Happy Birthday To Me!

Well at the insistence of my wonderful girlfriend I'm writing a blog about my fantastic birthday celebration.

Normally, I don't really care all that much about my birthday. It just seems like another day of the year that goes by and then I turn a different age without anything really all that special attached to it. But this year seemed pretty special or at least Eileen made it pretty special. Don't get me wrong I've had a blast for past birthdays, especially my 21st...yikes!

First, she gave me presents on everyday leading up to my birthday or rather everyday that she saw me. Most of which included candy and monster, but also notes and leaves. It's definitely the thought that counts and that was very sweet. Then because she wouldn't be able to see me on my actual birthday we had a birthday celebration at my apartment on the Wednesday before hand. Unfortunately, that included my assholes roommates eating all my birthday chili and birthday brownies...

ANYWHO...

Eileen came over to my apartment and made us chili, which was unbelievably delicious by the way, and then she gave me my actual birthday presents which were: a awesome t-shirt that had a Four Year Strong (band) lyric on it. She, of course, doesn't like how it turned out, but I thought it was awesome, also a three pound bag of gummy bears (the German ones that are better than anything other ones), and a gift card to Urban Outfitters so I can try and be more of a hipster than I am now... She decorated the apartment with balloons and banners that read "Chris' Birthday Celebration." Then like a sweet heart took the family pictures we have been waiting to take of Rich, Dave, and myself. Speaking of which we need addresses of people so that we can send you our holiday cards.

Eileen made my birthday or pre-birthday very special and for that I thank her very much.

Then on Saturday we had a show in Dekalb, which wasn't one of the greatest venues we played at, but the promoter was really nice and gave us more than our fair share of door which was really awesome. After the show was the really awesome part. We went over to friends of ours James, Bryan, and Dan (the guys from The Nominees Are) house and we played a sort of acoustic set at their party, which was a fucking blast. We also played The Nominees Are song that we are recording "Cure For the Common Crush" and James (their lead singer) sang for it. We had a really awesome time there. We started our set at midnight and everyone in the room toasted to Josh and me for our birthday. Then The Nominees Are played their set and included a handful of Alkaline Trio songs and Fall Out Boy songs, which got the whole room jumping and singing. All in all, it was a really awesome experience and fun time.

It was a lot of fun to hang out with those guys again and really get to talk to them a bit more about the split that we are doing with them, which we are all ridiculously stoked for. We just have a lot of big ideas for it. We go into the studio the first weekend in December at Gravity with George Balogi, who worked on "Sufferer and The Witness" and with some friends of ours in Love Me Electric. They highly recommended him to us as well.

The Nominees Are going into the Lucky Boys Confusion studio the first couple weeks in January. It'll be really awesome to use both those producers as names attached to this record, as well as, James told us we could use whatever quote we want to from the lead singer of Armor For Sleep. All really beneficially things when trying to get good press on the record to really get our name out there.

Speaking of press on this record, it looks like this will be the first release on Rockasaurus Records. Hopefully you'll be hearing more from that end of stuff soon. I have a meeting with Jim and Anthony at Minty Fresh to help us get all the legal stuff set up. It's really nice to have people to help us out with is since we are complete noobs. I know a bit about the contracts, but not enough to be totally set and not screw over people or get screwed over.

We have HUGE plans for the release show of this record. It looks like we'll have LBC as our huge band attached and it'll probably at the Metro too. All those things we are working out the details for.

Then tour this summer to support the record, which is tentatively titled "Roller Rinks and Stiff Drinks," which basically is the complete sum of the first night we met The Nominees Are at Crystal Wheels. After the show we went and drank till 7am. Awesome.

We are just so excited to work with these guys because they are just really cool and fun guys. Most importantly, they love music and just hanging out and having fun and that's all we are interested in having a good time. It's just really refreshing to be working with guys that are having fun with what they love doing and that in turn makes the whole experience a blast. It's going to be awesome sharing a studio, record, and tour with these guys.

"Putting the punk back in pop"

ALSO

I'm listening to the new Kanye record right now and honestly...it blows. There's not as much hip-hop in this record its more of an R&B record and if I really wanted to listen to that I would listen to someone that has a good voice like John Legend (and if you're interested check out "Once Again" solid record). But people fell in love with Kanye after Gold Digger, which with the help of Jaime Foxx (who is also putting a new record...hilarious) was a really awesome HIP HOP track. Then "Graduation" came out and made Kanye a fucking staple in the hip-hop pop world and I honestly think this record is going to hurt him in the frat boy market. It'll sky rocket in the R&B category probably, but I don't think frat guys, before they ruffie up the first girl of the night, aren't really going to put on "Streetlights" to get their blood flowing from the steroids like "Stronger" did.

There will probably be the initial push that people pick up the record because Kanye put out a new record and they heard "Love Lockdown," so they bought it. After that I think they'll really see the sales dip and then we'll probably hear Kanye on the news whining about people not listening to him because he's a real big baby like that. That's ok though, he'll be on every other hip hop/R&B female singer/rappers records because people will still think he's cool.

I just heard the lyric "You think your shit don't stink, but you are Mrs. Pee You"

Alright I have to go to bed, because unlike Dave whos a total asshole I have to work tomorrow.

Fuck you boners I'm out.

-Chris

Trying to stay occupied

So today I brought my laptop with me to work because I wanted to keep working on trying to get Left For Dead (a sweet zombie survival game) Demo working on the windows side of my mac. So I'm impatiently waiting for the drivers to download (long story; don't ask), I decided that I would write a blog.

I've started work at the Metro, which has been really sweet, but sometimes a little slow (note: I'm writing a blog and downloading a video game). Work at Direction is getting tedious and boring, but it barely pays the bills so I guess I'll keep working there. Until maybe I find something that pays me more money because it seems like everyone is getting jobs that's making them more money. It totally goes to show that if you work somewhere you want to work (Metro) you don't get paid dick for it, but if you work some corporate job like Josh (Chase) you get paid a lot of money. Also Carly is now a manager at Hot Topic making WAY more than I do, so she better pull her fucking weight and get us an in-store there....

Last Thursday Dave, Rich, Lily, Eric Wilson (I really want to call him Brian Wilson....fuck it). Last Thursday Dave, Rich, Lily, BRIAN Wilson, Josh and I all went to what's called the Most Interesting Show In The World. Which was basically a side show. There were a lot of freaks there. Needless to say it was insane and hilarious all rolled in one. I could go into a lengthy description about them, but instead I'll give you their names and you can youtube them, they all have videos, in order of most to least awesome.

1. Lilia Stepanova (who is hot a twists her self in a bunch of ways)
2. Kenichi (awesome dancer guy)
3. Leonid The Magnificent (you wouldn't believe me if I told you)
4. Mark Faje (balanced a running lawn mower on his chin)
5. Johnny Fayva (hilarious)

There were other acts, but not nearly as cool. We got in for free because....ya know I know a guy that got me some tickets...no big deal...

Anyway, the night of this show I was helping at the Metro set up and I got in a car accident. Don't worry I'm fine (that's pretty much for Jenna because I know the rest of you don't really care). I was pulling through an intersection, long story short, a woman barreled though and t-boned me. My car still moves, but the passenger side doors, front and back, don't open. Hopefully, I can get it fixed soon if my brother ever calls the insurance company like he was supposed to do last Friday...

Here is where I was going to go into a long winded rant about how car accidents are the silliest thing in the world due to the other person always getting pissed at you for their fault while they have two little kids in the car and clearly are teaching them that it's OK to swear and blame other people for your problems. Also how insurance is the biggest fucking joke in the world. You pay mounds and mounds of money to get your car fixed when it needs to be, but they still make you pay a deductable when you do get it fixed. BUT I won't rant about that...

The American Autumn is going really well. We have a show this Saturday at Just for Fun in McHenry with a couple other really cool bands that seem to have some pull, so hopefully that will go well have be lots of fun at the same time. We are currently trying to get recording figured out. Due to Atlas not returning emails and Gravity giving us a bugets thats...well way over budget, we are currently shopping studios to get quotes. We are all extremely anxious to get new stuff up and done with so we can release this split, but as usual, it's taking much much longer than anticipated.

Also my birthday is coming up....
"Hey just wanted to let you know that my birthday is coming up"

"Hey just wanted to let you know I didn't get you anything"

My loving and wonderful girlfriend has been giving me little gifts nearly every day until my birthday comes where she gives me my real present? Its mostly candy and some other neat stuff, but I haven't been short of bulls-eyes lately (and fuck off to the people that say they don't like bulls-eyes).

I think thats as much of an update as you are going to get. I still have 12 min to go for this download, but I supposed I should get some work done. Or at least continue to drink Dr. Pepper out of this coffee mug (it gives me cred because it sort of looks like coffee).

"Why is your coffee carbina..."
"So's your face"

-Chris