At All Cost Final Show

Saw At All Cost's last show at Walter's last night. They were badass. Just like at the Chinese Star's show, I could hardly hear the vocals, although it may have been because we were standing to the side of the stage. I want to make sure that when Centaur Marauder plays people can hear the lyrics well. I also need to get one of those vocoder things that makes you sound like a robot.

We've been starting to look around for another amp to replace my little Marshall AVT50, which is a great amp but not really big enough to play shows. Also, I want something with lots of punch without being overly distorted.

GHOSTLIGHT Done

Christmas break has arrived, and for us that means neglecting family and finishing our songs. Yesterday we finished Ghostlight, and I'm pretty sure it rocks. I'll post a rough recording soon. After spending so much time crafting the songs its becomes kind of difficult to consider them objectively once their done.

Man, we need money for equipment and stuff. That means we need to play shows. That means we need to finish our songs. I must go work on Cold Knight.

The Chinese Stars

Last night I saw the Chinese Stars at BeerLand. The opening bands were:

• Dated - a young three piece that pretty much just made noise
• Alters - a punkish three piece that had serious issues on stage. First of all, the guitarist and vocalist (who happened to also be the singer for The Riverboat Gamblers) couldn't figure out how to use his Boss guitar tuner, nor tune by ear. After about 10 minutes, they just started playing out of tune. After a couple songs, the guitarist's D string broke, but they didn't have a replacement so they just kept playing out of tune and with a broken string. Eventually the guitarist from Dated lent them his guitar. On the first song played with this new guitar, Alter's guitarist broke the E string. I'm not kidding. Then he made some jokes about how everyone had friends that died during high school. Things just went downhill from there.
• Sensitive Hearts - a two peice with a girl pumping out simple synthesizer rhythms on a keyboard, and a guy singing to her and banging on a tom, floor tom, and symbol. In the middle of the set their equipment crapped out too, so for ten minutes while they fixed the problem they showed home movies on a projector screen. The skits were pretty much low budget adult swim skits, and were kind of funny in that bizarre understated way.

The Chinese Stars put on a pretty good show. I think the singer could have brought his vocals up in the mix a little more, but it was already loud as hell. They had home-made lighting effects that made it seem as though the band was dancing in firelight. I might steal that idea. The show lasted until almost two in the morning, which is strange considering that the Chinese Stars only played like six songs.

Cowboys From Hell Paso!

So I just got back from seeing a Pantera cover band at Dirty Dog called "Cowboys From Hell Paso." They were so bad ass rockin hardcore sweet Dime Bag washerboard style. Seriously, they f***ing rocked. Made me want to learn more Pantera. Then on the way back to the car, a conversation between me, Trevor, and a really good looking girl occured. Thins were going great until the girl's work acquaintences happened by and heaved her into the air, then dropped her and allowed her head to hit a stone wall. Then I broke up a potential fight that would have lasted for five seconds between Trevor and the kid who dropped her. Now I have returned home alone. Augghhhh this is fucked!

A Thrice Halloween

Saw Thrice at the Houston Verizon Center with Stephen last night. They were great, as usual, and they took things to the next level by wearing insanely bad-ass Star Wars costumes. Unfortunately, their set was cut pretty short so that Brand New could play two hours of monotonous shit. At one point during Brand New's set, Jesse Lacey told the crowd to essentially shut up so he could concentrate while he played solo on a 5 minute long teen-angst crybaby song. I'm pretty sure I heard him hit some wrong notes anyways.

Despite the fact that the tickets ended up being $33 (advertised as $23 on the web), we had to leave early because Brand New just sucked so much balls that we couldn't stand it any longer. Also, their costumes were cheesy black and white prison uniforms that probably cost $20 at Target. They must have put a lot of thought into them.

Islands

Caught the end of Islands's show at Mohawk last night. I'm not a huge Islands fan but what I saw of their show was good and I'd see them again. Plus I only had to pay $3 to get in because it was so late into the show. Once again, it is bad ass to live just a few blocks from some of the best music venues in Texas. Austin is dope.

uggarrr

bike to emos... saw a real good singer la band keyboard player three piece Crash Kings... saw the The Bravery good but not spectacular... thought they were Euro but their not... got drunk at Buffalo Bill's with Aaron... met Matthew who brought me back... met someone from the apartments at the bike racks and drank a little rum... nothing good so I came home and started watching new Office episode... passing out now.

Centaur Marauder Recording Session 2

Last weekend we spent Friday night, all Saturday, and into Sunday afternoon recording in Montgomery. I think we ended up recording three new songs, "Deep In The Sauce", "San Fransisco's Burning", and "When You Speak." I also laid down some more lyrics to "Open To The Truth." Overall I felt that we were way more productive than last time. Also, Stephen wrote and sang most of the songs, which was freaking great. Actually I felt like I hardly did anything the whole time but back him up, which made things really fun and stress-free.





So we are starting to look for a solution to our crappy drums problem. We're hoping to find $750 just lying around, but until then we'll have to Frankenstein together a better kit. I'm going to try to sell some extraneous crap I have, but it might prove difficult. If only we could figure out some way to make money with music!


Over the weekend Stephen hipped me to the fact that Thrice's Dustin Kensrue's little brother is in a band called "Eye Alaska", which apparently is nearly as big as Thrice. I checked them out on MySpace Music, and they're not my cup of tea. Seems like there was a consensus that the lead singer is not cool, and that they appear to be a label-manufactured band. Very un-Thrice-like.

I just got through watching a music documentary show called 'Embedded' on Hulu. The show featured an L.A. indie band called Silversun Pickups, who I've never heard of before. Well, I was not that impressed with this band either. I did notice that their bass player is a girl, which surely adds to their popularity. I keep telling Grant and Stephen that we need a girl bass player but they say I'm crazy. No, you two are crazy. Two crazy homos.

I have also recently heard music I like. Enchanted Islands, the newest album by Beep Beep (Saddle Creek) is sooo great. I have been listening to this album relentlessly for about three weeks now. It's just so original, with amazing songwriting and guitar work. "I brush a pony's mane thinking of your hair drying in my arms." Need I say more? No, I need not.

New Song: Ghostlight

Here's a little taste of a song that's gonna be badass. We're getting closer to being ready to play shows and whatnot...

I'd also like to comment on the beef that's formed between the band and our engineer/producer/manager/PR agent/equipment sponsor/label exec, Grant. Basically, Grant comes over to our studio, manipulates us into wasting recording time by watching some horrible movie, leaves with all our audio files that are worth their weight in gold, and makes fun of the way I talk (probably). Let's just say he's on thin ice, and if I see him again he'd better have a joke to tell. A GOOD joke.

Ghostlight Concept

Engineering Our Rage

We made a little more progress last weekend. I feel like we've pretty much settled on Centaur Marauder as our band's name. I don't know, it just sounds bad ass to me and I enjoy saying marauder a lot. Actually when I hear the term 'marauder' used in daily dialog it always makes me chuckle for some reason.

Names of songs done or in production:

• Open to the Truth - basically done
  
• Cold Night of Winter - basically done
  
• Blood Red Mouth - basically done
  
• Garnet Reflections - 3/4 done
  
• Unnamed (half-step whole step song that Steve made up) - 1/2 done, needs lyrics
  
• Ghostlight - 1/4 done

btw, GRANT YOU'RE A BIOTCH!

R E C O V E R

Last Sunday night we saw Recover at the Mohawk in Austin, and they f*cking rocked. I really like their bass player, Ross Tweedy, cuz he moves around on stage real nice-like and brings tons of energy to the show. We need a bass player like that.


Stephen and I finished a new song the other day called "Blood Red Mouth". It's pretty good I think and close to what we're "going for".

So Thrice's new album dropped but I haven't downloaded it from iTunes because it doesn't contain the five bonus tracks that are on the physical CD. Am I the only one who hates having huge binders full of CDs and massive stacks of empty CD cases collecting dust in my closet? Raarrr! Not sure what I'm going to do about getting that album...

Last night I passed out on the couch after listening to the Black Flag channel on Pandora. I dreamt that I was somewhere with a young Henry Rollins, and something was happening that I don't remember. Probably something hardcore, but not in a gay way.

-tOM oUT

My Friend in a Boat

This is an old song that I re-recorded today in Cakewalk. Personally, I think this song is beyond gay, but people seem to like it so meh.

My Friend in a Boat

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First Recording Session

Last weekend Grant brought his badass recording equipment to Montgomery and we started recording. Although we worked all weekend, we somehow didn't finish recording a single song. We just need to practice more to make the recordings go smoother. We also need a bass player and drummer. Pics of the recording session to come.

-Tom

The Stroke of Mid-Day

So today in drawing class we had to go out and sketch a landscape. No big deal, right? Wrong. 1-3pm, in mid-July, in the hill country wilderness - hotter than hell, son. This song is a true story.

The Stroke of Mid-Day

I moved out under the sun
And I tell ya true, my friend
That day was a hot one

My feet found a stony path
It led me to a lizard baking
In a cactus patch

My head was throbbing from the heat
That's when the wise lizard asked me,
"What truths do you seek?"

I laid my body at his throne of thorns
And rest my head inside a cradle
Of broken whitetail horns

The yellow grass became a sea
The purple sky claimed I had died
But my soul was lingering

And lo, from on the mountain
I heard his thunderous voice
The Lizard King in crown and ring
Was offering me a choice and he said:

"Would you care to roll with me
To the hill countries of eternity?
I can give to you the peace you desire
Or I can send you back
Back to where the waters lack
Way back down that stony track
The choice is up to you"

And how I longed to hold his leathery hand
And walk beside him into that endless land
But I rode the solstice sun back across the summer sky
Stepped off at the horizon
That's where we waved goodbye

When I opened up my eyes
My salty skin was being cleansed
By a murder of deer flies

I couldn't move I couldn't scream
And to my utter sorrow the lizard
Was nowhere to be seen

But then inside my mind echoed his sweet voice
When in his vast reptilian mercy
He'd offered up his choice when he'd said:

"Would you care to roll with me
To the hill countries of eternity?
I can give to you the peace you desire
Or I can send you back
Back to where the waters lack
Way back down that stony track
The choice is up to you"

The Cold Night of Winter

Initial concept for a song I made up today called 'The Cold Night of Winter'.

No, I'm not the best singer.

Yes, I have fun pretending.

THE COLD NIGHT OF WINTER

Cutting More Tracks

For the 4th 'O J weekend I went down to Montgomery and worked on the album with Stephen. We spent most of our time hashing out a song called 'Stephen the Gnome', which I think is one of our best so far.

We also watched 'Underworld: Rise of the Lycans' on PPV, which was inspiring.

10 Sloth Names

Greased Sloth

Sloth of Frost

Sloth of Destiny

Sloth Collision

10:1 Sloth Ratio

Mystic Sloth and the Mystic Sloths

Omega Sloth

Sloth Thoughts

Sloth Colony

Thrilling Sloth

Potential Band Names

Dream Baby Super Adventure - Stephen

The Lizard Queen - Tom

Centaur Marauder - Tom

Renegade Lobster - Chris Addington


Stephen is coming to Austin this weekend, hopefully we'll make some progress.

Done for a While

Well we made some good progress but I ended up having to go back to Austin before we really recorded anything. We haven't quit though and are still motivated to finish as soon as possible. Out for now -Tom

More

I am surprised with the amount of collaborative effort between Stephen and I that is going into these songs. I pretty much wrote all the songs, so I was expecting that Stephen would basically just back up what I had already made. Instead, the songs are evolving quite a bit with Stephen's input. He is good.

Jam Room

Arrived in Montgomery today and immediately started working on songs with Stephen. We made some good progress but I'm reminded of why I haven't done this sooner - it is hard.

The Serpent's Stare Concept

ssss... click me ssssss...

done biooootch

done with finals, now i'm gonna eat-sleep-crap then start pumping out the tunes like for realz g WHA WHA?

I'm On a (john) Boat

Oh ya we need to put something like this in the album. And when I say 'something like this', I mean basically a direct rip-off of this.

good idea Joe

New Song

Wrote pretty much all the lyrics to a new song today, called "You Never Smiled at Me". Yes the name sounds gay, hopefully the song won't sound too gay. I'm envisioning just simple acoustic instrumentals for this song so it should be pretty easy to record as well.

-Tom Out

New Strings

Just cleaned and changed the strings on my 2001 Martin DM. I'm not a huge fan of this guitar because it's kind of booming and tends to overwhelm my voice, but the quality of the sound is still pretty good. Anyways this is what I'll be using to work out most of the songs.

I've been studying for finals this past week so I haven't been able to commit my full energies towards making songs, but I've still managed some good progress between study breaks. At this point I'd say we've got about six possibilities for songs, and I'd like to have ten solid ones when we start recording.

I wrote half of a decent country song today, not sure if it would fit in the album though. Plus it's kind of stupid~

You just went into the grocery store
You said you'd be coming out soon
I figured while I'm waiting here in this car
I'd write a little country tune

I thought about make it a song of love
That I could sing, to make you smile
But I decided I'd rather just say
What's really on my mind

You're getting fatter
Babe it ain't no lie
You're getting fatter
Sweety, lay off the pie

I don't know what you're buying in the grocery store
But maybe you could do without
Cuz honey I've been trying to keep it in
That you're letting it all hang out

We Are Making an Album

Rough plans are being laid to record and produce a music album over the summer. So far the lineup is:

Tom MacDonald - guitars, vocals
Stephen MacDonald - guitars, drums, vocals
Someone Else - bass
Grant Appleton - producing

We'll be recording at my dad's house in Montgomery, TX. Dude I'm super excited!