PACK UP YOUR BAGS

Hello all. It looks like another couple of weeks went by here at Your Happy Makes Me Go Neglected Especially When I Am Stuck At A Computer For Exam Week and I Click Here in The Hopes For Some Sort Of An Update Only To Find That Our Fearless Bloggers Took An Unannounced Vacation From Posting.

So hello! I'm back and hope to stay back. To catch up on a post I had brewing here in the un-posted section of blogger.com, here's Kent "Toast" French as submitted by Friend and Midwestern Neighbor Devin O'Sullivan:



I really meant to share this a week ago, but substituted "publish post" for "save now." It seemed too good to delete, but I have no clever tie-in for this video except that it turns out that Toast French is the world's fastest clapper. Unsurprisingly, I like claps. And there you have it.

So yes - hello hello hello. To catch you up, we finished the record the Wednesday after Thanksgiving weekend. It's done. I don't think I can re-capture how brilliant that feeling was, but everything felt heightened walking around Chicago that night. We're done. What we started last October (a few of you have probably heard Noni's Field) and resumed late January (everything else)... it's just hard to explain the feeling having the entire efforts of your year rest in the palm of your hand.

"Look, there it is. 2007."

To remember the gray winter when we moved here, the first few months of hammering out songs on the third floor of Berry UMC. How early the nights began in January (and yes, again now)... learning the transit in the city, working temp jobs and then taking the Brown Line to the Western stop, working out melodies while still in a shirt, tie, and dressy casual khakis. Jumping back on the Western Bus to the neighborhood I really didn't understand yet, slowly piecing together the city of Chicago until the spring came and adventures came easier. Leaving for the Brand New/Colour Revolt tour with four songs finished, watching Bjork in the desert at Coachella, wandering the parks of Montreal with new friends, taking the van back from New York knowing we had an album to finish. The stuffy summer-long eight hour days back at Berry, lunches at Costellos sandwich shop, bike rides up Lincoln to Damen while trying to work out songs and dodge car doors, a hard goodbye to an old friend, tinkering around with handbells on late afternoons, how quickly the last song came together, how nervous we were entering Engine Studios. And then finally, the recording. The air-conditioning that kept us covered in blankets in late August, watching Neil take control of the sound room, late night vocal takes, the great times when all seven faces would be smiling listening to a mix, the hard times when friendships would be frayed, the best times when we'd all come back together.

We finished the record two Wednesdays ago. And all of that above, all of that work toward one thing... fits in my hand now. It's the strangest thing.

The day after we finished recording I jumped in a plane from Chicago to Atlanta. That's where I am now. The sun is still hovering over the trees, it is seventy five degrees outside. I hear it's a messy snow right now in the city and while I miss my friends... I really don't miss the beginning of winter. It is probably beautiful in a way but I'm also sure there will be enough for me when I come back. It's Christmas here in the south - something I haven't experienced before but like a lot. My girlfriend is here - we weren't really able to share this past fall - so these past couple weeks have been making up for lost time.

My apologies, of course, to the blog. Ha.

It's a nice time here. A nice way to let 2007 unwind it's way down to the new year. And in a way, too, it feels like - all the work of the past eleven months - next year will be when we get to discover where that work takes us. A new record, more tours, more traveling, new opportunities... in a way, it was all building towards here and to have finally seen it through. 2008 starts in a few weeks and I'm very, very excited.

I can't give too much of a mastering update - I wasn't a part of it! - but Matt drove with Neil (engineer friend) to New York City four days ago and saw it through. Maybe there will be an account of that trip later this month? And if not, I'll try to find a story or two to share.

For those of you with finals weeks or a little bummed out by the lack of sunlit hours in our lives, I'd like to end the post with this:



An example, maybe!, of finding little ways to brighten less than ideal situations. And for the inmates of the Cebu Provincial Detention and Rehabilitation Center, that way is spelled THRILLER.

Have a good start of the week! I'll be back tomorrow or the next.

p.s. a cut and paste from my inbox to your eyes:

"Big Scary Monsters Records have just put their first podcast up online and happily it features a track from us!

You can subscribe via itunes by clicking this link

You can also download the MP3 by signing up to BSM's Friend of The Family mini-site. Joining costs nothing and as well as the podcast you will also gain access to free gifts, special offers, pre-sale gig tickets, free music, competitions (including a chance to win a copy of everything the label has released in 2007!) and loads of other fun things, including the BSM advent calendar, which offers even more free stuff each day throughout December! Just click on the graphic below to register...



You can send questions, comments, fan mail and demo submissions to the podcast producers at this address"

(what this means - our first european release is coming soon: a two song vinyl on Big Scary Monsters featuring Entropy and Hanasakajiijii4... we're excited... and feel free to click on the above podcast if you'd like to hear the name "Anathallo" in an unfamiliar accent)