The Ever Changing Sky Last Night

After our 10 hour recording session yesterday, I somehow managed to make my way down to The Rendezvous to see my "friends" The Ever Changing Sky play.

The fact that our new friends, the unbelievably talented "More Bells Then Whistles" was the determining factor. I had to see this show. I arrived about 15 minutes before The Ever Changing Sky started playing. Their set was a loud, intense epic mother fucker. I've seen these guys at least a dozen times, and they NEVER cease to amaze me. The quiet, intimate breakdowns, the epic peaks of delay pedal guitar chaos, the mathy-post rock repetitions, are all mind-blowingly precise, consistent and awe inspiring. By the way, all of what I just mentioned often occurs in a single song. Their set ended with some major, heavy rock, complete with Steve and Chapple smashing the necks of their instruments together. Fuck.

I had really hoped More Bells Than Whistles would be next, but Armed With Legs came on. I was thoroughly impressed by the 4 or 5 songs I heard. Two piece with bass and drums. The bassist loops the hell out of his playing, and sings like Thom Yorke (if he was being attacked by knives).

I tried to stick it out, but it was 12:30 AM,and couldn't make it any longer. I'm not too disappointed though, as we're playing with More Bells Then Whistle in a little more than a week!

STUDIO STUDIO STUDIO!!!

We spent 10 hours today at our favorite place to record in Seattle, Fastback Studios. We're doing the same tomorrow and will hopefully have all of the instrumental tracking completed for our debut Vague Prophets album. Three songs have already been tracked, mixed and mastered. You can hear one song, "Listen For That Sound," from those first sessions, here.



I'll update our progress soon.

New Year's Eve Photos Coming. . .NEVER!

As a result of the wrath of that fucking virus, ALL of my photos and music were lost. Long story short, you will not be seeing the remainder of my New Year's Eve photos from Bellingham as they no longer exist.

I think I have quite a few of my San Francisco photos still on the "memory card" on my camera. Hopefully they're there and you'll be seeing them on this very blog. Fingers crossed? Crossed.

GINGERS MUST BE STOPPED: ESPECIALLY THIS ONE!

I've encountered a little bit of "animosity" regarding my new found feelings regarding those awful people known as "gingers." My "friend" CJ even went as far as calling me "racist." At first I was a little upset by this, but then thought to myself "what the fuck do I care, the guy's a fucking GINGER!"

After posting the following photo on Facebook, I had no choice but to comment:


Benjamin Allen You look a lot like that dude. I've always though you have a bit of a "baboon face." Actually with that red you're more like an orangutan.

Here's a few other comments left for my "friend" CJ:

Benjamin Allen You are a ginger (Just like Conan) and you must be stopped before "you're people" get out of control and try to take over!

Benjamin Allen On second thought, maybe you're a "mulatto" as only your beard is red, and not yr hair. I still don't like you, though.
Cj Stewart: I don't like you because you are racist. Go join the kkk or something.
Benjamin Allen: I was actually thinking about starting a KKK-like organization for Ginger haters. Then go around burning crosses in Ginger's yards. Good plan?
Cj Stewart: No. I hope your mom is as dissatisfied with this as I am.
Benjamin Allen: Is this not funny? Sorry, I'm mostly just obsessed with the fact that there's really people out there that feel this way about "Gingers." HAHAHA!

After I posted some really stupid "redhead jokes" on his page:
Cj Stewart: Wow. I hope you copied and pasted.
Benjamin Allen: I sure did. But, "your people" do tend to have bad tempers.
Cj Stewart: i thought you said you were done! You are a mean friend.

Gingers STILL must be stopped!

I'M BACK! FINALLY!

"Well, that's what you get for visiting virus.com!" That's what my pal "Bon Joey" told me recently after informing him of the virus that rendered my computer completely useless. I'm not sure if it was that or hitting the rarely used "VIRUS" key that did it, but let me tell you, this thing was a mother fucker! It was so bad that I couldn't open any programs, and it even disabled many processes. Any attempt made to open a program would result in a fake ass "Windows Security Alert" informing me that my computer had been "infected" and that I needed to purchase their bullshit "anti-virus software" for $49.99



After what seemed like an eternity (2 days), my good friend "Adam" came by, and confirmed what I had suspected. "You're fucked," he said. "Alright," I replied, "what do we do from here?" He proceeded to use his skills to either re-boot my computer or reinstall Windows, I'm not sure which.

By the way, "Girls only want boyfriends who have great skills. You know, like nunchaku skills, bow hunting skills...computer hacking skills."

Anyway, I'm back up and running now. "Adam," god bless you and your skills.

As a final note, for your own good, follow "Bon Joey's" advice and don't visit virus.com Unless of course you love getting "computer raped."

Binge Drinking With Trav-Ass

After returning from my trip to "The City," a lot of friends asked, "oh, hey how's Travis Castner doing? What's he been up to lately?"

I think this video sums up it up pretty well:

Now That's What I Call ADVANCED!

I saw the previews for this new feature film starring Dwayne (The Rock) Johnson and started laughing uncontrollably. Just when you thought he would continue starring in big budget god awful action flicks, he Advances by taking a leading role - as THE TOOTH FAIRY. God only knows what he was thinking. My pal Wagon B made a very good observation about Advancement in that the creative move taken by the "artist" only needs to make sense to the artist, and no one else. That seems to be what's going on here.

If you have any other thoughts about why Dwayne would star in this film, I'd love to hear them.


I also really love these promo posters with terrible puns. "The Tooth Hurts," and "You Can't Handle The Tooth." HAHAHA!

Shock My Balls, Please!

Man, I'd rather have my testicles electrocuted with 30,000 volts of electricity than pay money to go see this sad excuse for a "movie." Maybe I'm being a little judgemental as I haven't actually seen any of it, but I feel like a got a pretty good idea from the previews. Which by the way, so infuriated me when they were on TV, I had to put it on mute and yell something like, "Jesus Christ, what's wrong with America!?!?," when they came on. Then again, I thought the same thing about "Ernest Goes To Camp," upon seeinng the previews, but that movie was awesome!


What's going on here? Is this a "gangsta" Alvin?

I'm sorry if my recent blogs have taken a slight turn for the negative. Let's face it though, sometimes making fun of people and things is one of the most enjoyable activities in life. HA!

Craigslist Free Item of the Day: Volume 14

This is exactly how this one was listed:

Does someone want this hedge/bush (Renton)



you will have to dig it out. But it's yours if you want it. It's huge. Email me for address. I'm in downtown Renton.

Location: Renton
it's NOT ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial interests

Huh huh huh huh. First they said you will have to "dig it out," then they said "it's huge" referring to the "bush." 70's porno style!