Blogs 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
Tales from the Unequipped Part 1
This is just the start of a series I hope to keep going on this blog here at thatwasthenmusic.com! While I’m sure the content may evolve over time, my initial goal is just to bring you some behind the scenes tales from our gigging adventures all across this city of flippant angels.
TODAY in Part 1, I’m going to share with you this little heartwarming anecdote from our King King show last night—besides the story of how one fan, Ryan Healy, with the help of his girlfriend, Tori, helped donate two garbage bags full of toys to needy children this season. Oh also to get in for free. The cheap bastards. 
Anyway, as I was saying… There we were in the middle of our as-yet-unreleased booty shaker, Girl You Don’t Have It. I was rocking all over the place…and I mean that quite literally. In fact, I’m sure at some point some actual rolling occurred. No pun.
Like I said, we’re jammin’ like the Marley song, coming up to the second verse where I play that funky, stuttering riff completely by myself as an interlude, when all of a sudden my volume just cuts out. It took me a couple of seconds to actually realize I was getting nothing, and then valuable more precious time to check my gear for some sort of operator error. It seemed I was getting no power, no electricity!
I couldn’t solve it in time, and OH NOOOOOO! the solo part came up and no guitar came out. This is where the behavior reminiscent of the end of It’s A Wonderful Life came in. All my band mates rushed to my aid, a cappella, mashing on invisible guitars and shouting out the absent part. It was reassuring enough to know that my ‘mates were supporting me during my time of technological crisis, but as I craned my head to look out into the crowd I saw half of the attendees rocking their mouths along as well.
I must tell you, there is no more satisfying feeling.
Eventually I got it fixed and joined in on the next chorus, but I won’t forget the way the whole room just came together and was in sync for one sweaty, glorious, and fleeting fragment of time.
——————————–
And this concludes Part one of TALES from the UNEQUIPPED!
Stay tuned for more juicy tidbits, readers! (of note: What the hell is a tid? And why has it been verbally dissected into small pieces?)
—NP—
Going to California
I was born in Bermuda, grew up on the east coast, and now I live in California. It wasn’t an easy transition to make, leaving all of my friends, family, and band-mates past and present, but it was completely worth it. I’ve grown more in the past two years than any point in my life. I’ve met so many amazing and talented people out here. None of this would have happened if I had just accepted my situation and disregarded the urge to change my life for the better. This is what the song “Going to California“ is about to me.
.Led Zeppelin – “Going to California“
Lyrics:
Spent my days with a woman unkind, Smoked my stuff and drank all my wine.
Made up my mind to make a new start, Going To California with an aching in my heart.
Someone told me there’s a girl out there with love in her eyes and flowers in her hair.
Took my chances on a big jet plane, never let them tell you that they’all are the same.
The sea was red and the sky was grey,I wondered how tomorrow could ever follow today.
The mountains and the canyons started to tremble and shake
as the children of the sun began to awake.
Seems that the wrath of the Gods
Got a punch on the nose and it started to flow;
I think I might be sinking.
Throw me a line if I reach it in time
I’ll meet you up there where the path
Runs straight and high.
To find a queen without a king,
They say she plays guitar and cries and sings… la la la la
Ride a white mare in the footsteps of dawn
Tryin’ to find a woman who’s never, never, never been born.
Standing on a hill in my mountain of dreams,
Telling myself it’s not as hard, hard, hard as it seems.
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”.
Nicky P is moving!
Hah, just thought I’d shock you. Truth is, my parents are just moving 40 miles south to Carlsbad at the start of summer next year. Even though by all accounts I’m an adult and I can do what I want, it’s still upsetting. Just goes to show you can’t really make assumptions about things. Being the bard that I am, I just had to write a song about it. Here is the incomplete version, I’ll explain more once I am magically teleported to your computer screen…!
(lyrics after the jump)
Purple sapling in the yard,
it’s been 5 years it struggled hard.
Now I’ll never see it grow,
and if it does I’ll know it was without me
I walked here before I could drive,
so many “firsts,” we took the dive
I didn’t know how soon the “lasts” would come…
Well, now it’s done.
When we were young we would whisper of the day
needles would rain down and burst the bubble
that made us stay
But now, how to say goodbye
to Laguna?
Comment with any questions, comments. Much love!
—Nicky P—
Nicky P’s First Journal
November 22, 2009
These Cons are far too clean for my liking, I think, as I gingerly remove them from their cardboard coffin. Then again, many things these days are just too much. There are too many half-full beers, “fallen soldiers” scattered atop a table I got for free from this aging sorority chick who was moving out of the place downstairs. My ice box of a room smells much too much like cigarette smoke from some name-forgotten guest that I drunkenly let indulge indoors, but the aroma is dominated by the richer scent of its big brother, the cigar. Mr. Sinay arrived at the apartment complex (what an appropriate name) near the witching hour, decked in a tux jacket I had lent him earlier to fight off the cold. It was too big for my gangly frame, but on him it fit well and didn’t even reek of overdressing. Dangling from his mouth was the locomotive cigar. It’s odd—amongst my friends I have been known as the guy who doesn’t smoke cigarettes. Despite this, I took a couple puffs from Brenton’s mouthpiece like I was one of the bad boys in Pinnochio. What in my mind distinguishes cigars from cigarettes? Besides the cute French ending, I guess it must be the addictiveness. Then again, I am more or less addicted to other things that many people claim to be impossible to abuse. I’ll allow your mind to fill in the blanks on that one.
So, as I was saying, here I am amongst a pile of sort-of-metaphorical rubble, typing away as if the faster my fingers move the less cold I will be. As expected, this doesn’t work. At least my dimwitted Mac offers a convenient refuge from Poetry Homework. How ironic that my mode of escape from English is writing? Eh. I could’ve played guitar, too, but having done that all day I’m somewhat riffed out. Gasp! Nick Papageorge, Nicky P himself, TIRED of playing guitar?! Not really; actually, I could go for a nice jam at the moment (and I am not referring to the strawberry variety). Thing is, I’ve felt inspired recently to react differently to certain emotional input. My vagueness is just maddening isn’t it? Anyhow, this is how it started. Yesterday the aforementioned Brenton Sinay and I had a totally legal beer at the dingy and lazily misnamed bar across from my arctic tree house, Maloney’s. I don’t know what my deal is, but I suppose it takes a couple of repetitions before something is hammered into my brain as truth. One of his usual motivating rants got me thinking—there is just SO much that Future Me is missing out on. I am a forgetful person by nature, but the stuff that goes on around me, even the most miniscule, insignificant event, shouldn’t be forgotten. If I write it down I capture it, I contain it, I control it, I own it. And now this is a part of my consciousness, or should I say our collective consciousness, dear reader.
Just you wait.
__—NP—__
Jeff Buckley Tribute
I am posting tonight to honor a musician who has inspired me a great deal over the last couple of years. Ever since music became a serious part of my life, I have had a thirst for new stuff to listen too. I am always looking for new music to take inspiration from. Since embarking on this constant search for new music, I find that there are some albums and artists that I don’t rush out and buy. For what ever reason, some get put into an “I’m interested, but I’ll come across to buying you later” pile.
Jeff Buckley’s Grace was one of those albums for me. I had heard of him and read things saying what an amazing voice he had, how captivating of a performer he was and how Grace was one of the best albums of the 90′s. For some reason, I was like “eh, that’s cool, I’ll get around to getting it sometime.” I finally said to myself, ”his name and this album keeps popping, just buy it already, you will like it, stop being lazy!” So, I bought it and was blown away. I hadn’t heard anything like it, I hadn’t heard anyone sing with such passion and with such emotion. It was so awe inspiringly beautiful and it quickly became my favorite album thus far.
Unfortunately, Grace was the only album he ever released as he died in tragically in 1997 and was added to a growing list of artists that the world had lost far too soon. On what would have been his 43rd birthday I am posting two videos of my two favorite songs off of Grace. The first is the opening track entitled “Mojo Pin” and the second, his most well known, is a cover of Leonard Cohen’s song “Hallelujah.” Enjoy
A Song For Employees
I used to work in an Office. Daily, it would drain the life right out of me. The day’s monotony beat me down over the course of a few months and I was miserable. If only I had a way to deal with the stress!
The next time you’ve had a rough day at the Office/Work you can hum this brilliant tune and nobody will be the wiser!
Stand By Me, Around the World
This song has echoed across attics, bounced through boulevards, and danced around dining rooms for more than 50 years now. Maybe it’s because I’m reading Dante’s Divine Comedy for the umpteenth time back at UCLA (and actually starting to enjoy it now!) that I am no longer surprised by old works bringing forth very real, contemporary emotions. As “they”–whoever they are–say, some things never change.
But what’s really interesting about this video is the manner in which it was edited together. A camera crew recorded street performers and traditional artists from all over the Earth doing their individual renditions of the song “Stand By Me.” They were instructed to play the song in a certain key so that once combined, all the different parts would shine together. It’s truly a work of art…moving quickly from shot to shot to these intimate scenes in these completely separated places almost makes you feel like you’ve been teleported there.
If you have any heart at all the symbolism of all these different cultures coming together to make music is touching. It’s the same feeling I get when I play music with my band mates. Enjoy!
“Stand by Me” performed by musicians around the world from SKAT on Vimeo.
