused, especially the radio guy who was literally up on stage 20 minutes earlier throwing out t-shirts. Eventually our press contact worked things out with the guy and we were given 3 more songs, but it was still a horrific experience.

Overall, Kanye is a talented performer, but only when he's not talking. There was a 10 minute stretch where he told a story that went nowhere and started trying to explain his "spazz out" moments, which he never quite did. He also half-heartedly freestyled a couple times and he shouldn't do that again. I like that he has an orchestra touring with him though, that's a pretty cool touch. And when he was performing something that had been written out and perfected in the studio, he was at the top of his game.

And now I have the rest of the weekend to chill and not live at local venues. I'm going to watch Eraserhead and work on some design changes for my blog. Monday, I have an conference call interview with Nick Swardson (the comedian). Next week I might be covering Kings of Leon, but I don't know yet. It also looks like I'll be covering Feist in November, but that's not for a while.

Six hours to go on my 7", I can't believe I'm considering blowing 45 dollars on this thing. I have become a monster.



This nice fellow drew me a picture that I'm going to use as one of the elements of my blog header. I'm going to try to get some other people to draw the same concept so I'll have multiple versions of somebody trying to club the Belmont logo with a guitar.

My haul from the WMTS Record Convention:

• Bob Dylan - Bringing It All Back Home 12"
• The Clash - The Clash 12"
• Devo - Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo! 12"
• Howlin' Wolf - Chester Burnett A.K.A. Howlin' Wolf 12"
• Turncoats - Shoot That Girl 7"

I don't think I'm going to get those Interpol tickets. The press agent hasn't gotten back to me yet and the show's in about 3 hours. I blame the Ryman lady for not getting me the contact info until 3 days before the show. Oh well. At least there's Fluid Ounces tonight. If I'm lucky (I'm clearly not), the press people for Animal Collective or Bloc Party will get back to me for the Monday shows. I don't think that'll happen either since everything in my life goes catastrophically wrong! Instead of getting into Animal Collective, I will be hit by a bus. Mark my words.

And don't send me flowers when I'm in the hospital, they are no use to me when I am comatose.

I wonder where the giant bottle of Norwegian Vodka in my refridgerator came from. If it's anything like the two bottles of Sam Adams rolling around the bottom of my refridgerator, it will remain undrunk for going on 6 months, taking up space where food usually goes. I think I should steal it for Yuliya's party tonight. Others may not share my ideas, namely whoever put it there in the first place.

I'm sure I've asked this in the past but, here it goes again just in case:

Do any of you Nashville people have a copy of Breakdown's album that you'd be willing to loan me for a little while? I borrowed Ben's copy when I was a sophomore or junior in high school, but his copy was fairly scratched up (surprise surprise) so the MP3s I encoded from it have skips and stuff in them. Also, I was stupid and encoded them poorly.

Listening to the crappy MP3s I made so long ago is making me all nostalgic for the first show I ever went to in Nashville. It'd be nice to have something that sounds slightly better than what I've got now for times like these.

Let's just call it a side project.

Hell, while I'm at it:

February 26th	Taj Motel Trio	The Muse
Mach 2nd	Folly	The Muse
March 11th	Bane, Comeback Kid	The Muse
March 13th	Murder By Death	Exit / In
March 18th	Nashville Ska Fest	Hair of the Dog
March 27th	Against Me!	The End
April 16th	Fiery Furnaces	Exit / In
April 19th	Magnolia Electric Co.	The End
April 22nd	Robert Randolph & the Family Band	Vanderbilt
April 25th	Iron & Wine	TBA
April 30th	Ska Weekend 2005	Market Square
May 13th	The Decemberists	Exit / In

So, you've stumbled upon my journal. Good for you! But, all of the other entrys are probably hidden to you, because I've made this journal completely friends only. Unless I slip and don't bother to go back and change it, of course.. But, if you really want to read my other entries, leave a comment here and I might add you. Might.

If you are already a friend, congratulations, you get to sit around and be annoyed by my whining! What a prize.