couple tests this week which i should be worried about.

the rain came back last night after a solid week or two of splendiforous spring. i noticed all day today in my journeys around campus how, in every concrete crevice or puddle or drainage rivlet on campus, the water was carrying a strange yellow pigment. at first I thought to myself that the maintenance people must’ve repainted some lines around campus and their work just washed away. but it was everywhere…

asked someone, found out it was pollen.

holy asthmatic lungs, the stuff was thicker on the ground than the water from the rain… it was Flowing in streams down the hills. all that junk coating my chest cavity like paint. no wonder people get sick in spring.

And now, a special presentation from Jon Breaux!!!
(hopefully i’m not stealing jon’s thunder here)
jon was at his house at the end of Easter Break and put together this sweet-ace hot-lickin blues song, “Crawlin’ King Snake Blues”. he emailed it to me and i called him to get the full scoop: he cleared out the furniture in his living room when nobody was home, wrote and recorded using his 4 track, drumset, vintage dirty tube guitar amp, and one microphone. It’s a simple riff, a steady beat, and a whole lotta soul. Dig the peaked-out vocals! my favorite part. jon’s inner blues rockstar comes out loud and clear.

A personal quip: i’ve been trying to get my project, The Newtons, to sound as good as it can for about a month now. I’ve done everything to my tracks: processing, compression, limiting, equalization, mixing, re-recording, mastering, and serious editing. All of this, and then listening to the King Snake blues. Granted, we’re going for two completely different goals, but i’m still very impressed with the dead-on atmosphere (intentional or not) of the song.

And now, a word from our sponsor, David Comeaux.
Well about a year ago when GarageBand came out, i played with it on my dad’s computer and came up with this little number one evening, entitled “Julie”.

“crawlin’ king snake blues” is copyright 2005 jon breaux, all rights reserved.

“Julie” was made with loops and i don’t really care if somebody wants to steal it and call it their own because then not only would they be an unoriginal liar, but they would be copying somebody else’s unoriginality. Hahaha. that would be funny. i can’t wait until the next Yanni album comes out to find out that the first track is titled “Julia” and it uses the same sequence. But seriously, if it happens, i’ll sue yanni and milk that settlement for all its worth, perhaps portraying myself as a poor starving college student-artist whose only lifeblood is his music, and, suggesting that my song “Julie” is obviously groundbreaking new-age music, base my claim of lost millions on the success of the new age movement as a whole, citing Yanni as leading said movement, and therefore owing much more money to me than he ever made alone.

I put on some sunscreen and went and studied outside in the sunshine on sunday. i also went swimming afterwards at the indoor pool. It was one of those experiences where it reminds you of ages past, or just last summer, the feeling of sunlight all over, the lingering light smell of sunscreen that makes you think of a day at the beach, and my personal favorite, air drying. Usually, when you get out of the shower or the tub, you are sure to dry your hair and skin off as best you can before you put yourself back into clothes. There is a certain calming peace to having your body heat evaporate all of the moisture. i feel cleaner and happier after air drying than when i rub some rough towel on my baby-soft skin.

finish up the day with a little fruit smoothie and i was practically living 3 months in the future.
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read this as if you were from another planet:
Saint Patrick,
On one day in march, everybody is wearing the color green and there is an amazing fascination with four leaf clovers. children suddenly are preoccupied with seeking those who are not wearing green in order to pinch them. everyone is thinking of Ireland today, and what fun parties might be going on in honor of You.

i mean, all that dosen’t seem crazy to us today, but st patrick’s day is pretty random, as are most of our “cultural” holidays, because our day-to-day lives are so distant from the origins of these feast days.

well we had some warm weather for about 3 milliseconds before it got cold again, and it was a lovely taunting little droplet of spring-summer pleasure. shorts, flipflops, studying outside with the easy wind while basking in the glow of partly cloudy glory.

school is not too hard on me right now, and i don’t know why that is, but i think (hope) it’s because recently i’ve been prepared.

it seems like something, i don’t know exactly what, is slowly changing. and i feel good about it.

due to a series of non-related events, this will be my last posting for the next two weeks. Last because:

1. Overload of school work before spring break [and i mean overload]/Midterms
2. Spring break (where I will be home [at least part of the time] with dial up internet.
3. My (hopefully) final oral surgery for an accident that happened just about 7 years ago.

So after school and surgery get done with me, there will be little left for internet musings. sorry.

but, there is a silver lining!

Dave, has been posting regularly and has lots of exciting things going on! I have no doubt that his life will be infinitely more interesting to follow for the next two weeks than mine will be.

In addition, I have lots to share about recent concerts, hearing a nobel prize winner, and a few other interesting stories. so they’ll get posted as soon as I’m back.

In the meantime, enjoy all of dave’s adventures [and the Newtons!]

your pal,

jon

Well, after working for a couple days, i have made a lot of progress on the Newtonian recordings. All i need is for alex to come back from spring break so we can do the vocals.

The band is playing at a “Battle of the Bands” thing this friday, and we are pretty excited. it would be super sweet if we had CD’s to give away at that event, but that’s not likely. In any case, we’re going to get together on saturday to practice and write some more songs and i want to record the two jam songs we have.

So far, our track listing is as follows:
1. Paid Off (written by Alex)
2. Big Black Dog (written by David)
3. What Did I Do (written by Alex)
4. 22 in the future (written by Andy & newtons)
5. Tambourine Sandwich (the newtons as a whole)

How do i describe our sound? We are a rock band, mostly. I’ve written a little funk number that i want to practice on saturday, and the other guys have come up with some stuff too, so we’ll see how the whole genre thing fits in later.

These are exciting times, my friends, and you can catch all the action right here on this website. As soon as i have the compilation, you’ll be able to download it for free from DavidComeaux.com at your leisure.

on the flip side, i have to get around to my homework, so you kats stay cool. i’ll hook you up later.

every time i see a formula movie, about halfway through, when i figure out that everything is probably going to be alright and all the characters are going to end up in love and resolved and everything, my brain does something weird.

As i’m watching, i start creating a new plot for the characters, where somehow the blocking figure isn’t understanding and doesen’t budge, and the bus dosen’t arrive just in time, and something terrible happens, and somebody is irreparably hurt, and our hero is left alone and cold by the fist of fate.

And then when the actual plot plays out, it seems more of a fairytale than it ever was, and the detached reality of my own make-believe seems like what would’ve happened.

So in order for it to be a convincing story, everything has to go wrong for real, even in the minds of the characters, and there can’t be any lucky anything that would happen to give any hope, and though there was desparate struggling, somewhere you have to feel destroyed. But then, and i don’t know how it happens, but at sometime, the climax hits, and at this point it can be fantastic and amazing, but Fate steps in for real and does something only fate can do, turns everything upside down but completely logically, and makes it impossible for the story to be any other way.

so all you writers out there, take note. i don’t know how, but do it.
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spring break is so nice. school is hard, and this is just what i need right now.

i was talking to some of my friends about electives we are taking. i’ve taken mostly music-related electives so far… i plan to continue this trend. However, one of my friends is taking a creative writing class. low stress, high-imagination, a bunch of writing and peer reviews and the final exam is a discussion with the professor about progress and perspective. i really want to do that. i also really want to fit in an art class. man that would be sweet. as an engineer, i’m required to be creative with designs and solutions. but that’s not my favorite way to release energy and creativity. i’m not necessarily a good artist, nor do i see myself as a stellar writer, and i am certainly not disciplined enough just to be a musician. But these things are just as much a part of me as my interest in technology and electronics.

as we college-age students begin to find our place in the world, i wonder how many people think to themselves: “Is this who i am? Is this who i’ll be?”

recording The Newtons a couple weeks ago was probably the funnest work i’ve ever done in my life. the only thing i was apprehensive about was making sure that it didn’t take over my attention to the point that i neglected other responsibilities. Like eating, for example. And i’ve done lots of recording in the past. various experiments and new setups, with the only thing holding me back is the time constraints.

i remember when me and jon breaux stayed awake at his apartment one night doing all kinds of comparisons with my mixer and microphones and closet recording with mattresses and guitars and reverb effects and whatnot. that was cool.

and another time when i opened up the lid to our upright piano at home, stuck a couple of microphones in there, and tried to capture the unique resonance and harmonic effects of the middle pedal. A year later, i hear the album Transatlanticism, by Death Cab For Cutie, and i realize that they use that same effect on one of their recordings.

I have spent hours and hours looking at equipment and reading internet references on recording and technique. Some of my friends read up on race cars, others investigate the future of computers and programming, and i just can’t get enough about audio engineering.

but anyways. my life goal isn’t to be an astronaut or a police man or a corporate executive or a doctor. And i’m not trying to say that i don’t like electrical engineering. I just know exactly what i wish i could do with my growing knowledge of electronics.

So that should paint a pretty good picture of my interests at this time in my life. in case you didn’t know the extent of it.

Not surprisingly after all this discussion, why am i going back to GA halfway through my spring break? that’s right, so i can continue working on The Newtons first album. The woods are lovely, dark, and deep, but i have promises to keep, and miles to go before i sleep, and miles to go before i sleep.
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