Yeah, it's been over a month, I know. There's a lot that's been going on, good and bad.

An amazing friend died recently, and it kind of threw our entire neighborhood into a funk.

I was in Nashville, TN at the time, visiting my aunt. Everyone, especially my roommates, were basically functioning, distraught zombies. People vacillated between binge drinking the moment they awoke and sullenly sitting on the porch, smoking silently, squinting at the day with a mild sense of disbelief.

I came back from Nashville on May 25th, and then the funeral was that Thursday. I fucking hate funerals. They never seem to do the beneficiary justice; for instance, the last two funerals I've been to have a song that is played while a TV dourly plays pictures of the deceased. That song, the last two times, has been "Carry On, My Wayward Son." And for fuck's sake, the two people whose funeral it was, did not listen to, or generally like that song.

Anyway... Big Matt's funeral was a good one, if you could ever call a funeral "good"... I'd have to say that there were over 200 people who attended. The family was amazed at the myriad group of punks, crust lords, train hoppers, oogles, and general miscreants that showed up for Matt.

Anyway, it was emotional and hard and everything that death is.

People are paying tribute to Matt by still throwing up OH NO every where. It's all over the city.

The day after the funeral, there was a huge memorial show at the P.S. Warehouse in the West End for Matt; Spewtilator, Doomed Youth, Sunglasses, and Teenage Illiterates all played. It was wild, to say the least. I don't remember going home after it.

A week later, we had all sort of recovered, but still found it hard to talk about; a big group of us traveled up to Chattanooga's punk fest Do Ya Hear We?!? and had a blast. We spent our days at Suck Creek, which is probably the most amazing place I've been to in a long time. Go.

My favorite band, among some others, had to be Rattattack.

Anyway, that's all I can do for now; I'll hop on again soon.

Squatting

1.	squatting
	Occupying abandoned buildings without authorization. As much as 1/10 of the world is housed in urban squatting developments. person #1: did you see that squatted building? person #2: yeah! they don't have to pay taxes! ala urbandictionary.com Well, I haven't been around because of mitigating circumstances, but everything is okay now, at least until June. Gotta figure out some things. So, where'd we leave off? The Urinals were amazing, no need to expostulate on that... Haven't seen too many shows lately, even though there's some awesome stuff going on this month. Matt of Small Talk, Lucy, and Marcos made a May show list. I need to get it scanned and post it. Anyway, I gotta get to Kroger and buy some shit.

The Urinals

Quick update; just got off work, headed to see the URINALS (!!) at The Earl. Pray to whatever's out there that it isn't sold out yet.

Fancy

Sample image from the batch of pictures I took at the warehouses yesterday. It's going to be a while until I can really get to them, because I have a shit ton of pictures from when I went to watch trains/explore the Public Works building, that I haven't even touched yet. Argh. Anyway.

I did end up going to the show last night, but I ended up only seeing The Sunglasses play. My boyfriend took me out on a surprise birthdaydinnerdate to a really fancy restaurant called Toulouse. We're not fancy critters, at all; generally I'm decked out in jeans and a band t-shirt, my hair is mussed up and I probably smell like pizza or cigarettes, and he's in jeans, a shirt, and his leather jacket (replete with LEATHERFACE painted across the back). And, to set the record straight, I don't wear dresses, or skirts. So it was weird, for both of us, wearing a fancy dress with fancy shoes, sitting in a romantic little restaurant, with a fancy waitress that sounded like she was from France. He even wore a tie. It was pretty grand. And the food was REALLY good, but oh my god, I'm glad he wouldn't let me look at the check. In addition to being nonfancy, we're also poor.

Anyway, The Sunglasses were really good, and played a new song that was pretty fucking great.

The only thing I'm aware that's upcoming is a show at the Cat Cave: The Sprickets (not to be confused with Sprickets with Dan Shattuck haha), Turbo Slaughter, A Billion Ernies, and DDB. I... don't know of ANY of these bands. I listened to The Sprickets on their Facebook ("Attack of the Labradoodles"...?) and, I don't really know what to think. I'm pretty sure I have seen Turbo Slaughter before, but I dunno. Anywhoo, this is going on April 19th at 9:30 pm. Donations to help out the house is suggested.

I think that's all for now.

Bad Mammals/The Sunglasses/Campaign

Tonight at 529 Bar: Bad Mammals, Campaign, and the Sunglasses.

I don't have much to report, except to apologize for the absence; it's been a long two weeks and it was my birthday yesterday! I got good and fucked up.

Oh, yeah, I saw Floor at The Earl a few weeks ago; it was pretty amazing. I had never heard of them or their music until my friend Matt Mosh was telling me how much he really wanted to go. We were hanging in the park with some other kids, and I didn't really feel like hanging out there anyway, considering the last time I was in a park after dark I got arrested. He promised me free booze if I went with him, so. There you have it.

Other than that, I haven't had much time to catch many shows this month, not that there have been many worth seeing.

Went across the street today with Goose and walked around the abandoned warehouses. Fucking amazing. I have to go back and take more pictures.

Lina Scheynius

This photographer, and other photographers like her, inspire me to no end. The pictures are beyond personal. They're real; while I like some studio photography, and photos that have been retouched can also inspire me with their beauty, pictures like these that are gritty, grainy, personal, and that tell a story, mean so much more to me, as the viewer, than something that is over-processed and a misrepresentation of what is real.

I want to do photography like this. I want to capture my daily life to show people have wonderful I think it is.

I dunno. I know I have talent, but I also know you can't just fake this kind of real.

No Breaks

No Breaks Records is my friend and roommate, Stewart's, distro so I figured I'd give him a little plug since I just bought Shang-A-Lang's 7'' Summertime (1st press) from him this morning. It has to be one of my all-time favorite 7''s, especially because of the song "Caught in Between".

Well, anyway, onwards...

I don't remember why for sure, but I ended up missing that last Sunglasses show; I think I took a quick sojourn to Macon. But, I did end up seeing the Vivian Girls! It was a really great show... ha, sorry, I don't have a loquacious way to put it. I got drunk as fuck and had a blast. I was really surprised by Wet Dog and Happy Birthday and I'll definitely check more of them out.

Let's see what's going on tonight...

First off, at WonderRoot, we've got Jason Anderson and Your Favorite Mixtape. Jason Anderson is a very interesting singer-songwriter; very feel-good, community music. But, I think he said at the last show at WonderRoot that he's been on the road for 8 years? Honestly, I don't know that much about him, had never heard of him until that time at WonderRoot back in February. It's not exactly stuff up my alley, but I do respect his talent very much.

Then, YFM, as far as I understand it, is Diana from The Wild's other band. I know nothing about them, haha. Except that it's a cover band of Alanis Morisette and Britney Spears?

Suggested donation of $5.

Then, we've got The F'n Heartbreaks, The Kooties, The Choke, and Customers at The Drunken Unicorn. Only $5 if 21 or over! (Rad; shows here are usually expensive.) But, if you're under 21, it's $7.

Unfortunately, I will probably miss all of this, because I will be at work. Trivia night.

That's all for now. Byebye.