on self-portraits

tonight something possessed me to sketch out a few self-portraits, things i don't think to take the time to draw very often. some resembled me greatly;

others were self-portraits in name only, non-representational art whose lines only constituted portraiture by the purpose i gave them.

in 21 days, i'll be considered an adult man in the eyes of the law (well, someone who can legally get a tattoo, anyway). in all other ways, i've already undergone the transition from 'boy' to 'man.' i stopped crying at school. i was confirmed into the catholic church. i fell in love and kissed a girl. i went to highschool parties and watched drunken classmates flounder around backyard pools. i was offered weed and cigarettes backstage and labored over my "no"s. i graduated highschool. i learned to drive a car. i got over my fear of rollercoasters.

however, i've recently felt more like a 'boy' than ever. aren't i supposed to have more a sense of who i am by this point? maybe. not really...

as i mentally prepare for college, i've realized that i, like everyone else my age, am at the precipice of redefining my identity. i've taken some solace in that communal change. now's the time for me to figure out what kind of 'man' i want to become in college and as an adult. i think my childhood has cemented my hobbies, my interests, some of my wants; now, my values will be stretched and edited and redefined by whatever i experience next. i'm sure i'll shed old skin and find new parts of myself living on my own. the self-portraits i create 4 years down the line may look much different than the ones i drew tonight. they may be songs or poems or films.

here's what i've been listening to feel a little less small:

in this home on ice - clap your hands say yeah

stampede - hotline tnt

range life - pavement

girl boy - blond redhead

like dylan in the movies - belle & sebastian

aaron & maria - the american analog set

my kimono - polvo

house of cards - radiohead

belly - eric's trip

donna air - dean blunt

see - villagerrr

transcription of a dream i had

in my dream i observe myself in the third person, through a grainy film cameralense:

i'm flying, fully extending my wingspan like a bird, and keeping my feet together and toes pointed. i'm going around the circular bin of an aqua-colored water tower not unlike the one off blueberry lane. i don't recall what i'm wearing, or seeing my face, or even watching myself move; i only know that the boy flying is me and that the direction of the wind shows me i'm moving clockwise. maybe floating is a more accurate description of what's happening: i'm moving in the same way i know the sun rises and sets, where i understand i'm going somewhere but don't see it happen in real time.

to the left of the water tower is a range of low-definition mountains, something out of a bob ross painting. to the right lies a theme park: all the rides are operating, but no one is riding them or walking around or waiting in line at a concession. i, the flying boy, am the only breathing thing from my vantage point. looming above the themepark bustle is a rotating ferris wheel and a rollercoaster track, both painted fire-engine red. the render distance stops past these things. only pale blue sky lies behind them.

i remember a beach laying past the theme park and mountains, on the same part of the horizon as the water tower, but i never saw any waves lapping at its shore. 

maybe it was less of a dream than a vision. what i saw in my sleep was almost a still image, turning with the non-ambition of a screensaver. my perspective never shifted. i saw myself as a figure in an oil painting, something hung on a wall, a work of art. i hope to bring it to life someday.

summer loving hello

its been a little quiet on this blog lately. this is literally the shortest summer of my life. i've written some new words to become poems, but found them all kind of spiteful and drastically un-summerlike. i've written some new songs, which have fallen into my musical recycling bin to hibernate for a little while. i've mostly been working my three part-time jobs and scaring myself shitless about the fact i graduate to 'adult' in a little over a month.

old things are wearing out:

three overhead lights in my room blew out, and my amp's snap crackle popping again.

in preparation for college, I've gotten new posters, towels, pencilcases, and a kat klock (see right).

at the same time, my mom sewed my favorite jeans' holes back together. i'm bringing those with me, too.

before I lock into barista training (my art history degree), there's a few things left to do with the latter half of summer vacation. next week, me and isen are heading up in will anderson's car to play a set with our friends in stringhead at their very first root beer fest.  i'd like to lay on a few more picnic blankets and visit the met again. dusty ray gifted me a yellow fountain pen that has to meld to my writing before my seminars begin. i just finished up engineer work with some friends on a really intriguing new rock record, which i now have to mix. autumn rhythm's farewell(ish) show will be early next month. maybe some of those neglected new songs will bubble up to the surface before move-in.

i hope to fall into whatever my college's music scene is. i'm writing down new band names for groups to start with vassar kids (are they into that??) and ideas for a potential radio show. autumn rhythm will fire up again, too, as long as some heads there are remotely interested in my music. i just watched the elephant 6 doc and am looking for a few people who'll cover a dorm in tinfoil with me and record strange songs.

i'll leave you with what i've been listening to since high school ended:

bait & switch - emily's sassy lime

she's leaving you - mj lenderman

arlington sunset - calm

moon sequel - mount eerie

light command - unrest

tidal wave - the apples

wink - horse jumper of love

hurting me - braniac

l.a - elliott smith

victim of your own desires - slant 6

we're an american band - ylt

hayfever season

hope everyone's staying cool.

here's the autumn rhythm dates for this summer:

7/13 - alphaville, BK

7/26 - plymouth, MA (rbhfest)

7/28 - stone circle theatre, QNS

8/3 - main drag music, BK

illustration from the red book, carl jung, 1914-1930

the state of indie rock, june 2024

footage by damien (@shabbadabbagooba IG), edited by joey spelledwrong

also mj lenderman will be AOTY

during some tailspin turnaround

i kick rocks and skin cells,

pushing dust upwards and nothing out

the stain sticks to my skin

my every sigh is marble cracking,

or a sugarcube crumbling apart

i let the residue melt between my teeth

i have this street to myself:

in some faint faraway window, 

a cigarette siphons color from your lips

somewhere in the distance,

two birds kiss

poem 24.6.1

mayflower vitality

anthropometry: princess helena, yves klein, 1960

museum of modern art

'nothing gold' out now

yep. i was getting real anxious going 13 months without releasing new autumn rhythm material, especially when the end is nigh for college, but ultimately it was good to wait and figure these new songs out. a lot of them are written in tunings i invented. real fun to work those out, but it took a while...

live 24.3.15, photo by bade dagli

i started writing this record on my seventeenth birthday. it's probably our brooklyn record. i've never classified us as a long island band, even though the majority of us do live out here; we only started building anything close to a community around our music in brooklyn, which greatly influenced our direction and development. i've spent more free time in the city than at home this past year, and lyrically, this record reflects my recent interactions, good and bad, with the scenes and people i've surrounded myself with. of course, this record is also about horrible gut wrenching anxiety and depression, but every fucking 'shoegaze' album is now. whatever.

no song is about one thing only... i have a habit of writing a song and dedicating each verse to a separate emotion/person/idea. leaving lyrics online for this one already here, but i'll give some extra thoughts on each tune to celebrate the album's release.

 

hero worship is my favorite song on the record. the sample at the end is mags asking me to join a bill, sometime in may 2023.

novelty is a song about the past. this one should've been called 'hero worship II' on account of one specific harmony that i definitely stole from TNT's 'cartwheel.'

hang on is a reminder.

indisposed was sketched out on a 1995 fender stratocaster passed down from my girlfriend's mom, to my girlfriend, to me (for a couple of weeks in july). it's a real pretty instrument.

lit a candle talks about how new relationships change us in the eyes of people we've left behind, how deep

even the dogs- this song's title was inspired by a church sign in ridgewood, and dedicated to the late david berman (who i take some lyrics from for the chorus). first song i wrote for the album. jesse plays bass on it.

forgiver- i remember playing this riff over and over again while upstate with dusty, again on one of her mom's instruments. some of that made it into the end of this vlog about that trip. it reminds me of winter

catch up- i wanted to write something really loud, equal parts eric's trip and dinosaur jr. 

rest cure- i play some screwdriver guitar on this. isen lent some guitar to this track to give it some SY-esque guitar interplay, and i like how this track meanders in the middle like how one of their songs might. lillian sugrue, who's currently writing under big toothy grin, played some vocals. thanks lillian.

campfire- this song is for thomas kinkade, living room kitsch painter who also highlighted as a blathering, abusive alcoholic. 'kinkade' was in the running for album titles, actually. me, jesse, and our friend charlie lomonaco shout as one on the bridge.

lots of people made this album possible:

a heartfelt thanks to ryan shea, charlie lomonaco, lillian sugrue, tom oeffling, dusty+fam, jack, nora, krishna, maya, jayden, sam levine (as good of a drummer as you can get), bd&david, mom and dad. also, thanks to lydia slocum for the cover art, and dylan wall for handelling mastering. i'm honored to have worked with you both.

thanks everyone for sticking around. going to miss doing this quite a bit when it's over.

xo

i flash my grandmother's smile

and say "i'll miss home-"

each crack in shared concrete

is an eye-corner wrinkle

well worn by people left behind

it'll be much greener than i remember

& i'll spend some solitary september

longing for pollen-springs turning over,

falling gentle at the speed of june

while i'm away, they'll stir:

so many somethings

hidden under their folds

poem 24.5.13

steve albini, 1962 - 2024

fuck.

'a man who could identify 100 enemies as a sophomore in college'

i don't think anyone else in the history of 20th century music has had the impact albini did on how music sounds or is conveyed. such range, such vision; such philosophy, even.

was lucky enough to catch him in shellac around 2 years ago at primavera sound- perfect tension and release all around, and a buzzsaw guitar tone that sounds like your brain getting drawn and quartered. of course, it was always the dream to eventually reach electrical audio...

i think that the weight of this loss will only really hit a few years down the line, when records he's made stop coming out and stop penetrating music's wall of rockradio mono-compression. for now, i'll grieve and throw on some of the countless perfect sides he recorded- and play them loud

steve whipping a guitar into shape

some favorites:

ron- slint

i'm amazed- pixies

doe- breeders

mouth breather- the jesus lizard

milk it- nirvana

shimmer like a girl- veruca salt

nothing ever changes- braniac

farewell transmission- songs: ohia

wasted days- cloud nothings

my black ass- shellac

steak & black onions- rapeman

bad penny- big black

RIP

it's springtime

reading at a table, pablo picasso, 1934

metropolitan museum of art

i mistook a shell gas sign for the moon

i peered up at the apparition,

so ready to accept it as golden

through my carwindow looking glass

i held my breath gentle,

then sighed upon the revelation

my body sagged in its well-meaning haste

readymade highway treasure

etched into nightsky pavement

just-deeper than the real thing

poem 24.4.12