i am the future of folk rock.

i decided that yesterday, or maybe two days ago.

it’s the f’n truth, too.

‘i’ll be the hyena, you’ll see.’

        

last week i had an impromptu visit to the motherland because of a family emergency. (everything turned out just dandy, thanks)

however, life wasn’t informed that i’m a busy man with stuff to do.

so one night, when i actually had some time to putz around on the guitar, i decided to go out to my car to play a bit.

a few things to predicate the situation:

one, i don’t sleep a lot normally. i like to average four and a half hours. i feel like this is reasonable lifestyle choice.

two, i had just driven about 15 hours straight.

three, i was now in the eastern time zone.

so here i am in the passenger seat of my focus, sweating profusely (it’s about 90 degrees plus humidity, at night) busting through a bridge of a new song i have been trying to finish, and i noticed headlights coming down the other end of the street. there aren’t any street lights, no moon, and just a few lightning bugs, so this is a glaring change.

i stop playing and turn around to see that a cop has just pulled in to the street and is searching the neighborhood for some hooligan, presumably my wailing, sweaty self.

i had no idea that it was four-thirty in the morning.

s0 i shrank down in my seat, thanking god almighty that he apparently wasn’t alerted to a specific area where said perp was to be located, and waited until he was far enough down the street so that i could sneak in the house, and at worse pretend that i was coming out  wondering what kind of shenanigans were going on at four-thirty in the morning.

apparently no one informed the macon police that history was being made in their midst.

        

sometimes i wonder if everyone that is trying to write an album sits around and plays radiohead covers for three hours straight.

the good news is that i got three twelve packs of mt dew tonight, the bad news, they didn’t have mt dew: throwback. so i at least should have plenty of high fructose corn-syrup enabled energy to learn and consequently perform all of the radiohead catalogue by the end of next month.

the better news is that i’ll be recording the ep with vlad from dalsha studios starting (most likely) at the end of this month. he’s a really talented kid and i’m pretty excited to be working with him, he does really quality stuff.

so now the ball’s in my court, and there’s plenty-o-pressure to make something quality. i feel like i don’t have too many chances left in me to be a slacker. at some point in your life you just become a deadbeat, i feel that approaching quickly.

‘whatever scares you, go do it.’

        

graphic design has always been the bane of my existence. i think you can look at my current myspace profile and make that assertion (for the record, that should be changing soon)

this is the first flyer i made, you can see why i didn't do too many more.

for awhile my problem was software related. i didn’t want to steal photoshop, so i was stuck with various programs that kind of worked, like photo filtre, never heard of it? don’t worry.

eventually i heard of gimp, and began using that, but never for more than just basic, basic stuff because i really didn’t know about overlays, brushes, etc. my ‘graphic design cred’ was born in ms paint–i think that says enough.

i eventually realized that to be serious about music you really need to have flyers, and handbills, merch, etc. and unless you have money to pay someone else, or have no problem mooching off your friends all the time, you need to learn to do it yourself.

so i searched the internet for info on gimp, and found a ton of resources. from tutorials to downloads, there is a ton available. because gimp is open source, it’s slightly limited compared to photoshop et al.–until you begin to add scripts and brushes, it really becomes a useful piece of software. i’m sure it’s not quite cs4, but you can also download brushes designed for photoshop and use them with gimp, which is awesome.

after running through a few tutorials i learned a lot of techniques that i just didn’t know anything about, and i have to say, i’m actually excited about graphic design now. i used to never offer to make a flyer for a show (i’d just rather not have one, i’m ashamed to admit that) but that’s all i frickin want to do now, which may be a bad thing. i do have an ep to write.

here are some examples of some flyers i’ve been working on. just click the pics for full size.

here are a couple resources on gimp that i found pretty useful.

• gimp plugin registry – list and support for scripts
• gimp-tutorials.net – hosts blog tutorials for gimp
• deviant art – ridiculous graphic design resource, they have everything
• da font – free fonts