Expert In The Art Of Frivolous Spending

[L-R:
Mountains|Choral|Thrill Jockey, 2xLP, /1000
No Neck Blues Band|Clomeim|Locust, 2xLP
Nonhorse|Slow Child|Young Tapes, 7"
Real Estate|Suburban Beverage|Underwater Peoples, 7"+CDR
Catastrophic Mermaids On Parade|Catastrophic Mermaids On Parade|URCK, CDR, /450
The Master Musicians Of Hop-Frog|Centuries Later|URCK, CDR, /450
Josh Burke|Imagination|Housecraft, CS, /75
Edgar Wappenhalter|Damptuygh & Rapalie|Cabin Floor Esoterica, CS, 30/50
Gorman / Do Tell|Split|Housecraft, CS, /60
Sacred Basil|Day Of Six Billion|Cabin Floor Esoterica, CS, 24/50
Second Family Band|Our Way Is The Right Way|Housecraft, CS, /75
Tricorn & Queue|Ragged Bright Degrees|Housecraft, CS, /75]

Thoughts / review-like blurbs later..

Take Pills

Take one day at a time
Everything else you can leave behind
Only one thing at a time
Anything more really hurts your mind
I don't want for us to
Take pills
Anymore
Not that it's bad
I don't want for us to take pills
Because we're stronger
And we dont need them

Diphenhydramine

Total failure. Plus moderate setbacks.

Need to regain focus and stop screwing around.

158.5, 156.5, 154, 152, 150, 168.5, 166, 160.5, 158, 156


I am now, at 23 years of age, permitted to drive in the state of Pennsylvania while seated next to a licensed driver age 21 or older, or a licensed spouse at least 18 years of age.


New Mountains album, Choral, is absolutely gorgeous. People without record players should pick up the vinyl anyway..comes with a free digital download (as many many records do these days) but it also contains two bonus tracks that are not on the CD.


Sup Taylor? ;-)
Not really. 154.5.

Nackt Insecten

I bought this LP kind of on a whim. I was clicking around the Blackest Rainbow site, seeing what was coming up, and I saw that Joe had just put out two new LPs - one from Cam Deas and one from Nackt Insecten. I'd heard of both artists, but only ever actually listened to Cam Deas. It was already a given that I'd be ordering the Cam Deas LP, but for some reason...I just didn't expect Nackt Insecten to sound like something I'd be into. And for all I know, maybe the older recordings don't sound like this at all, but this LP is killer. I'm listening to it right now and it's blowing my mind. Out there spacey synth psychedelic realms, with noisier bits. But mostly just good shit to relax and zone out to. As stated previously in another post, Blackest Rainbow, like Arbor, is just on fire right now. So many consecutive incredible releases. Blackest Rainbow is sold out, but Nackt Insecten / Sick Head Tapes still has some. Go buy it.

Stuff

I use an old digital camera to take all pictures of records that you see posted on this blog. It was maybe the first digital camera that my dad ever bought for the family, or at least one of the first. Since then we've had several others, and this one has been passed around among family members. I ultimately ended up with it, so it's what I use. There was a memory card in it when it was given to me, which I have since filled up due to taking all of these pictures of records (not these on the blog, but maintaining individual photos of every record, tape, CDR, and limited CD for my tradelist on deadformat.net). So pretty much on a weekly basis I have to go through the memory card and delete photos to make room for new ones. They're all uploaded to a photobucket account, so they don't really need to be kept on the card. Each time I do this, I skip through a few non-record pictures, for whatever reason, and keep them on the camera. I don't know why I do this since they probably are already uploaded to my computer somewhere, and if not, I could easily do that. In any case I am going to post them here because I am bored. Here they are:

Expert In The Art Of Frivolous Spending

(photo one)
[L-R:
Cam Deas|My Guitar Is Alive And It's Singing|Blackest Rainbow, LP, /300
Hop-Frog Kollectiv / Magic Lantern|Split|URCK, LP, /300
Nackt Insecten|Quantum Odyssey|Blackest Rainbow, LP, /300
Nodzzz|Nodzzz|What's Your Rupture?, LP]

(photo two)
[L-R:
Sunburned Hand Of The Man|Complexion|Records, LP
Sunburned Hand Of The Man|Wedlock|Eclipse, 2xLP
Vetiver|Tight Knit|SubPop, LP]

(photo three)
[L-R:
Emeralds + Dilloway|Under Pressure|Hanson, CDR
Steve Hauschildt|Critique Of The Beautiful|Gneiss Things, CDR
Hop-Frog Kollectiv / Magic Lantern|Split|URCK, CDR
Blue Sabbath, Black Fiji / Ajilvsga|Split|Digitalis Limited, CS, /85
Caboladies|Constellation Deformity|Smooth Tapes, CS
Color Dream|Reminisce|Young Tapes, 2xCS (Not pictured. First tape was blank, mailed back to Peter / Young to re-dub)
Flower Man|Peppermint Steamroom|Young Tapes, CS
Sam Goldberg|Winter Hallucinations: I|Pizza Night, CS, /50
Joe Montana|Shifting Spaces|Digitalis Limited, CS, /75
Lilypad|Sick: Volume II|Pizza Night, CS, /60
Sun Watcher feat. Zac Davis|Sun Watcher|Wagon, CS]

For Taylor

Let begin our plans for the Vernal Celebration.

Thanks

But get yr own thing.

Stuff

Here are some interesting things.

This is a belt buckle that someone (I don't know who) gave to my mom or dad in church last week for some reason (I don't know why). I thought it was really strange and so did my mom. So I decided I'd take it. I don't think I'm hip enough to wear a belt buckle, and I also don't think that that particular belt buckle is hip, so maybe I will wear it one day.




This is an energy drink that I found at Dollar Tree recently. I've also liked energy drinks since I first tried Red Bull many years ago. Way before that whole giving you wings campaign started, or Jäger bombs existed. In any case, I don't know exactly what this "Push It" drink tastes like, but it's good, and it does remind me of Red Bull. Which is another drink I never really knew what the flavor of was, but liked it. Random energy drinks are not that interesting, I know. But I thought that the can of this one was. There's so much going on. There's a dragon, some dragonflies, two Les Paul bodied guitars, some hands giving the peace sign, some actual peace signs in the background, some skulls with roses for the eyes, some other birds (doves?), stars, crosses, lip prints, and who knows what else. And the supplement facts are so correct...3 calories, 1.7mg of vitamin B2, 6mcg of vitamin B12? mcg? I've never seen micrograms listed in nutrition facts. I just found it to be kind of absurd, but I like it.

Lastly, I love Crayola's fabric markers and making my own tshirts. Here are some of them:


This one's obviously an Ajilvsga shirt.



Prurient shirt...



And this one's just really strange new age / Young Tapes inspired. I'm wearing it right now. There's another one that's like this with random little things drawn on it, and it's a nice shade of gray, too. But I seem to have misplaced it. If I do locate it, I'll post it here.

Out.

Tapes

My cassette player died this week. This was devastating to me. I grew to LOVE the cassette format over the past several months. It only took me a couple of days to go out and buy this ugly little thing:

It's pretty crude. And a bit of a downgrade from my iTouch. It was $13 at Target. It kind of sucks because I have to listen to all my tapes with headphones. This sucks because my speakers that are hooked up to my record player are messed up (sound cuts out of the left speaker, could PROBABLY correct it, but haven't gotten around to it) so I've had to listen to all my records on headphones too. Given, I LIKE headphones. And sometimes I do prefer to listen to stuff on headphones, but sometimes I also like filling my room with sound instead of just my ears. I think I'm going to get sick of the headphones pretty quickly actually and go ahead and fix the speaker connection, but for now headphones it is. Which does let me hear the tapes in a different way. So I went and dug out 30+ tapes that I plan on listening to over the course of the week. They're all either new tapes that I've only gotten to listen to once, or just tapes that I really like and haven't listened to in a while. I'm on number 3 right now. I will list them for you (italics = listened to):

Sunburned Hand Of The Man - Acid-X
Albero Rovesciato - Ancient Shining Drums Of The Covered City
Stone Baby - Vir Heroicus Subliminus
Sepviva Bells - Halloween In The Sea
Pocahaunted - Beast That You Are
Pocahaunted - Gold Miner's Daughters
Vibes - You God It
Predator Vision - S/T
Predator Vision - II
Ducktails - 1992 Demo
Ducktails - II
Ducktails - Acres Of Shade
Dreams In Mirror Field - S/T
Silver Futures - From The Swamp Rot Rises My Baby's Dream
Mark McGuire - Open Chords
Mark McGuire - Off In The Distance
Mark McGuire - The Gardens Of Eternal Life
Steve Hauschildt - Rapt For Liquid Minister
Steve Hauschildt - The Stairwell Is Long Gone
Sparkling Wide Pressure - Seven Inside & Out
Prehistoric Blackout - Wake Up Dead
Sovetskaya Gone - S/T
Lilypad - Capacitor
Lilypad - Signal Longings
Mist - Certain Expansion
Sam Goldberg - Winter Hallucinations: II
Sam Goldberg - Out Of Body Experiences
Sam Goldberg / Color Dream - Cultivating A Sound Garden
Color Dream - Cloud Factory
Color Dream - Sky Walker
Color Dream - Reminisce
Earth Station - 58
Brett Favre - The Underlying Focus Upon Single Negative Entities In Life Is Testament To The Positivity Of Life, Liberty, And The Pursuit Of Happiness
Flower Man - Peppermint Steamroom

A note on Color Dream's "Reminisce"...got that in the mail on Saturday and the first tape was blank :-(. Emailed Peter and that'll be fixed soon. Still a bummer, though.

NEW BLOG

Hello.
This is the inaugural posting of my new blog (formerly solarowls.blogspot.com). That blog initially did contain some postings with actual content, but eventually changed into essentially just having photos / lists of what music I got each week. Which was fine, but boring. This new blog will contain several different types of postings., as follows:

1)Expert In The Art Of Frivolous Spending

Rather than the old "Weekly Friday Update," updates concerning the music I got will have the title of the old blog as the heading. That is, "Expert In The Art Of Frivolous Spending." I love the Mountain Goats and I should listen to him / them more, really. The title is so very suitable that getting rid of it altogether would just be careless. Another change to this type of entry is that it will no longer occur on Fridays. It really didn't make much sense to do that in the first place. That only started because of being up at school during the week, and then coming home on Friday to an array of packages, and then working Saturday and Sunday. Friday nights were good to relax, listen to my new records, and make my pointless entries. Now that I, for the most part, have off on weekends and am not at school at all anymore...

Graduated, did not drop out..
Thus it makes more sense for me to make the entry over the weekend now.

2)Weekly Weight Loss

This was explained in the final entry of the old blog, so I will not go into too many details here. Basically, used to be a chubber, dropped weight by a significant amount in a short period of time, kept it off. Then decided to pig out (to a massive extent, often resulting in making myself sick) around the holidays and see how much I could gain, and subsequently how long it would take to lose it.

3) Whatever else I feel like posting. This will likely include stories from work, photos of strange things, photos of myself, and me gushing about tapes and records.

Lastly, regarding the name change...Black Pyramid is the new name I've given to my recordings. These go back a while. You can see an old blog posting with the dets of my entire discography, minus Cult Of Shiv & The Solar Owl Band here. If you actually go to that link, Black Pyramid only includes things from Burning Churches onward through The Solar Owl Band. I have four distinct "albums" I'd like to put out, but I've been saying that for so long that I don't know if it will actually happen. The last thing I recorded was on April 4th (or 11th?), 2008, prior to going to my then girlfriend's birthday party. My 4-track was then damaged, so I've not gotten around to doing anything since then. I do have the means, I think, to record stuff...it just might require more effort.