Ice Cream Island

Progression and Digression

Tue, 14 Oct 2008 18:07:40 GMT

Well, my plan for complete pre-production demos for most of the songs on the album has been somewhat hindered, due mainly to the complications and tediousness of playing and sequencing every single part of a song in order to make it an appropriate simulation of the final song and structure. That was a long sentence, but I just woke up, so BIG DEAL OK. Here's what I've got so far:

Did Me No Wrong (rough complete demo)
I Love You, But I Can't See Through the Paranoia (complete demo)
Victoria (piano demo)
Misunderstood (acoustic verse/chorus demo)
Tell Me Where You Are, Dear (acoustic demo)
Queen of Air/I've Been Running Over/She's All Mine/C U In Dreams (10% complete demo)
Skies are Grey (drums 75% complete, epic bridge complete)
A Little Bit Rock 'n Roll (drums complete, but need changing as song has been restructured)

I'd say that it is at least somewhat prolific, but moreso just on paper, because a lot of those are pretty incomplete, disincluding ones that have already been heard. There are several discouraging aspects to demoing this way: firstly, doing it all on my own, if inspiration strikes to do a demo, you don't even get to delve into anything creative; I am immediately faced with sequencing out an entire song's drum track, which is the skeleton and very tedious and boring. The problem that arises with this is that I'm forced to come up with robotic fills and sections in parts where in my head I'm relying on Lee to come up with something creative. Anyway, you get 30% through sequencing drums and get bored and want to stop, and therefore lose your inspiration. Secondly, because you are trying to simulate a song in some sort of finality, you come to parts where you're not necessarily sure of what you want to do, and have to do SOMETHING, which goes hand in hand with the other annoying thing: once the other fellas in the band hear it, they tend to play to the demo, which discourages writing together, and takes away some of the spontaneity that comes with writing as a group. So all in all, I guess it becomes tough to fully demo a song. I'm focusing on Skies are Grey right now. The major thing with this album is the eclectic, epic production. It's not just two big guitars over bass and drums, it's multiple guitar sounds in one song, creating different dynamics, experimenting with a ton of sounds, putting multiple keyboard parts over that, orchestrating brass sections, and to do a demo of that is really weird. Maybe I should save it until we're all working on it together. Anyway.

Overall, things are looking good. The tracklisting is semi-complete minus the other guy's contributions, so we'll see it evolve. I'll write more later because I need to go to the store.

cuz with credit cards, you don't gotta pay inside

Sat, 02 Aug 2008 03:01:41 GMT

Two and a Half Men is on, but it's ok to start writing because I've seen this episode. I've recently become enamored by the show via hitting the hay around 9 PM like an old man. The nightly routine of 2&1/2M, Seinfeld, Everybody Loves Raymond, and a somewhat hazy amalgam of Family Guy has become a dull comfort to the pain of this current lifestyle. I enjoy Seinfeld in a non-ironic way, but watching this show with the David Cross quote in mind (i.e. even when the show is good, it's not THAT good) makes it easy to swallow without much question to my integrity and tastes regarding television.

I'm writing in this thing again because I feel like it is appropriate to write again after a long (over a year) break. I deleted my old livejournal amidst a civil war in my thoughts; in a fit of obsessive need for protecting myself against myself. I was writing for the wrong reasons. I was writing for an audience that wasn't there, and couldn't for the life of me figure out what a real thought was versus a thought compelled by my percieved idea of what somebody else might think of it. At this point in time, I feel that nobody will read this, and that provides a comfortable writing environment for the time being. I'll be writing about my band/album, but not a LOT tonight. It would be too tedious and forced.

I've been reading a lot lately (or so it seems) and I feel that it has helped with my vocabulary and the general cohesiveness of my thought process as my fingers hit the applicable keys on the board. 'The Winter of Our Discontent' (Steinbeck's swan song, in my opinion) was an breath of fresh, sea-soaked New England air. Totally engrossing, and I feel that I'll have to read it again and let a couple of friends borrow it so I can fully take it in.

Music and creativity have experienced a recent renaissance. Coincidentally, when I "quit" drugs (during a much less coincidentally drought in the availability of aforementioned drugs), it seemed that my real emotions were breaking out of the grave and coming to life before me. My interest and drive for recording Ice Cream Island II has been rejuvenated and the table is set to finish what I started. It's going to be hard to stay away from drugs. It's easy to be a trainwreck and there's a thousand things that occur each day that make it seem like a good idea to turn back down that dark, dead-end road. I don't want to turn to music just out of desperation for the lack of an easy fix. I'm building myself up to take the steps necessary to get back to a good creative place.

Playing an acoustic show August 16th at the Stillman Valley department. I recently saw Fastball and the Toadies live, which have fueled the envy fire and made me want to get back on the stage, one way or the other. Going to hope that a few kids in town still dig on PD (which I'm pretty sure of) and bust out some of those songs. That's all for tonight.

Mon, 10 Oct 2005 22:47:22 GMT

We found a practice space. That's it. My life is complete. That means we don't have to talk to or associate with anyone, ever. Basically, if we can get back into the routine of practicing 7 days a week, then life automatically doesn't suck anymore, because all that I have to worry about is work, sleep, and Punch fucking Drunk. Fuck you.

Wed, 05 Oct 2005 06:42:37 GMT

Epiphany.

Holy resurrectable sacrificial lamb. You'll come back to life soon.

Tue, 04 Oct 2005 05:21:23 GMT

So, lately our internet is being the dirtiest hooker. I don't know why, it just is. This is really annoying considering that the three things to do at the apartment are 1) computer 2) music and 3) tv, so cutting one of those out makes things very redundant around these parts. I thought about it a lot, and I'm going to actually try to care about work while I'm there from now on. Like, go out of my way to do a good job and shit like that. I predict that will last all of 10 minutes into the next work day. We're very much in need of a practice space right now, and I'm sure not still where we're going to take our shit. Nobody wants to have a really loud rock n roll band play in their garage. So it looks like I'll have to con my parents into hosting the Ice Cream Island sessions. It probably won't work. That's obviously the main issue right now, after that, we really need to put all of our money (we don't have any) into getting into a studio for some demos. I feel like any label would be an idiot not to put out the next record, but of course we have to prove that ourselves. We're lazy, and I hate to point out a problem without a solution - and I don't really even think it's a problem - but it probably is silly for us to not really jump all over this shit. We've been working really hard on the songs, but acoustic in the apartment is one thing, we need to become a real live machine again. I find that every new song I write is more and more challenging for me to piece together. I think this is great, because I'm coming up with stuff that my brain almost can't translate. But I'm getting it together piece by piece. WXRX is playing us again I guess, which is really inconsequential in the long run, but goddammit, I think it's cool. At least there's some kind of semi-credible recognition in Rockford for us. I can't wait to go on there and play live. We have a big local show October 28th at some church. I'll get the details. But I think it's going to be really big, and we're really going to push it. We seriously play in Rockford about 3 times a year. We really want to make this one good. I hope Jedi comes up for it, even though he probably won't. If anyone wants to fly 8 hours to see us play, this is the best time to do it (which still doesn't really make it THAT good of a time, but whatever). We'll have a sleepover, I think we have an extra blanket or mattress or some shit, and we'll make it work. I realize that listening to the Beatles so much has planted a huge subconscious influence in my brain, aka I'm ripping the Beatles off every step of the way. It's awesome fun, though.

Hung out with Miss Blast from the Past pants Jenny yesterday. That was crazy. And good. Enjoyed a lengthy discussion on sex change operations amongst other semi-fun to fun stuff. She's blonde and blue in all the right places. We rock it out again tomorrow. Weird, that Pepper Drive is back on the Will Tallman Theft Auto map.

Right now, as we speak, gangsters are having what sounds to be a bit of a roustabout somewhere in the Mulford Park parking lot. This shit is funny and horrible. I'm from Stillman fucking Valley. We need to live out in the middle of nowhere again. Might as well. It sounds like it's getting pretty heated, and there is a girl crying and yelling. Somebody got arrested. Fuck Mulford Park. It's right in the middle of the nicest part of town. Never move into an apartment. Live with your parents as long as you possibly can. Everybody thinks they need to get out on their own and get their life in order and shit like that. Well, learn a lesson from me. It all sounds great, but then you end up living in Mulford Park with gangsters fighting outside and getting arrested and shit. I think it could be scientifically proven that every kid who moves away and goes to college or whatever the fuck always ends up back home with parents. I would've, except I really didn't want to go to college, and it didn't take too long for my parents to stop letting me live there. Speaking of Rockford, I wish that every fucking business in the area would stop advertising with the COMIC SANS MS font. I don't care what you do, anytime you use COMIC SANS MS in an advertisement, it looks like you're advertising some Nickelodeon show. Maybe it just reminds me of the 15 year olds who IM me with unintelligible 14. pt COMIC SANS MS bullshit. Maybe I'm just an asshole who picks apart the most inane details possible. All bets are off.

Cell phones are stupid. I want to say, for the record, that I was forced to buy one by the stifling pressure of 2005 American society. No conspiracy theories, but it's true. I'm not a real man if I don't have one. It's not all bad though, I can at least feel semi-human again when somebody wants to get ahold of me and they actually can. When did I stop being a teenage runaway? The number is 1-800-FUCK YOU. Call me.

I saw a Hawthorne Heights video the other day, and I didn't know it was Hawthorne Heights at first, but as soon as I started watching it I made sure to note how totally ridiculous it was before I actually figured out who it was, so I could justify how much I loathe these kinds of bands on a first taste basis. It worked! It hurts to see bands like that be so "big time". But, you can't really pick on them, because it's sortof like beating up a 9 year old girl.

My sister is having a baby, and I just want everybody to know that I will be UNKIE Will. I'll do my best to fulfill the untangibly cool, irresponsible duties that go along with the title.

Goddamn, we need to practice this week. I'm going to step up and be the leader and make it happen like it should. Bedtime.

Sat, 01 Oct 2005 03:18:18 GMT

Broken Halo Coalition video shoot TOMORROW. That will be fun. We need to think of a concept. It's going to be crazy though, and somehow end up with Jesus getting the short end of the stick.

Road tripping it this weekend thanks to my dad being a cool cat. Something like a stealth mission. Digging for some new roots. Nothing is going on. Working on new songs. Trying to finish demos so people who haven't heard drunken Will acoustic sessions will believe that they actually exist. Candy Lips is coming along nicely, I hope we'll have that finished soon.

I need to go talk to some scientists.

P.S.

Fri, 30 Sep 2005 03:59:15 GMT

Side note. I absolutely cannot find a balance between regular cigarettes and menthols. I need them both. It's retarded and crazy, but I think I'm just going to start having both on me at all times. Fuck me hard, lung cancer.

Fri, 30 Sep 2005 02:38:15 GMT

Double side note. Don't update your livejournal after that many cocktails.

Candy Lips & Poison Apples

Tue, 27 Sep 2005 05:14:44 GMT

It seems like the writing of the album has taken the natural course of tackling songs we are more familiar with/are older first, so tonight gave a bloody and incapacitated birth to a demo of 'Candy Lips & Poison Apples'. This is a song I wrote LAST summer, when there were like 12 songs that were supposed to make up our next record, only we waited so long to get started on it that this is one of the few remaining survivors for Ice Cream Island. I love this kind of song, one that just kindof writes itself and you don't put very much thought into, but it ends up being one of your favorite songs. It's like a sneak-attack favorite song. In a complete fantasy world where we actually got to have singles and pick them, this would be the first single from the album. It's really short. We need to figure out a way to do drums to this, and then if we can get decent vocal takes, I'll put it up here. Plus the lyrics are pornographic. Here you can read them!

A place in the sun
I don't even think I need it
My problems run
about as far as where I'll put my tongue
on her tonight, from hips to clavicle would be allright
she makes me feel, so honestly
let's make it real

Her money-maker is my god
(a bunch of whoah's and oh's here)

Don't waste your time
on the things that make you feel like shit
I'll waste my mind
because all I think about
is getting inside her tonight
it's well worth the wedding chapel
because she paints my mind
with candy lips & poison apples

(bridge)
She's the one I'm dreaming of
the lip gloss death from high above
I don't need lies or tears,
but I'm in love

...everybody wants a piece of me

Sat, 24 Sep 2005 00:08:36 GMT

It feels better that way.

I think that Ice Cream Island might become a lost album. Or maybe I just fantasize. I still like a lot of the songs. But if we keep writing the kind of new songs we're writing, there might be something better. If we could legitimately write an album's worth of this kind of stuff, and it was this good, it would have to become our main squeeze. BUT until then, this will remain the Ice Cream Island Diaries. I don't want anybody to get worried. I still love those songs. I just think I love these new ones in a bigger way. PD house show at the Milk Bar tomorrow. We're playing as a 3 piece, and I can't wait to see how it goes. We have so much built up energy that we've been chomping at the fucking bit to play live. In typical Punch Drunk fashion, I assume that we will get really really drunk before we play. At least everybody won't be on meth binges like last tour. Which reminds me, I miss the old Punch Drunk bus. The shuttle. The one we named after 'Bria'. I'm glad that the summer is over. I hate the transition into cold, but once it's fall, everything is new again, and it's my favorite time of year. Anyway. The official update...

Not a lot of progress musically this week. At work, I've been going over lyrics over and over in my head. They need to be perfect this time. I keep going back and changing a lot of the words to songs. But it's good, and everything keeps getting better. New songs this update are 'Gloria Holloway', 'Skies are Gray, I Don't Care', and 'Come to America'. There is something wrong with my throat, but it doesn't feel like the traditional swollen bullshit. I don't know what is going on, but it hurts and it's weird. I hope I didn't get cancer already. Piecing things together, piece by slow piece.

Fri, 16 Sep 2005 23:07:32 GMT

I told you up close and personal, and up close and personal is what you'll get.

Nate left the band because we're moving to Michigan. I understand his reasoning, and I hate to see it happen like this, but I honestly was expecting it to happen. I hate that I anticipated it but it seemed unavoidable. Obviously, that was a major reason we were holding back on getting the moving operation going, but that's the way it happens, we were ready for it, and we will proceed as planned.

This really sucks and I hate losing Nate, but on the other hand, I am desperate for a change in scenery and we needed to get on top of this, so it looks like we're one step closer.

randomness and boredom leads to shit like this.

Fri, 16 Sep 2005 03:26:45 GMT

This week is so dumb. Since Eric is gone, there's no practicing, no band stuff to do, and it really sucks. Tonight, the perils of boredom got the best of me and I recorded an acoustic cover of the Mopes' song 'Babydoll'. CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO IT. The quality is kinda crappy, so I apologize in advance. I feel so trapped here, this apartment, this town. An endless sea of assholes, where every opportunity for escape is eagerly grabbed. Some days it's worse than others, but I refuse to let this weekend be swallowed up by doing nothing and/or drinking heavily and excessively at the apartment, but I probably will because this is ROCKFORD FUCKING ILLINOIS. Somebody give me something to do, or something give me somebody to do. Listen to Babydoll and tell me what you think.

Hide & Seek

Thu, 15 Sep 2005 09:14:30 GMT

Creative breakthrough alert. Lee and I stayed up way past our bedtime playing with our song 'Hide & Seek'. It started off as my least favorite song on the record and now I know it's going to be my favorite. We came up with a bunch of different parts we didn't have before, just really sporadically, I love it when that shit happens. it deals with a bunch of shit. running away from parents and school and childhood etc. I've never been able to write about this stuff before.

sparkling cigarettes
remind me of the three times that i fled
crying virgin mary's
shedding tears for what you said
i shrugged and turned and left
that's just the nature of the idiot
countless adversaries in a warm, unhostile home

wise to weak
i'll just play hide & seek,
with myself
though i'm revealed
from bold to meak,
and when i tried to peek,
you said farewell

long after escape,
i had stumbled on a lovely day
cashing eager hello's
from a powerless 'so long'
and now that you are gone
i hope you found another song
sung by the next victim
in the longest line of fools

wise to weak
i'll just play hide & seek,
with myself
though i'm revealed
cold to flush
i think i surely must
depart this hell
i'm almost leaving

what goes up,
it must come down
don't test your luck
because you'll just end up
stuck where you fell
...is no one seeking me?

(bridge)
so go on
take this love and make it hate
till the circle is complete
and i am gone
and i'll be so far
that it won't matter, anyway
i tried to make you different
but you always stayed the same

Wed, 14 Sep 2005 06:51:24 GMT

Welcome. The purpose of me creating this journal is to provide a look into the creation of our what will be our next album, Ice Cream Island. It is more or less made with the idea of documenting the actual process of making the album come to life, but I plan to include all of the trials and tribulations that I personally go through in the process. I've never taken on a project this big musically, and this album is the one of the most important things to happen to me, and I'm not exaggerating when I say that every single member of this band is living for this right now. Eric, Lee and I got really drunk the other day and had a two hour long conversation about the album, and we started going through every song and realized that there was a story in there, fictitious and semi-autobiographical, so we wanted to share it with you. We're extremely excited about this because we feel that Ice Cream Island will be able to connect with a large number of people and there isn't a single song that we feel less than completely floored by, hence the album name, because everybody likes ice cream and every song is ice cream, baby. We'll get started by introducing you to the rough idea we have for a track listing. As of right now, this is the album:

-Side 1-
1. How I Spent My Revolution
2. Candy Lips & Poison Apples
3. A Little Bit Rock n Roll
4. Tongue Kiss of Doom
5. Swan Song
6. Broken Halo Coalition
7. Jocie's Got a Problem
8. the Sad Songs Have Sung
-Side 2-
9. I Love You, But I Can't See Through the Paranoia
-Interlude- So High Above
10. Hide & Seek
11. Lip Gloss Death
12. Stupid Girl
13. A Nice Day
14. The One I'm Dreaming Of
15. God Can't Hate Me From Outer Space
16. Every Time the Circle Begins

This isn't a concept album by any stretch of the imagination, but there are evolving and repeating themes throughout, and there are several stories that are interwoven from beginning to end. It's like a coming of age album sortof, spare me, because I know how that sounds, but to me, it's a distracted soundtrack to growing up and starting to find out who you are. I think it's a fitting point for us, I feel like it accurately represents where we are as a band and the point we've gotten to from Pure, Unadulterated Hate. That played the role so well as the lashing out album, it was our first step out into the world where we could speak and say whatever we wanted, and play whatever we wanted, and it was like a therapy session for all of the shit that we had been holding back until that point. Now we've had time to slow down and are opening our eyes to this new world. There's a love story, there's lighthearted songs about fucking, there's leftover anger, there's joy, there's introspectiveness, heartbreak, misery, and in the end, understanding. I am determined to make this album come out the way it needs to come out. And I really think we can do that.

Right now, we're in the stage of finally starting to build this puzzle we've been gathering the pieces for for the past year. Some of these songs are over a year old. I mean, last summer we had an album's worth of totally different songs (including a few of these), but over time they just kindof slipped through the cracks for one reason or another. I can assure you that the best ones are still here, though. We've started weeding through them at practice - when we first started getting together with the purpose of playing these new songs, we would just blindly run through all of them, just so I could at least introduce everybody to what we are working on, now we've started to pick apart a few certain ones, including 'Candy Lips & Poison Apples', 'the One I'm Dreaming of', 'a Little Bit rock n roll', 'tongue kiss of doom', 'stupid girl'. So those have receieved the majority of attention so far. It's weird, some of these songs come together at practice really easily, other ones are hard. Every song has it's own flavor, it's really interesting to see how they unfold as we work on them. I'll keep you updated. Eric is in Texas for this week so while he is gone, it will be a lot of fierce acoustic sessions.

Personally, it is somewhat of a trying time for me. I've experienced a lot of emotions over the past year that I've never really experienced before (because I never chose to). This record reflects a lot of that stuff, I think. I think it's all sacrifice for the greater good. My feelings don't really matter, as long as I am honest with myself and put it into the art. It's just a difficult thing, I think. I was never really emotionally invested to anything, I thought of everything logically. Some things divert logic. I'm learning. I smoke and think way too much. Still looking for a drug to cure that. The good news is, I think I found a couple, so we're on the right track.

This is the beginning of a story. I'm very excited to see how it ends and hope that anybody who reads this is, too. More and more will be coming.