shawn avery

friday night... went to see running with scissors with ciera , also known as posh spice. crazy weird movie and crazy weird people. when i got home i packed some clothes and got ready to go up to rogersville. on saturday i got up and drove 2 hours... used a chainsaw and axe all day... drug limbs from trees with ropes and trucks... made a big pitfire... got really dirty... then drove back to bham and got home by 9:30. that was just phase one. i went out with ashby and brett who were dressed as magnum p.i. and ali g. i didn't have time or the will to dress up. we hung out at brett's for a while and went down to rojo and had a beer. then we walked across the street to party #1. very cool house and cool scene. a bunch of my friends magically appeared at rojo, apparently looking for me to get them into party #1. so i did. i met up with the hostess... who was a bit tispy, hung out for a few and left for party #2. party #2 was an invite from katie and was a better party f...

so... this year is going by pretty fast and its been a long time since february. weird. in the past few weeks, i've finished the wiseblood record. we sent it off a few weeks ago to be mastered and we are currently reviewing the first reference. some improvements have been made, but we still have tweeking to do. when you record an entire record yourself at numerous locations with mulitple musicians... its tough. i'll never do a record like this again. the production suffers in places. in other places, it sounds pretty good. the track i wrote and contributed to the record, after the flood ... will probably end up as a hidden track. its instrumental and just too strange for the record itself. or i'll just cut it. i rehearsed and played a low key show with duquette at cave 9... its weird playing drums again. i'm not really sure that i like it. my brain has been re-wired for bass . i think i like recording/tracking drums, but i'm not that big on performance. it could al...

so... the summer came and went. and i still have not done the big may thru august update. but i will. since my birthday i've been busy at work, which was not the case this summer when we had 547 law clerks. i haven't seen a lot of live bands lately as i've been finishing some projects. september was a fairly busy month... in addition to the chicago trip, i played a show with the spots and wiseblood... at the german club (see pics below) as well as a private show with the spots. the only photos from that are from when we were heading back to bham from jemison and we took some weird photos on the side of the road. and i jumped off of a huge mound of gravel and got a hyperextension knee injury . not too bad though. last week the spots got together again in the studio and recorded a few hours of experimental music - some of which - might make it onto our little ep. also, i finally sat down and listened to the record, " help my unbelief " that was produced by th...

i'd like to thank everyone who not only took the time to attend the exhibit, but who also bought chris' artwork. it was a very successful evening on all accounts. this was one part "album wrap" party, one part gallery exhibit. for those who aren't aware, chris lawson is doing the artwork for our debut record. wiseblood [myspace] chris lawson [myspace] chris lawson interview [podcast link]

i went to chicago this weekend for my birthday. it was good. i got out off the plane and into traffic just after lunch on friday. took the shuttle to rent a jeep - very nice... drove downtown after being stuck on the kennedy freeway forever. instead of going to the room, my mom and i ate at a groovy outside cafe on st. claire st. we had reserved rooms in the hard rock hotel but it took a long time to find because their sign was hidden. checked in. looked at some of the rock stuff. very sexy bar. the HRH is in the middle of town on 2nd and north michigan. they charged us $70 to park and tried to fuck us on the rates, but the hotel -as a building... very impressive. we won eventually. the mariner towers were outside my room to the left. i got the 20th floor. friday evening, we took a 2hr boat ride out into the lake and thru the rivers. i enjoyed this more than the ride around nyc or paris. dunno why, i just did. we had some dinner at at a place close to the hotel. on saturday... we walke...

so... i haven't made a journal entry since the end of april. i've been super busy. so much so that i actually pondered hiring a HS kid to do errands for me this summer. this is gonna take a while to update. i'll try to stick to just the facts and provide some links and photos here and there. might as well start with may '06... very interesting stuff. my two musical projects are going to merge for an evening... artwalk 2006...

thursday ... the spots played for the alabama independent moviemakers networking party. it was just three of us playing and we really didn't play anything all that interesting until the end. but the end was worth it. its hard inventing music on the "spot." it was very humid, but it was a good time. i picked up mary jane from the airport at 11 and we went to marty's for a few mins. friday ... i watched the bridges midday set in 145 degree weather. they played about a 20 min set and did a cool medley that included the "i've got soul but i'm not a soldier" line by the killers. all of their songs are hits. its stupid. their harmonies were super tight. they had some kind of issue with an acoustic for a second and i think nat blew a speaker... but they rebounded nicely. they'll probably be like taylor hicks soon... a talented local act that blows up big and then forgets my name. they are playing at the railyard this weekend. ran some errands and went s...