I Should Probably Weigh 500 Pounds

I think the only reason I ever make cookies is so I can eat the dough while I'm waiting for the oven to preheat.

In other news, Someday Lounge tickets are now available online (the Portland show I talked about in this post). Comment/message me for the link! :)

Bad Hoooorse! Bad Hoooorse! The Thoroughbread of Sin!

He got the aplicaaaation that you just sent iiiin!

Yeah, anyway...

I earned several geek points last night by attending a stage performance of "Doctor Horrible's Sing-A-Long Blog." When it comes to live theater, I tend to naturally gravitate towards all things bizarre and utterly campy. This play definitely fell into that category. It was at a funky theater in Portland with church pews for the audience to sit on. People came dressed up like super heroes and sang along.

It was everything you would expect from an independent production of a cult Internet video. The costumes were great but Doctor Horrible couldn't sing. The show stayed true to the original version but snuck the occasional song from the commentary in there, absolutely destroying the fourth wall and making for an overall hilarious theater-going experience.

Steve was kind of surprised at my enthusiastic response when he first asked if I wanted to go to this play with him. I don't know why he was surprised. After all, I am the girl who once wrote an entire rock opera about zombies. Campy is my middle name.

I graduate in exactly a week. I think I'm going to wear my sequined Lady Gaga dress under my robes, just because I can. Maybe I'll buy a cheap pair of Paris Hilton-style sunglasses to go with it for dramatic effect.

Okay, I'm semi-kidding about the Paris Hilton-style glasses. But I'm totally Lady Gaga-ing it up.

You only live once, right? :D

I've managed to adopt a Zen-like attitude for these last few days of college.

Q: What did the Zen master say to the hot dog vendor?
A: Make me one with everything!

My laid back approach to life is a bit uncharacteristic - usually I'm a neurotic little ball of anxiety. But in a world of so many unknowns, the only way you can survive is to just take one day at a time and make each hour (each minute, even) the best it can possibly be.

This new outlook can probably be partially blamed on a fantastic book I read last week. I don't really read much, but I ended up with a copy of "Tuesdays with Morrie" and finished it in two days. I really think that everybody should read it. It gives you a lot to think about. And if you have read it, I would love to hear your thoughts on it.

Anyway, I digress.

I think the time line and general nature of rock tour are in the process of being rearranged. We will still be hitting the road, it just won't be for as long as we thought. So we may only make it as far as Oklahoma or something. Who knows. Plans are still in the works. Things change. Ideas evolve. Band mates get offered million dollar opportunities.

Ryan and I need to have a pow wow. Will keep you updated, world. :)

Words of Wisdom

"When life gives you lemons, just squeeze them into some sort of vodka drink or something."

- a wise old literature professor

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I might need some vodka on standby. Just in case.

If You Want To Sing Out, Sing Out

I don't know what the future will bring. I am twenty-two and refuse to make very many long-term plans. I know that right now I want to travel and make music. I can't look very far beyond that though. Maybe in six months I'll want to have a job. Maybe I'll want to rent an apartment on the other side of town and stay up every night eating Captain Crunch and writing a screenplay. Maybe I'll want to put on my fur coat and move to Siberia. Who knows.

I do not know what the future will look like. Honestly, I don't want to know. I am okay with it being a mystery. It's exciting. It's full of opportunities.

When I was 17, I wanted to be a concert pianist. Horowitz 2.0, or something like that.

I told my piano teacher that I wanted to make music for a living. I thought he would probably be stoked. But instead he just took a bite of the big piece of meat that sat atop his fork (he always ate during lessons) and scrunched his brow. He probably said something in Yiddish when he was done chewing. I don't remember. But I do remember the words he said in English:

"Only pursue music if there's nothing else you can do to be happy. I don't recommend for people to be musicians. In fact, I tell them not to do it. It's not easy. It can be miserable. And it doesn't pay well. But if there's nothing else that makes you happy like music does, then go for it."

He then asked what other things I was thinking about doing with my life. "I like commercials," I say. "I'm thinking about going into advertising."

"Do you drink?" he says without even skipping a bit. I shake my head "no." "Well, you should start if you're going into advertising," he says.

That was the last time I ever thought about going into advertising.

Of course, that was not the last time I ever thought about music.

In fact, the more I explore other ideas and try out other options, the more I realize that music is really my bottom line. I may have a college degree in film, but music will always be my first love. Music is what makes me the happiest.

Music isn't everybody's bottom line. And if you can be happy doing something else and making real money off of it, more power to ya.

But, in the words of my old piano teacher, if there's nothing else that makes you happy like music does, then go for it.

I'm gonna try to go for it this summer.


I shall close with this video, courtesy of Amanda Palmer:



I think this is the most beautiful cover of this song in existence.

If you want to sing out, sing out. If you want to be free, be free. There are a million things to be. You know that there are.

Soap Henge!

Remember that Original Sound Trash-themed soap I was babbling on about last week?

Our very first batch is done curing on my windowsill.

Naturally, Ryan and I had to take pictures of ourselves posing with it.


Yeah. We're that cool.

You know you want some of our soap.

Cell Phone Angst

I hate text messaging. Words never sound the way I intend for them to sound when I send them via texting. It is a soulless form of communication.

But phone conversations are bad too. Especially the kind where the other party is mad at you and you are barely able to articulate what's going through your head. I think I will be okay if I never have to have another phone argument ever again.

If I could live without a cell phone, I would. Unfortunately, if you do not have a cell phone in today's society you are considered to be a nonperson.

There's a part of me that wants to "forget" to take my phone with me this summer though. Fear not, I'm not that stupid. But going without a cell phone would be really liberating. It's an obnoxious piece of technology that's always attached to me, buzzing and beeping and blasting 80s-themed ringtones. I love it because I can contact anyone from any point in the universe. But I also hate it. Because no matter where I am, anyone and everyone can contact me.

I am angsty today. Don't mind me.

So Ready To Blow This Popcorn Stand Foreva, Foo

A few days ago, I joined a cool site called 20 Something Bloggers. Yesterday I was cruising around the forums and found myself in a group devoted to indie music. Someone on the forum had posted that they were about to graduate from college and travel the country with their band for a couple of months. Whoa, that's exactly what Ryan and I are doing, I thought to myself. That's so cool that someone else is doing that too. Then I looked at the post again and realized that Ryan wrote it. He got a 20SB account when I wasn't looking. It's a small Internet after all.

Ryan put a new post on his blog last night that terrified me for a minute until I read the whole thing. Then it made me grin. I called him and we spent a good hour babbling on about all things rock tour related. The conversation ended with us proclaiming that this summer will be completely "ROCK-EFFING-TASTIC!" I got off the phone and stared at my map for a bit before I fell asleep.

I am so bored with my life right now. I do not allow myself to get bored very often, but right now I feel like I'm stuck in a bunch of ruts. It's not that my life is bad right now, it's just that I'm ready to do something entirely different.

Some people get really depressed over the whole graduation thing. They feel like their life is ending or something. I don't get it. I feel like my life is just beginning. If my life was a film, everything that has happened up until this point could be covered through a expositional dialogue (or perhaps a montage) in the first 15 pages or so of the script. I haven't even fully broken into Act Two yet. I've still got the whole movie ahead of me.

(Hi, I'm a scriptwriting nerd. Can you tell? :D)

I'm not really sure what I'm going to do today. Last time I checked, it was sunny out. I think I'll put on my springtime bohemian attire, go for a long drive, end up in a place where no one knows my name, and write for hours while drinking over-priced coffee.

Friday Friday

Bleck. I feel as though my entire throat is inflamed in rebellion against that bad lemonade I drank last night. I'm just going to call it psychosomatic and move on with my life.

Besides, life is good today. It's a sunny Friday. I am done with classes for the weekend and hanging around my apartment in my scuzzy Greenday t-shirt (a shirt I still insist on wearing even though I know it looks better on Ryan...).

Fridays get my thumbs-up of approval. Not sad to see this week come to an end.

Wrote a new song a couple of nights ago while I was attempting to mentally process the weirdness of the world. I really don't know if it's any good. It's a bit of a departure from my normal whimsical style (I'll be back to writing songs about zombies and icebergs soon, I am sure). I'm always nervous to post songs like this for fear that they are too cheesy or just plain suck. But I am trying hard to overcome these standard issue neurotic insecurities of a songwriter, so I took a quick recording of it on my iphone when I was practicing this morning. It's a terrible recording and the song is still fresh out of the notebook so it's a bit rough.

See? It's barely legible, and that big blank spot is where the second verse will go if I ever feel like writing one (I'm infamous for cheating and just recycling the first verse instead of writing a second...hey, words are hard for me - I'm more of a music and melody girl).

Anyway, now that I've given you two paragraphs worth of disclaimers, you can hear the song now. It's just audio. Maybe I'll be more sophisticated next time and add video as well, but I was feeling camera shy this morning.

I would love to hear what you think. The sound of Internet crickets is always terribly unnerving.

On a side note, if you're just now tuning into all this madness, you should check out this entry.

It's all about how you can get involved with our summer tour by joining our street team. There's a great video over there you might want to watch. Also included in this entry is information on how you can date Ryan. Check it totally out, yo.

I'm gonna go do whatever it is I do on Fridays. Peace and trash rock. Over and out.

Can't Sleep. Clowns Will Eat Me.

I should be asleep right now but sleep is overrated.
I was dancing around my kitchen eating Cheez-Its a little bit ago. I need to stop having so much energy in the middle of the night.
Ryan and I now have a show booked for May 23rd. It's at the Someday Lounge in Portland and I am completely stoked. It's been way too long since we've done any live performances.
If you want to buy tickets to the show, let me know. They are on sale in advance for $8. I would really love to see YOU there.
Of course, if you live in a completely part of the country and cannot make it to the Portland show, fear not. We might be coming to your town this summer.
The official route is still in the works. Bits and pieces of it are coming together. Tonight, Ryan informed me that all systems are go for Las Vegas. We're gonna stay with his old roommate (we're couchsurfing as much as possible) and hopefully play a few shows down there. Not exactly sure where we're headed to after that, but eventually we'll be on the east coast. I'm trying to surf around the Internet and figure out what cities would be good for us. Someone told me there is a big indie music scene in Michigan. Random.
Do you guys know any great places we should investigate?
Would love your input. :)

And now, I shall sleep. Maybe. Yes.

Death and Business Suits

I think I'm going to die.

It all started with the strange craving for a smoothie. I'm the proud owner of a Magic Bullet and usually I just make my own smoothies, but tonight I was out of yogurt and feeling lazy. I remembered the peach jet tea smoothies they make in the coffee shop on campus and drove over there.

I don't really frequent the campus coffee shop like I used to. I went there all the time my freshman year because it was close the drinks were cheap, but I soon realized that most of the baristas working there didn't know how to make coffee. It's hard to mess up blended drinks though, so I thought I'd go there tonight. But when I walked in, I found that the entire room was lit by candlelight and there was some sort of poetry reading/silent environment/seance going on. I really didn't stay long enough to know what it was. I left, still longing for a smoothie or some sort of fruity something. I passed a vending machine in the student union building on my way out and was seduced by the idea of lemonade.

So I fished a bunch of odd change out of my bag and bought lemonade out of a vending machine. And I went home and drank lemonade. Really bizarre, bad tasting lemonade. The more I drank, the weirder it tasted. I made it halfway through the bottle when the expiration date caught my eye: SEPT 01, 2009.

Today is April 15, 2010. That lemonade is over seven months old. I can see the words on the gravestone now:

Here lies Lauren. She drank bad lemonade. RIP.

Ah well. All I can do is continue to live my life and see what happens, right? :D

A few weeks ago I bought a business suit. I've never really been one to own a business suit, but figured if I wanted to look good at an interview I should add one to my closet. And isn't that what you're supposed to do after college - get a bunch of interviews for jobs that you're mildly interested in and hope you get the one that is the least offensive? That's what I thought I would do. That's what I thought I should do. That's why I bought a business suit (which looked pretty good on me, but that's besides the point).

Today, I returned that business suit. There may come a day when I need to own one, but it's not going to be for awhile.

It was quite liberating to get that suit off of my hands (no matter how good I looked in it).

Rock tour, here I come.

United States of Neurotica

I ride the elevator up to the 18th floor, clutching the bag with my hard drive in it. I hate elevators. I get in and out of different elevators three times just because I cannot bear to ride up 18 floors in one straight shot (and because an assortment of awkward strangers kept getting in with me).

The 18th floor is full of offices and cubicles. I immediately feel stifled. I quickly find the people I've been doing an internship for and get them the video they need from my hard drive. "Sorry it's not entirely edited," I say. "I was going to go to the lab and edit it this morning, but somebody spilled some chemicals in the science building and the whole campus was shut down." (And yes, that really happened.)

They are nice people. They like the work I've done, or at least they pretend to. It's a dreadfully boring video, but it's what they wanted. They help me finish it and get it exported and out of my hair. "Great work," they say. The man gives me a high five.

I take the elevator down 18 floors and spend several minutes attempting to locate my car in the parking garage. I do not relax until I am on the freeway.

I never, ever, ever want to work in a job that requires me to sit in a cubicle. I never want to have an office. I don't know if I ever want a proper desk. The idea of offices and cubicles and giant corporate buildings with over 18 floors terrifies me. It's enough to make me want to run away and make music.

Well, I guess I want to do that anyway. But you get the point.

Two weeks of school left. Two weeks, and then finals. After that - BAM! Graduation. The official launching into the universe. I am excited, but at the same time, I am totally stressed out and not even sure how I'm going to make it through the next two weeks. I know I will somehow, but it still throws me into anxiety land whenever I think about all the things that need to happen between now and then.

I tried to go to bed early tonight, but it didn't work out. Too much on my mind. I went into the kitchen and ate jello with a fork (the spoons were dirty). Then I puttered around the Internet for a bit, as I often do on nights like this.

Tonight, I found myself on Omegle. I hadn't been there in a long, long time and most of my conversations looked like this:

You're now chatting with a random stranger. Say hi!

You: i dont want to have cybersex
Your conversational partner has disconnected.

I did manage to have a decent conversation with a polite, music-savvy teenager in Brooklyn. The convo ended with the girl adding Original Sound Trash as a friend and promising to come to a show if we play Brooklyn. I gave up on Omegle after that. The odds of having two good conversations in one evening are too slim.

I should probably go to bed. I am not going to want to get up in the morning. But I probably wouldn't want to get out of bed even if I fell asleep three hours ago.

Man, I can't wait until rock tour. It's quickly become something that I not only want to do, but that I need to do. I need to get the heck out of here for awhile. I need to travel and meet all kinds of interesting people and have crazy experiences and make loud music.

That's all.

The Highlight of My Day

I walked into physics class today to see Ryan sitting there in his infamous purple pants. His outfit was even complete with the infamous white button-up shirt. Usually these particular articles of clothing only come out of Ryan's closet for shows. Not accustomed to seeing this attire in physics class, I ask him what the occasion is. "I am out of clothes," he confesses. "I need to do laundry."

This picture doesn't really do the outfit justice, but you get the idea. It's magical.

Ryan's a brave soul. I too have various trash rock outfits but would never wear them to physics class, not even on the most desperate of laundry days.

Fingers Crossed

Today, that Steve fellow that I am rather fond of is going to approach the operations manager at his job. He is going to ask the following question: "Can I have two months off to travel around the country with a local indie band and film their rock tour?"

I'm praying this conversation goes well.

And Would You Like Fries With That?

For the past week or two, I've been having these reoccurring dreams about fast food restaurants. Usually it's a Carl's Jr or a Wendy's. Sometimes it's a Taco Bell. But regardless of what chain it happens to be, I'm always sitting there drinking a milkshake and waiting for the rest of my food to come. Reasons for being there differ. Sometimes I'm there because I'm avoiding someone obnoxious (this could be anyone from my ex-boyfriend to my seventh grade math teacher). Sometimes I'm waiting for someone that never comes. Sometimes I just want to drink a milkshake. I'm always there longer than I intend to be, and the teenagers at the counter never get my order right.

Weirdest thing is, I don't even eat a lot of fast food in real life. I don't even really like fast food that much.

I'm sure Sigmund Freud or some like-minded psycho shrink could derive some deep meaning from this mundane series of dreams, but I'd like to think it's just another sign that my life is in need of a change. I mean, if the most exciting thing my subconscious can come up with in this current environment involves greasy chain restaurants, it must be time to get out of this town.

I'm going to attempt to sleep now. And hopefully tonight, I'll dream about something more exciting. Maybe I can dream about rock tour. :D

Trash Rock Defined on the Interwebs

The following is copied from dictionary.com:

trash rock - 1 dictionary result Main Entry:	trash rock
Part of Speech:	n
Definition:	a genre of rock music that is loud and unsophisticated
Etymology:	from the music's garbage-like nature
Usage:	music

And this is from urbandictionary.com:

	1. trash rock
	Trashy, seedy, campy rock n' roll with an often androgynous, drunk/drugged out, and b-movie-obsessed disposition. Many trash rock bands are punks reviving the feel of the raunchiest '60s garage bands.
	Hehe. And all this time I kinda thought we had invented a new genre...
	I particularly enjoy the fact that the words "b-movie-obsessed" made it into the description on urbandictionary. That part doesn't fit us at all. It's not like we have a 40 minute rock opera devoted entirely to the subject of zombies or anything. (That was sarcasm in case you didn't catch it. We totally do.)

Happy Friday!

Here's a song we wrote a few months ago. It's about our favourite topic - the end of the world! Enjoy. :D



The world better not end before this rock tour adventure goes down. That's all I have to say.

On a completely unrelated note, Amanda Palmer tickets go on sale tomorrow! Gah, I am such a fan girl. But the idea of seeing her perform live seriously makes me giddy.

In other news, I am still sick. I slept all morning and will now attempt to eat ramen noodles. Life is so exciting today.

My Apologies To Any Grizzly Bears I May Have Offended

A gang of wild grizzly bears near the border of Alberta contacted me shortly after I published my last post. In the post, I hinted that playing for an audience of Canadian grizzly bears might make me uncomfortable and that I'm leaning towards staying in the states. The particular gang of wild grizzly bears that contacted me was greatly dismayed by this post. Several of them sent me emails with the following jpeg attached:


So maybe I was wrong about grizzly bears. And I won't rule out Canada just yet.

There. Are you happy, grizzly bears?

Thursday Ramblings

Sick Lauren. So hawt right now.


Tis a glorious sick day. I haven't bothered to get out of my pajamas yet. I'd like to think I'm getting better though. After all, I ate a piece of toast and lived to tell about it.

I've made the most of my time by doing a little homework and watching all of the videos in the "Who Killed Amanda Palmer" collection. I also sent an email to a band we might open for on the east coast. I asked for recommendations of venues to play over on that side of the world. I signed my name under the words "Peace, Love, and Disco" and sent it into cyberspace.

Then some guy I went to high school with IMed me out of the blue to tell me he likes my music. I chatted with him for a little bit and found out he's playing in a ska band now. He's also planning a tour this summer and told me that booking shows in New Mexico and Texas is rough. I had heard from a couple of different sources that the music scene in Texas was not great but this confirmed it. There are only two sticky notes in Texas on my map. One represents friends of a friend and the other says "STRANGER DANGER" with the name of someone I met on the Interwebs ("put me on the map but i am stranger danger!" he wrote...oh how I love having friends that live in my computer screen...). So we can probably skip Texas.

I think we're headed more towards Oklahoma anyway. We may have to go through a little bit of Texas to get there. Depends on which way we go. There's probably not much of a music scene in Oklahoma either. But my good friend Nancy lives there and she informed us that we are coming to Oklahoma even if we have to do a show in her living room. Sounds like a good time to me. Nancy's sticky on the map gets a star by it.

Ryan and I really just need to sit down with a map and hammer out a route. We also need to do a lot of research about where the good music scenes are. We keep saying Portland to Portland, but there's a lot of different ways we can go.

There's also the option of coming back through Canada. It sounds sexy in theory, but the more I think about it, the more I ask myself this question: What the hell is in Canada?

I'm trying to think of an answer to that question that doesn't involve the phrase "lots of grizzly bears."

Though Original Sound Trash is all about being unique and reaching out to new audiences, I don't know how I feel about playing for grizzly bears.

Who knows though. There's gotta be something cool in Canada. Commence Internet research. Yah!

Dude. I should take another nap or something.

Have a glorious Thursday, friends!

Peace, Love, and Disco,
Me!

Still Not Feeling Like a Rock Star...

Disclaimer: There's a Kimya Dawson lyric that says something like, "If you don't like body functions, don't read my blog." That lyric could be applied to this post. You have been warned.
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Tonight was special.

To make a long story short, I can now cross "throw up twice during a presentation" off of my list of things to do in life.

Fortunately, I was able to make an awkward exit and run to the bathroom while another girl in my group was talking. I hurled into a trashcan in the safety of the ladies' room, a disgusted Chinese exchange student being the only witness. I ran my hands under cold water and made it back to the classroom in time to finish the presentation. I told no one why I had left and proceeded to act like everything was normal. It was still a very mortifying experience though. There's nothing like standing in front of a group of people and realizing that it would be a good idea to visually locating all available trashcans in the room. It was like my sixth grade winter band concert all over again. *shudder*

Weirdly enough, the prof seemed to like the presentation. He was especially impressed by the video I made, which was funny because I cut it together last night when I was grumpy and had a fever. Apparently the video distracted him from the fact that I was turning green and visually locating all the trashcans in the room.

I can't wait until school is over and done with.

Now that I've got this rock tour plan cooked up, I really can't wait to graduate and be done with this whole college thing.

The map looks at me every day from it's perch on my wall. It's calling my name. It's saying, "Lauren! Lauren! I am the United States! Make rock music in meeee!"

Actually, I've never heard it say those exact words (or any words at all, really). But you get the point.

Anyway, now that I've thrown up a couple of times, I am officially sick and can spend my evening irresponsibly blogging and looking at keytars on ebay. Okay, so maybe I was doing that before I threw up, but now I can do it free of guilt.

Dear Keytar,

The more I think about you, the more I want you. You are cooler than an accordion but still have a lot of personality. You are probably not as heavy as my accordion and I don't have to squeeze you to get you to make noise. Like I said in an earlier post, I wish it was at least semi-practical to throw money into you. Maybe you can be mine someday.

Love,
Lauren

Gah. I am writing letters to inanimate objects. I should go to bed.

Goodnight, oh universe.

<3

Inspiration

Bleck. Not feeling like a rock star today. Am all congested and crampy and headache-tastic. No amount of Tylenol or cold medicine is making me feel like leaving my room. But I have to soon. I have to give a presentation tonight. It's a group presentation on a topic I have no interest in for a class that's required for graduation (this just keeps getting better and better, doesn't it?). And tomorrow morning, I have an important meeting that I need to be not-sick for. I always get sick at the worst times.

I was in a pretty terrible mood last night. I left work early, got in my sweatpants, and devoted the evening to editing a boring video for the presentation I have to give tonight. I texted Steve but he was busy. I looked at the food in my cupboard and decided I didn't want to cook. I munched on a soda cracker. I refreshed my facebook page and discovered that one of my favourite artists, Amanda Palmer, has finally been dropped from her record label! She's been caught in a legal battle with them for a long time and finally won. To celebrate, she gave all of her fans a free song. The song was about doing whatever you want regardless of what people think, and it made me grin.

The download even came with a bundle of pictures of her and her friends recording it.

I'm going to sound like such a fan girl, but I officially love Amanda Palmer.

I could have gone to bed happy after the free song. But then I discovered that Amanda and friends were doing a live webcast to toast her freedom. So poured myself another glass of juice, got under my favourite blanket, and tuned in on UStream to watch Amanda Palmer, Sxip Shirley, and Jason Webley drinking wine and playing music on the other side of the country. They had to be quiet because they were at Amanda's parents' house in the suburbs, so they snuck outside and played "Love Will Tear Us Apart" in the woods. It was like The Blair Witch Project with a strange punk cabaret twist and it totally made my night.

This is why I love music. This is also why I love the Internet. But mostly, I just love music.

Artists like Amanda Palmer remind me why I love music so much. Her music is honest, witty, and generally just rocks. She's coming to town in May for her Evelyn Evelyn tour. Trash rock tour madness doesn't start till June, so I'll be able to go!

Not that I need to be spending money on shows right now, espeically after last weekend. But...it's Amanda Palmer!

And last weekend was Muse! Totally different creature than Amanda Palmer, but absolutely brilliant.

Actually, it may have just been the best concert I've ever been to.

Yes, better than the time my rock concert virginity was taken away by They Might Be Giants. Better than being pressed up against the stage at The Kooks or being punched in the arm at Apocalyptica. Possibly even better than being caught under a mushroom cloud of marijuana smoke with my mom at The Wailers last summer.

Those were all fantastic but this...this was MUSE.

This picture was taken with Steve's iphone. No zooming involved - we really were that close!

This is the expression I wore during most of the show:

I kinda look like I just peed my pants with excitement or something. I swear I didn't. But Muse blew my mind a little bit.

I left the show fantasizing about playing stadiums and doing big budget shows involving lights, fog, lasers, and moving platforms. I also spent too much time looking at keytars on ebay. I've always secretly thought they were cool, but when Matt Bellamy whipped one out during "Undisclosed Desires," it made me really want one.

Matt Bellamy, why do you have the ability to make everything you touch turn into sexiness?

I wish there was a universe in which it was at least semi-practical for me to buy a keytar at this point in my life...

Blinding You With SCIENCE!

I have physics lab in a little bit. I have absolutely no desire to go but I need to pass physics. It's an easy gen ed class, but I'm having the hardest time caring. All I really want to do right now is be a rock star. And last time I checked, rock stars don't take physics.

Not sure if rock stars run around in goggles making soap in their front yards either, which is what Ryan and I did over spring break. I really wasn't kidding when I mentioned Original Sound Trash-themed soap in that video a couple of posts back. Hey, every band needs their trademark.

I think we were high off of the fumes at this point. Don't play with lye, kiddos. It's nasty stuff.

Our first batch of soap is still curing on my windowsill. It was an experimental batch. We even tried scenting it with some tea we don't like. If it turns out okay, we may have Amish Housewife Day Part Two and mass produce OST soap to sell at shows alongside shirts and buttons.

Hi, we're eccentric. :D

Our Drummer Has No Soul But It's Still Rock And Roll!

It's been approximately one week since Ryan and I gave birth to this crazy idea of taking our music on the road. And though it's only been one week, we already have several options of places we can stay throughout the trip as well as the possibility of a show on the east coast. Everyone I've talked to in the past week has been extremely supportive of this whole rock tour idea, which blows my mind a little bit. Steve keeps telling me that it only makes sense for me to go on a cross country rock tour and that the fact everyone is being so supportive just proves that this is meant to happen. I hope he's right.

In other news, my band mate is apparently Bob the freaking Builder. Last week he was talking about making a drum machine for our shows this summer. I had no idea that meant he would be updating his blog with pictures of the finished product on Monday. You can check it out here.

Who needs a real person when you have a drum machine? :D

(Related question: Why do I need one mariachi when I can have a whole band? :) The first person who can name what movie that's from gets a gold star.)

Maps, Street Teams, Yentas, etc.

Last night, I removed the giant "School House Rock" poster from my wall and put up a map in the United States in it's place. I then spent a significant amount of time decorating it with colorful stickies. Each sticky is labeled with the name of someone we know (or kinda know) that lives somewhere in the United States.

So the middle of the country is lacking stickies, but we'll fix that with couchsurfing.com.

(And for the record, not all of the stickies are totally legitimate. I did this late at night when writing "AMANDA PALMER" all over Boston made sense and slapping the name "Edward Cullen" on Forks, Washington was hysterical.)

As we get an idea of what venues we want to play, we'll add them to the map too.

In other news, Ryan came over tonight for some quality trash rock time. Any band can have practice, but only Original Sound Trash can have trash rock time! Trash rock time is generally a very magical part of the week. Tonight was no exception. We explored new music. We explored the contents of the infamous Trash Rock Box. We quoted obscure movies and internet memes. Ryan acted like my psychiatrist. I acted like Ryan's yenta. And then we made this video:



Watch it to learn how YOU can be a part of our street team!

If you are interested in promoting us in your town, let me know!

And if you are interested in dating Ryan, please notify me of this as well. After all, I am his yenta.

A Letter to the Universe

Dear Universe,

Stop trying to be so practical all the time.

Love,
Lauren

Coffee coffee coffee

Good morning world. It's a new day! And it's coffee time for Lauren.

Really, I have to have coffee first thing in the morning, every morning. If coffee is not introduced into my system upon waking, I will get a nasty headache that's impossible to shake. I've been thinking about how this will work on the road. Here are all the solutions I can think of to this dilemma:

- Plan to buy coffee somewhere every morning/cross my fingers that the people we stay with along the way will have coffee available in the morning

- Take my little coffee pot on the road. If we end up getting our hands on a sketchy creeper van, it can have it's own seat.

- Live off of instant coffee for two months (this thought makes me gag a little).

- Kick the coffee addiction entirely. This would be hell. But if I started once I moved back to my parents house, it wouldn't interfere with school, and I would be mostly recovered by the time we hit the road.

None of the options are really that attractive.

Is it bad that I'm leaning towards just taking my coffee pot with me?

Maybe we should just get a double decker bus and be The Partridge Family...

Today I woke up and realized that this whole thing is way too irresponsible. I am going to call Ryan right now and tell him I'm out. I'm going to get a job doing monotonous secretarial work and live in my parent's basement for awhile.

And yes, it's April Fools Day. That whole paragraph was a joke. Fooled you! (Though I doubt anyone believed a word of that).

Truth is, the more I think about this, the more I am totally set on doing it. It's getting harder and harder to concentrate on school with this exciting idea rolling around in my head.

There's still a lot we need to figure out. We don't even really know what vehicle we're taking yet. We've got a ton of equipment that will be going with us, which makes this part difficult. It's almost like we need a sketchy creeper van to ride around the country in. That way Ryan's gigantic Marshall amp can have it's own seat. Meanwhile, my keyboard could take up a whole row of seats and we'd still have room for our luggage, our cooler full of tuna fish sandwiches, and our dwarf-sized model of Stonehenge.

(Sorry, for some reason it's impossible not to make constant references to "This is Spinal Tap" when talking about a rock tour.)

I'm not really sure how we would come up with said sketchy creeper van though. So far, our transportation choices are as follows:

- My little blue truck. It's got a secure bed that could fit a ton of our stuff, but if three of us end up going, the cab will get cramped really fast. There's also the option of putting some sort of camper-type cover over the back so we could occasionally sleep back there. But again, if there's three of us, one person would have to draw the short straw and sleep in the cab, and no matter how you rolled the dice it would potentially be weird. Not to mention we'd probably all be sleeping on top of our equipment crap.

- My mother's SUV. She offered to let me borrow it for a couple of months. Probably guzzles gas, but might almost fit everything. Plus, nothing says rock and roll like a Honda CRV!

- Ryan's car. It's little and white (kinda like Ryan!). It gets good gas mileage and will blend in well when we drive through California. Not sure where all the equipment will fit. Especially the gigantic Marshall amp.

That thing is a beast! Just look at the picture - it's going to eat me!

*Sigh* We may need to downsize. Or go acoustic. Being electric is more fun though.

And if there's room in whatever vehicle we end up taking, I just might bring my accordion along.

I need to practice it a lot, but it's a cool addition to our sound that may make us a little more memorable. So the jury's still out on the accordion.

Anyway, I'm sure we'll come up with the right transportation method, it's just a matter of being creative. If you have any ideas, please share them with us! :)