Motion City Soundtrack

Matt Taylor to the rescue. Blown tires are the new black.

Check it:  Just finished the Cormac McCarthy novel “No Country For Old Men.”  I have been reading his shit for years.  Loved the film as well.  I’d say it was the most easily readable book by this particular author I’ve ever read.  Doesn’t bother with quotations when people are speaking.  Reminds me somewhat of the Hemingway novels I’ve read.  Cormac McCarthy novels, not “Old Country…”  What do I know?  I spent 4 years at a 2 year college and have dick to show for it.  That was yesterday, the finishing of the book.  Today I read the Woody Allen book of random pieces called, “Without Feathers.”  I dig his films.  I like his words.  His stories are absurd.  Ludicrous, if you want to know the truth.  Has an obsession(in the early 70’s at least) with blocking hats.  No idea.  So I looked it up.  Found this: http://aztexhats.com/hat-create2.html  Just starting another book tonight before i dine in dreams by an author whose name is: Steven Hall.  The book is titled, “The Raw Shark Texts.”  I heard it was the cat’s pj’s.  Excited.  If ever I get non-lazy, I’ll start taking photos and uploading them on here like everyone else.  But the visuals bore me as of late and I’m focusing on loading my brain up with new word patterns that I can draw form for the new record.  I guess that’s it for now???

-justin.

Here we are expressing ourselves in Charleston, WV. Notice the blatant copy cats in the background over Jesse’s shoulder. Frighteningly enough, they followed us to Chili’s & heckled us from the corner booth.

-Matt

(Photo by Claudio Rivera)

When life hands you lemons, make lemonade. After you finish the lemonade, stop and use the restroom at the gas station.

-Jesse

Things in truckstops… Food that looks like a genetically altered monster in Resident Evil.

-Jesse

Me and my puppy fia getting some last min play/hangs before the van gets here to take me away.

Josh

Things in truck stops… Gigantic shirts.

-Jesse

The morning after. justin and I (josh) are getting some lunch at granit city in at cloud a little preshow eats. Before we rock your faces off or our hands off cause it is chilly as crap. Last nights overnight drive was not fun but bow we are here to rock the quad see ya soon at johns.

Jesse has been a laptop owner for almost 8 years. He still doesn’t get the concept. Snap!!

Hey. Matt here. I’m coming atcha from the back of the van. I have no idea where we are. I see lots of corn. To be honest, I’m not positive where we’re going either. That’s how I roll: d-u-m-b. Anyway, we’re all doing our things to stay happy on the ride. Jesse’s watching The Wire. Justin’s listening to his tunes, probably Squarepusher or some other equivalent electronic noise/apocalyptic-soundtrack-ish jams. Josh is driving. B-South is riding shotgun & internetting. Claudio is sleeping & most likely dreaming about molasses. Fuzzy is out cold too. And I’m, well, you know what I’m doing. I’m keeping the people in the know. In the loop. On the cutting edge of what’s going on in our little bubble - the smelly little bubble we call life in the van.

Back in the back of the van.

-Jesse

How I spent my flight to Minneapolis. An 837 page book and watching The Wire on my Mac. Not to shabby. (I sound like an old man. Oh, wait… I am an old man.)

-Jesse

The show in Worcester was a lot of fun.  Jim and Sam even drove up from Brooklyn to hang out at the scariest horror movie diner.  Now I am riding the Metro North train back to NYC for a few days with the robot and the fiancé.  Then it’s more fun shows and making a record.  Good stuff.

And to top off Sweet Day 5000, we board our flight to find that Josh has no seat cushion.

Worcester, here we come!

Technically we have a show in Worcester, Mass tonight & we’re still in LA. Our flight was supposed to leave 12 hours ago, but was cancelled. We were also supposed to be able to sleep before the show but now that we’re flying from 1am to 11am, that’s not happening. So, on top of not practicing the songs like we should have we’ll be running on no Zs (I’ve never quite understood that - is it onomatopeia for snoring?). Anyway, It’s gonna be…. Magical.

Looks like we’re boarding now. I’m off to my bed - 28F. Good night!

Matt

Matt justin and I are hanging out our last night in la. Eating a delish dinner at m cafe. It is so good it will blow your mind and keep your mind heathy at the same time. Not sure what I just said or mean. Just went and saw I love u man. Pretty good. Oh crap my food is here!

Peace

Joshua

in an effort to try and trump tony thaxton’s broken arm, i would like to inform all of you good people out there that i have SEVERELY STUBBED MY TOE.  the pain, as you may be well aware, is in fact, excruciating.   women gasp when they walk past me and see my gangster limp.  children grimace at the thought that one day this may even happen to them.  grown men often cry upon the merest glimpse of my ill-fated visage.  grown men often cry.  am i surprised by their tears?  hell no.  why?  because they look like apes.  the point is this: i am a sissy…  a nancy boy(not sure what that means, but i heard it in a movie and it seems fitting, as nancy is my 32ndth favorite human person name.).  i now have graphite arch supports to wear inside of my shoes at all times.  initially i felt like an old man.  but the more i thought about it…  i’m just that much closer to becoming iron man.  tony may be becoming robocop & that’s all well & good, but…  i’m gonna be robert downey jr.  we have the drug thing in common, right?  next step: saving human lives while wearing metal & cracking wise.

amen.

-justin.

What you see there, is how the inside of my right arm now looks, post-surgery.  All of those little things on the side, would be staples.  I saw the staples in my arm for the first time yesterday. It is an odd thing to see, it made me a little weak in the knees.  The staples will be coming out next week, and I will be starting physical therapy on Monday.  The doctor feels great about how the surgery turned out though, so I am excited to get moving on getting full use of my arm back.

To clear up some confusion, I will have to miss the next few upcoming shows due to rehabbing my arm.  I have a few months of physical therapy in order to get my arm back to 100%.  I get to start playing drums sooner than that, but I just have to ease my way back in.  And I WILL be playing drums on the new record.  We are working backwards this time around to accomodate me.  Drums will be tracked LAST, when I am ready to play.  The guys are tracking their parts over some programmed drums for now.  And yes, the record IS officially underway.  So far, some guitars and bass have been laid down for one song.  We’ve got a long road ahead of us, but we are unbelievably stoked.  

Todays celebrity birthday, Peter Billingsley(aka Ralphie from A Christmas Story) is 38.

This is what going up and down 2540 stairs looks like. Oof.

I have been informed that the robots are upset I am gone.  Just look how pissed off Keanu looks.  I’VE ABANDONED MY BOY!!!

-Jesse

Day 1 of actual tracking begins!!! First song: Disappear*

*names of songs subject to change based on mediocrity and stupidness level.

-justin.

Twinkie Fingers has arrived. Now, let’s make some rock music!!

-Jesse

Today Josh, Justin and I (Matt) ran up & down this beach barefoot with jennaphillips.com. It hurt. She rules.

3 hour flight delays made better by playing Rummy with the misses at extremely expensive airport restaurant. Gonna miss her terribly when in LA.

-Jesse

just wanted to drop some science on you.  we’ve been working out the music for this next record of ours and so far, so good.  i believe in my own little category of what’s going on, i’ve got about 24 songs to work on lyric-wise.  some are more finished than others.  according to mark, we have a “fuck yeah, that’s going on the record” pile & a “fuck no, that shit is bunk, yo” pile.  & yes, he actually talks like that.  he’s set it up like a courthouse.  we each get to present our cases(as to why a song should be on the record or not).  after we rest our various cases, he goes out to a back room, shares an ice cream cone with a man in a monkey suit, flips a coin and lets us know his decision.  it’s a little more intricate than that, but not really.  i have three friends here in l.a. and i hope to see them all at some point.  as far as i can tell, that may not be happening anytime soon.  shit is intense and there is much work to do.  good news is we most likely have upwards of 30 songs/ideas to choose from.  that is quite a bunch.  my brain hurts.  trying to ween(sp?) off of the caffeine tip.  decaf is a clever trick, but my body is not easily duped.  just easily encumbered with slabs of chunk now and then.  heyoo!  self deprecation is still in.  gonna suck down some liquids & solids & watch petulia by richard lester.  beat it.

Our bizarre approach to record number 4 begins tomorrow.  Why bizarre?  Well, we have to do things a little backwards due to recovery time from my arm surgery.  I know, I know.  Enough with the arm talk.  Hopefully I can stop talking about it soon, since I had the surgery yesterday.  A lot of you sent extremely nice messages to me on Twitter throughout the day and it really meant a lot to me, so I thank you for that.  

Most of the band landed in LA today, and will be starting some preproduction with Mr. Hoppus tomorrow.  They’ll be working without me for AT LEAST a day, as I am all jazzed up on pain medications and hurting quite a bit.  Yesterday was such a blur to me…in and out of sleep, getting my arm sliced open, lots of medication, nurses having a hard time getting the IV into my hand which triggered bad childhood memories and i nearly passed out(I’m so brave!), puking when I tried to eat my only meal of the day, and on and on and on.  So anyways, I  have a few days of resting and pain ahead of me, and then hopefully on the right path to a speedy recovery.

I can’t explain to you how excited I am to get started on the record.  I know, first I have to be able to play, but I have to ease my way there.  So, we’ll work backwards and instead of tracking the drums right away, I’ll track when I am damn well ready.  Mentally, I am unbelievably ready.  Physically, well, it’s gonna take a few months.  

Am I even making sense?  I think it’s time for more meds…

Todays celebrity birthday, Keshia Knight Pulliam(aka RUDY HUXTABLE) is 30!

Tony

Arrived at la hotel. Waiting on a ride from the April to devour delicious treats and jettison into perhaps the last food coma of my life. Fingers crossed. Can’t wait for the commencement of record #4 tomorrow!!! It’s gonna be sick.

-justin.

This new record is going to be written entirely at various Budget Rent-a-car locations across North America. We’re starting here in LA. That’s cool, yeah?

-Matt

Whats up ladys and bugs, Sitting on my plane reading my book. I get a little stirr crazy on planes being stuck in my seat. When I was young I used to drive my parents nutz when at church cause I could not stop moving around cause I would get very bored and uncomfortable. I am feeling that way now. I kinds want to scream bloody murder but I won’t. The one good thing I am reading a book with a funny title it is called “kill everyone”. It is a poker book but I love the looks I get reading it. Any way I am stoked to be only way to la la land to make our forth record that u think we should call “butter, peanut butter and other butters”

What do ya think ?

Peace, Joshua

Matt here. Flying to LA. Listening to demos. Getting all sorts of crazy ideas. Writing all sorts of sentence frgments. Getting chills from certain moments of the songs. Weird. I like this.

Tuesday night on the couch with the lady. We are watching The Wire, and it is super duper. On a side note… While riding the subway this weekend I sat next to the guy that plays Ziggy on the show.

Getting really excited to make this new record. I have the demos stuck in my head every day. Good stuff for sure.

Also excited to have a pool in LA so I can shave a few pounds off before the wedding. It’s a good year!!

-Jesse

i have decided that there is not enough time.  jack bauer has been preaching it for years, but only now do i fully realize the gravity of his teachings.  gotta quick pack, try and upgrade my flight status so i can get the good peanuts, buy some razor blades and earplugs, pick up drugs at the pharmacy(prescription of course), go see the twins play a baseball game(baseball?), have dinner with the parents and the special lady friend, sleep, repack, hail cab, catch flight, read…  aw, nuts.  conference call with the boys soon.  i wonder how tony is doing…  today i realized that i really look like a stereotypical hippie.  so i just embraced it and used my sisters pachouli(sp?) and lay that shit on thick.  fuck it.  now i’m a hippie.  don’t be weird about it.  get into it.  can’t wait to make music again.  good times.  see you on the other side.

-justin.

Sorry about the post below this.  Apparently, Tumblr’s easy to use format isn’t quite easy enough for my dumb ass.  If you click on the bottom part, it sends you to my twitter, but i don’t know how to make it look at nice and not repeat itself. So, call me stupid…well, that’s not very nice!  

Tony

twitter.com/tonythaxton

Click me to follow boring and gory details leading up to and post surgery tomorrow!

Last weekend of Bocce Ball in Bushwick park before L.A..

-Jesse

I went to see a show last night. It was called Monsters of Mock. There were 3 tribute bands - doing the Dead, Black Sabbath and Pink Floyd. We missed the Grateful Dead one. We did catch Brown Sabbath. They played Paranoid front to back and they nailed it. And to make them even more amazing, the singer/Ozzy goes by Assy Asburn. Then a group did Dark Side of the Moon front to back with Comfortably Numb as their closer. Amazing as well. Apparently they are going to take requests and cover a different album every few months. Sounds like fun to me.

In other news, I downloaded Fieldrunners from the app store and now I can’t put my phone down.

Justin here… Just checking in to let you know that I am still alive. Finally downloaded the phone application for this noise and decided to use it. Currently I’m in Pontiac, MI. Reminds me of being 20 and not giving a fuck about shit. Which reminds me that I am no longer 20 and not giving a fuck about shit. Which makes me angry for not giving a fuck about not giving a fuck about shit. Gotta get my priorities straight. Watched Road House with the Swayze last night. So good. Binged on pizza and diet coke while everyone around me uttered that charming phrase “beer me”. Good times.

Opening day at the new Mets stadium.

-Jesse

I’m sure most of you don’t really care about this, but as a huge Chicago Bears fan, I have to say, this excites me.  And for those of you who are not, or simply don’t care, my apologies.

Tony

Ok, so I am upset at Matt Taylor.  I think it might be the beginning of a long feud.  You see, I really don’t like playing first person shooters.  Like, you know, video games.  Don’t get me wrong, I love video games.  I have gotten every Playstation platform the day it came out.  Like, sitting outside the store in the rain style.  But, I have never liked first person shooters. I played Halo a bit with friends because it was sweet to kick their ass, but I never liked playing the actual one player campaign.  It’s just not my thing.  I don’t have a gamer tag and you can’t play Call of Duty with me hooked up to little headsets screaming profanity at each other.

Then Matt forced me to play Bioshock.  What a jerk.  Now I like it and I am having dreams about levitating things.  This might come to fisticuffs in L.A.

-Jesse

Ok, so I am upset at Matt Taylor.  I think it might be the beginning of a long feud.  You see, I really don’t like playing first person shooters.  Like, you know, video games.  Don’t get me wrong, I love video games.  I have gotten every Playstation platform the day it came out.  Like, sitting outside the store in the rain style.  But, I have never liked first person shooters. I played Halo a bit with friends because it was sweet to kick their ass, but I never liked playing the actual one player campaign.  It’s just not my thing.  I don’t have a gamer tag and you can’t play Call of Duty with me hooked up to little headsets screaming profanity at each other.

Then Matt forced me to play Bioshock.  What a jerk.  Now I like it and I am having dreams about levitating things.  This might come to fisticuffs in L.A.

-Jesse

The robots want me to take them to LA in my luggage.  

-Jesse

Thanks for getting the facts straight, Facebook.

Tony

I asked our friend Jessii in Australia last year if she could do a cross stitch of the It Had To Be You characters. She said yes. Little did I know it would take 472 hours and over 40,000 stitches. Well, here it is. Pretty amazing work..