A quick reminder that DWS will be playing at the Vaudeville Mews tonight, doors at 5:00pm. We won't actually play until 7:30 at the earliest (I'd guess). Come see me forget the pre-chorus to "Goodbye" (odds are high despite Ginko Biloba supplements taken just before this entry). It'll be a pretty normal DWS set with the addition of a Moving Mikey song and a Slapstick cover that both Moving Mikey and the Mailbox Snatchers played. If you've read my personal band history blog from a couple months ago, you'd know that those are my previous bands. You knew that, right six visitors a day?
This seems like as good a time as any to talk about one of my favorite things. Ska! At some point in eighth grade, I was introduced to The Aquabats. It was at this very moment, my life diverged down a long, ladyless road. Sure, when you're in high school there'll be a couple of your ladyfriends at the ska show and you two will inevitably skank. It's high school and you're in a band... skanking should happen (at least oral skanking). If you're a socially-awkward guitarist with REALLY bad acne, it'll happen once and then in eight years you'll start a blog. Don't worry, the acne isn't quite as bad as it used to be... and you're fat. If you've seen the Less Than Jake, "evolution of a ska kid" t-shirts, you'll see a very real progression (as it is though, the Descendents' "evolution of man" t-shirt is my favorite "evolution of..." t-shirt). Unless you're Streetlight Manifesto, Reel Big Fish, Less Than Jake, Big D & the Kids Table, etc., it's really not acceptable to play in a ska/punk band after high school... let alone, three years after you dropped out of community college, but I do and so what!?! While most of my friends began listening to more rock-oriented genres, leaving ska behind, I've began listening to those same genres, shuffled in with ska. I still enjoy most of the bands I dug that eighth grade year and on. This isn't normal, I suppose. Anyways, one of the reasons these ska tunes are still in rotation is my fondness of the energy in the music. A good ska/punk song is like four Mardi Gras, man! Having a bad day? Put on The Fury of the Aquabats and listen to Captain Hampton and the Midget Pirates! TURN THAT FROWN UPSIDE-DOWN! Another reason I dig that ska music, mang: I heart puns and ska is ripe with the worst puns possible. Imo, the best ska-name I've seen was The Skabortionists (Iowa's best ska/punk band, circa 2003). The limitless abilty to throw "ska" on the front of nearly any word beginning with the letter "a" is totally skawesome. Skalmost Heroes! Skanarachist Cookbook! Skaustralia! Skatonement! Skalan Skalda! So many options, IT'S SKAMAZING! Skanyhow, I'm 24 now... and I still listen to and play ska. I'm going to be single forever.
BLOG FAIL ALERT: There will be no blog today because I'm catching up on podcasts and comics, riding the bike, eating food, printing fliers, and probably not being around the home 'til late this evening.
RANDOM JOKE? I'm going to form an homage to mid-90s pop/alternative band called "Well Enough Alone." Eventually, we'll probably be called W.E.A. By that time though, I plan to quit the band. There'll be a press release stating, "Billy to leave Well Enough Alone." I'll take a regular job and in my free time, I'll write my memoirs. I'll entitle them, "I Knew I Could."
I'm taking today off to prepare for the National Film Challenge weekend that is upon us in just six point five hours. Sure, that's plenty of time to write down some thoughts (I'm am already here...); however, I'm not feeling very strongly (or even weakly) about anything today. Also, I have some podcasts to catch up on. I should probably also eat sometime soon... If you're bored enough to be here right now, I'd suggest checking our the new DWS MySpace page and "friending" us (if you're still on MySpace). After that, maybe hop on over to FunnyorDie.com and watch the Ron Howard video... I like that guy. When you're done with those things, you should come back here and leave some kind of comment. Maybe you could write a short blog of your own that may inspire me to resume blogging on Monday? I'm out of ideas.
First things, I just did a quick Wikipedia search to reveal the mystery behind the name Wednesday (random knowledge never hurt anybody, unless that random knowledge is sound economic policy and your name is Ron Paul - then it hurts your chances of your colleagues listening to you). Guess what? Wednesday is pretty cool. "The name comes from the Middle EnglishWednes dei, which is from Old English languageWēdnes dæg, meaning the day of the English god Woden (Wodan) who was a god of the Anglo-Saxons in England until about the 7th century. Wēdnes dæg is like the Old NorseOðinsdagr ("Odin's day"), which is an early translation of the Latindies Mercurii ("Mercury's day"), and reflects the widespread association of Woden with Mercury going back to Tacitus." The key part of this information is that Wednesday is relative to "Odin's day." Odin is the father of Thor, which I haven't done the research (brief Wiki lookup), but I'm going to assume Thursday was once actually "Thor's day" because it immediately follows "Odin's day." IT JUST MAKES AWESOME SENSE! NEXT!
I read about twenty comics yesterday (finally catching up). Stand-outs among the last month's books included Deadpool, War Machine (Iron Man Director of S.H.I.E.L.D. #33), and Ghost Rider. The new Deadpool series is perfect thus far (three issues in). The three-part Secret Invasion tie-in was able to establish that ol' Wade Wilson is still wacko, yet he's got the skills to pay the medical bills (or maybe Agency X has a sweet health care package?). One reveal here is that Deadpool is actually working for Nick Fury on this assignment. Looking at the solicits for the next two issues, it looks like DP may be headed for some darker adventures (similar to the pre-Cable & Deadpool, Deadpool series). I'm down. Unfortunately, Medina isn't doing the pencils going forward... hopefully Marvel doesn't pull an X-Factor on me and throw an awful art-scribe on my new favorite book.
War Machine: Weapon of S.H.I.E.L.D. was a solid read (much better than any Iron Man: DoS books since the Extremis story). Away from the book, I read yesterday that Don Cheadle will be taking over for Terrance Howard as James Rhodes (aka War Machine) in the movies. I thought that TH was a perfect casting choice, so I'm a bit bummed... at the same time though, Don Cheadle is awesome and I'm sure he'll serve the role well. Hopefully he's locked up for a couple of films, so we can really see the WM in action. Back to the comic, the coolest thing in this book was the ending (a particularly gnarly new WM armor). Check it out!
Finally, the Ghost Rider series has been fantastic since Jason Aaron took over. His spin that the Ghost Rider is actually a tool of Heaven, mixed with naughty nurses and nuns, as Johnny Blaze seeks Zadkiel for a reckoning - all excellent. The only thing I'm not 100 percent a fan of with this series currently, is the art. The style is fitting most of the time, but here and there the character's faces get very warped and goofy... the inking doesn't help the matter much. Luckily the story is solid enough to cover for any art issues. I wish I could say the same for X-Factor... what a fall from grace (I blame the She-Hulk crossover).
Outside of the Marvel Universe, Driving While Stupid plays tonight. I need to sit down and run through the songs by myself at some point today to make sure I've got them down... I'd say I'm 90 percent certain I won't make any big mistakes. One of the things DWS is known for are crazy, generally obscene things happening at shows (Kenny). I don't think anything is planned yet for this evening... we'll see. It should be fun...
I hope for your sake that you're ahead of the curve (me... I'm the curve) and are well aware of the unholy awesomeness of Ronald Jenkees. BEHOLD:
Ummmmm, wtf. It's like Harry Carry met Timberland; they get sexy and had a man-love child prodigy with mild Downs Syndrome. I'm listening to his album right now and will probably be listening to it all day because it is entrancing. (I'm currently tranced.) As a white male, I only tend to bob my head when looking at my tax forms (amirite all Black comedians!?!) A side-effect of being tranced appears to be head-bobbing. Has anybody else suffered these same symptoms? Let me know... we may have a class action lawsuit on our hands, here: Ronald Jenkees v. Mind Slaves of Ronald Jenkees. Anyhow, GET INTO IT!
I've played in bands off and on since sophomore year of high school. My first band ended up named "Out the Door" (I was dropped off at Kyle's house and didn't arrange for a ride home, much to the annoyance of Kyle and Steve, who didn't want to take me home. Something to the effect of "you just go out the door without thinking!" was said and the band was named). We played one show; a three song set that included a cover of the Ventures' "Pipeline" and two original songs, "My Velcro" and "JB Hates Ska." I then played solo for the first time when I sang another original, "Happy Belated Birthday (You're Retarded)." This solo moment spawned my acoustic solo project, Billy Confessional which lasted throughout high school; my one hit song being "Fat Gurl Likes the Pie." It was and still is atrocious. Before all of this, my buddies formed a ska/punk outfit in late 1999 named Driving While Stupid (after their second guitarist, a sterotypically bad Asian driver). After dwelling on the failure of OtD for a while, I formed my own ska/punk band, The Mailbox Snatchers. We played quite a few shows over a couple of years (opening for bands like The Slackers and Big D & the Kids Table, both in Iowa City) before fading into local band obscurity. DWS trudged along during this time, only once interrupted by aspirations of taking things seriously (see: The Contingency), but that didn't really work out (see: DWS's first full length "Contingencies Never Work"). After Mailbox, I was bandless for sometime. I recorded bass for an Eric and the Floaters split album with the Argos (even writing the bass line to "Unicron vs. Death Star") while hanging around sometime around 2003. Fast forward a bit, Little Billy and the Naughty Thoughts formed as my first band completely sans ska. We played the GrandView College Talent Show, placed second and won $500. This remains the only money I've ever made from music. Meanwhile, DWS continuef with an evolving cast of members. >>FORWARD>> I moved to Iowa City just before 2005, effectively ending my stay in the music scene. (It was around this time that DWS "broke up" for the first time.) After my then-girlfriend left me and I dropped out of school, there wasn't much holding me in the IC aside from my job. Shortly after I was fired from that job (Spring of 2006), I moved back to Des Moines and started jamming with my buddy Tony. This led to a new ska/punk project named Moving Mikey (after a game on Nick Arcade - we ran through many Mike O'Malley references before finally settling on another Nickeloden referemce). That lasted through two shows (including a trip to Wisconsin for Skappleton!) over about a years' time. (Meanwhile, DWS played a couple of reunion shows). After MM, Tony and I kept jamming, writing songs for a more agressive punk band named Banzai! Banzai!, but eventually his fiance became increasingly annoying (at least that's how I felt) and Tony couldn't hang out with me anymore because I didn't like her. That was and is still dumb. >>FORWARD>> More time passes, it's 2008, and I'm hanging out with some of the dudes I used to hang out with before I moved to Iowa City. ( I still haven't dated a lady since the IC.) I am bored as are these dudes, some of whom were in Driving While Stupid... a band that I was still to this point never a member of. We started talking about playing some tunes, but nothing materialized until all of the sudden, about a month ago, DWS is back together and I'm playing guitar (about one month after I finally sold my amp). We've practiced a couple of times, not too much rust on their end, and in a couple of weeks: Be there if you like... I'm not psyched at all about the venue and don't see mself hanging around, but it should be a good time while I'm there. We can chieng out afterwards! YEY!
Ska! At some point in eighth grade, I was introduced to The Aquabats. It was at this very moment, my life diverged down a long, ladyless road. Sure, when you're in high school there'll be a couple of your ladyfriends at the ska show and you two will inevitably skank. It's high school and you're in a band... skanking should happen (at least oral skanking). If you're a socially-awkward guitarist with REALLY bad acne, it'll happen once and then in eight years you'll start a blog. Don't worry, the acne isn't quite as bad as it used to be... and you're fat. If you've seen the Less Than Jake, "evolution of a ska kid" t-shirts, you'll see a very real progression (as it is though, the Descendents' "evolution of man" t-shirt is my favorite "evolution of..." t-shirt). Unless you're Streetlight Manifesto, Reel Big Fish, Less Than Jake, Big D & the Kids Table, etc., it's really not acceptable to play in a ska/punk band after high school... let alone, three years after you dropped out of community college, but I do and so what!?! While most of my friends began listening to more rock-oriented genres, leaving ska behind, I've began listening to those same genres, shuffled in with ska. I still enjoy most of the bands I dug that eighth grade year and on. This isn't normal, I suppose. Anyways, one of the reasons these ska tunes are still in rotation is my fondness of the energy in the music. A good ska/punk song is like four Mardi Gras, man! Having a bad day? Put on The Fury of the Aquabats and listen to Captain Hampton and the Midget Pirates! TURN THAT FROWN UPSIDE-DOWN! Another reason I dig that ska music, mang: I heart puns and ska is ripe with the worst puns possible. Imo, the best ska-name I've seen was The Skabortionists (Iowa's best ska/punk band, circa 2003). The limitless abilty to throw "ska" on the front of nearly any word beginning with the letter "a" is totally skawesome. Skalmost Heroes! Skanarachist Cookbook! Skaustralia! Skatonement! Skalan Skalda! So many options, IT'S SKAMAZING! Skanyhow, I'm 24 now... and I still listen to and play ska. I'm going to be single forever.
