Also, I should be honest about this, I caught myself singing this song on the way to work today. And not the infectiously catchy chorus part. The verses.

A few days ago I moved out of what colloquially (but quite consciously) became known as "The House of Boring" where I had lived for two full years. On our last day there I half-joked that I had a life before moving there, but I could not remember what it was, or maybe even didn't want to. Sentimentalities aside, I will miss almost everything about it because the last two years have been pretty life-changing, in a good way.

My ears perk up anytime I hear a story about valuable museum pieces being found in someone's dusty attic or basement, and today's story from the New York Times is especially noteworthy because it involves Weegee. Weegee, for the uninitiated, is Arthur Fellig, an American photojournalist who worked mainly in New York City in the first half of the 20th century. His work is gritty, distinctly urban, and paints a picture of a frequently idealized time that is every bit as ugly as anything you might read in the papers today.

Sometimes it's nice to watch Henry Rollins just be a jerk to someone.

I've been pretty busy the last few weeks, hence the lack of content. We're on the edge of Memorial Day weekend and I'm going to be using the time to pack for an impending move.

I finished "The Moviegoer" by Walker Percy today. It was a good quick read, and the theme of "sense of place" is one that I can appreciate.

There's no way that I can talk myself out of this one tonight.

By and large my favorite band of all time is Texas is the Reason. In earlier posts I've made my case for the Promise Ring, so by now it should be no surprise that I consider the upper-tier of the mid to late '90s "emo" category to be among the greatest and most, for lack of a better term, pure sources of music ever recorded. There's something ultimately unique about Texas is the Reason which sets them apart from a Sunny Day Real Estate or a Promise Ring. They only existed for 3 years. In that time, they did one ep, one lp, and two split 7-inches. An entire recorded discography of 14 songs, unless I'm missing something. The lyrical and music thread that ties their work together and that makes them so appealing to my ears is the overwhelming sense of urgency in the songs. Do You Know Who You Are into Back and to the Left from the lp is 6 combined minutes of buildup into breakdown that nothing has ever matched in terms of power and intensity. I listen to it over and over, sometimes for days at a time.

Mother Night will be playing our last show this weekend. I'll say a few things about that here, since things are so busy that soon it will be friday and then saturday and then it will be over. They're things I want to say because, although hokey and cliched, it's rare in life that you actually get to say goodbye to things you care about.

Mother Night was a band that I started with four people I loosely knew in the fall of 2002. I had been in a few bands before but nothing that had really stuck, however I knew at that point in my life that playing guitar, writing songs, and playing in front of people was all I really wanted to do. I also knew that what impressed me most about the hardcore bands I really loved when I was younger was not the fact that a million people liked them or that they played huge shows, but that they seemed to put all of their mind, body, and soul into the music they played. So that was really what I wanted to emulate from day one. The idea of playing music for it's own sake, and that being an end unto itself was at the same time confusing and exhilarating to my young mind, and I can happily say now, six years later, that what we did with this band is something that I would have respected and been into at that time.

When we started this band I was just entering my sophomore year of college. I turned 25 two weeks ago. It was in the context of this band that I learned how to really play guitar, and how to write a song. I went places I would have never imagined being and met people that now, I couldn't ever imagine not meeting. We created a family, not just of the people in the band but of the community of friends and relationships that formed around us. And though it irked me sometimes, the fact that we were as much about having a fun time as we were about the music is what I'll remember most, and the thing that will carry on the longest after I switch my amp off on Saturday afternoon.

We're ending this for no specific reason other than that it feels like the right time to do it. I doubt any of us will likely ever be done with music entirely. It goes without saying, but this band has been a major part of my life for the last few years. It's outlasted almost everything that I once thought would be a constant, and when things were at their worst for me the band and the people in it were alternately an escape from things I didn't want to deal with and a support system to help me keep it together. It's for all these reasons and more that after Saturday, I'll definitely miss it, but I won't ever forget it.

Just don't get old.

The Promise Ring is my favorite band, possibly ever. I have a few "favorite bands" and each is for a different reason, but the Promise Ring is the most pure among these. I just fell in love with their music at a young age and never stopped feeling the same way about it. Somebody added this live video about a week ago and I still can't get over how good the "Nothing Feels Good" era stuff sounds. For years I assumed they were terrible live because I had a vhs of a live set from CBGBs where Davey apparently had the flu, but this is a different animal entirely. Watch.

Two quick things...

1. I started a project today that I've been thinking about for some time now, which is to scan and upload many of the old flyers that I have saved over the years. I did the first batch of 25 (of what I expect to be about 100) today. I'm still working on all the tagging/description, but the images are up. Check it out.

2. I was shown this website "Muxtape" today. Essentially you create a digital mixtape, which can be uploaded and then shared. There's no particular rhyme or reason to mine, but it's a sampling of stuff that I've been listening to lately. Again, check it out. Just click on a song to listen to it.