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]

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

Clean slate

So up until now I've pretty much only written my blog using MySpace, which I'll be retiring shortly. There's a whole bunch of stuff in there that's personal to me, but probably pretty vague to most of everyone else. If you think something, especially something negative, that I've written about in the past is about you, you're most likely wrong. To date and for the most part, I've done this only for my own sanity.

The title of the blog comes from a song by Panic, a band I've very much gotten into this year. I guess identifying with negative song lyrics is part and parcel of being a hardcore dude.

I'm not entirely sure what my aim is with this, other than to give me another outlet for my negativity and frustration with regards to the modern world, my feelings for it, and my place in it. I guess you could say that in this I'm my own worst enemy.

You don't have to go for my throat, I can cut it fine by myself.

All this hate aside, I'll probably be posting the general and unimportant to all but me details of my life here. That means Half Shell, Another Day In Hell, Cornered and other stuff I do for music, and everything else, which might take precedence to it when it comes to the time I'm forced to spend, but falls far behind when it comes to love felt.

I shouldn't go any further without mentioning that, in a little over two weeks, this love will take the form of 3 US bands who're gracing our shores with their intensity, along with 2 phenomenal local bands, featuring some safe dudes, who I back hard. Links to all their pages are below

Go and listen and then get the records (in some way) and hit up notpopular for the lyrics. Come to the show, sing along, stage dive, don't start fights and have fun.

• Blacklisted (US)
• Shipwreck (US)
• Soul Control (US)
• First Death
• Crowd Control

That's enough for now.

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

• Panic
• spatXon