Freda

Ruins of Freda.















Jeremy, Myself, Apollo and my uncle.















Freda's splender.



















Jeremy down by the water.



















Exploration.















The tower at Freda.















Standing in the tower.















Beach where the album art was taken.




Freda is a place pretty much secluded from all of mankind. The album art for Dharma Is A Door was taken on the same day as these pictures. "Lost Boys Of The Land's End" is my sonic description of that day. My favorite summer memory. Freda to me is like the ultimate muse. It really helped with a lot of the unfortunates I faced this summer.

P.S. Be sure to click on the pictures for full sized images. These little thumbnails or whatever don't do them justice.

Dharma Is A Door

So here it is! "Dharma Is A Door." It's been done for almost two weeks now. I was hesitate to post it until now. I thought it needed more work. This project started as something called "Earth Tones." I never told anyone really, but 5 of the original "Earth Tones" demos were salvaged. Sadly, only one of them made it. And that one is "Feed The White Dog." But primarily...this was all inspired by Buddhism and Jack Kerouac's "The Dharma Bums" and the human drive to move through and above the things in our way. It's completely ambient and dense. I stepped away from the words and writing on this one. And I can thank Grant for that. I'd like to dedicate this for Jeremy, Alexis, Grant, Megan, Ben, Elliott, Rachel and anyone else I forgot.


Dharma Is A Door
01. Point Me Skyward
02. Little Buddha
03. Momentai
04. Far Too Many Clouds
05. Feed The White Dog
06. Lost Boys Of The Land's End
07. Gauzy Evolution Of Apes
08. Feel Infinite

Summer Session EP

Here is a new In The Jaws Of A Dandy Lion EP. Honestly, it's Alexis and I messing around like we always do. I mixed these as saw fit, and I'm sure some of it might turn you guys off. It's totally obscure and rough quality.



















Summer Session EP
01. A E I O U Nothing
02. Thaw
03. The Letter People Show (Miss U)
04. Her Face In The Video

"Thaw" is the first song Alexis and I recorded really that had vocals. We also recorded it with a no-longer-lion, Jessica. But we reworked it. The original was one hell of a jam. But this EP version is just us having fun.

P.S. Elliott, it's pronounced either way you want man. I call it "Sp-did" --without that d. Like spid. But "Sp-edd" is cool too.

Stoned, Foggy, Thursday, Claymation Mindfuck Update

Alexis and I here, were browsing youtube and found this satanic claymation video. We've been kinda working hard towards some new stuff. We've recorded new and old, remaking some of the songs we lost along the way with the hard-drive b.s. And I recently bought this really rad Casio keyboard so we've been experimenting with it. Synths, organs, etc. I feel like this new stuff is really vital because of the lose. We worked for a long little while on stuff that was special to us, and we didn't even get to release any of it. Primarily our first session until so on. Like piss in the fucking wind, man. The old material had Alexis' singing, which never got to see the light of day.
We're like Valet...but we're not. Without the free parking.

"We've already raped music..." -Alexis.

Swine flu mask



















Power-kick!!















Alexis with a noose she found in the woods of the Upper Peninsula.

Infest

Here is a late night afterbirth made from sketchs and samples I've taken over the past couple months. It's kinda The Beatles - Revolution 9 backwards, just without the "Turn me on dead man" and Satan bullshit. But this one still sounds pretty evil. There is just something about reversed, unintellegable words that just freaks the hell out of me and gave me a sense of paranoia while mixing this.

Infest

Return Of Spiid!

HELLO EVERYONE!

I never realized how much I missed the internet until it was in my grasp again! Haha. Well...for starters, I just wanted to check in with everyone and tell you guys what's been going on lately.
Jeremy and I just got back from Lollapolloza '09 in Chicago. And it was probably the best musical expierence I have ever known to come.

And within the next couple of days here, Megan and I will be posting our Spiid/Atomic Spectra split EP. She made the album art for it and I think it's really rad. Other than that release, I have a lot of other plans in mind. A while ago, I managed to salvage 5 demos from my iPod that I planned on using for "Earth Tones." Now, before I managed to get these demos, I planned on completely recreating the view I had for the album. Eventually, the idea of it became so altered, I made it a project of it's own. So I'm glad to say that Spiid's return is going to be followed by two albums. I'm not saying about the untitled 3rd album. But "Earth Tones" on the other hand is going to be an all ambient/instrumental piece. Inspired by Grant's album, "Skyed Out." Along the process of making these two new records, I'll also be releasing stuff I've recorded since I lost my computer. And that's about roughly almost 200 rough demos. Needless to say, I kept busy while I was gone.

I'd like to remind everyone that I'm still struggling with trying to retrive files that I've sent to people and that it would be very much appreciated that if anyone could send anything; pictures, songs, etc., I would really be grateful. And thank you everyone for all of your kind words and expressions and concerns for the difficult times I faced this summer. It really means a lot. You guys are too fucking rad for your own good.

Now that I have access to a computer again, I'm certainly going to keep in touch with all of you a lot for frequently. And I also plan on posting a lot more, daily even, if I can.

Sacred Geometry; Dance Of Venus And Earth

This image shows the proportions of the orbit of the Earth and Venus (if the diameter the Earth's orbit is equal to diagonal of a square, the orbit of Venus would fit inside such square as shown on the drawing.

The image below has been made by hand with help of computer software for drafting. First, let's draw a square and two circles so one fits inside a square and the other outside the square. Strangely this represents accurately proportions of the orbits of Venus and Earth.
Second, let's draw equally spaced points on each circle representing number of days per orbit (365 points for the orbit of the Earth and 225 points for the orbit of Venus). Next, let's connected lines between orbital positions of each planet for each day - picking for the starting point a day when both planets are closest to each other. After repeating this process for 8 orbits of the Earth the lines form this amazing image:



















This image (to scale) shows dance of Venus and Earth - each of the fine lines connects both planets over time required to complete 8 orbits by Earth (and 13 orbits by Venus). Orbit of Earth is cropped out.



I'm not going to pretend like I understand what I've been reading...but it's really something, wouldn't you agree? Start here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sacred_geometry

It Will Always Be Okay

...Too personal maybe?

Momentai.

New Release Info

That's the name of the new record. Which at this point is coming along pretty smoothly. With "Eloise," I think one of the hardest parts was the writing. But with "Earth Tones," I've skipped that whole deal. All ambient. This project was inspired by Grant's record, "Skyed Out." Ahh...the magic of ambience. Keep checking back for it since I'm not sure when it'll be done, but I'm close!

Dharma

Today I skipped school and hung out in my garage reading Jack Kerouac's "The Dharma Bums." One of the characters, Japhy, was climbing a mountain with Jack Kerouac and company. Being a buddhist, Japhy described it as basically returning to the graveyard of man's old ways. Well...that's what I derived from it at least. Before our time...man belonged to the woods. We died there. We were once primal. I decided to climb a bluff later in the day at about noon to try and see what if what Japhy was saying had any truth to it.

I felt it. Enlightenment. Full and pure.

I decided to name the bluff, "Dharma." Of course, in tribute. It means "true meaning." And when I was up on that point, I knew exactly what "true meaning" was and what Japhy meant. I was hit with inspiration, restoration and purpose. It feels like my "creative well" is full again. So no more musing, I've got a new angle.