Aubin Thomas

An Update and a Preview of "All Points North"

2010-09-01T08:29:00.000-07:00

Hello again, blog world. Here's an update for you:

My twenty-fourth birthday is in two months, and I’m feeling myself shifting into getting older (Yes, I know, I know- twenty four is NOT old), although most of those feelings have to do with: 1)being more driven by my dissatisfaction with others for not doing things the way I would, and 2)realizing that within the next few years I’ll have to figure out how to stop relying on being “cute” and magically transform into an elegant, educated lady. I think I’m already working on the latter point by not being so angry about things anymore.

I have seven songs that make up what is essentially a new album and while there’s no song that’s completely happy or annoyance free (I find I can only write when I’m irritated with something but am too timid to hash it out with the person or I just feel the need to defend myself without being interrupted), I can see a marked difference between the lyrical content of these songs and the ones of “Cooler.” Cooler was me trying to get the Gin Circus out of my bloodstream and so a lot of the songs are either entirely sad or angry and very much into blaming the other person. Actually, all of the songs blame the other person.

But if that’s what I needed to write then that’s fine. Writing is how I process things that’ve happened to me and a lot of times it ends up sounding bitter because I was upset enough about it to need to process it in the first place. But if that’s my M.O., it’s getting a bit shaky now—I can’t hold anger or upset throughout a song long enough to finish it because I’ve learned in the past month or two that I only hurt myself when I hold onto things. It’s good for my blood pressure, but bad for my established writing style.

I think this new album will be a transition point for me. I’ll probably look back on it as the “Under the Pink” album that came between my “Little Earthquakes” and “Boys for Pele”—it shows the changes happening and while not fully formed yet it will, if nurtured, grow into a deeper kind of songwriting. That’s exciting, but also scary and inevitable. My songs are and always have been of a confessional style and I can’t very well hold onto things in my music I’m not holding onto in real life. That wouldn’t be honest. It’s also like a diary of my life experiences since I’m usually too ADD to write a journal as things happen.

Before I start waxing poetic about how lonely I feel about being the only local musician I know other than Computer at Sea who doesn’t ever appear on stage with a stringed instrument, here’s a rundown of what’s on the new album so far:

1)All Points North: the first song I wrote since “Cooler” and arguably the first one with any discernable structure to it. One night back in May, after a fight with my boyfriend during which I thought he’d broken up with me (I think it’s still open for debate, but he says he didn’t mean that to be what I took away from the interaction) I got into my car and, almost on autopilot, got on the highway with only a twenty dollar bill and a bottle of water and just drove. I ended up somewhere in Massachusetts before I realized I should probably be home asleep and I turned around and headed home around 4:00am. In that weird in-between state while driving home I just followed the “All Maine Points” signs to get home and wrote the song as I went.

2)I Am Your Local: around the same time as “All Points North,” I started a band which came to nothing with my friend Jenna Q. On a trip to Boston, she and I were talking about what songs we’d like to write and she told me about how her goal in any city she lived in was to be a local at a bar or coffee shop she frequented. This is probably as close as I’ll get to writing something that isn’t autobiographical.

3)Nothing: after it seemed like Jenna Q and I weren’t going anywhere with our band, I met a girl named Norita at the Phoenix Best of Portland awards and she and I pretty much became the best of friends and started our own band which, like the previous one, came to nothing. We were meant to be electro-pop and “Nothing” is the only song I wrote for the band that’s moderately good enough to survive the collapse of the musical project it was written for. The subject, like a few others on the album, comes from the two month period where my boyfriend and I fancied we could sustain an open relationship (if you’re wondering, it almost destroyed us, but at least I can say I had some interesting experiences). I wrote it about one of my other boyfriends who got tangled up in some bad judgments and inadvertently hurt my feelings quite a bit. Don’t worry, we’re on good terms again now.

4)Kiss and Run: this song and two others on the album were written about the same night where in the span of about four hours I had two unsettling experiences with different guys I’d thought I knew pretty well who then did a 180 degree turn from the people I knew them to be. I like the structure of this song and it marks the first time I’ve used any type of horn sounds in a song. I generally feel horns are too Rustic Overtones, but the subject in question is friends with the Rustic crowd so I don’t feel I’m betraying any artistic integrity by adding them.

5)Reproof: I work in an historic mansion here in Portland and in one of the rooms there’s a medium sized marble statue of a little girl who appears to be about to slap a kitten she’s holding for killing a bird that lays dead at her feet. On the base of the statue is the word “reproof.” I couldn’t get out of my head that the scene was pretty close to how I felt about a situation I’d had with a guy I’d been having a kind of open affair with that had recently gone all to hell. I alternately felt like the bird, the girl, and the cat, so I took the word “reproof” and wrote a bluesy jazz song using a rather dissonant piano as the background. I think it rivals “You Say Goodbye” in terms of getting close to the jazz tunes my voice was meant for.

6) One Night Stand: oh, dear…this song used to be known by its chorus of “You Have a Big Dick, But Don’t Be a Dick to Me.” It’s also pretty straightforward. There are few things emotionally worse than showing someone a bit of your vulnerable side and then feeling they’re ignoring you or, heaven forbid, are ashamed they’ve been with you. The subject/situation in question has, like “Nothing,” been resolved, but it’s a quirky little tune nonetheless.

7) Harvard Street Actor: I have a feeling if the subject of this song recognizes himself in the title I’ll get nothing but “fuck you” from him if I ever run into him in the future. It’s for the best and anyway I’ll take a “fuck you” in exchange for such a beautiful song. The companion song to “Kiss and Run” in terms of that disastrous night, “Harvard Street Actor” has been a surprising success with everyone I’ve played it for. It also has a cheeky little throwback to my Mad Ophelia days with the bridge where I rephrase some of Ophelia’s words to say: “quoth she: ‘before you tumbled me, you promised me to wed’; said he ‘oh, I would’ve done had you not come to my bed.’” Like “Backstabber” has become my “fuck you” to my Gin Circus days, I’m content to have “Harvard Street Actor” be the summary of the experiences that make up this album.

In the meantime, don’t forget you can still stream and download mp3s of most of my music on my bandcamp website:
http://aubinthomas.bandcamp.com/

Help Me With My New Album!

2010-03-10T21:02:00.000-08:00

(Picture unrelated and in Harvard Yard)

Hello my dear little kittens!

I’m putting together the final tracklist for my album and I have two spaces left to reach my goal of 7 tracks. So far I have (in no particular order):

1. (You’re A) Backstabber
2. In the Teeth
3. I, Have a Theory
4. Cupcakes
5. ?
6. ?
7. Cooler

See how tracks 5 and 6 are blank? That’s where you come in!

Is there any song you’ve heard me sing in the past that you want on there? If you guys show no preference or have no suggestions you aren’t allowed to complain that I didn’t include your favorite song of mine so it’s in your best interest to speak up.

If you need a mental refresher on my songs, here are some helpful links:
My Youtube page:
http://www.youtube.com/user/madopheliamusic

My Myspace:
http://www.myspace.com/aubinthomas

My Mad Ophelia Myspace:
http://www.myspace.com/madopheliamusic

See/hear anything you’d want on the album? Or remember something I sang live that’s not online (such as “You Say Goodbye,” or “Blood of the Girl”)? LET ME KNOW!

I’ll check back in a week or so. I look forward to seeing your suggestions!

-Aubin

Lots of Text and Lots of Context; or, What I've Been Up To

2010-03-06T01:16:00.000-08:00

Once again I’ve stayed up into the wee hours of the morning. How do I always end up doing that? At this point I might as well stay awake since I’m already three hours into Saturday.

I suppose my lack of sleep could be due to a number of things. It could be that I’m in the middle of packing up my mother’s house so it can be put on the market. It could also be that I’ve put myself into isolation to work on my album.
How silly do I sound? “My album”? I don’t think I’m at that level of accomplishment yet to speak like that. I know it’s a statement of fact, but describing it makes it sound so professional and I’ve only been performing since July. I suppose this is part of the problem with why I haven’t been doing more since then.
Recently, my friend Bryan Bruchman (who I mention by full name because you may Google him and see he is awesome at photography and blogging among other things) took some photos of me that I could use for promotional use. He was, as he generally is, all about the idea that my music aspirations are worth pursuing. We took photos, they look awesome, and I’ve been using them everywhere, most recently on the main page of my new website layout:

I’ve become a bit agoraphobic while cleaning out mom’s house. I spend my days up my to elbows in bad memories as I sort and throw away and pack over a decade’s worth of things. It’s exhausting and I can’t muster enough energy to go to the grocery store most days, let alone drive into Portland. So when Bryan recently had an evening birthday party at a bar on the East End it took a lot of my energy to haul myself out of the house and into the rainy night to drive over there. I sat there, nodded off every once in a while, and eventually people filtered out until there was a handful of partiers left milling around. Bryan was, by then, quite drunk; I was, myself, sober but exhausted, which amounts to being drunk after a certain point. Somehow this created the perfect conditions for a twenty minute one-on-one chat about my future. Basically, to put it crudely, he verbally kicked my ass about not doing more with my music. And he’s right—I’m really not pushing it and considering it’s what I want to do with my life and I know I wouldn’t really be good at anything else I should be trying harder to put myself out there. So this is my way of doing it—by locking myself up in a suburban home and recording take after take of every song until I feel it’s ready (something I never did before, which is why all previously released songs had lead vocals that were done in one take, which doesn’t always turn out the best). It sucks and it’s lonely, but I have faith the final product will be gorgeous.

On a similar note, I’ve been invited back to perform as Lady Gaga with the For Your Pleasure Burlesque in May. I’m thankful for the opportunity for a few reasons but mainly because of this fact about Portland: Absolutely no one who goes to a show will criticize the performance that they see.
It’s a strange and somewhat unsettling thing, actually. How can an artist of any sort grow without seeing the reactions of others to their art? There may be variations, genres, etc. that go into what form the art takes, but within that category there are good and bad examples. I job shadowed a music critic once and he told me that the way you write a review is that you determine which category/genre the artist is putting themselves in and then you measure them by the standards of that genre. It’s really that simple.
My genre is more or less punk cabaret, so I look to theater of various styles and artists like Amanda Palmer, Meow Meow, and Marcella Puppini to see if I’m on track with my music and performance. I don’t expect the audience who accidently stumbles upon my shows to know who any of those people are, but I know my own genre well enough to know if someone’s critique is valid or is trying to conform what I’m doing to something outside of my goal. If you’re curious, here are examples of each other people above:
Amanda Palmer:

Meow Meow:

Marcella Puppini:

So far I have not, by the standards of my genre, put on a good show in either my Lady Gaga or Aubin performances. I think other people know this but are too nice to tell me, which is frustrating, even though it would be painful to hear it (I’m still young enough to more than occasionally blur the lines between personal attack and artistic criticism. In art school, I developed a facial twitch that came around whenever my drawings were critiqued, but then again I’m pretty high strung anyway). So, to combat this, I’ve watched videos of my performances and decided that my problems are actually just one problem: I have no idea what to do with myself other than sing. I just stand there and look awkward. I’m pretty fortunate, actually, because that problem can be solved by planning the hell out of however much time I’ve been allotted.
To return to my point about my Lady Gaga performance, the last one, while impressive to people who can’t see themselves donning a wig and singing Gaga, was waaaaaay below my standards. I did the bare minimum of everything and it’s my own damn fault. Which is why I’m taking the two months I have left before the show to choreograph like there’s no tomorrow. I want a resulting performance that Gaga herself would be impressed with. Wish me luck—I’m no dancer, but I’ll try my best.
Well, that was an awful lot of text. I haven’t got many photo or video links to upload, but if you care to, you may check out my new song “(You’re A) Backstabber,” which is now up on my MySpace here:
www.myspace.com/aubinthomas

Until the next blog (which will hopefully be about my alum being done) I hope you’re all doing well and I look forward to meeting you in the world outside this house in about a month.

-Aubin

Aubin (Ah ah ah); or, Post-Gaga wrap-up.

2010-01-26T20:58:00.000-08:00

My life recently can be described in one phrase that I dearly love but rarely have occasion to use: it’s swings and roundabouts.

I had a dream at the end of December where someone I hold close to my heart who has since died told me that this year would be a very busy one for me and so far that seems to be true. I performed as Lady Gaga with the For Your Pleasure Burlesque on the 21st and it went….well, it went fairly alright considering the little time I had to put the major choreography together (thanks to snow the girl that I was dancing to Bad Romance with couldn’t practice with me until two hours before the performance):

Jon Donnell, one-time Aubin boyfriend and more importantly current Aubin friend, took photos of the event (as he usually does. The first time I saw him was at the same venue as he photographed Gin Circus’s first performance). Here are some of my favorite from the set. The rest can be found here (and if you explore the photo stream a bit more you’ll see me from July in black and white): http://www.flickr.com/photos/photos-by-jondonnell/sets/72157600086406884/

I'm a bit too fat to be a truly convincing Lady Gaga, not to mention my outfits lack a zany sort of style, but no matter.

I’ve also just been asked to sing at a benefit for Haiti earthquake relief called Rising Voices Raising Consciousness. It’s April 11, so I’m not thinking about it just yet. But I have to keep it in mind coming up.

My other thing that I’m trying to work on is making note cards out of some of my comics. Here's my favorite one, a portrait of my roommate's cat, Girl Walter, listening to NPR like she does when my roommate is away:

I'm also hopefully doing a photo shoot with my friend Bryan Bruchman sometime soon. He's a busy B so who knows when, but he had me email him a list of things that creatively influence me (which mean me gathering lots of youtube videos and pictures) so hopefully it'll be a great shoot. He took this photo, you may remember:

Alright. Enough of me for now. I shall leave you with what has become one of my favorite pictures lately. It's me playing the Lie Down Game near a Smoot mark on a certain bridge in the Boston area. Look up Smoots, for they are interesting units of measure. This photo is by the lovely Ms. Elisha Clarke:

-Aubin

To Get Him Out of Your Head, v.1

2010-01-18T13:52:00.000-08:00

I was told the other day that someone reads this blog so I’ll update it. While there was no use in updating if I was talking to myself I can’t pass up a chance for conversation. In other words, if you read this, comment somehow and talk with me—I do music/art/videos to say things I can’t say in my speaking voice so it’s important to me to know I’m making a connection even if it’s a tiny one.

Anyway…

Back in 2005 I saw The Dresden Dolls for the first time. I had heard Coin Operated Boy on WCYY’s Top 5 at 5 and nearly had a brain aneurism when I discovered that it wasn’t just a one-off foray into cabaret sound land. As a pretty socially isolated teenager who found solace in Judy Garland movies and Tori Amos and they seemed to be the magical bridge I was looking for between the two. I saw them at the Bullmoose Warehouse in Scarborough and was blown away by their acoustic set and was then moved to tears by their full set at SPACE Gallery. For your “old school” pleasure, here is a poorly lit picture from that day:

That’s also the day I decided I shouldn’t use a disposable camera without flash for documenting important events like concerts.
I remember one clear thought during the SPACE concert, where I looked at Amanda and thought: “I want to do that.” That’s what got me into this silly little mess that I’m in right now with my music—seeing her pour her soul out on stage (if you’ll forgive the cliché) turned on a switch on my head (another cliché) that suddenly connected how I could get my frustrations out, how I could communicate things to people that I couldn’t find the attention span to speak (those who know me and interact with me on a daily basis will know that I speak like Neil Gaiman’s Delirium a lot of the time in terms of conversational content).
Either way, it gave me the courage to take a step and perform Tori Amos’s “Pretty Good Year” at the senior talent show in 2005:

At the time I thought I was awesome, but seeing the video it’s almost painful to me how not-awesome I am. I’ve learned a lot about stage performance since and I know I still have a hell of a long way to go but….yeah. Kind of embarrassing.

ANYWAY! My point is that Amanda Palmer, by virtue of being older and more ambitious, tends to do cool things because the idea for similar things is even fully incubated in my mind. For example, I’d been taking dead photographs of myself for about 6 months before she announced what would become the Who Killed Amanda Palmer book. I love that, though—it shows me I’m on the right track and it gives me a challenege to deviate in my own little ways to keep things interesting.
Such is the case with what I’m doing right now.

I’m sure you remember I was in a band this past summer, right? Gin Circus? No? Well, here’s a video of us to remind you:

It was a tough summer for me for a lot of reasons. I booked our first show the night that Michael Jackson died and considering Michael Jackson was my first hero I saw that as a good sign for the musical future that my first performance of my adult life was booked as he did the “off this mortal coil” shuffle. I don’t deny I learned a lot about myself between then and now, but I also ended up going through various levels of emotional hell that I’m only now beginning to genuinely get over. However, as I’m getting over things I’m not angry enough any more to go into detail. Suffice to say that a bunch of things led to me writing a handful of songs that for many reasons could never be Gin Circus songs. Months after, though, it’s proving good therapy to polish off recordings of them and put them out there, to be done with them.

So that’s what I’m doing here:

I like that cover as well. I took it outside Alex’s house before practice one day. Apparently it had run into a window pretty fast because it didn’t have a head left, just a disintegrating body. It’s gross now, but I was in a morbid mood at the time and took a bunch of pictures of it. It made sense to make it the cover considering the location and the title, which was from one of our songs, “Clementine.” The line being: “I’d crush your little skull in, girl, to get him out of your head.”

The nice thing about my constantly having my camera with me is that I have an image that corresponds to each song within the timespan of a week. In other words, the album art that’s on my fan page on facebook right now is a picture I took within the same time as when I wrote the song. You can see what I looked like, what I was doing, and, by inference, what influenced the song.
This one is my favorite because it encompasses the downfall of everything I thought was stable back then. The post-crash car, the person looking at the car, the house it’s in front of—they all ended up in songs and I think twenty years from now, when people no longer hate each other and these things are simply documents relating to a few months in the lives of a few people, it’ll be a beautiful connection:

But none of that is ready to remotely release yet. Other than a rough draft CD to my friend Mary.
But here is the question of the day: If I went to all the effort to release this fabled CD in some form, would you buy it? Would you see me perform it?

While you answer that I’ll go bake some more cupcakes:

-Aubin

Lady Gaga rules my life; AKA- a wig is an instant confidence builder.

2010-01-11T13:58:00.000-08:00

Oh, heavens help me. I feel like I’m complaining an awful lot lately. The main topics of complaint are:
1)Money and Job, of which there’s never any of either
2)Friends, who I feel I don’t see enough of despite feeling like I’m not too busy
3)Lack of musical talent, specifically instrumental talent.

The money and job are being vaguely solved by finding money in odd places and my internship at a newspaper (although it’s an unpaid internship).
Friends are…well, maintaining friendships is always a bit tough for me. I’m a loner but I crave hanging out with friends. Anyway my loner tendencies come from my feeling socially awkward because I inevitably have at least two unintentional social faux pas moments per hanging out session. Things I think are funny or clever or interesting sometimes strike people as perhaps stupid or embarrassing so it leads to odd situations.

Lack of musical talent is and has been a huge problem for me. I can sing and that’s about it. As far as doing anything manually I am completely useless. I played saxophone for three years and was very good at it, but I can’t do that and sing at the same time. I want to play piano with both hands instead of one at a time, and I want to play bass on more than just the lowest string and left handed. It makes me so angry that I can only do the bare minimum on every thing that I want to do so badly.

I also feel like if I don’t have a creative outlet soon my head will explode. I’m playing Lady Gaga (again) on the 21st with the For Your Pleasure burlesque at Geno’s here in Portland. I’m learning choreography and it’s alright, but a cold has me on some restriction as far as vocals are concerned so recording backing vocals will have to wait. In related news, my video for Paparazzi reached over 400 views recently:

In studying the choreography/video for Bad Romance I’ve thought about a few things. They’re connected thoughts, really—1)It must be nice to be paid to look and be fabulous and 2) I’m glad I’m not as deep into anorexia as I used to be or watching that video would be quite triggering. I figured I couldn’t be the only one who connected the vertebrae-showing video fashion with anorexia so I googled around and found this article which, though I know nothing of the site before this, seems to agree with some of my thoughts about it: http://www.femalefirst.co.uk/music/reviews/Lady+GaGa+Bad+Romance+Video+What+Do+You+Think-9731.html

Choice quote being: “I can’t say I’m overly sold on the whole ‘eating Disorder Gaga’ either I mean, who’s decision was it to put that it there? Surely showing many a girls’ hero looking unhealthily thin is going to send the wrong message to fans?”
Case in point:

But then I looked up the ideas behind the video and, if Wikipedia can be trusted, which it occasionally can, the idea is filled with different “monsters” that haunted her during the tour. I’d read an interview a while back with her where she was asked how she stayed thin and said “It’s all about starvation! Pop stars don’t eat.” That leads me to believe the whole exaggerated anorexia in the video is a representation of yet another on-tour monster. Regardless, I’m ashamed to say it does stoke the dying embers of my own disorder and make me want to touch my ribs and collar bones.

Nothing’s real, though, is it? No one’s ever thin enough and no one is ever what they seem. Although Masha Tyelna could give Bad Romance Gaga a run for her money in the eye department:

Even though I feel like I’m 20 pounds too heavy to play Lady Gaga, I’m doing just that this coming 21st, as I said before. I’ll let you know how it goes. I went to a party last night in my Gaga outfit, full wig/make-up/outfit. I stood against a wall with my Gaga glasses on and it's weird how wearing those wig and glasses gave me a boost of confidence. Someone could've insulted me horribly and I would've just shrugged it off as long as I was wearing that outfit. No wonder nothing seems to bother Gaga. Well, there's probably some lost neurons contributing to that too for her, but whatever. It helps and could mean something important for future performance to know the power of a costume.

-Aubin

You are every broken bottle, you are every parking meter: minor creativity in the final two weeks of college

2009-12-09T18:50:00.000-08:00

I’m coming up on the end of my college career now—as of December 17th, 2009 I will officially be done with my academic career. That is utterly terrifying. It’s the same feeling I get when a new relationship proves particularly promising. I feel like I’ve been climbing this very steep hill full of stress and tough obstacles and I’m so used to climbing that now that I’m at the top I have no clue what to do with myself and my body wants to keep going on in the manner it’s become accustomed to. However, while it’s easy to keep running through relationships I can’t really go for more school. I’m $25,000 in debt already and wouldn’t have use for graduate school anyway in terms of a career.

It's also the end of my newswriting career for now. I may write for a blog or two, I can't honestly say. My news article are located here if you're curious (I'm particularly proud of the one on Ben Bishop): http://arthomaswriting.blogspot.com/

I got to pretend I was a punk singer last night for about an hour. That was fun and sketchy, since it was with two of the Grownups at Prime Artist, a creepy practice space behind an eerily dark and vacant bus station. It came right after I had something upsetting happen and had decided to deal with my emotions by doing the stupid Alex thing of punching a parking meter (not to say he does that regularly, but I saw him do it one evening). It wasn’t the meter’s fault, really. The whiskey in my system stopped me from feeling it too badly, but it’s kind of hard to type with both hands at the moment. I think this might mean I’m turning into my dad, who once broke his hand hitting a countertop in anger and then was too stubborn to have it set or to take pain reliever. The guys were nice to me, though, and gave me a megaphone to scream my frustration into:

Other than that there’s not much to report (yet) possible collaboration with Racer Boy 2 coming up in the spring but if it doesn’t happen I don’t want to feel bad for hyping it up.

I filmed a video for “I Have a Theory” today with the wonderful Mr. Jon Donnell. He was the first person to photograph Gin Circus (at our first show) and I’m fortunate enough now to count him as one of my friends. Here are some stills, but keep checking up on the youtube page for the video: http://www.youtube.com/user/madopheliamusic

-Aubin

Aubin Thomas and Too Much Birthday.

2009-11-25T15:45:00.000-08:00

Oh, goodness, what a mess. I usually gauge what I should blog about by the photos newly uploaded into my iphoto library but there’s not much there, which is unusual. I did get a very nice kudos from Loren Coleman on his blog in response to my article that I wrote about his museum for the University newspaper. You can read it here:

http://www.cryptomundo.com/cryptozoo-news/the-first/

My birthday was last weekend and I’m now 23. I feel old but I honestly can’t voice that seriously—all of my friends are at least two years older than I am if not more and they, very rightly, tell me to hush when I say I feel ancient. I still feel like I haven’t accomplished anything, though. Lady Gaga and Lily Allen are my age and look at all they’ve done. But, as one of my friends pointed out, they were born having music industry connections. I was born with talent, which will hopefully count for something if I ever figure out exactly what to do with it.

My birthday weekend started out with a show at Slainte Wine Bar on Friday. About 50 people said they’d come and about 15 showed up. I’m thankful for the ones who showed up and am trying to not be hurt by the people who didn’t. The show was my absolute worst one I’d ever played and unfortunately the only one to be fully videotaped. I’ve talked with my friend who videotaped it, though, and made a request that she only put up the two songs I didn’t mess up on. I’m not sure why but I couldn’t remember lyrics, even to my own songs. I got so frustrated with myself for the way I am onstage too—I just stand there and it’s horrible. I’m not established enough that people would want to see me stand there like a cow stuck in the mud. I have good songs but it’s hard to show people that if they’re distracted by how boring I look. I had a cold among other things, so my voice is also pretty bad in the one video I do have so far. Here it is anyway, me singing in German with what I suspect is a pretty poor German accent. There’s a guest appearance by my two year old nephew, Max:

My favorite moment has yet to surface on the internet. I ended up dueting on “Voices Carry” by Til Tuesday with my friend Kate (Yes, that Kate). It felt epic at the time, but I won’t really believe it until I see the video. I also loved the moment where Jason and I sang Corrugated Racing Machine which is, as Jason said, the only performance of that song to ever occur live.
Unfortunately, My night was kind of….less than ideal. I was pleased to see two of my favorite bands (who happen to be my friends as well) Wood Burning Cat and Huak play after my set, though. My nephew adored Wood Burning Cat, which was nice since he sat with me for a little bit and watched the show. He grew to love Jason from the one family dinner Jason came with me to so my nephew kept running up right against the mic stands and standing there, sucking his thumb with his big noise-block headphones on. That’s the only reason why I wish my relationship with Jason had worked out—I’ve never seen him reenact so positively to someone. It was nice.

In the middle of Huak’s set I was already feeling a big down, letting my own thoughts eat away at me like I sometimes do. My friend Tara did a rockstar thing and walked across the low table in front of me to get to the stage area but the table wasn’t as steady as she thought and it tipped over and spilled two glasses of ice and a bit of liquid on me and my backpack. Everything happened super fast—I was sobbing, face in my hands bawling my eyes out and then there were people around me, and someone had their hands on my shoulders. Through my fingers I could see Tara and Kate going through my backpack and showing me how there was actually minimal damage and that my digital camera, phone, 35mm, ipod, etc. still worked fine, but I couldn’t stop crying. Jason brought me outside and we sat in his car until I calmed down. When I came back inside, Tara was pretty upset and was afraid I was angry with her, which I could never be—she had no way of knowing that would happen. When I got home I cried on the floor of my bedroom and felt pretty emo.

The next evening I watched Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure with Jason, David, Kate, and Derek. We ate cake made by my friend Mary (one of two Marys involved in my birthday weekend) and it was very delicious—vegan vanilla with a layer of homemade lemoncurd and butterless-buttercream frosting. The best part, however, was the decorations:

All artificial dye free and decorated with kitties. Perfect!
That Sunday (my actual birthday, the 22nd) was the best in some ways, though, if only for the morning. I made a video with Mary (not the one who made the cake, the other one) at her and her mom’s bar, the deliciously dive-y Mama’s Crowbar (or, according to the sign above the door, Awful Annie’s). Here’s the finished product and wait for the guest appearance of Mary’s Chihuahua Kiwi at the end of it:

I guess this is the end of my blog so it’s as good a time as any to say this (if anyone cares to notice, and I appreciate some people might not care about it) but I’m taking a hiatus from music for the next three months. That means you’d have to pretty much offer me a kitten to get me to sing WITH somebody and there’s no way in heck I’m orchaestrating a show of my own during that time. I still have a fair number of demos if anyone wants one (they’re generally free but a donation of a dollar or two is always nice) and I have a few pins with my logo on it (made by Mr. Bryan Bruchman as an awesome birthday gift to me) that I’ve been giving out when the mood strikes me. But yeah, no more Aubin shoving herself into the music scene in any capacity other than an observer for the next three months.

Until the next time I blog, here’s a picture of me as a baby to celebrate the fact that I’ve somehow lived 23 (wait, 24? Birthdays are counted strangely, I think) years on this planet. Please note that I used to basically have anime eye proportions:

-Aubin

Of AFP at PCMH and my love of dressing up in fancy clothes

2009-11-16T19:37:00.001-08:00

Hello again. I've been equal parts busy and indifferent, which doesn't make for good blogging so I've not done any. I have spent an awful lot of time playing dress up, though. Case in point, a picture Kate Sullivan-Jones took of me during the "Paparazzi" photo shoot:

I also went 1920s for a while to film a video in yet another attempt of mine to sing a song that will impress Over a Cardboard Sea. Hot Diggity, what I wouldn't do to guest sing with them...but I digress:

I whipped up a mini culinary masterpiece (ok, so it was just biscuits, salad, and pasta) for Amanda Palmer and the Nervous Cabaret when they came through town. I mostly hung out with the Nervous Cabaret, which suits me fine since they're all nice guys and pretty funny. Case in point this particular gentleman who insisted on pictures with me on two seperate occasions. That's how I know my outfit looked awesome, I guess.

I also followed around my new friend Bryan Bruchman before the show started as he took photos of soundcheck. I've not known him for long, but he and his girlfriend are some of my favorite folks nowadays-- they're both doing fun, creative things with their lives and I admire that and hope to have such a life for myself someday. I'm also glad Bryan was there because when it came time to have my picture taken with Amanda Palmer post-show I had my hands full with trying to carry the leftover food around and couldn't get to my camera so he took a picture with his camera instead. I'm actually glad that happened because it's by far one of the better photographs taken of me, let alone of me with Amanda. The man knows what he's doin', alright.

Since I posted that picture I've heard a few different comments about it, especially about my facial expression. It's funny because I'm fairly sure my only thought at the exact moment the flash went off was "Aubin, don't smirk," as I sometimes have a habit of doing in pictures. No overwhelming fangirly-ness, no fear, no utter joy-- I'm thoroughly inspired by her as a musician and a creative woman, but I don't flail like kermit when I'm around her. I got my fangirl vibes out in that regard when I was 18 and saw the Dresden Dolls for the first time. It's always a pleasure to see her perform nonetheless.

Also, in case you ever doubted how diminutive I am, here's a shot Bryan took of me (most likely by accident) during the concert. I know the guy behind me is super tall, but I'm surrounded by normal heighted people otherwise:

I'm glad to know that I still look photogenic when I'm unaware my picture's being taken. It gives me hope for this Friday's show when, no doubt, there'll be tons of pictures of me being taken. To be fair, that's mostly by my request, since it's my birthday and I plan on getting too drunk to remember it so I'll need those photos later...I am, of course, kidding.

The week wrapped up with me interviewing Loren Coleman, the renowned Cryptozoologist. A very interesting and genuinly kind man with a passion for cryptids the likes of which I've never seen before. Here's me with him in front of the International Cryptozoology Museum's resident Bigfoot:

I did the interview for an article for the USM Free Press. The text and photos can be found cross posted on my writing blog over here:

http://arthomaswriting.blogspot.com/

On that note, I must return to writing this ten page paper and then go to bed, as I'm driving my roommate to the airport early tomorrow morning.
My final thought for the evening? If I were alive during WWII, I would like to think I would have somehow talked my way into being a morale-boosting singer like Vera Lynn was:

Of Youtube videos and other creative publication.

2009-10-10T10:39:00.000-07:00

I did not die from last week, as you may have guessed. Life has taken a minor upswing again, which is very welcome as always. The Decemberists have become my music of choice- there’s just something about the music itself, regardless of who is singing it at the moment, that makes me feel better and for whatever reason makes me a feel a bit empowered. If I’m feeling shy or lacking confidence there are certain Decemberists songs that can instantly make me feel like I’m a force of nature. It’s awesome.

A few days ago I gave an ultimatum on Twitter that if my video for “Cupcakes” (remember it? It’s this one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYpe2rYzPhc ) reached 200 views by Monday I would post a new video. I think I underestimated how many people pay attention to what I’m saying because the view count jumped by ten in 24 hours, as did the views on several of my other new videos. I know ten more views in 24 hours isn’t generally impressive, but to have it follow something I said on Twitter is amazing to me. I’m glad to see I’m apparently making some kind of invisible connection. It’s silly if I stop to think about it, which is generally why I don’t stop to think about things like that.

I won’t say more about the video I’m putting up except to say that there may be two videos instead of one. Well see how it goes…

This past week I also recorded a version of “I Have A Theory” that got over 33 views within the first 24 hours of my posting it. That’s pretty funny to me because the video is nothing fancy. It’s me sitting on the kitchen floor with my yamaha keyboard, wearing plaid trousers and a Rogues Gallery shirt, no make-up singing to a jam track. It took two weeks or so to get Cupcakes up to the view count and star rating of this video. Does this mean I shouldn’t be so fancy? I don’t think I can stop being fancy, but it’s an interesting phenomenon to keep in mind:

That strikes me as even funnier because, besides Blood of the Girl, I Have a Theory is one of the oldest songs in my repertoire now that You Say Goodbye has been retired with Gin Circus. I wrote both of those when I was fifteen. I like that I’m still performing them and people like the stripped down sound better than the more complicated things I’m doing now.

There aren’t any pictures this week, really. Mostly because I can’t find my camera cord to upload them.

I have another article printed in The Free Press this week:

http://media.www.usmfreepress.org/media/storage/paper311/news/2009/10/05/ArtsAndEntertainment/Usm-Bands.Rock.Space.Gallery-3794297.shtml

They didn’t put the picture in, but in the print edition of the paper they used this photo:

Lovely Tara. I also had a photo published in the Portland edition of the Deli. The photo wasn’t working when I went to the site just now so I’ll just show you which one it was and forgo linking to the site since, well, the portrayal of dear Katherine has become a running joke. No matter! They chose this one:

I have today and Sunday off as well as Monday and Tuesday. Although I have lots of homework I have a musical task ahead of me- the Dresden Dolls’ “Jeep Song” says everything I want to say about some particular thoughts and feelings I have at the moment but I refuse to let it go just because the topics have been covered before. Therefore, I have to write a song that expresses my feelings without tramping on Amanda Palmer’s past feelings on the subject. It will no doubt become another on-the-floor-with-the-yamaha video, don’t worry.

Tonight is family dinner. I get to see my nephew. This makes me very happy since toddlers’ joy is infectious. Actually, toddlers can be pretty infectious in general, so I’m going to go get some vitamin C in my system before I see him.
-Aubin

post-show round-up; or, a blog in which I over-hyphenate.

2009-10-06T21:56:00.000-07:00

This week feels like it will be the death of me. That includes this past Friday. And to top it all off, I’m now wide awake thanks to hearing the familiar yet horrifying skitter of mice in the walls of my room. Having only just found the last of the now liquefied dead mice from last season nestled in their eternal sleep in a bag of school papers I’d moved from Gorham the summer before this past one I’m not looking forward to dealing with them again. Let’s continue, though, with headphones on and Crane Wife blasting because, honestly, I don’t have time for mice and their misdeeds.

Friday began at 5am and then flowed into Pilates class, which flowed into German class, which, once over, turned into a torrent of me flailing like Kermit the Frog about everything I had to get done. I drove back home and shoved everything into the back of my car: outfit, keyboard with new batteries, computer, firebox, donation jar, the whole damn lot of it. I then drove over to Vanessa’s house, missing a call from Ahna about dance rehearsal, and spent an hour with her trying to make my hair look good, which didn’t end up happening. She tried, but now that my hair is longer it’s less cooperative.

I then jumped into my car again to drive over to Alex’s house where we ran through “Color Scientist” three times fast. I love playing with him. It’s too bad it doesn’t work on a constant basis. Ah, well. There was the good news that he found out that Rose, the cat he’s been taking care of since the summer, is now officially his cat. That makes me happy since I grew to love her cranky, accustive meows whenever I visit. She’s feisty and I love it, plus it makes him happy to have her around so that’s awesome he gets to keep her. She’s got more character than any cat I’ve met in a while:

I then had to park a two mile walk away from The Dooryard to pick up a video camera before then driving over to Target to buy a mini-DV tape and AA batteries, all while singing along to the set list which I’d stored on my ipod. Despite which, by the way, I forgot the words to four of the songs once I got on stage. That’s actually a good example of what stress does to me. I might as well be ADHD or on speed when I’m stressed—I shake, I grind my teeth, I can’t form sentences, I generally stumble. Most people don’t get the full effect of it, but I think, if Alex’s reaction is any indication, I’m terribly annoying when I’m like that. The worst that happened other than forgetting lyrics and how to work my keyboard was actually something only two people saw: before I went on stage I had to run over to the Dooryard to get something to bring back over and, being out-of-it and therefore not observant, I ran with full force into a spring-loaded solid wood door, hitting myself right in the face. I stumbled backwards and fell into the two people smoking on the front steps. Embarassing and my nose hurt for the rest of the evening. I’d be a horrible, conspicuous speed junkie. I can’t fake internal balance for the life of me. Even as a kid I was always falling down staircases and off playground equipment. It’s a wonder I’ve never broken a bone.

Below are the three most important men from that night providing, respectively from left to right: electric guitar, acoustic guitar, and sound. I love this picture:

I’m not intending a rockstar pose here. This is my “where the fudge is Irina, we have to start the show?!” look. She was just outside, no big deal. It seemed panic-worthy at the time, though.

Here’s the first number, “Don’t Tell Mama.” The waver you hear in my voice when I’m kneeling on the amp is not from nerves but because I almost fell over. My voice doesn’t shake when I’m nervous. It’s about the only part of me that stays calm at all times:

The other videos are there on my youtube page. I won’t embed every one of them.
Here’s another example of the law of round faces. For those who don’t recall my explanation of it before, it means that if Alex and I are in the same photograph one of us has to look bad. This is my turn to look bad:

Actually, there’s only one exception to the law of round faces. If we’re at a carnival we both look good. Case in point:

It’d be interesting to see if this law extends to pictures of me and other people with round faces. I’ll have to find a few and test the theory….

It was good to play Geno’s and have it go more or less right. The first time meant me crying in the back parking lot and having beer spilled on me. This time it ended with a $10 profit on CD sales and short, flavored make-out sessions with attractive girls at the kissing booth. A clear improvement, I think.

I miss being on stage already. Especially now that people seem to have some interest in what I’m doing. Which reminds me—there was a girl who took photos of me applying my make-up pre-show in the bathroom at Geno’s. She said she’d find me on facebook but hasn’t yet. I hope she does, I want to see how those turned out.

I’ve been thinking of some sad things that happened this past spring. So, in honor of that, I’ll end on a picture of me from that time. With bonus Alex-before-I-wasn’t-afraid-of-him and with people I’ve not talked about cropped out cos, well, there’s no need to drag them into blog-land:

Also- am imposing Alex embargo on this blog. I know he made up a large part of my summer so in referencing the past four or five months of my life it’s inevitable, but I’m sure there’s other things I can talk about. Although if I knew or thought anyone read this other than myself and my sister I’d be more inclined to branch out into other topics. No matter.

-Aubin

pre-show procrastination; or, writing to avoid writing.

2009-10-01T12:18:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow is my first solo show and in anticipation of that I’ve spent my morning burning and hand-labeling 20 demo CDs with a sharpie. I don’t expect I’ll be able to get rid of any more than five at tomorrow’s show, but it’s not as if they have an expiration date. Behold a visual sampling of the future of my music career:

I’ve figured out my set list just now, too. In order to round out the time I’m decided to play a song I told myself I wouldn’t play live. I’ll change some of the words, it’ll be fine. If art can’t be daring then it expresses nothing. Oh, dear, that sounded horribly cliché…my apologies about that.

I have two “special guests” lined up so far. I think I’m allowed surrounding myself (in one case literally) with people who’ll make me more comfortable with being on stage alone. The first one is Jason, aka- my boyfriend and, more importantly, one of my best friends, who will be accompanying me for a cover of his song “Literal Walls.”

The other consists of my friends Ahna and Irina from the Dooryard who are, as I’ve mentioned before, my back-up dancers. We had our first practice this past Sunday for it and it was awesome. I have a video of it, but Ahna said she’d kill me if I posted it. I’m taping the show on Friday so you can see it there, but in the meantime, here’s a screencap of my favorite moment:

Wir sind sehr Berlin Cabaret. Also- having back-up dancers who are so much taller than I am is the best comic relief I could possibly think of. Wunderbar!

In addition to show things, I have to write two articles including one review of a show my friends’ bands played this past Tuesday. I feel like I’ve now photographed Marie Stella at a minimum of three shows now, which is a big number for me, considering I rarely go to shows these days. I was at their first show, but all I have to show from that is a picture of Matt Erickson rocking a very sharp looking mustache. It looks like his evil twin compared to what he looks like now. See what I mean?:

It’s weird how one thing can jolt you into a different life path.

The other band I photographed/wrote about was the Rattlesnakes, who I’m new at being friends with, but they’re all ridiculously nice people. I look forward to getting to know them more. Here’s Tara singing in Jason’s face. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t thinking about mimicking some of her Karen O-esque stage moves for tomorrow’s performance. She just knocks everyone over when she’s on stage, it’s awesome:

I hope someone takes a bunch of pictures while I’m on stage tomorrow. I have no clue how I’m going to come off without someone else/other people to steadily interact with while I’m up there.
I guess it’s time to stop avoiding writing those two articles. And doing my reading. I really can’t afford to be up until 2am again.

-Aubin

Set Lists and Self Censorship; or, reasons why I need to chill out in general.

2009-09-24T19:22:00.000-07:00

I’ve started planning out what I’m doing for my show on October 2nd. It’s strange because I’m purposefully trying to do songs that Gin Circus didn’t touch. I don’t think anyone would care if I crossed some of them over, but it helps me mentally to separate them. I’m trying to give myself about 30 minutes worth of songs which means I need to find two more songs to plug into the set list.

I’m opening the show with a cover of “Don’t Tell Mama” from Cabaret. I found an awesome karaoke backing track, which is a blessing since I’m sure any backing track I could’ve made from scratch wouldn’t do it justice. I’m doing choreography with two of the Dooryard girls, as I’ve mentioned, so I think if there’s a dance routine and it’s a real show it’s not cheating to use karaoke. Performance art, damnit!

I made a decision to include “Color Scientist Strikes Again” in my set list even though it could be argued that it’s a Gin Circus song. It has a larger label on it, though: it’s the only song I’ve ever messed up on live. I’m very meticulous about how I sing songs and anyway it’s pretty elementary that I should know the lyrics to my own songs. But at the first show, due to nerves, gesturing, getting locked into Alex’s look of concentration, and a few other things, I messed up part of that song. I don’t know if anyone noticed but I did and it’s haunted me since. Since I messed it up on the stage at Geno’s I feel it’s fair to give myself a chance to finally sing it correctly on the same stage. Alex will apparently be at the show so maybe if I’m a brave and iron-nerved little girl I can jump down into the audience and pretend to splash paint at him again like I did originally when I messed my lyrics up. It’s never a bad thing to get involved with an audience anyway, so why not pretend to paint everyone? It’s fun to pretend—I’m normally only a color photo scientist (as evidenced below by the picture I took of Marie Stella at Picnic with a fisheye camera and film that got messed up during processing):

I’ve found that I have a lot of songs that I’m too afraid to perform live or release to the general public because of the lyrics. I had a discussion with someone today who knows me and appreciates my music and he told me that he feels I censor myself too much and that it hurts what I’m doing musically. I completely agree with that and I’ve heard it from a few other people. Case in point is a song called “You Can’t Touch My Brother.” This song makes me nervous to perform it live for a few reason: 1)People might think I have a brother and infer things. I only have a half sister and although she’s married, having a brother-in-law is not a brother although he does feel like family ten years into their marriage; 2)The chorus is “and I bet they wouldn’t understand why I want to stay in your bed/she is not as loving as I am/no, she cant touch my brother/but I can.” That by itself sounds creepy to me because of the incest connotation. It is not, however, about incest and the idea of people thinking I’m writing about incest irks me. It’s about having an intimate experience with someone you’re close friends with and once you get into the experience you realize that they feel like family to you and you feel it’s wrong but you’re confused by the closeness of the friendship so there ends up being conflicted feelings about how to reconcile the experience with the friendship; 3)It’s based on a real experience and since I’m still friends with the guy and he knows the song is about him I’d rather not make him uncomfortable by performing it live if I don’t have to.

But, at the same time, it’s a strong song musically and it’s a shame I censor myself with it. Maybe one day I’ll get over my (largely groundless) fears about people judging my lyrics and perform the song. I mean, there are stranger things they can judge me for…my hobby of taking photographs of myself looking dead, for example. Yep, that’s still going strong:

I made apple crisp today with some apples Alex had given me from an apple picking trip he took (I haven’t been apple picking in ages….I should do that this fall). It turned out well. I think that, in general, things feel pretty good. I’m building friendships (in some cases building old ones up again) and I made people’s days by giving them apple crisp and, in one case, surprising my friend by telling her that I’d bought two tickets for the two of us to go to a concert in November. I feel happy, but I’m still worried. I guess if I don’t have something to worry about my mind explodes or something. I’ll address that problem later, though. For now, I must study German and read about newswriting.

-Aubin

Wood Burning Cat and the Decemberists; or, My Friday Night in Bangor.

2009-09-19T10:23:00.000-07:00

Right now I'm listening to Wood Burning Cat practice for an upcoming gig (a wedding reception, actually. I hope they get free food). I'm up in Orono with Jason, staying at Tony's apartment. Together, they are Wood Burning Cat (well, together with their drum machine) so the fact that they're practicing at the moment isn't actually that incredible. The whole band is present so why not? I'm sitting here at the table, bleary-eyed despite two cups of makeshift coffee that I brewed from a coffee maker in Tony's kitchen. He said "we have a coffee maker and coffee in a can but I don't know what to do with it," so I cobbled together coffee maker parts and made two cups worth of brown grit. For a former barrista I do think it's odd that new coffee makers throw me for a loop in terms of the correct proportion of water to coffee grounds.
I have just witnessed the birth of the Wood Burning Cat theme song, whose lyrics are simply: "we are wood burning cat, we like invisible maps." At least they're up front about it. Behold their practice set-up:

Last night Jason and I saw The Decemberists at the University of Orono Collins Center or whatever that building is called. Laura Veirs opened for them and was quite good. I was surprised because I didn't know she was opening for them and also because I'd heard her name several times but didn't know that she played the type of music I like. I told her afterwards that she was awesome and she shyly said thank you. I like girls with glasses who are otherwise shy but get themselves up on stage and knock everyone over with their talent. I hope to be one of those types someday. I'm partway there since I already have glasses.

During the intermission I spotted my ex-boyfriend. I wasn't terribly surprised because he is from the Orono area and he was the one who got me into the Decemberists in the first place. I was sitting under the balcony at the back of the orchaestra section and he was in the aisle chatting with someone or other so I had a strange disconnected experience with it. It was like observing him from behind one-sided glass. He still had the same awkward mannerisms that I had picked up from him during our relationship, the autistic facial expressions and posture. Jason had gone off to buy a soda so I sat by myself fascinated by the fact that, for once, seeing an ex-boyfriend wasn't giving me a panic attack. When Jason returned I pointed the ex out and it turns out Jason had actually talked to him a few times through mutual friends before the move down to Portland this past summer. Maine is a giant small town. I think I wasn't bothered by the ex's presence because, well, it's my only relationship that ended because of my behavior not his. Normally my relationships end because I'm fire-y and I date fire-y people and we burn each other out. This guy was a sweet, if awkward individual who just had no earthly clue what to do with me. Aside from feeling bad that I confused him so utterly and caused him deep frustration on more than a few occasions I'm okay with it. I don't feel anything about or for him. After the show there was a weird moment where the girl I'm guessing was his girlfriend dragged him over to where Jason and I were standing with a few other people to say hi to someone she knew and I said hello to him and he, deer in the headlights, squeeked a quick hi, grabbed her hand and said "umm, well, we have to be going" and they walked off. The end. I suppose that's closure.
Enough text. Pictures! The Decemberists's stage set-up was simple but pretty. They had awesome lighting effects. It looked like they were inside a microscope view of muscle tissue. Case in point:

I try not to pick favorites in bands because in most bands every single member is vital to the sound. I do, however, have a soft spot for Jenny Conlee. She did not disappoint last night, either-- she danced around, played the accordian and keyboards and basically confirmed all the reasons I find her endearing.

Also, having not seen the Decemberists before, I was pleased to see how active Colin was on stage. He could have, in theory, been the type to just stand in front of the microphone and strum his guitar and be folk-y. Instead he has a more refined version of why I love watching Alex perform-- hopping, jump kicking, contorting himself around the notes he's playing on his guitar. It's breathtaking when that's done right and he does it right. I was and am impressed by people like that who aren't self conscious on stage. This is because if I even begin to rock out on stage I immedietly worry that I look stupid. It's silly. I hope to change that in the future. The show had several highlights to it including a discussion of the mispronounciation of "Orono," a shout out to MACOF (Musicians Against the Calling Out of Freebird), a jam to The Chimbley Sweep that included members of the audience being brought up to play Chris and Colin's guitars while Chris and Colin ran around like mad. It ended up with Colin helping to rip Chris's shirt off in a moment that looked like a modified scene from Flash Dance. It was, of course, awesome. I danced so feverishly that I got a dehydration headache. It was worth it.

At the moment, I have to go and figure out what I'm doing with the rest of my time in the Bangor area. I think some on-location forest video scenes are in order. The video isn't going as well as I was hoping so far. I covered Wood Burning Cat's song "Literal Walls" with the acoustic help of Jason. The song is gorgeous, but it's about (in my mind at least) the feeling of being stuck in a small town with nothing outside your windows to even stimulate your mind. So you watch the history channel instead and escape through that. I hope it will work out. If all else fails I can ask for some help at this store that I found in downtown Bangor

Coffee for One; or, How I'm Avoiding Doing Schoolwork by Blogging.

2009-09-15T09:46:00.000-07:00

I think that my coffee consumption now qualifies as an addiction. I've gone from one cup with milk and sugar in the morning and a liberal addition of irish cream and hot cocoa mix into it to drinking three or four cups of black coffee a day. I brought this up to my friend Elisha and her mother while I was visiting them in Boston and they both shared how they drink more coffee than me (well, Elisha's mother has since quit coffee as well as cigarettes, but when she did both still she drank more than me). I suppose it makes me feel better but it can't be good for me, can it? Or maybe I'm just being influenced by watching a few too many episodes of A&E's Intervention. This coffee can should just be glued to my hand:

While I'm here, I'll also mention my video that I made this past month. It's for the song "cupcakes" and it associated with my "solo album." Heavens I feel arrogant for typing "solo album." Anyhow, I got myself dressed up, climbed on a counter and made a video. Enjoy:

I also had an impromptu photo shoot while in Boston on the aforementioned visit. Elisha is a great photographer so I'm glad to have some photos taken by her. I love this one:

it's so city-looking and to me it's clear I'm being silly with what I'm holding and posing like but to everyone else I'll just look like a douche. That's funny to me, though.
This moment also happened, and it's probably why I'm fighting a cold or flu or something now. It was worth it:

In more important news, I have my first solo show coming up on October 2. It's funny how everything has once again come full circle. It's like a restart from this past July when I was asked by Meg to do a solo set at Geno's and messed that up by panicking and volunteering a band with Alex I hadn't even created yet. I refused to panick this time and now I'm on the bill as "Aubin Thomas," AKA- all by my damn self. I can't back out of that now. Which is awesome, actually. It will be about 25 minutes of actual music with about ten to fifteen minutes built in for talking and so forth. I'm excited because 1)This is for a benefit for The Dooryard, which you all know I love, 2)I really love the idea of getting my name out there as a solo artist, and 3)I've enlisted Irina and Ahna from the Dooryard (two wonderful, creative, sexy-tastic women) to be my back-up dancers and (if I'm persuasive enough) back-up singers in a cover of "Don't Tell Mama" from the stage version of Cabaret. It will be awesome. Jason is helping me figure out how to set everything up. I will, of course, post pictures as things progress.

But, for now, I have to go back to being an academic...and an art director...and a volunteer copy editor-cum-anything-else-needed-for-that-week type of person. Here I am dreaming about copy editing. The end:

-Aubin.

PICNIC and other fun activities.

2009-09-13T07:45:00.000-07:00

After about 10 days I'm back to blogging. I closed up the Gin Circus blog because, well, it was for Gin Circus news and that obviously doesn't exist anymore. I can't hold onto it and wouldn't want to anyway. I lost about three fans on my facebook fan page after that blog, but then I gained four fans. Coincidences like that make me feel good even if they don't mean much in the long run.

I saw Alex for the first time in two weeks the day after I posted that blog (another coincidence). He didn't want to talk to me until we were both trapped at the same table at the Welcome-Back-To-School festival. Why should he want to otherwise? For that matter, why should I? we have nothing to relate about anymore and therefore nothing to talk about. He did say that perhaps he hadn't made it clear on the night of the last Gin Circus show but he has been slowly developing pretty bad tendonitis in his left hand. As a result he's going to cut back on live performance for a while. I don't really have a comment about it since by that time I'd already decided even if we got offered thousands of dollars to perform as Gin Circus I'd decline. Seeing him that day and seeing his friends who used to be my friends around and not talking to them reminds me of my least favorite fact of existence: relationships are fluid and people do not always stay. I suppose I'm still coming out of my childish notion that friends are friends forever. All I have to do is think of the hundreds of people I've met through classes and summer camps and long bus rides to remember that some people only come into your life for a brief minute and then don't come through ever again. It's just harder when I see those people in my daily life still and don't want them to think I'm an utter bitch if I don't say hi, it's just that I reluctantly accept that we are people who have nothing in common now, not even friendship.

Things are going fairly well for me musically and personally. I've been dating Jason for about three weeks now and could not ask for a better boyfriend or best friend. I look back at the night I met him and actually paid attention to him and I'm amazed that we talked at all. I look at the things that lined up so we'd start talking and it does hurt my mind a little bit. We'd actually been in the same place at least three times before (maybe more but we've only discovered three) and in some cases the literal distance between us was quite small but we had not talked before that night. Thanks to Jon Donnell's photographs I also see that Jason's band played on the same bill as me during the first Gin Circus show. It was the band I'd walked out on because my boss spilled beer all over my lap and I spent the rest of the night sulking in the lobby because Alex left without a word to go get drunk with Matt Erickson. In other words, a typical situation for me. I don't remember seeing his band, but here we are nontheless on the same stage on the same night:

He's the bass player on the far left in his photo. Also- hot damn Alex and I look different. Well, I look different. I know that much.
This blog is very text heavy at the moment. Let's fix that. I went to Boston to visit my friend Elisha and her mother, who were there tourist-ing it up. They fly back to Ireland today and once Elisha uploads her pictures I'll have some photo evidence of it, including my initiation into the Lie Down Game near a Smoot mark on Harvard Bridge.
I'm moved into the Dooryard now, for the most part. Which is exciting considering I've been there for about a month already. Proof:

PICNIC was yesterday and did not disappoint, although it rained in the latter half of the day. I stayed over at Jason's house so we could sleep in and walk down to the park just before his band went on. I felt like Penny Lane, mostly due to the very Almost Famous coat I was wearing but also due to the fact that I was a good little road wife and brought cupcakes that were eaten by most of the bands I knew who played and a few friends. It was a nice feeling. I also played photographer with my horrid little digital camera (I used to like it but after seeing how grainy some of these photos were I'm beginning to become dissatisfied with it). Here's Rotundo Sealeg, comprised of (from left to right) Mike, Nate, Tony, and, of course, Jason. I love this photo and especially Tony's expression. That band's music is just made of 100% Cyndi Lauper-esque joy:

Here's Mark Summers. You remember them from the Gin Circus blog, right?:

The rain made people for the most part run for the shelter of the trees, but there was still a fair sized crowd by the time Marie Stella played at 2pm. Here's the wet crowd:

and here's Marie Stella (if you don't know, they are, left to right: Matt, Sydney, Katherine, Jon, and Bryan):

There are better pictures I took of them but not all of them include Jon Donnell there in the back. I feel I have a weird relationship with Marie Stella. I was there at their first show (I think I was still dating Matt then and since he was in the band I was excited about being there), remember the filming of a video they did for a song they no longer play, and designed a pin for them that they're still using as part of their merch. They played at the release party for the literary journal I work for and I've grown to be both jealous and admiring of them. The members of Marie Stella straddle both my new and old friend groups so I've been a bit concerned about how I would interact with them now but yesterday showed me it's fine-- they're good folks and I'm very happy for their success. They're playing at the CMJ Marathon Showcase in NYC on October 24th. You should go see them if you're in the area then. If you see a pin that looks like this at their merch table, get it because it's my design and I'm proud of it:

Things look promising. That's the one thing I've gotten out of this week. It's going to be difficult, but ultimately the future looks bright. I'm seeing the Decemberists this Friday and exploring Orono while I'm there. I also have a roll of film to develop from my fisheye camera that includes pictures from PICNIC. Should be exciting and hopefully I held it at the right length from my subjects and the people in the photos won't have flash-face. In the meantime, here's Jason and me mimicking the expression of this sheep animal cracker:

-Aubin