Terra Naomi

I just got an import of Terra Naomi's CD, Under the Influence, in the mail today. I'm liking it so far! I was listening to her back when it was just her and no drums or bass or extra guitars. She is backed up by a full band this time around, but luckily they add to her music and not take anything away.
You can check out her website at: http://www.terranaomi.com/ .
If you haven't heard her before, heres some of her youtube videos to check out:
"Say It's Possible (Acoustic)"
http://youtube.com/watch?v=ARHyRI9_NB4

"Say It's Possible (Official Music Video)"
http://youtube.com/watch?v=9qo8-NlgRa4

"Up Here (Official Music Video, Uncensored)" some eff words and such.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=3CUkylQ7150

Enjoy!
-Tom

Fwd: Thank You in a Christmas Card

I never forward these, but I think this is a really great idea.
If you are wondering why you got this, it's because I sent it to all of my contacts.

Hello All,

    As Christmas season approaches we begin to reflect on how truly fortunate we are, and all the blessings we have been given.  I think that at this time it is only proper to also think of the brave men and women who have risked their lives for our freedom.  I think a small Thank You in a Christmas Card is the least we could do.   Please read on.

This request came  from the wife of one of our heroic vets...

When doing your Christmas cards this year, take one card and send it to this address.  If we pass this on and everyone sends one card, think of how many cards these wonderful special people who have sacrificed so much would get.

A Great Idea!!!


When you are making out your Christmas card list this year, please include the following:

         A Recovering American soldier
         c/o Walter Reed Army Medical Center
         6900 Georgia Avenue, NW
         Washington,D.C. 20307-5001

If you approve of the idea, please pass it on to your e-mail list. Thank you!

                          Catherine Walsh

--
"Maybe we've been caught signing 'Red, White, Blue and Green!' Well that aint my American dream"- Swtichfoot, from the song American Dream on 'Oh! Gravity."

"Once"

Starring Glan Hansard and Marketa Irglova, “Once” is the story of an Irish street musician and vacuum repairman, and a Czechoslovakian flower-saleswoman. She hears him playing his beat-up guitar outside a shop, and they begin a lasting friendship. They play together a little, her on the piano and him on guitar, while both sing, and eventually record a demo album. The acting was brilliant, although neither Glen nor Marketa had ever acted before. The music is amazing. The cinematography is very limited due to the sub-$200,000 budget. Considering this film was made in Ireland, it is no surprise that there is a massive amount of language. All in all, “Once” is a beautiful, well-made, funny and inspiring film. **** 3/4

Too bad they won’t be making “Twice”.

A Close Friend

Anybody who reads this, please take a moment and say a quick prayer for a close friend of mine and Tom's. Her name is Helen. She contracted e-coli at a young age, which did significant damage to her kidneys.This has caused her, among other things, to be pretty short, and she is thus dubbed a gnome. She is now 17, and is currently undergoing surgery to transplant one of her mom's kidneys into her. The operation is to say the least dangerous, and me and my all my friends would sincerely appreciate if you would just say a quick prayer fot the success of the operation and the treatment to follow. To find out more about Helen or to see how the operation is going, go to www.HelenTheGnome.com, and http://helengnomeupdates.blogspot.com

Sincerely,
Patrick

And now for something completely different...

Heres a filler until one of us gets a proper post up:

Long Time... No Post

Sorry I haven't posted in so long. It's cuz nothing has happened since forever, so I have nothing to post about. I am going to Australia next July with Tom and some other people. Oh, I really don't have much of a job anymore. Well, that's 'bout it.

The Original.

1979 MV for "Message In a Bottle."
Embedding was disabled, so I can only provide the link:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=MeQ2yXE1mpU
P.S. I love the drummer.

Summer

Man... I'm sick. Which is kind of sad. I mean, it's the beginning of the summer and I can't really do anything because I am so sick. For those of you that know me, I think it is basically the same cold I had before (and after) the auction. Yeah, meaning soon I'll probably lose my voice. What a party!!

The "prom."

Patrick and I went to an awesome dance, an awesome dance that rocked the house down! They had a quartet play, then a DJ, and it was all cool!
-Tom

Sons of Day

Tom and I were at a concert last night. Bands Sons of Day, The Thirsting, and Hyperstatic Union all played. I had not even heard one song by Sons of Day, but they rocked the house. They are 4 brothers from the Ukraine. They are so cool. I bought the CD and got it signed by all of them. Go to their site and by a hard copy of the CD.

Here is a video of their song "This Place"

Haha.

You make me laugh Patrick. And you also kick butt ;)

Friends

Hey Everyone,
I have really cool friends (like Tom, he kicks friend-butt). Just thought you'd like to know.

Patrick

At War With the Mystics

A few weeks back I picked up the Flaming Lip's latest album, "At War With the Mystics." The album is very brilliant, much up to this band's caliber. First of all, the Flaming Lips are known for being weird and out there, especially music wise. Naturally, once you break through that first layer of "weirdness" you'll find deeper meanings to most of their songs, especially songs such as "Do You Realize" from "Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots" and "The Yeah Yeah Yeah Song" from their latest release.

I personally enjoyed this album for a few reasons: the vocals, the fantastic effect the music has on you, plus some of the songs are pretty catchy. The lyrics are always good, if even a little weird. The art is pretty cool, nothing extraordinary, but pretty cool. They have an instrumental song on here called "The Wizard Turns On (His Silver Flashlight and Puts On His Werewolf Moccasins)" which is actually pretty fun to listen to, even if there aren't any lyrics. I especially get the feeling you get listen to the songs. You feel almost like you are floating in space... until you open you eyes again.

Alright, I'm gonna end this post with a video.

Video for "The Yeah Yeah Yeah Song."

Life... (again)

I decided to look at the world through new eyes. If you look at the world with a frown on your face, something makes you feel cynical and depressed. Well the reverse is true too. If you smile, and then look around you, things seem to  be a whole lot happier as a whole. I was just sitting, with nothing to do, so I decided to feel good. I smiled, and just thought of how good I have it. I have friends (at least some of them) who really care about me and who I really care about. I have a loving family with no alcoholism or adverse poverty. I every day I get farther from the possibility of someday finding myself curled up in a blanket under a bridge. I everything I need, and really, when I think about it, I would not change a thing. Okay, I would solve world hunger and poverty and disease, but none of that is in my life. So yeah, if I could I would not change one thing about my life. See what happens when you smile???

-Patrick

Switchfoot Awakening

Flashback: Mr. Wendell

Ok, today I had a flashback. I was walking out of the classroom to get a stapler from the office, and I remembered how last year, every time some one left Mr. Wendell's classroom during class, as soon the door had closed, he would make some joke about him or her. “Look at him go, that dork!” “She has no idea she looks so stupid!” and other remarks were far from uncommon. Man I miss those days. In fact I spent the rest of the walk to the office reminiscing about by-gone tragically good times. Well, Mr. Wendell, suffice it to say we all miss you… a lot!!

Band stuff

A friend of mine and I are starting a new band. Unfortunately, we can't agree on a name. In fact, the one name we did come up with that was really good, Skeptic Heart, was already taken. Yeah, now I need another name. Our current name is Nothing Once, but beware, thqat is subject to change. Enjoy the far-from-finished website.

Patrick

WolfMother

I got a new album a few days ago. It's the smash hit debut from the Australian rock trio called WolfMother! I love it. Love it, love it, love it.
I first heard a WolfMother (or "played it, as it were) on Guitar Hero II. It quickly became one of my favorite songs, with its driving beat and awesome guitar work. That song was "Woman" which won the grammy for best hard rock performance in 2007. And personally, I think it deserved it.

Anyways, on to the review. First off, the album is pretty much a throwback to 70's rock, especially in the Led Zeppelin vein. The vocals are pretty good-unique, but not annoying. Lots of "Yeah!" and exclamations like that. The guitar work is very awesome. Considering you only have one guitarist, they were probably a bit limited (sure, you can layer tracks on a cd as often as you want, but you will have to play as many of those live as possible sometime). Some songs (such as Woman), during the solo, just have the Bass player take a break from, um, bass-ing, and go on to do the keyboard solo. The drums themselves are also pretty good. The band themselves are hard rockish, so the drums contain a lot of fills to keep the song on its toes. My only complaint is that some of the songs contain extra-long bridges inbetween choruses, or verse and chorus, or whatever. However, I still love the album. I also love how they end it, with a mostly acoustic song called "Vagabond." The song is perfect, when you start it, if you turn it up, you can hear one of the band members say "This is a song about innocence lost," and then it goes on.

So, pros: Catchy guitar hooks, catchy song-writing. Somewhat good lyrics (nothing controversial or political, mostly fantasy stuff about unicorns and stuff.) A good number of tracks (13), that are never way too long or too short.
Cons: They haven't come out with another album yet.

I'll end my review with a video:

Mother's Day

I Have been gone all weekend in Seattle. Actually, a little South of Seattle in the all-but-abandoned town of Bremerton. It is amazing that this dead town could have just one living cell, that being the 2 blocks around my hotel. Well I am enjoying myself. Hope you are too.

patrick

Life...

Oh, life is so wonderfully odd. My old teacher Mr. Wendell, who I hope is reading this, is no longer at our school. We all miss him soooo... much. It's kind of sad that we don't have him anymore. Well, life will go on. I hope you like our new Title Bar. It took me for ever to create (no, not really). Also, if you get a chance, listen to Carbon Leaf they are awesome. Love Loss Hope Repeat is one great song. Enjoy your life, it is better than you might think.

Patrick

Elliot Smith

All my relatives came over last Sunday to do a joint birthday celebration between some of my cousins, my great uncle, and I. I got mostly cash, but also a target gift card. I spent it today on the late Elliot Smith's new cd: New Moon. It's a compilation of sorts... he guess he's like Conor Oberst (that guy from Bright Eyes), they both record a whole bunch of songs, and then the pick some of them to put on a new record. In this case, however, Elliot recorded songs with no real sense of which ones he was going to put on the record, and just mostly for the heck of it. He's mostly acoustic guitar, and hes got a pretty good voice. I like it so far, even though I've only listened to one track.
The CD came with a little pamphlet full of paragraphs from close friends of his. Here's an interesting little quote that starts it off:
"For a long time I made up most songs walking around at night, just 'cause I liked walking around at night. And so I saw the moon a lot. It's a really overused image, but there's always way to use overused images well. to make them new again, or at least try to. I wouldn't say that I succeeded at that, but..." Elliot Smith, as told to M. Bates, 1997.
So yeah, sounds like a pretty interesting guy. He has a pretty interesting story, on which you can read at Wikipedia.
Well, that's all for now!
-Tom

Obnoxious Lady (Part 2)

...Please Read part 1 First
So the fat lady who I bumped into, turned to give me an evil stare in the face before shoving me more than 5 rows back in the crowd. Please understand, it took more than a little work and about 25 minutes to push your way that far in a crowd this packed. The woman used more brute force than I had before imagined could be possessed by a human without enhancement, and with one shove undid 25 minutes of work. Needless to say, I was P.O.ed, and have no more sympathy in any form for this woman. And Lady, if you are reading this, I hope the same thing happens to you at a roof-top concert. Ooops, that would suck.

patrick

Crazy Life...

This weekend has been the craziest of my life. Things happened that can't be seen by the world yet. Also, I found out that my mom kissed her first boyfriend when she was 14, and that as a grade schooler, she was a kleptomaniac!!! Well, That's about it from here.

The Obnoxious Lady (Part 1)

There was at the Relient K concert, on very large woman. She was about 6 feet from me. She wore a spaghetti-strap shirt and it showed more skin than i have on my body. It was not a glamorous sight in the least. Well, since we were near the front, there was a lot of pushing. I got shoved right into her. i thought she would just move a little, readjust her balance, and continue listening to the concert, but NO!!!!

That's it for now, see you in a day or 2

Mandolin

My mom is pushing me to get a mandolin too. She's shoving her card into my hand. No not really. I wish. Well, Tom and I are preforming a spoof of the old song "Old Time Rock and Roll" at our school auction. It should be good. We get lots of sexy lighting. Sweetness!!!!

Bye
Patrick

Mandolin

I was up fairly late last night, just kinda browsing the internet, hungry for anything that could keep my interest. I was browsing Musician's friend last night, and I came across this:
http://www.musiciansfriend.com/product/Rogue-RM100A-AStyle-Mandolin?sku=519193
How awesome is that? A Mandolin for $50? I ordered it this morning, with my mum's credit card. It is right handed, but heres the interesting thing about it: It's tuned like a violin. A violin is tuned G-D-A-E. If I played the Mandolin, which is tuned like a violin, upside down, then it would be E-A-D-G. Those four notes happen to be the bottom four strings of the guitar, or bass strings, if you will. Pretty awesome, right? I'm overjoyed, and I can't wait to get. I was thinking of, if I get good enough at it, taking it on World Youth Day with me. It's small. Otherwise, I was thinking of getting one of these babies: http://www.musiciansfriend.com/product/Martin-?sku=512396 . Very handy... I tried one out at a shop, and it sounded fairly good. Good enough, considering it's portability.
But anyway, enough of my boring crap.
Talk to you all later.
-Tom

Sinistra.

I went down to the guitar store "Portland Music Co." on Broadway today. It's smaller than the one on MLK, but deals exclusively in acoustic guitars. They had some pretty nice 12 string guitars there for a cheap price. They were all right handed. But, the guy showing me the place told me that they could probably order a left handed one. I asked which company he would suggest for getting a 12 string from. He suggested Martin, since they probably wouldn't charge extra to make it left-handed. I checked their site, the cheapest one there is $819... so I think I might hold off on trying to get a hold on a twelve string for a bit.
If I ever make it big, I'm going to have a guitar company make a sellable custom guitar thats left-handed.
-Tom

Relient K

I went to the Relient K concert, which ended about an hour ago. The different groups, with my personal notes on them follow.
Sherwood: a band from California somewhere, the singer was good, drummer was good (and cool), the keyboardist was freaking hilarious, doing all manner of dances while playing, the bass was fine... I don't remember a whole lot more.
Mae: I don't know where they are from or how they got where they are with their current singer. He had a nassal voice that would remind you (if you are like me) of Kermit the Frog. the bassist was good at bass, but did not move more than once during the entire show, the keyboardist was good and very funny (in an angry sort of way), I think the guitar stuff was good, but nothing remarkable.
Relient K: What can I say, they are really a great band. The bass was awesome, the drummer, who by the way played the entire show without a shirt, incase anyone was interested (I wasn't but you might have been), anyways, teh drummer was great, the vocals were good although poorly amplified, the guitarists were both awesome. I especially like Jon. He is funny and cool and stuff.

That's about it for tonight. Later I may write about the obnoxious woman I happened to bump into.

Relient K

I am going to a Relient K concert in Portland on Wednesday and it is going to be Awesome!

Sweet Ocean Breeze

I am at the beach on vacation. The weather is crappy, bu that is OK, 'cuz I am having fun. I have my guitar and cable TV and stuff, and I can run on the beach, rain or shine, so I will be having a blast while my loving audience watches from their boring couches at home. I hope you all had a great break and are back to work or school or whatever you do for "kicks".

Life's good in the hood. I don't know that for sure cuz I don't live in the hood, but that's what my friends from the hood say. OK you can go enjoy bordome for a while longer, by.

Sorry!

Sorry for the lack of updates recently, there hasn't been things really happening lately, other than Easter and Spring break!
Wooh!
Catch you all on the flip-side!
-Tom

Crazzzzzy

I had the most crazy weekend in the history of the world! On Friday I had a job interview, on Sunday I got an electric guitar (my first!!) and on Tuesday (yesterday), I got offered the job I interviewed for. I am learning the Nickelback song "If Everyone Cared" and Jack Johnson's "Sitting Waiting Wishing" too. Happiness!!

--
"Maybe we've been caught signing 'Red, White, Blue and Green!' Well that aint my American dream"- Swtichfoot, from the song American Dream on 'Oh! Gravity."

Looooove....

I've obtained Ray LaMontagne's altogether awesome album, "Till The Sun Turns Black."
I very much like it, for its easy acoustic listening, and the singer's voice. Ray's voice is very unique, soothing and emotional.
You can hear some of his songs on his myspace:
http://myspace.com/raylamontagne
Out of those, "Empty" and "Three More Days" are my favorites.
-Tom

I Ain't Got Nobody...

...That I Can Depend On!
I just started really listening to Santana, and it is really good. I'm liking it so far... just enough lyrics, but mostly instrumental, so very appreciative to person like me. Hendrix was great in that aspect, as you could sing along with him while appreciating his often complicated but always good guitarish jingle jangles. Haha.
Well, I don't really have much to blog right now, but I will talk to you all later!
-Tom

New Electric Guitar

Hey,
I am planning to get a new electric guitar. it is a Fender Starcaster. The picture to the right is that same guitar. Enjoy looking.

Life...

I realized recently that although your life is a gift, at times it can seem like a Trojan Horse. Well that's my sad observation of the week. Oh, wait, no I have another. It involves a girl and a friend and... a lot of other crap. Well, Tom knows what I am talking about. Oh well, as my friend Jessica once said "Life sucks, Love sucks, and the toilet hates me!"
Ciao,
Patrick

'Scuse me while I kiss the sky!

Patrick and I are the two main guitarists for a song we're doing at our school's auction. He's rhythm, I'm lead, so I'm going to have to come up with a solo. Which is actually pretty cool, if not a little nerve-wracking. I'm thinking of having it follow the piano at first, break off into its own thing, then mold back in with the piano. That would be awesome. Unfortunately, I'm no good at reading sheet music, so it'll take me a while to tab it out... hahaha.
I've been listening to a lot of Hendrix lately, so hopefully I'll subconsciously write a solo as good as his, lol.
Well, peace out,
-Tom

Picture from Forever-ago

Check out this Picture of me and Tom from years ago. he is the second from the left, and I am the second from the right, Enjoy

Music

Man, life is weird. I started writing songs maybe 3 weeks ago (about the time we started this blog) and now I find my self writing one every day or so, and they are all accoustic, and they all mention death in some way or other IN THE TITLE. Crazy, I guess I look like a huge emo, but no fear, I'm not. Well, that's about it for now.

Testing, one, two, three...

Using Patrick's advice, I put a mic in my guitar in order to record. I recorded a little ditty; some of you may recognize it as "Good Riddance."
Good Riddance.
-Tom

Fevers and Awesomeness

I'm listening to the old Bright Eyes cd entitled "Fevers and Mirrors." Awesomeness... I really like the song "Something Vague," especially the guitar part.
I did read the lyrics for Pat's song, and they are pretty cool. He still has to come up with what to play, but I think he already has the melody down... I'm gonna test out my mic soon, and see if I can record my guitar at all. If I do, then I'll see if I can post a short instrumental piece.
See you around!
-Tom

New Song

I wrote a new song yesterday and today. It is entitled "If I Die Tonight". I hope to have a low-quality recording ready for download soon. Hope everyone is having a crazy-awesome St. Pattie's Day.

Songs

Also, yesterday when Tom and Chris did the Captain by Guster, they were great, except that Chris forgot to sing the right words... over and over and over. But he sounded just like the real thing. I was impressed. We will record it sooner or later and post an Mp3. Happy St. Pattie's Day

St. Pattie's day

Unfortunately (or fortunately? haha), Patrick did not follow through with his plan. However, I got a chance to go up and sing "The Captain" by Guster, a small part of "Ziggy Stardust" and "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" with Chris. It went ok, I didn't exactly know what the point of the whole thing was, so I was just trying to be funny... dunno if I succeeded.
Tomorrow we have Friday Presentations- each student gets to go up and show a skit, or a musical piece, and so on and so forth... I'm thinking of doing "First Day of My Life," by Bright Eyes, but I might wait until the next one. Yeah, I'll probably go with that.
See ya around!
-Tom

A Day to Celebrate

Today we are celbrating St. Pattie's Day. What does that mean? It means that I am going to stand up infront of 50 odd people and sing Perfect by Simple Plan in a Barney voice. Just thought you might like to know.
"I'm sorry, I can't be... Perfect"

An Essay For Theo

For Theology class last Thursday, our teacher posed the question: "Is God the Father greater than Jesus?" If you answered no, than you got it right! Ding ding ding! You get, not one, but two exclamation marks!! They are indeed equal. But the the why of the answer is not so easily found, but with some searching I did find a helpful "tractate" on the a verse in the Gospel of John where Jesus says: "The Father is greater than I" (John 14:27-28)
Woah! Hold on! The Father is greater than Jesus? I thought you said they were equal!
I did! And if you're curious for the answer on whether I'm right or not, you can either read the excellently written tractate by the Church fathers on it:
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/1701078.htm
Or my not so well written essay on it, basically me trying to condense the awesome amount of information from the aforementioned article:

http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dg4jr5vf_0dxbxx2

If you have read all the way to here, I applaud you for your graciousness, and your long attention span!
Until next time faithful reader(s)!
-Tom

Hello! Welcome to Patrick and mine's blog! Theres nothing up yet, but come back soon for exciting posts concerning boring things!