On new songs and apparel...

[2041]

Cornered practice was last night. We recorded instrumental demo versions of our three latest tracks. Jon wasn't at practice because he was studying for his exams, which are in full flight. I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. I uploaded one of them, with the provisional title of Barricade, onto our MySpace. People seem to think it's pretty good, so I'm happy about that.

I'm stoked with how much interest there is from people in hearing the rest of our new stuff. We've put a lot of love into it, so I hope it goes down well when it eventually sees the light of day.

I sorted out the Another Day In Hell shirts yesterday. We're going to be getting a limited run of them done, and there won't be a reprint. They should be ready for our second last show, with Crowd Control, on the 28^th of June.

It'll look like something along the lines of what's on the right (click for a biggun [edit: even bigger now, just for Gav)...

They'll be printed on white Fruit Of The Loom heavyweight classics in a bunch of sizes. If you can't make it to the show and want one, hit up the Another Day In Hell MySpace, or email halfshellrecords [at] gmail [dot] com, and we'll see what we can hook up.

There won't be a reprinting of these and once they're gone, they're gone for good.

It's payday tomorrow, so I'm thinking about buying a new PC to celebrate. I didn't really want to buy another PC, because I'd much prefer to have a Mac, but I want to have a solid development machine that I can use from home. I've not really been a complete technology nerd for some time, and I guess I'm ashamed to say that I found some perverse pleasure in reading through technical specification, looking for what I want but not paying too much for it. It's not going to be for gaming rig or anything even close, and the only real stipulation I had was that the motherboard have a HDMI connection so I can plug it into that ridiculous TV I have.

As for size, it'll be a small form factor one, but with a pretty decent AMD X2 and 4 GB RAM. I think the modular power supply is a good idea, partly because it increases airflow and all the benefits that brings along with it, but mostly because I hate trying to get cables in and out of the way. The one I picked out also has 4 native SATA power connectors. I Also went with an SATA hard disk and DVD drive.

I also spent a little while looking for a cheap Mad Catz HDMI adapter for first generation XBox 360s allowing them to output signals in 1080p.

I eventually managed to hook one up from GameStop. Hopefully it'll arrive soon. It'll also free up the component input port on the TV for my Wii. 480p MarioKart, here I come... *ahem*

Finally, Rock Band is out tomorrow. Hell yeah. Sorry Rachel, but you're never going to see me again.

Now I'm done.

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Bands I'm listening to that you should also be the one that's listening to:

• Spat On
• Piece By Piece

[2139]

The recent past...

It's been a while since I've made any kind of post about what I've been up to. So here goes.

I finally got myself a new car to replace my poor dead 106. After a little looking, I picked up a 98 Nissan Pulsar, which is basically just the Japanese version of the Almera. After my last car, and the replacement that I had, the difference is dramatic. It has a beverage holder.

I've not got any pics of it here, but I'll update the blog when I eventually get home.

Last weekend, I spent some quality time with my homies from First Death, Forging Friendships and Another Day In Hell in the UK, playing a couple of shows. The guys in First Death and Forging Friendships went across on the Thursday night on the ferry in the Lee's car and in the FD van. Downtown Lee Brown and I had a flight booked for the next day.

I spent the night burning and printing up one hundred numbered ADiH 3 track sampler demos. I started about midnight, and it took about 9 full hours, so I go abolutely no sleep. My dad dropped me up to the airport and I met up with Lee. After a short flight, and two train rides, we arrived in Bury St. Edmunds for the first show.

All three bands were playing in The Old Maltings with Almost Home, Think Again! and Storm And Stress. There weren't too many people at this show, but it was a whole lot of fun, and I think it was one of the better shows we've played. After the gig, we all bailed into our Travelodge. I was so tired from the night before that I just passed out (lying across the pillows) when we finally got into the room.

The Travelodge itself was halfway between Bury and Colchester, where our show was the next day. We only had three triple rooms booked, with thirteen people to get in, so we ended up sneaking in in shifts.

The Travelodge had a Little Chef attached to it, so the next morning, we all went for breakfast and I hooked myself up with some sweet Linda McCartney sausages, mushrooms and beans. Om nom nom.

On the Saturday, Another Day In Hell were playing on the first day of From The Heart. It was a pretty good set, but I managed to fuck up at least one bit of one of our songs, especially our newest one. The rest of the show was a lot of fun, with Special Move, Last Witness and Teenage Lust being the best of the bunch.

The next day of From The Heart was also pretty good, with Forging Friendships and First Death putting in class performances. First Death were one of the best bands of the whole weekend. Other highlights of the day were Get Fucking Dead and Jailbait.

Lee and I'd decided that we were going to get the ferry back with the other dudes, so we had to get up way early to get our stuff together to leave. After a sweet 9 hour drive, involving headpunches, ball games, water fights, Nintendo and van mosh, we arrived at Holyhead and got the ferry back to Dublin.

This post is coming from Sweden. The blog about this trip'll come pretty soon.

Late post

Just arrived back in my house after being in the UK for a few days with Another Day In Hell, where we played some shows with First Death and Forging Friendships. I'm pretty tired now so I'll post a proper account of the trip soon.

Also, it was my girlfriend's birthday while I was away, and I missed it. Sorry, Rach. x

Old School

Last night, on the way home from Another Day In Hell practice, Chris and I listened to highlights from Beneath The Remains, Chaos A.D. and Roots (all by Sepultura, in case you didn't know). When I was at home the other day, I listened to Beneath The Remains and Arise from start to finish. This is something I have not done in quite some time.

Sepultura were such a good band until Max Cavalera left. I've not listened to any of the stuff they've released since then, but I don't really hold out much hope for it, although there's a new album coming in 2008 apparantly.

Anyways, while listening, it became apparent to me the impact that both this band and early Machine Head has had on the music that I've written over the last few years, and, as a direct consequence of this, on my life in general. There are others who'd probably disagree, but I definitely don't think this is a bad thing. As a result, I've decided that this weeks listening is going to heavily feature bands that I used to listen to all the time when I was 15 and 16.

In any case, practice last night was great. Zach was supposed to be in work til 8, but got off at about 7.30, so before he got there we worked on some bits and pieces that may or may not come to anything, but after he arrived we got down to business and hammered out a new song that I'm pretty sure is going to be my favourite once we get it all nailed down.

We're DIY. Ha ha ha.

Because it's not quite ready, we won't be playing it at our next show, which is this Thursday the 21^st of February, in Eamonn Dorans. It's supporting Los Mendozas and The Mingers with Only Fumes And Corpses and one of my boy Zach's other bands, Find A Way. It's going to be a good time. Doors are at 7.30pm and you can get in and kick people in the face for a measly €7.

Flier on the left.

Come and ruin the other people's lives.

I'm finished plugging now.

After practice, Chris, Zach and I hit up Tin-Tins on Baggot St. for some sweet eats and solid laughs. On the way home, I drove through some of the heaviest fog that I've ever seen. I could see maybe 2 feet up the road in front of me. 15 ^km/_h for about 8km. That's not to say that everyone else on the road was taking the same precautions, and there were cars going past us a LOT faster than we were going. It's no wonder there are so many road deaths in this country.

It was still foggy this morning when I was on the way to work, but it was much prettier out. I drive the back-roads to Blanchardstown from Skerries, and it was like a winter wonderland. I would have taken a photo if I wasn't too busy trying to survive.

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Bands I'm listening to that you should also be the one that's listening to:

• Machine Head - The More Things Change
• Sepultura - Chaos A.D.

xkcd and it's place in my life

I'm still finding identity with stuff I read on the internet, but none more so than what's in xkcd. Sometimes, I wish that I didn't, because what's in there doesn't always make me feel good. The one above does though, because I've been doing it for a long time.

I've spent the last weekend doing stuff with my friends that I love to do. Hanging out and organising shows, this time for a couple of bands from England and Wales. I got to come alive for another 25 minutes on Saturday afternoon. It was the best time yet.

In about a month, I'll be heading to England to play my first shows outside of Ireland. I'm looking forward to that. The week after, I'm going to Sweden via Denmark to hang out with my boy Simon and eat good food and maybe get tattooed.

On occasion, life is alright.

Imagine the faces of strangers exploding...

Time for some more hate.

Valentine's day approaches fast. I want to choke every smiling couple I see on chocolate hearts, inexpertly wrapped in red foil. Sorry if you like me and this includes you. Having spent some time thinking on it, it strikes me that I'd probably rather die alone than put myself in the firing line again. Being non-specifically bitter is a lot easier than I thought it'd be.

It's hard for me to trust anyone,
and that's what hurts the most.
I've got a heart that I can't open,
and fist that I keep closed

Moving on.

We, Another Day In Hell, played a show last Saturday with Arcada, Heathers and Soldiers Take Half. It was some of the most fun I've had yet this year. We played a new song and busted out a cover that we're probably not going to play again, no matter how much we're asked. I'm sorry if you missed it.

We also got the prospective artwork back for our CD from the amazing Simon Edge. It's looking good. It'll be getting released on Half Shell as soon as we have Blacklisted out of the way. I'm looking forward to finally having it done, considering how long it's been since we recorded the songs.

The show we were going to be playing on February 14^th has been canceled, but the all ages in Greystones on the 9^th is still going ahead. We might have another gig on the 7^th, and possibly some stuff at the start of March, before we head to the UK for the shows in Bury St. Edmonds and Colchester.

Other news. I found out today that it's going to cost me a lot more than €1,000 to get my car fixed. I don't know if it's worth it to keep it alive, when something else might go wrong. It's distressing. I love my little car. Apparantly I need something black, with racing stripes. I'm not so sure I agree.

Anyways. Blacklisted in two days. I'm trying to remain excited, but I'm just getting worried about it at this point. If this one doesn't go well, we'll have to evaluate how viable it is for us to put on these bigger shows.

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Bands I'm listening to that you should also be the one that's listening to:

• Panic

Suck on that, Dr. Phil.

This blog is about Another Day In Hell.

We had our first proper practice in almost 2 months last night. Due to me being an idiot, and not bringing Jon's snare or cymbals with me to work yesterday morning, I had to drive back to Skerries to pick them up, then back into town. Thanks to amazing traffic, I didn't get there til 7.20, meaning that I missed out on 2 hours of the practice and because I had the drums, it pretty much meant that the others couldn't do anything either.

Once we got set up, we blasted through the set once to warm up, and then got down to writing a new song. I'm pretty pleased with the result. We'll be playing it at our next show. Lyrics are on the MySpace

On that note, we were supposed to be playing next Wednesday, but the show was canceled before it even got organised properly. However, we've been asked to play next Saturday, the 19^th, in Eamonn Dorans with Arcada, Soldiers Take Half and Heathers. Flier below. I can't say enough good things about Soldiers Take Half, and an opportunity to see them should never be missed.


Our next show after that is the 9^th of February, supporting Save Your Breath and All Or Nothing, along with Nine IX Lives, Veteran and our real tight homies in Find A Way, fronted by the ubiquitous Zach Golden.


We've also been asked to play the Demented 2^nd anniversary show, on Valentines night, which I'm totally stoked about cos MacKell is a good dude and has done so much for Dublin Bay hardcore scene. More details on this show to come later.

We should have another practice before Saturday's show, and I'm really looking forward to it. I've never been happier with how things are going.

In case you missed all those links...

• Arcada
• Soldiers Take Half
• Heathers
  
• Save Your Breath
  
• All Or Nothing
• Nine IX Lives
  
• Veteran
  
• Find A Way