I came across a blog/zine called Linebreaker which “…examines the writers that shape punk and hardcore, and gives them a voice to explain the meanings behind the lyrics we sing along to.”  So here’s a couple interviews I found interesting.

+  Defeater‘s lyricist/singer Derek Paul Archambault discusses war and the influence it had on his writing on their latest EP Lost Ground.

+  Al from Dangers makes a few sober critiques on Love and the romanticizing that goes along with it.

I have not had sexual intercourse in more than two years now.  I’ve made a good habit of entering into relationships I know won’t work out and lamenting their unavoidable demise with what can only be called “gusto.”  What I know about love I have learned mostly from Zack Morris and Kelly Kapowski, Winnie Cooper and Kevin Arnold and, ashamedly, Dawson Leery and Joey Potter.  This is, perhaps, the result of paper thin walls and the healthy, multi-cultured libido of my father figure.  I can, for instance, discern with great accuracy the pleasure groans of a Puerta Riquena and Columbiana and, to a lesser extent, the details of the love act (hole, speed, position).  What I must be saying is: a revolving door is no place for a child to play.

There was a detailed plan that I concocted at the age of seventeen.  Whatever parts of me that were capable of marriage were to wed no later than age twenty-four.  The mate was to be the bourgeoning beauty I was already at that time years-deep into.  We would get tattoos instead of rings, elope like alcoholics, and spend the wedding money on a trip up Kilimanjaro.  She was to continue her painting endeavors.  I, my music.  A child was likely, certainly no later than by age twenty-six, and his name (it was to be a he) would under no circumstances be a regurgitation of my own bloodline (see also: aforementioned paper thin walls, cocaine, feelings of abandonment, etc.).  We would buy a house, small, cottage-esque, near enough to the ocean that it would sometimes smell like dead fish, and we would teach our offspring the ways of Black Flag, Dischord Records, and, above all else, John Stuart Mill.  There would be no nanny.  Sex would be often and remarkable.  Meals home-cooked.  Traveling relentless.  Money scarce.  Hearts bursting.

Read the rest HERE.

And to stay within the theme…

+  In Helmet Social Networking: One Influential Ex-Generals’ vision of Future War

Scales isn’t one of those futurists who think technology replaces the human dimensions of war. He’s harnessing technology precisely to address some of soldiering’s most immediate and human dimensions: emotional strain.

“What does a soldier need? ‘I’m lonely,’” Scales says. “As the battlefield expands, the space between soldiers expands geometrically, and primal fear escalates. The need for psychic glue increases an order of magnitude.” Which is why he’d like to have veterans, translators, cultural experts and battle buddies all connected in a social network for war.

“Soldiers don’t break from hunger, thirst or poor leadership. They break from emotional collapse,” he says. To keep that from happening, “maybe someone far away, like [National Security Agency headquarters] Fort Meade, could monitor [troops] for emotional and biological signs — heart rate, galvanic skin response, a tremor in a soldier’s voice — and then aggregate it into a dashboard.”

Scales also believes infantry units should spend years together, instead of “sending out a pickup squad that’s broken up every 18 months.” Like football players, the various members of the unit should have specialized skills that mesh together. And like some pro athletes, those troops should practice group “visioning” — creating mental images of their wartime goals.

“Empathy,” not aggression, should be the new must-have trait of any military leader. And soldiers need to develop a respect and an affinity for foreign cultures. Scales believes current U.S. ambassador to Kabul Karl Eikenberry best personifies this comfort, which is why he calls it the “Eikenberry gene.”

It’s nice to be back home.  Yesterday was the last day of the Pianos tour.  I feel like we accomplished a lot this summer and I’m excited for what’s to come this year.

I’m typing this while hanging out in my air conditioned apartment, laying in a bed with clean sheets and resting my head on a pillow that isn’t caked with dirt and cat hair.  Life rules at the moment.

Tour is fun because of the uncertainty that goes along with it.  Not knowing what the show will be like, what kind of people you’ll encounter or where the night will end is a liberating feeling that you don’t often get to experience when you work a 9 to 5.  You are given the slightest bit of control over your daily destiny and it is up to you and your band mates to figure out how you’re going to eat, where you’re going to sleep, who’s going to drive, etc.

Which leads to my favorite aspect of touring…

The best thing about touring is the underlying sense of comradeship that your band develops because you are constantly faced with shitty situations that you have to pull together to get through.  When you are on the road with a a person who is literally within an arm’s reach most of the time you had better love that person or be prepared to have a crappy time.  After spending so much close-quarters time with these people you develop a different kind of friendship.  The power of shared experiences I guess.  Through thick and thin etc etc blahblahblah.  I’m lucky to be in a band with these people.

And, lastly, touring reminds you that there are so many genuinely kind people out there who will not hesitate to lend a helping hand.

I’m in Oklahoma City right now hanging out at our friend Leon’s apartment who we met earlier at tonight’s show.

Aside from a few minor van troubles, tour has been going well.  We only have 8 days left.  It’s weird looking back on some of the earlier shows of tour and realizing that they weren’t that long ago even though it feels like months have passed between now and then.

Since I last updated we played a couple of shows with Touche Amore – one in LA on the 4th of July and one at the Che Cafe on the 6th.  I love watching people lose their shit when a band they loves starts playing and every time I’ve seen Touche play kids lose their minds.

+ Stoked to get home and play this.

+ I’ve been really missing drinking coffee for the past month and this video/recipe from Cool Hunting is giving me a coffee boner.

+ Stoner idea comes to life: Dude lives in a house built of Legos.

+ Just found The Reptillian’s new album Full Health online.  Haven’t listened to it yet, but I expect good things based on seeing them live.  Nicest dudes.

Download The Reptillian – Full Health.

A little bit over two weeks in to tour and we’re just now arriving in California.  I have a few good videos to share once I get to an actual internet connection (I’m tethering through my phone atm) – Not to Reason Why, Kidcrash, Dead Heroes and Bone Dance.

Yesterday we had an off day in between Portland and Redding, CA so we went to the mall, ate some terrible food and watched Toy Story 3.  All of us definitely teared up at some point.  Good movie, pussy band.

+ Ryan McGinley – Entrance Romance

Ryan McGinley is that guy who creates all of the ‘teenage/early twenties rebellion photography of hipster models running through fields while the sun sets and jumping into pools of water from cliffs.  Sigur Ros used one of his photos for an album cover.  I like most of the work he puts out.

Anyway, he made a short using a camera which captures something like 10,000 frames per second which allowed him to slow down the footage and get some really detailed slo-mo shots.  I especially like the dog on girl action – was not expecting that.

Tonight we are staying in Altoona, Iowa at the same hotel we stayed in for 4 days while our van was broken down last summer.  It feels odd to be back.  It’s kind of satisfying even though I hated every second of being here last summer.

Hopefully tomorrow we have time to go visit the coffee shop we hung out at last time and see the girl who wanted to use her new imac to “yoohoo” us.  We can also stop by the Tuffy’s auto center that charged us $2,000 bucks to fix our van and burn it to the ground.

This is all I’ve been listening to:

For years, loving the National’s music has often meant reveling in the twinge of pain that comes when someone else manages to perfectly pin down and dissect a little piece of your psyche, which is why fans can get so inarticulate when trying to talk about what’s great about the band. As Felix Mendelssohn said, “The thoughts that are expressed to me by music that I love are not too indefinite to be put into words, but on the contrary, too definite.” High Violet‘s greatness, above beyond the fact that it’s a gorgeously arranged and performed set of songs of surprising tensile strength and grace, is that it rests its finger on some uncomfortably relevant truths about life after you no longer have the mental, physical, social or emotional wherewithal to spend every night at the bar and leaving the Silver City for somewhere quieter starts seeming like a good move. Anyone who loves this record probably has a very exact idea of how it touches on their own life, but most of us probably aren’t going to want to share.

via Pop Matters

Download:  The National – High Violet

We’re hanging outside of justice records in Mt. Pleasant, Michigan waiting for the show to start.

Tour has been going well so far.  David had a very drunk dude serenade him last night.

This video is unrelated to that incident but still well worth your time if you like to see totally unexpected things happen.

+ why oil is so expensive

This is why oil is so valuable: one tank of gas from a typical S.U.V. has the energy equivalent of more than 60,000 man-hours of work-roughly 100 men working around the clock for nearly a month. That is the power that the American consumer can access for about $60 at the gasoline pump. If gasoline were a person, we would be paying 10 cents an hour for his labor. Easily accessible reserves are running dry, though, which means that the industry must develop increasingly ingenious-and costly-techniques for getting at the oil. Deepwater drilling, for example, now happens so far offshore that rigs can no longer be anchored to the seabed; they must be held in place by an array of propellers, each the size of a two-car garage. The cost of deepwater drilling is close to twice that in shallow water.

Read the rest at Constant Siege

+ Kahn Academy: Cutting the Middlemen out of Education

The most popular educator on YouTube does not have a Ph.D. He has never taught at a college or university. And he delivers all of his lectures from a bedroom closet.

This upstart is Salman Khan, a 33-year-old who quit his job as a financial analyst to spend more time making homemade lecture videos in his home studio. His unusual teaching materials started as a way to tutor his faraway cousins, but his lectures have grown into an online phenomenon—and a kind of protest against what he sees as a flawed educational system.

Read the full article HERE.

My band is going on tour for 41 days.  Leaving tomorrow.  I’m planning on updating while we’re out, but we’ll see how that goes.  If you live around where we’ll be come hang out!

+ My wants are bigger than my wallet

+ Gourmet Grilled Cheese near Baltimore: Fuck Yes

+ Tooth pulled out with RC car

I’ve been anticipating this release for a long time – I’m glad that it lives up to the hype.  For fans of Small Brown Bike, Brand New, pop punk and well written music.

Buy the vinyl HERE.

Download HERE.

When I started this blog one of my first posts was about me preparing to build a guitar.  Flash-forward two years later and I have finally begun.  This afternoon I cut the body blank out of a joined block of 3/4 inch sugar maple and sanded down the sides.

The cutting took about 30 minutes and the sanding lasted for 4 hours or so…  ugh.

Tags: guitar building