Hi Monkeys,

It’s freakin’ hot and nice here in the city. I’m at a coffee shop on the LES with some articles I need to read. I’m doin’ pretty well considering I got home at 5am after the bday party last night.

NYC is the most dynamic city I’ve ever been to. There are aspects that I hate completely, and some things are just too incredible and cool to not marvel at. You can walk down the street at 3am and see massive buildings with all their lights on, and you think about all the hot water flowing out of showers and sinks, and then cold water, and all the toilets flushing and refilling, and you realize there’s a controlled superflood happening all around you and it’s amazing. And then the ground rumbles as a commuter train zips underneath you, and a light goes out as another one goes on, and cell phones are all on and off and information is flowing and circuits opening and closing and elevators bobbing up and down around you, and the foot traffic is intense, people walking like they’re on the fashion runway, girls with their tits out, barely able to stay on their heels, powerwalking douchebags whose dates didn’t put out, normal old men on the same route they’ve taken for years despite everything having changed completely. Normal people and total insane weirdos sitting next to each other, each in their zone, tuning into to their tech or their texts. It’s a chaos that never gets chaotic.

New Yorkers can be so alive. They’re out on the streets, they’re engaging, they’re trying stuff and learning stuff, mostly.

It’d be nice if a giant wall could be built between Manhattan and Williamsburg.

Incidentally, can we get these two to hook up? That’d be HOT.

Nah, you know what’d be hotter?

Ah, yeah. That’d be real hawt, you duck brained baffoon.

<yawn>

Somehow Starkweather is playing tonight. There was a time when I had this band on repeat. It’s dark metalcore. The vocals wear you out, but if you’re in the mood for intensity and exhaustion, Rennie Resmini is hard to beat. I really like the mixed of guttural screaming vocals and his sort of weird calming vocals that always somehow sounded so tortured. He starts this song with the calm stuff and it gets twisted as the track progresses. Lyrics below. Love the reference at the very end.

I’m pretty sure Rennie is crazy, but his vocals are genuinely his, and I like it.

Heed warning.
Take leave of this place.
Force the break.
You’ve made it this way.
Suffer this you’ve earned it.

Spring-loaded shadow hovering over your shoulder.
Come crashing through the door.
Measure despair in fears.
Gather yourself off the floor.
Suffer this you’ve earned it.

Pretty on the outside
I know that you have become
broken from inside
I know what you have become.

Mottled in bruises and scrapes.
Bed of nails where you lay
pretty on the outside.
I hope that serves you well.

Mother
Echidna
lays with animals
who rip her flesh,
break her bones.

Listen to the part at 7:07, if you can. Rennie is doing is screamy thing for a couple measures, but the rest of the band comes in on vocals, very quietly at first, repeating the “Mother Echidna” part of the chorus (from Greek mythology, Echidna (Ancient Greek: Ἔχιδνα, “she viper”) was half woman half snake, known as the “Mother of All Monsters” because most of the monsters in Greek myths were mothered by her), until it’s just them repeating that last stanza. The way they do it is so awesome and eerie. Go to 7:07 and listen for just two minutes, it’s great.

I’m actually surprised they’re playing. They formed in 1992 and have been off my radar for about 5 years maybe. $8 at the door. We’ll see. As you can see from the link above, it’s a full show, I think 5 bands total, so not sure when to show up.

Better get back to work. See you tomorrow, beloveds.

Bye.