shawn avery

" fading away... well you might say i'm losing focus ." may '05 is over. the end of an often disturbing decade for me. final touches are being applied. " i just made you up to hurt myself... and it worked ." i will exit the end of the summer different. not better or worse, just different. "only. only. only. ...things aren't as pretty on the inside ." in december, it will have been 10 years since i was in the same room as my dad. " i got my my arms that flip flop flip flop flip... i got my head on a spring... just when i thought i got you on my side... i haven't got fucking anything ." 31. time to take out the trash. with a smile this time. things will finally be not as they should be, but as they are, and in that there is a solace. fin... " this time, i'm not coming back ." {i refuse to die on a cloudy day} this week. final tracking ( yeah right ). guitars. basses. pianos. d-day was in june right? that's what i t...

"i'm just a face in the crowd... nothing to worry about... no need to try and stand out... i'm getting smaller and smaller and smaller..." the past several days. my mood is shit. overcast today. raining for the last two days. low pressure area. oppressive humidity. friday. issues in traffic. gasoline bailout. packing for freedom creek. tired. burned two mix cd's for various road trips coming up in the summer. i can't rely on the radio 100% to provide a clean signal for my ipod transmission. so, i still have to rely on the increasingly ridiculous cd format. the summer '05 mix is as follows ... {day_mix} 1. turin brakes _blue hour 2. tears for fears _everybody loves a happy ending 3. takako minekawa _plash 4. cardigans _new coo coo 5. tegan & sara _i bet it stung 6. cibo matto _working for vacation 7. res _they say vision 8. tears for fears _closest thing to heaven 9. u2 _crumbs from your table 10. ambulance ltd. _anecdote 11. zero 7 _somersault 12. tear...

ashby and i talked to houston this week. he's coming up from mobile to hear the new stuff and see the studio. we are making plans to go with a fairly large caravan to the freedom creek festival organized by the alabama blues organization and founded by mr. wille king. i'm more than excited. he's a blues prophet of sorts. he found himself in critical acclaim later in life... and in mentioned in ashes lore... mainly... "...in places like pickens county, where willie king lights up his beautiful guitar..." from ashby's spoken blues/beat tirade... "my dirty american blues." - which we haven't performed since probably our 10th show. it will be the closest thing i'll ever get to a religious pilgrimage... and it makes sense... after all i am a devout musician. sunday we are heading back to the studio to complete drums, do some quick overdubbs and choose which drum takes we are going to use... then toward the end, we'll edit any errant notes. i p...

spent 8 hours on saturday knocking out more drum tracks. demo-ing new songs... ashby and i worked out some arrangement kinks. we even cranked up my old jx8p analog. i did a nice take on a track tentatively called "hwy." i kinda scared myself. i've been out of the drummer's seat for a long long time. actually, i haven't sat behind a drum kit in a year. but i think i mentioned that already... only aaron knows how the rest of saturday went. crawfish.rageagainsttheculdesac.portapotties.stinkybeer.clintwells.fastfood... and... "fuckin' oklahoma."

wednesday evening ashby and i met up with the kids from long story short at workplay to see the new "capital recording artist" - aslyn. ashby and i only got to see about 5 songs, but they were all pretty impressive. the girls in long story short know alsyn and her management. we chatted with everyone for an hour or so and got to hang out for a while on alsyn's tour bus. plasma screens. damn. i want a tour bus for xmas. i gave the girls a disc of photos from the photo session earlier in the month. later on that evening, probably around 11:30, we went to our friend josh cooper's house to load his studio kit for the session on thursday. thursday evening ashby and i set up at instant karma studios to begin tracking drums for some new songs, some old songs, and for some re-recording of drum tracks that weren't recorded all that well last year. friday we returned for an eight hour session and got quite a bit completed. between the two sessions, which combined probably a...

i spoke earlier about karma. there's more. at the suggestion of drummer david crenshaw, i checked out instant karma recording studios. i was very impressed by not only the rooms and the studio, but the downright musical religiocity of the owner, jeff. some kind of detroit rock electronics guru. needless to say... i think we have found the studio. ashby and i will begin recording in earnest on thursday evening and most likely will do an eight hour block on friday. i'm excited obviously.

so... like all convoluted stories with a high yield of irony and not much else - and in order to avoid confusion, as this is indeed a linear tale... i'll start at the beginning. in early february... on a tuesday, i left my house and headed out for a show in atlanta. of all the people heading out from bham to play this particular show, i was the only one NOT staying in a hotel. i had taken tuesday off, but had to be at the law firm by 8am on wednesday. some details: i was travelling in my car to play a show with my friend jesse payne's band at the "ten high" in atlanta. ok. so... first things first. i have to pick up our drummer's wife and deliver her to him. mita, our drummer's wife was in the midst of her birthday celebrations and wanted to stay in atlanta. her husband (anthony) was at work in anniston. the idea was... jesse and (then guitarist) clint were going to leave out earlier in the afternoon for atlanta. i was going to pick up mita (the drummer's ...

this past saturday i did a photo shoot for the band long story short. the three primary singers have been providing excellent background harmonies on a few of the ashes songs. this was my first chance to get to know everyone as a five member band. all brothers and sisters except for brittany, who is their first cousin. then again, she's lived with them for three years so she may as well be a sister. we have more photo sessions lined up and we'll be working on a regional press package in the coming weeks. if these guys aren't careful, they're gonna be pretty successful. i'm going tomorrow to visit what may become, a cool place to record. it's a new recording studio in town that is thriving on word of mouth. i learned about it on saturday after the photo shoot. i ran into our erstwhile drummer david crenshaw at starbucks. he had just finished rehearsing at this studio with his new band... apparently some sorta of funky 12 member unit under his name. he had noth...