Brenton Sinay Archive
Lip Reading
We are constantly in loud bars and clubs, meeting new people we’ve never spoken to. So many people have such different ways of speaking and moving their mouths. After an hour long rock show it’s hard to hear everything everyone is saying and you often find yourself looking at people’s mouths when they talk to you.
I am the worst at this, and I often misplace words and create extremely strange sentences in my mind. “You’re not going to brush the rhinocerous hat?! WHAT!?”
This video is too funny, and it reminded me of this. HILARIOUS!
Stream of Consciousness
I am a creative writer.
I have to constantly write what I observe, spend time reflecting on my thoughts and then deliver a concise and powerful message that is poetic and poignant. Oftentimes on this site I spend more than enough time looking for something polished to present to the fans, but today is different.
An old creative writing teacher would force me to do stream of consciousness exercises in class in order “loosen the brain”. Lately, my brain is jammed with convoluted, uncertain, negative thoughts. And I need to jar it out. So I, like our boy Nicky P, will be writing more uncensored, unfiltered thoughts on this site as I make my blog more personal and reflective.
I feel like the world’s greatest devil’s advocate. Lately I’ve learned that one thing I excel in is appealing to those I am conversing with. I often find myself purporting arguments I don’t necessarily believe in. This makes me hate myself for being too argumentative. Verbosity is a vice of mine.
I know in the deepest parts of me that I have something to say. Whether or not this is a fully realized idea with me is another bag of trouble. I feel pulling from somewhere inknown and unvisible. The only place I go is where I feel I’m supposed to be. This freedom can be a blessing, but it is just as much a curse to an analytical fellow like myself. It is a fickle way to live; not having to attach to any one thing without one day having to use the excuse, “Well, that was then.” But what I am I to do? Should I ignore the forces that drive me to do what I am doing now? Should I resist them and see where it gets me? My instinct tells me, “NO!” My gut says, “Keep being that ‘prick’ that everyone is still magically drawn to.”
Is that enough for me? Can I possibly do better?
I am the first to say, “We can do better!” when thatwasthen gets offstage. That’s not to say that’s the first thing I say, but I’m the first to say it because I strive for improvement. As good as we are, there’s work to do. Thankfully, the musicians in my band are professional players who also serve valuable purposes outside of their instruments and their stage performances. They are graduate professionals, playing the instruments and the game, flawlessly.
So it’s okay for me to strive for betterment. Our band has an insane amount of room to grow and yet has grown so much in the year we’ve played together.
I am proud, yet disappointed in myself. What the FUCK?! How confused can you be? You’ve felt this before, no? So much you’ve done and built. So much to love and appreciate and you’re still disappointed with yourself.
Are the currents carrying me out to sea? Or has it just been so long I’ve forgotten the way back to the shore?
Chris, Nathan, Nick and Ben are my support. And I love those guys. I did not fail to tell them almost a dozen times onstage at King King the other night.
This picture found me just in time.
I love you guys!
~Brenton
Them Crooked Vultures
This band is a fucking dream come true for me. I am a very big fan.
I mean, wouldn’t you like to see thatwasthen open for THESE cats? How do we do that?
Scumbag Blues by Them Crooked Vultures.
A collaboration between Josh Homme, John Paul Jones and Grohl was first publicly mentioned by Grohl in a 2005 interview with MOJO in which he declared “The next project that I’m trying to initiate involves me on drums, Josh Homme on guitar, and John Paul Jones playing bass. That’s the next album. That wouldn’t suck.”
Them Crooked Vultures performed its first show at the METRO in Chicago on August 9, 2009. The band played all original material during its 80-minute set, debuting such songs as opener “Elephants” (MY PERSONAL FAVORITE), “Scumbag Blues”, “Caligulove” and closing song “Nobody Loves Me and Neither Do I”. TCV made its European debut on August 19 with a performance at Melkweg in the Netherlands. With subsequent festival performances in Europe, the band first performed in the United Kingdom at London‘s Brixton Academy supporting English band Arctic Monkeys on August 26.
On November 3, the band gave a free copy of “Mind Eraser (No Chaser)” to fans that had bought tickets to a live performance and offered it on iTunes as a free download. On November 9, they started streaming their full album on their website, and also through a link to their mailing list with the title “Fuck Patience, Let’s Dance.”
On September 1, the band announced two 2009 tours of North America and the United Kingdom, in October and December respectively. The 2009 US Tour and the UK leg sold out in just under 12 minutes, making it one of the quickest sold tours in the UK — without the band even officially releasing a song to date. On September 21, the band also announced three Germany dates for December 2009. [Source: Wikipedia]
I honestly don’t know how or if we could ever open for these monsters of amazing, but I must figure it out!
That’s their single, “New Fang”.
East of East
This is the first song I ever wrote for thatwasthen… still carries weight.
EAST OF EAST
Well she went back east
Boarded a train
Said she wanted to see the country
Stood on the rocky coast
Stood on the tallest tower
But it wasn’t enough,
So she cried, “Mom!”
She said
IF I CAN’T BE ME
WHERE WILL I BE?
IF I CAN’T BE ME
HOW WILL I SEE?
Moved further east
Settled down in a flat in Brixton
And started work on her first novel
She took a look left and right
Took walks at night
Kept to herself and never asked for help
She’d stay inside with all her papers and lines
They’d say
IF I CAN’T BE ME
WHERE WILL I BE?
IF I CAN’T BE ME
HOW WILL I SEE?
Then she,
Moved further east to find inner peace
Checked her possessions and weapons
Then set her lessons down at the door
And she sat in silence
Cleared her head
Had the epiphany of a lifetime
What she wanted wasn’t what she’d got
She wanted everything, but had learned to live with nothing
“Well I guess I’ll go back West”
But west was so far west
That it’d be best reached
If she just kept on going east
I DIDN’T SEE
I RAN AWAY FROM ME
HOW WILL IT BE
TO FINALLY BE FREE?
If you had to choose…
If you HAD to have one of these stickers plastered on the back of your car permanently… which one would best fit you? I would choose the second to last.
~Out of my mind. Back in five minutes.
~Cover me. I’m changing lanes.
~As long as there are tests, there will be prayer in public schools
~Laugh alone and the world thinks you’re an idiot.
~Sometimes I wake up grumpy; Other times I let her sleep!
~I want to die in my sleep like my grandfather … … Not screaming and yelling like the passengers in his car…
~MONTANA — At least our cows are sane!
~I didn’t fight my way to the top of the food chain to be a vegetarian.
~Your kid may be an honor student but you’re still an IDIOT!
~It’s as BAD as you think, and they ARE out to get you.
~When you do a good deed, get a receipt, in case heaven is like the IRS.
~Smile, it’s the second best thing you can do with your lips.
~Friends don’t let Friends drive Naked.
~Wink, I’ll do the rest!
~Where there’s a will, I want to be in it!
~If we aren’t supposed to eat animals, why are they made of meat?
~Time is the best teacher; Unfortunately it kills all its students.
~It’s lonely at the top, but you eat better.
~Forget about World Peace…..Visualize Using Your Turn Signal !
~We are born naked, wet and hungry. Then things get worse.
~Always remember you’re unique, just like everyone else.
~Puritanism: The haunting fear that someone, somewhere may be happy.
~i souport publik edjukashon
~The sex was so good that even the neighbors had a cigarette.
~We are Microsoft. Resistance Is Futile. You Will Be Assimilated.
~Be nice to your kids. They’ll choose your nursing home.
~3 kinds of people: those who can count & those who can’t.
~Diplomacy is the art of saying ‘Nice doggie!’… till you can find a rock.
~2 + 2 = 5 for extremely large values of 2.
~I like you, but I wouldn’t want to see you working with subatomic particles.
~I killed a 6-pack just to watch it die.
~Sex on television can’t hurt you unless you fall off.
Walk a mile in my shoes…
“Walk a mile in my shoes” is a cliche beyond repair, I agree. It is also one that seems to have lost its popularity rapidly since long before I care to remember. With the holidays coming soon, I can bet anyone that the “grossness” factor of our society is about to rear its ugly head once again. But I am going to tell you how you might be able to avoid falling for this nasty and easily-adopted point of view. “Walking a mile” can be like a basic mental exercise for your soul.
Aside from the obvious reasons for me to tell you why you should “walk a mile” today, I want to encourage you to learn to “walk a mile” mentally and emotionally around the block. By this, I quite literally mean that you should stand on a sidewalk, wait for someone to pass, and watch them from the time they’re in sight to the time they are gone. (Try not to be too creepy about it; go for a casual stroll!) And in this time that you are watching this person, you should try your very best to imagine what they are seeing. Concentrate on their perspective first, what they can see with their own eyes. Imagine you can see down the bridge of their nose, and your feet pass, one after the other, across your belly line. You can hear and feel the breath in their lungs, inflating and exhaling. The warm buzz you emit as their heart pumps you along the sidewalk; the sidewalk across from where you’re watching them.
Imagine the terrain they are walking on, whether it is cracked and uneven, or flat and safe. This way you can begin to feel their step, the confidence with which they walk. If it is wet, they are cautious.
Imagine carrying their weight. Imagine wearing their clothes. Imagine feeling someone from across the street watch your every step from the time you see them to the time you leave, and choosing not to look over.
=*=
I feel like these are some of the most basic and fundamental ways to begin to understand art and an artist’s perspective. Many fantastic artists and songwriters and performers are so accustomed to tapping into these feelings and emotions that they barely recognize when they are doing it anymore. It is that fundamental.
From there, you go on to more advanced levels of understanding and imagination. You can choose to project where they are going or coming from. What they’re thinking, or what’s blasting through those iPod earbuds they’re listening to. There are an uncountable amount of events, feelings, issues, pieces of knowledge, people, places and doughnuts that have an unmeasurable influence on our daily lives. And there are so many of us!
Well here is one artist that draws a wonderful moving picture, and it paints insight in to so many different perspectives in such a short time. This woman, Kseniya Simonova, is a Ukrainian artist who uses her unique perspective and skills to interpret Germany’s invasion and occupation of Ukraine during WWII.
Inspiration comes from everywhere
As a songwriter, I constantly find myself questioning whether or not what I’ve created is original. Then I remember what one of my favorite film directors, Jim Jarmusch said…
Jarmusch is ascribed as having instigated the American independent film movement with Stranger Than Paradise.[30] Critic Lynn Hirschberg declared Stranger than Paradise in a 2005 profile of the director for The New York Times to have “permanently upended the idea of independent film as an intrinsically inaccessible avant-garde form”.[5] The success of the film accorded the director a certain iconic status within arthouse cinema, as an idiosyncratic and uncompromising auteur exuding the aura of urban cool embodied by downtown Manhattan.[48][49] Such perceptions were compounded with the release of his subsequent features in the late 1980s, establishing him as one of the generation’s most prominent and influential independent filmmakers.[50][51] In a 1989 review of his work, Vincent Canby of The New York Times called Jarmusch “the most adventurous and arresting film maker to surface in the American cinema in this decade”.[32]
- via Wikipedia
the art of losing
This is a poem that has kept me alive for longer than I care to remember…
ONE ART
The art of losing isn’t hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.
Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn’t hard to master.
Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.
I lost my mother’s watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn’t hard to master.
I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn’t a disaster.
–Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan’t have lied. It’s evident
the art of losing’s not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.
~Elizabeth Bishop
My music is coming with me
when i die
my poems, words
they will come with me
when i cry
my mother, god
they come and lift me
when i sigh
my girl, world
have come and kissed me
my music’s coming with me
i can write it into existence
i can make it vanish in a snap
i can twist it, bend it, lift, suspend it
mend it, send it back
when i long
then my stars
make it so
when ‘im wrong
then it’s ours
this ancient poem
if i’m strong
in the hour
of the great unknown
then my music will come with me
i can write it into existence
i can make it vanish in a snap
i can twist it, bend it, lift, suspend it
mend it, send it back
© Brenton Sinay 2008
