Rehearsal clip, smangin' it on labour Day

I am headed back down to Anchorage tomorrow early in the afternoon and then I will be off work for 4 days. Alex and I are gonna get superhammered and celebrate our belated birthdays.

Just saw St. Vincent. About to see Spoon.

why is it that almost every time i schedule recording time with a band in my un hvac'd garage that the weather uncannily becomes either the coldest or warmest possible of the year?

scheduled last year: february session. it hit 24 degrees. we'd record a song or two, and go drink tea for a half an hour.

this year: coldest summer i can recall with temps hovering about mid 70's: this session so far-- mid 90's and upwards of 80+% humidity. :P

we were thinking starting in september we'd be in the temperate awesome zone.. rats.

I just realized that my failure to even vaguely attempt acting like a responsible adult has resulted in: i no longer possess even the minimum required bits to wear to anything remotely formal.

Or rather, as it stands right now, that i basically could go in a tuxedo, or in t-shirt+jeans.

One of my old friends is getting married in a couple days, so i am kind of fucked. That isn't really enough time to buy a suit and get it to fit properly, not that i could even really afford to buy a non-shitty suit right now. I could have sworn i had something here, but no dice. A lot of ill-fitting(too bad my dad is taller than i am; his jackets make me look like 1980's david byrne) shit and an awful lot of fucking pleated pants.

Hit the thrift stores and hope something fits-ish? Formal enough that you couldn't get away with a sport coat (which hopefully fits-ish) and decent trousers, both of which should be easier to find than a proper matching suit that fits-ish? Fuckit and rock the tux?

I dunno.

I will say this: i would rather go horribly underdressed than go wearing some poor bastard's pleated church pants and ill-fit jacket though. Seriously, almost considering just wearing fucking Dickies and a button-up shortsleeve shirt with dress shoes. This is an old enough friend of mine that he might not be surprised by that sort of ghetto solution from me. He is also one who might not be surprised to see me show up in a tux. But honestly, all of my tuxes have tails, and besides that is frankly kind of too much of a dick move for for the wedding of a friend(who i actually like). He is a weird dude in the finest way, but i don't know the girl or the family well enough(or like at all really; he met her where he lives in NC, they are just getting married up here) to feel comfortable pulling that kind of shit.

Tomorrow i guess i will head out and see how bad the situation really is in cheapo suits/suitlike arrangements. I suppose i could get lucky in the sub-200 range worth of pants+jacket combos. But i doubt it.

Unfortunately, we are pretty thriftstore-light in these parts. At least, unless you are looking for some polyester pleated puffy churchpants and david byrne jackets. But fuck it, i already have that shit here.

Actually i did find the one decent fitted grey suit i could have sworn i had around here somewhere. Then i remembered why it was hidden/buried, as the last time i had it out i realized that some moth shit got in and put some nice little holes all over the thing. It wasn't an amazing suit anyhow, but at least it was decent enough, and did fit.

Ah damn I thought for a second you were coming to NC.

Yarr, he is originally based around here and her peoples would have to travel either way, so they are doing it back up here.

I actually have a couple people i owe visits to down thattaways though. Hopefully i can get my shit together next year and get down.

Completely acceptable to wear what is dressy enough but not make you feel uncomfortable. I have worn some jeans and snazzy blue velvet jacket many times. Blue velvet totally trumps the trash right out of the ripped jeans. Jeans, chucks and a jacket are more than acceptable. Go thrifting find a jacket that says "I'm here to fuck your bitches if u fuck with me" go all out Huggy Bear Pimp style. It will work. Fuck I will ship you up my blue velvet if you would like. We are probably about the same size I will through that shit in express mail if you like


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Thank you kind sir, but i think i am going to hit up the Ikea of clothes stores tomorrow and see if i can't figure something out. My sister reminded me that H&M used to have some surprisingly good(meaning they actually kind of fit normal-sized(meaning normal for places where normal is not obese) people with no or minimal alteration) suit options, and they don't look completely like the fabric equivalent of sadness and prepubescent forced church attendance.

So that will be my last hope for something like Actual Correctness. My plan B is just a couple options of decent pants and button up dress shirts of a couple flavors. Not a big deal. Would probably feel a bit more comfortable in that environment in a suit though, just knowing how my brain doesn't like people places and things.

Understand. Good luck, and May BELT be with you at you time of purchase.


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H&M ended up being pretty okay. Cheap as hell, but aside from the pants being slightly too long, the shit fits pretty decently.

$120 for a three piece suit is just silly though. I don't intend to roll with the vest this time around, but for the price, it didn't make sense to leave it out.

Still feel like an immature dork, but well, slightly less so i guess.

As an aside, what the everliving fuck is going on with men's pant styles these days? I ended up with something that works well enough, but fuck, they are trying to sell some skinny-legged pants these days. Such a stupid look. I am all for the slim fit jacket thing, but the twig-leg pants suck.

For a buck and change, yeah, add the vest. Now, I'm a fan of vests in general, so I'd probably rock the vest as a matter of course, but still, doesn't hurt to have. And that is stupidly cheap.

Re: men's trousers, tapered skinny trousers is not such a great look with a suit, agreed. And I say this as someone who's worn skinny jeans with a suit coat- because that's totally different, of course. But that was onstage or out clubbing, which is a totally different context, and well, jeans. Now, I'm totally cool with the overall trend toward slimmer men's trousers, being a skinny person who doesn't like (or look good in) baggy, and my dress pants are all of the slimmer and lower-waisted variety, but nowhere near as exaggerated as what yer talking about there.

I think that the worst part is how they keep bringing the hem at the ankle up and up in combination with that twig leg profile. The combination is surely visually based on the practice of, and really just feels like a continuation of the practice of, wearing pants sourced from the childrens or womens section. Those aren't fucking pants, they are slightly long capris. And they are one of the worst possible things that one could wear with a suit, ever. IMO.

Luckily, though aimed clearly at that crowd, H&M has left the legs all pretty long(on the suit pants anyhow; the normal pants looked a bit more like they might be a challenge to find something i'd consider wearable), so they will work for medium-sized(in the proper sense of the word: i am neither rockstar thin, nor overweight, in addition to being a kind of median not-short-or-tall height) cave dwellers such as myself.

So a few months after giving up the money making band thing, which can be financially rewarding, but I was starting to dread practicing shit music, I am going the complete opposite direction. I am working on a project with someone I recently met and we are going to be doing Stonesy feel type thing, like a live Exile on Main Street thing... some Faces, Black Crowes, lots of slide... should be interesting. More of the 'I don't give a fuck" mentality. Gives me a chance to really use some of the nice gear I have.

Nice, playing rock is just a good time, especially when it is just solid rock. I couldn't do modern pop music, but i could totally see doing stone/black crowes/faces sorts of stuff with a group of people i got along with.

It was funny, at the wedding last night, there were a couple of good friends from the ancient past days that i used to play in bands with. Made me, at least for a minute/couplehours there, miss playing rock music, in actual bands, with friends.

P.S. That $120 H&M suit was totally serviceable and actually kind of fit better than i even initially thought. I didn't even bother hemming the pants. With dress shoes there was a kind of heavy break in the leg, but it wasn't insane and the cuffs didn't come near the floor/my heels(without shoes on they dragged everywhere and i was stepping on them). I totally intend to go back there and buy a couple other colors now.

Some kind of switch went off in my brain and I really want to play lots of guitar now. I'm coming home from work and just wanking Paul Gilbert licks all day, growing my pinky muscles back. I think this is a good thing... been too long since I've grown any skill on the instrument.

I wish I could get back into that mindset. Hardly play guitar any more now apart from when I have a riff/track I wanna get finished. Then I just obsess over recording it and end up going over it and listening back to it til I suck all the enjoyment out of it Although its more time constraints than anything else, I just need to start dedicating one night a week to guitar I think.