last night, after a two year absence from the stage, saw the re-emergence of Louisville's own Old Man. It was a great show, with some old classics and new hot ones from the album that's in the offing.

The Rud was much the same as I remember (my band also hasn't had a show in quite some time, and we haven't played the Rud for quite some time besides), but now they've settled on the "back stage," which i think is a major improvement from the "mid" stage. The sound is still mushy as ever. I think the Rud's sound system (or sound guys, i'm not sure which) is better suited for simpler acts, like… well, mainly vocalists, poets, plays, etc. I think you throw some guitars and drums in the mix, and the system has to work beyond it's limits to get the sound out there. Which is not to say that it's bad, just that there's some color to it. I still think the Rud is a great place to play, and a great place to see a show.

so Old Man rocked it out, did a superb job, and i enjoyed it thoroughly. oh, and there was a song with neil on the harmonica, putting the folk into "punk/folk." very cool.

following Old Man was an actual old man, alone on stage with his acoustic, strapless guitar, and his haunting voice and often nonsensical lyrics. i think everyone was pretty much alternately astounded and confounded by the performance. some of the lyrics i couldn't make out, and the ones that i could, well, some didn't seem to make any sense at all, as if they were just words stuck together for no particular reason, others made complete sense, but perhaps the most interesting part was that there was a deepness of emotion behind every lyric. in the end, the only pronouncement i could make was, "it wasn't good, but it was awesome." oh, and i told neil somebody should do a study on the guy, see how his brain works.

most of the rest of the evening was spent hanging out with friends, some of whom i haven't seen in several months. it was good to catch up, hell, it was good just to be around them again. it also gave the prick an opportunity to talk about finally making use of the practice space we've had for a month now. hopefully this week, we'll at least be able to get our stuff moved in, which will act as a catalyst towards getting us to the practice space at least once a week to *use* that stuff. i'm looking forward to it. i'm excited by the idea of a "new beginning" for the band, and have been itching to strum the strings for a while. (i'm a terrible guitar player, if i'm not at practice, i hardly ever touch the thing, except to move it from one spot to another.) if all goes well, perhaps we'll be ready for our resurgence party in 6 months or so.

Technorati Tags: Louisville, Old Man, the Rudyard Kipling, stage, show, sound, band, practice, friends

i don't remember if i've mentioned it here yet or not, but my band Lucifigous Prick–which was a three-piece, then a four-piece–is now a three-piece again. we realized that the addition of the drums was taking the band's sound in a direction that we didn't want Lucifigous Prick to go… which is not to say that we didn't like the new sound, but it just wasn't what we wanted to do with LP. we toyed with the idea of breaking up or going back to a three-piece, until we realized that we could have the best of all worlds if we just split stuff into two separate projects. So now, we've got the original Lucifigous Prick line-up, and… the new band, which, after 4 months or so, still is unnamed.

still unnamed, and "in the studio" nevertheless. we're currently recording our 10(ish) songs under the able guidance of Jason Loewenstein, and have, in fact, gotten them mostly in the can already. pretty much just vox & mixing left, then we'll be ready to put out whatever it is we end up putting out under whatever name it is we end up stumbling upon.

in that vein, i thought i'd bounce a few ideas off of you guys. i had a previous list that i seem to have misplaced, but i was just thinking of some new ones last night, perhaps you all can pitch in and give us some more idee-s. oh, and the band's sound is still dark (not goth, not death metal, but dark) but more heavily rock centric than the Prick.

some possibilities:
Emergent Intelligence
Emerging Intelligence
Emergent

Construct
ConstructDestruct
DestructConstruct

Study of Human Behavior
Studies in Human Behavior

Anthropomorphize
Anthropomorph
Anthro

Extravasate

Go the Spoils

By the Victors

Obfuscate

(from Medical terminology/disease names)
Criduchat
Tinnitus
Hyperacusia
Dysacusia
Bradyacusia
Vestibular Schwannoma
Otitis Externa
Acoustic Neuroma
Cotard's Syndrome
Aphthae
Catarrhal
Epitaxis
Gleet
Scrofula
Scirrhus
Scrivener's palsy
Worm Fit

(general rules for suggestions, no numbers, no use of the words "black" or "red", no use of "day" or variations thereof. phrases/cliches should be obfuscated or subtle)

well, that ended up being longer than i thought, especially once i started looking up disease names… still, i invite you to weigh in, perhaps make some other suggestions.

seems like the last month has been a major upheaval, lots of crap going on, but it's mostly just busyness, frustration, and happiness.

the band's been practicing, and though i've totally neglected the site since before the last show, we're really not dead. in fact, we've a show coming up this weekend, which i've only just finished making flyers for, that i hope to get up around town tomorrow before practice. our second show with a drummer, and we've been coming up with ideas of how to change things around to make us happier… more on that later.

sara's and my wedding plans are proceeding apace, and we've actually been talking about the possibility of buying a house or condo prior to the festivities (once the lease is up at the current abode). we're getting ready to send out "save the date" cards, and she's been dress shopping. we finally finished "catholic wedding school" so that's thankfully out of the way, and we didn't even have to endure a great deal of that "natural family planning" crap the popesters like to foist on people. yippee.

add to all that fun the fact that sara's finally started back to school, and our schedules have been in major flux trying to adjust back into that whole routine. we're starting to settle in now, so i'm hoping to start getting some work done again.

which leads me to the next exciting thing (for me, anyway). i finally, after years and years of wishing, finally bought myself a swanky new laptop… an AMD Athlon 64 beast of fury and brilliance, that has caused me no end of heartache the past couple weeks mainly due to my insufferable need to wrest complete control over my machines from the great satan (Windows). So i got the machine and proceeded to poke and prod at it, uninstalling as much as possible and deleting a bunch besides. It was becoming a stripped down monster, but then i made some networking change trying to surreptitiously get a 'net hookup at work, and then i couldn't connect to any of my machines on the home network… so, a couple reinstalls later, a much more cautious takeover attempt, and i've finally got it in order again. i'm still installing some of the day-to-days, but it's mostly up and running. thus, this, my first blog post on the new champion. (named the hard drives after the members of Mudhoney, for those who wonder those things)

also, somewhere in there, i got to hang out with my brother who came up to the fair with the FFA, and i managed to get myself in to see the eye doctor, who told me absolutely nothing helpful. in fact, he said that, not only was there nothing that he could do about the problems that i'd come to see him about, but there is another issue that i wasn't even previously aware of, and which, surprise surprise, he also can't do anything about. some retinal specialist, eh?

and the last bit of life complicating news is that i managed to get started working on a little freelance project for some friends (and with an old Corvus coworker–ben), a thing which is currently moving slowly, but positively. i've been wanting to try to take on some freelance stuff, so this should be a good opportunity to see if i can manage to balance the leisurely bits of my life with actual obligations to others.

so, bunch of stuff going on, a lot of it just tedious, time consuming, and schedule wrecking, but thankfully enough of it happy and fun that i've not minded the other bits too much. so, here's to another 'bout of time wrestling.

i fully intend to write a longer post soon, as i've had one brewing for a while, but no time to actually sit down and write it. 'til then, how's about this:

i finally got the Lucifigous Prick online store up and running this past thursday night, and, as simple as it may be, i'm pretty damned pleased for it to finally be in operation.

also, for another shameless plug of a commercial project, i'm getting my first poetry book re-printed by a professional printer, and i hope to have those available in the next 3 or 4 weeks (i should be getting a proof copy on monday or tuesday). so again, i'm really excited about this as well.

coffeemonk.com hasn't been updated in a dog's age, but it looks like i might have to move that up on the timetable a little bit (most recent project schedule had coffeemonk.com being updated some time in the next 100 years or so).

ok. enough with the gross commercialism.

Go Buy Something! (ok, now that's really enough)

to say that my blogging habits have become rather poor would be something of an understatement, i'd imagine. nevertheless, i'm still around, things are still happening, to me, just not enough discrete interesting things that i've a fount of fun events to pepper you with.

also, i realize it's a bit late in the day to be "announcing" this, but i figure that anyone who reads bipolar and is interested in my band already knows the website (which also suffers from lack-of-update-itis) so will already be informed about tonight's show.

we'll be at the rud tonight with Chumley and Tipping the Lion which is basically Chumley, just playing free-form improv rock stuff. should certainly be interesting.

the really fun thing is that i've been fighting a cold for a few days, i'm tired, i'm sick, and i may have a slight fever as well. needless to say, i'm going home to take a nap before the show tonight. at least for 45 to an hour, if i can get it.

wish us luck, and get on out to the Rud if ya can.

well now. the last post sparked quite a round of commentary. it's always amazed me how certain topics in certain circles can be so powerfully mobilizing. equally amazing is that often the most vehement and violent reactions are provoked by those topics that have the least chance of ever truly reaching a universal solution or consensus–abortion, religion, church & state, star trek vs. star wars, capt. kirk vs. capt. picard vs. capt sisko, windows vs. mac vs. amiga.

which is not to say that the commentary on the last post was vehement or violent, it was actually quite stimulating, exciting, and informative. if you haven't read them yet, you should.

aside from taking part in political discussions, i've been keeping myself busy. keeping my favorite girl relaxed and happy during her stressful educational endeavor. and pursuing all those other little tasks that i've outlined for myself.

i've nearly finished the database design for My Favorite Martyr. i've finished reading a few of the many books that have been piled up on my bookshelf for the last year or so. i went home for a visit with the family for my brother's birthday (he just turned 16, so if you're in the vicinity of Princeton, KY, be sure to keep a very sharp eye on any other cars on the road.) let's see… the band has recorded the main tracks of the last song of our album, so now we're getting down to mixing in earnest, adding extra layers, and writing new material. i've bought a flash book and am trying to teach myself that. and by god, now i'm very nearly 30 friggin years old. not yet damn it! not yet. but almost.

finally, to bring this back around to the topic of politics (my pet subject, of late), i'd like to be the first to point out my new 2004 Candidate Score Sheet. i'd like to be the first to point it out, but ironically enough, my friend ben has beaten me to it on the community blog he frequents–Lost in Louisville. He beat me to it, 'cause i've been showing it to him the last few days as it's been developing, and i'm a slow bastard about writing a new post. what does it mean when a veteran blogger gets beat to the punch on announcing one of his own projects? i'm not sure, but it's gotta be something profound.

anyway, check out the Score Sheet, and make note of the fact that there's even a link up at the top where you can get a blank version of the chart so you can do your own. if you're really cheeky, you might even email your chart to me (a completed HTML version would be easiest for those of you who know your way around the code, otherwise, just however you see fit.) and i'll figure out some place to put links to them all. sounds like a fun project for the whole family!

ok. enough with tha jibba-jabba. my boss is letting me leave work early–who am i to argue?!

i've gotta say that i'm pretty excited right now. my sister just gave birth to her first baby, my first niece. i haven't been able to talk to her about it yet, since she's in France and 6 hours in the future (and thus most likely asleep already after her certainly grueling day), but i'm excited nonetheless.

my first thought was that i have to get to the baby store and buy something for the little one. i plan to be an uncle of the "spoiling rotten" variety for as long as i can manage. only on occasion will i pull out the "mean as a snake and twice as ugly" uncle role, a part so well played by my own uncle "Red"–a man who, even in his (probably) late 50's to early 60's, still makes me fear the "titty twister," toe yank, ear grab, or good old-fashioned chase-down-bear-hug-tickle-of-death (the tickle-of-death usually consisting of very firm and painful pressure to the ribs and/or large chunks of skin… not so much a tickle as an attempt to break something).

now that was a hell of a sentence. sometimes i surprise even myself.

anyway. i'm excited. i'm an uncle. pictures to follow as soon as they're received.
**Update** as you may've noticed, pictures have been added to the picturebar at the right there, and i've even added 4 *more* pictures since adding the first batch. check out the growing devlin family gallery

now, in other news, i did finally get the pictures from gallery for some shots of the beautiful bride and the reception.

yes, they're a bit dark. i, being a person who generally hates flash photography, neglected to bring my flash along, and the lighting just wasn't up to the task. this was also, of course, before getting my swanky new digital camera.

i also threw up a second new gallery from the same roll of film, this one of my and paul's cats Zoe and Harriet.

last but not least, i finally updated lucifigousprick.com with information about the last show, which, while fun, was also quite frustrating in many ways. more about that later, perhaps, or just go to the site and you can probably piece it together.

due to the clamoring of my adoring public (hi Jennifer!), and since i finally managed to get off my ass and get the newest LP show flyers up on the site and get it updated, now seemed like a good time for a quick update.

in case you're wondering, yes, didn't quite make it to a post about the final day in DC/Jess' wedding yet, but… i'm getting there. maybe tomorrow when i'm taking a lazy half-day off work.

anyway, so… the festival itself kind of sucked. it was a joke really. yes, we are grateful to have had the experience of playing in that kind of an atmosphere, and we did have something of a good time, but the aspects of the festival that were supposed to be kick ass really weren't.

first off, first thing we get there, we drag our shit up to the gate, and whaddaya know? there're no dollys, no hand trucks, no big burly guys with bandanas waiting to help us lug our equipment to and from the gear storage and stage areas. these were things our festival brochure and the coordinator himself promised us would be there. so, in light of this first and most telling lie, who's glad that we decided not to pack that big ass Farfisa organ? i am, that's who.

i did take the initiative and accosted a Six Flags employee who was pushing around two dollys, and practically begged him for it. it worked, and i was happier. of course, our big grey tub is so damned heavy that it was still a major chore to haul it, even with a dolly. nevertheless my back and arms were mostly saved for the show.

we got to the stage, and the stage manager wasn't around, just his able bodied non-meal-voucher having assistant who was actually fairly helpful. we didn't get our meal vouchers that day because a) the stage manager wasn't there at any point while we were there, and b) because when we got done playing we were just too damned tired to give a rats ass, so jim, lori, and brax all went home. (i stayed and enjoyed the park for a while with my lovely sara).

anyway, i digress. after jim dropped the keyboard (at least 50% of our sound comes from that keyboard) and scared the crap out of us all, we mounted the stage and set up in record time (under 20 minutes, i do believe), then proceeded to have technical difficulties for the next five minutes after we tried to start playing.

once we got the technical issues worked out and got into our first song, it became apparent that we were going to have more issues, dealing with the stage monitors being adjusted for a mental patient with bad hearing in one ear but a good imagination. the monitors sucked. now, admittedly, as paul has pointed out, we could've gotten on the sound guys case a bit and had him adjust things, but my guitar was already feeding back as it was, plus the fact that we've never even worked with a "real" sound guy before, and we just kind of went with it. of course, come to find out after talking to the Pine Club the next day, they had similar issues with the monitor setup ("we couldn't hear shit up there") and they at least have quite a bit of experience between them of working with an engineer on a sound board. so, my conclusion is that the sound guy who was supposedly so experienced really either wasn't, or just couldn't compensate for the crappy equipment or stage dynamics. apparently, it sounded just lovely off-stage so i guess it's not all bad. it's just too bad we couldn't hear the beat and were guessing where we were in the songs half the time.

we did make it through though, and with at least half-a-minute to spare before our scheduled stop time. we hauled ass off stage with bile on our tongues, broke down, and got the hell out of there.

as i said, sara & I stayed and enjoyed the park for a while, if you can call getting bruised and cracked ribs enjoyable. my advice, if you go to Kentucky Kingdom, no matter how simple and "fun" it looks, do NOT ride the Roadrunner Express. that is probably the most violent coaster i've been on, and it's just a step above a kiddie coaster. we walked around for a while after that, but it made my head hurt, and we didn't feel like waiting in long lines, so we left the park and headed back to the house for a movie and some popcorn.

the next day, brax and i headed back out to the "festival", and we also walked around quite a bit. we finally managed to make it to the "big" "main" artists area the Paramarx Arena, and found to our utter lack of surprise, that it was two booths, a stage, and a smaller stage where some lawyer was talking about "how to make it in the music industry" to a crowd of maybe 15 people. yaaay louisville music! there were probably a total of 25 (this is me being generous) people in the "Arena" altogether, including brax & myself. one booth was for the mutual-admiration club called LMIA, the other was for a local recording studio. outside the arena was another stage with a girl doing karaoke… well, it was supposedly original music, i'm sure, but she was just singing over a tape. despite the promised in the festival promotional literature, there was no booth or tent set up for band photos, there was no catering, there were no "industry reps" within eyeshot, at least none set up in any sort of obvious or approachable place. so, with another 90% of the festival promises shattered, brax & i walked back to stage #5 to catch the Pine Club, get some water, and rest our baked and weary bodies.

post pine, we went and rode some roller coasters. Chang is highly recommended, T2 not so much. we walked around a hell-of-a-lot, but when we came up on some long lines at some of the other coasters we were moderately interested in riding, we decided to forego it, and to head home. all-in-all, we were there for maybe 3.5 hours.

it was a worthwhile experience, and we can now say that we've played a theme park, but it's not something we're looking to repeat. no more festivals. only dark, cool, small places where people are there for a reason (those being either a. to drink, or b. to see a rock show).

right now, of course, we're looking forward to August 9th. and you should be too.

mom's has finally sent out the performance list for the big festival thingy. we've got that Saturday (Jul. 26th) at 4:30PM.

this thing is really going to be crazy–45 minutes total to get on stage and play. not to mention the fact that it's going to be a bunch of bands who're nothing like us–All Access has the stage before us, and i'm not entirely sure, but it seems quite probable that they're a "christian" band… perhaps not in the fullest sense of the word, but they do mention "faith" in their bio, and their "agent" is a full-out God peddler. I may be making shit up, but their website if sufficiently vague to make me wonder.

it is kind of funny that, of the maybe two or three band names i recognized on that list, one–The Pine Club, who is made up of some friends, one of whom used to live in my very house–will be playing on the same stage we'll be on, only on Sunday, instead of Saturday.

then, there's the fact that we'll be playing outside in the broad daylight, and damn, this is going to be fucked up. hopefully we won't freak out, we'll be able to pare our set-up time down from 45 to 15 minutes (or less), and we'll have some fun for the 30 minutes we're up there. that's all we're hoping for, anyway.

we'll see.

sara & I, and a couple of her friends, are taking a little four day vacation to Washington, D.C. this weekend. i have been to D.C. before, but only when i was a kid, probably somewhere in between 7th, 8th, or 9th grades. pretty much the only thing i'm interested in site-seeing-wise is a visit to the Air & Space Museum. i do believe i went there before, but like i said, it was a long time ago. no matter what we do end up doing, i'm sure we're going to have a great time. and, i'm going to try to take an assload of photos with the hope of putting them up online here sometime after my return.

you'll notice that row of pictures over there on the right… well, it's all thanks to my lovely girlfriend who got me an early birthday and christmas present.—that's right, a brand spankin new fancy-ass digital camera . so, now i'm trying to get back into the habit of carrying a camera around with me everywhere and taking pictures whenever i see something good. we'll see how that works out, but rest assured, this weblog isn't going to devolve into *just* a fotolog.

a good friend is getting married this weekend (and like a dumbass, i forgot this fact until after we'd bought the plane tickets to D.C.), so we're going to have to fly back early early on Sunday to get to the wedding on time. especially imperative since i'm in the damn thing. would be in bad form for one of the "men of honor" to be late. hopefully the tux will fit, 'cause i won't get to pick it up until 12:00PM on Sunday. talk about cutting it close…

and to top all that fun stuff off with some really excellent news, lucifigous prick has been invited to play at the mom's music festival this year! so, we'll be taking the stage at some point on the 26th or 27th of July, along with about 140 other bands. it should be an awesome time, as we don't expect to fit in with the other bands, or even necessarily the crowd at all, so we're going to try to have as much fun as we can with it. there was even some talk of jim wearing a mini-skirt, though i think his wife put the kibbosh on that idea. nevertheless, it's going to fucking rock.

and speaking of fucking rocking, we've got another show lined up two weeks later with three other bands, all of whom have one or more members who work at Ear-X-tacy. we don't know for sure if the owner is going to let us use the store's name while promoting the show, but that was our original plan. promote it as some kind of Ear-X-tacy employee's show. Check the site for more info on the other bands playing, though i'm sure i'll post a link to the flyer once that's been put together.

g'damn. i think that's about it for today. i wanted to make sure i got a new post up before i took off for four days. i'll post more crap and probably go on about how great the trip was, once i return. so, you've got something to look forward to now, right? right.