Just me again with another quick update on the regular. You could call this a by request update haha. (Thanks for reading Kev).
I just listened to a track off the brand new Green Day album being released today "21st Century Breakdown". The track was the title track and not that single they have the video for. A preview of what's to come for sure. Here's some honest thoughts from me, just some dude who's been a fan since buying Dookie on tape at Loblaws when I was in grade school. Now that I think of it, that could have been the pinnacle, one of the most important events in my early development. Crazy eh? Anyway, as the track begins to play Billie Joe sings "play us the song of the century" over static and radio fuzz. Then acoustic guitar starts in with two chords that are horribly droning. First thought at this point... Really? Really? That's what they did there?? The fan is mystified haha. It breaks into verse and it sounds a little more like the Green Day on the previous album: composed, a little slow, well thought out, multiple layered. At this point I thought, this is alright but if they have a whole album like this, it could easily be their last album. I already wasn't all that impressed by their single. Are you getting the mixed bag of feelings in my stomach?
Anyway, as the song progresses we see more song structure as on the album "American Idiot" where the songs have very different epic parts. This makes for a wide dynamic range in feeling and tempo in one song. I guess another way to put it is that if the song parts represented a family, a few would be adopted. (I don't know why the analogy is so bad but I hope you get what I mean). The end result at the end of the song is that I have full confidence in the album again. The doubts that I had at the beginning of the track have subsided. I'll tell you one more. Upon listening to the track again the beginning wasn't quite as jarring to me, it sits in the right space, right frame of mind and at the right tempo (that semi slow thing going on). The second listen was reinforcement as the song ramps up. In a word, this is going to be interesting. I guess this means that at some point between now and tomorrow I'll go pick up the album and see what the whole thing has to say. I'm not super excited but I'm relieved that it sounds good and it's new things from those boys from the bay area. All in all, all good!
Listen for yourself here. That's the track I listened to.
So where have I been?
In a word... Busy!
It's funny though, not in a way that I couldn't write but in a way that I didn't feel the need to write. There's pleanty to talk about but I'll just touch on the past week.
I've recently had a little bit of a tough time in the financial department. It's nothing terrible, it's more like a glitch. I've done work and have money owing to me but haven't been paid for it quite yet. That coupled with having to do an unplanned timing belt service on Pud the VW TDI along with a big VISA bill (birthdays etc) and now taxes to pay the GOV have made it a little interesting. The end result is I've been working on things the past few weeks. I was given the job of creating this crazy network diagram recently. This was a definite blessing. I'll go further into detail about it.
On Wednesday I was figuring I'd be heading into the city for my client meeting at 3 then I'd be able to get to practice nice and early at 5 or so. (I don't know if I mentioned it yet but my band is now practicing twice a week.) In the end, the client wanted to cap off the diagram that night for a presentation the following day. In the end, I worked until 10:15pm that night at their offices finishing things up. This meant a few things. I worked 11 hours on the project just that day. It also meant that I got to band practice so late that I didn't event practice. We went for wings haha. At the time I felt bad for not getting to practice but also had a big smile on my face knowing that the time I was spending there was just making it possible for me to carry on with the work I'm doing right now. Someone's looking out for me. We all know who that might be.
The working freelance and kind of mulling about home hasn't gone unnoticed by my father. I was told just last week that he was worried about me and that I didn't have a "real" job. Of course I learned this from an indirect source but still. Something like that never really rests well on a sons heart. I don't want my dad to worry but at the same time I'm doing just fine. It brings up that question again if I should just go looking for a job now. I think the answer is that I have to finish up some projects I'm working on first.
So I've begun something I call "Finishing School. Class of One." I have a project that I didn't complete some time ago for a friend. In my opinion it started a landslide in the way that I would work on things. I would start, lose steam and sometimes not finish them. This is something that's really hard when you're dealing with projects that take a lot of work. Now I've been given the opportunity to finish that work that I started. I love it. I never thought I'd get that chance to set things right. I'm taking it on with a new eye and really want to make it special. Something to be proud of for more reasons than it being finished. I started working on it again at the most basic level. Tracing paper and markers. In the end, this is going to make a brilliant piece. I'd also forgotten how much satisfaction I get out of marker work. I'm not good at it but I enjoy that sharpness and cleanliness of a finished piece. You can really see the line work in it.
Anyway, my scatter brain has a couple things to get done before the day progresses too late.
Oh last thing, FT is having a work day tomorrow at 9:30 and I'm pretty stoked to be going and helping out. See some of you there! Oh final final thing. FT last week was pretty amazing. Kev did the sermon and it seemed to be so well timed with so much that's going on right now. There's a lot of grieving and sadness in this semi-recessionary time and I thought it was perfect. A few other people I talked to said the same thing. It really put certain things into perspective for them. At FT we're super blessed to have someone so insightful and well spoken to put those certain elements of life into new perspectives.
I hope all are having a good week. It's a Friday of a long weekend. It's amazing time!!!
Peace, love and rock!
J
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