There's a Rat in My Ceiling

Well I guess I'm officially a blogger. We'll see how long this lasts; I figure, "you got nothin' to lose".

Last night I woke up at 6am to the sound of a rodent scratching its way along my drywall ceiling. It's a fairly disconcerting noise to wake up to. I determined that whatever it was, (rat, squirrel, bird, lizard, evil demonic zombie child) it was having a great time running from my bedroom ceiling to my bathroom ceiling, fidgetting about, and going back and forth.... and back and forth. I initially laid paralyzed with fear in my bed, clutching my pillow, envisioning that at any moment the minature beast would plunge through the drywall ceiling, land squarely on my chest, and make me pee uncontrollably with fright, but after seeing a few rays of sunshine peak through the sides of my maroon velvet curtains, I decided to strap on some shoes, walk around my back patio area and check for holes in my roof.

I didn't find anything, other than that someone wrote "faggot" with their finger through the dust on my barbeque pit. I decided that whatever this critter was, it was it's world too and I was just as much an invader as he/she/it so I went back inside, took solace in the thought that I was probably at least 20 times the size of the body mass of my new imposing roommate and went to sleep. I killed a spider before I went to sleep though. He was on the wrong side of the drywall.

I get the feeling that this blog will be 50% Michael's ramblings and 50% Front news. Let's continue a little more with ramblings. I rented "The Confederate States of America" today from the local Silverlake Video. I recognize that I rent a ton of videos and spend way more than I would if I just signed up for Netflix but the owners of Silverlake Video are so nice, normal, aspiring that I'm consciously willing to pay an extra $15 per month to support them over Netflix. It's nice to support the local community, help out small businesses vs. just being another lowest price seeking U.S. consumer. As for the movie, I thought it sucked. I was expecting a more artsy type of psuedo-documentary but instead it was a comedy that revolved around how using the taboo word "nigger" makes teenagers and immature adults giggle. That's a pretty brash assessment, it was okay, I was just expecting something more and I was bored frequently.

As for Front news........




We are playing a couple shows in the Los Angeles area in the next couple weeks. September 30th at The Scene, our good friends from San Diego, Oaks, are coming up to play. They recently opened for Big Business at Spaceland a few Fridays back and they killed it. Oaks have a sound reminiscent of the Northwest US (Olympia, Seattle, etc..) in the mid 90's, gritty rock from skilled players. Justin on the drums has impeccable timing while Marc precisely plucks a fretless bass and manages to walk a thin line that few can by providing sincere yet "big rock" vocals. The show should be rad and we encourage all of you to come.


We've been working very hard on new music over the past month. We have about 4 new songs in the works right now, 2 completely finished, 2 with well defined blueprints. We are excited to play them for you. I think we haven't been realizing it until the past week or so but we're writing a new album. All the songs are coming out slightly different but there's a true coherence to the topics we are touching on and it's rewarding and fascinating to see how things just fall into place one day after you've felt so stagnant for a good chunk of time. As for what I've been listening to lately:


1. Bruce Springsteen- Born To Run
2. Elliott Smith- New Moon
3. The Happy Hollows- EP
4. Qui- Love's Miracle
5. The Beatles- Let it Be
6. Interpol- Pioneer to the Falls (just that single track)


I need to get better at this blog thing. It's sort of like reading reality tv. Some dude, completely concerned with himself, writing journals, blah, blah, blah. I'll get better, I promise.