Allen Keating Moore

New York Filmmaker Allen Keating Moore has created an amazing music video for our song Static!

The Eagle mask has been made by Chicago artist Brian Dortmund.

3,2,1.....

Sweatshops and Cornerstore.

I haven 't bought new clothes in a long time. This choice also coincides with my choice to stop eating at McDonalds, Burger King, Wendy's, etc. I buy most of my clothes at thrift stores. My socks and underwear are probably made in a sweatshop but i buy them from a local corner store in Albany Park from a family that provides wholesale. I feel a little better about it because they need the support more than Target does.

I have a Nike shirt that I got from a friend. It's older and has an feel like it came out of the time when Hip Hop was just getting started. I was torn about it. I was hungover and I didn't really think about what was on the front of it. It just looked comfortable and old. In a quick thought I grabbed a Sharpie and wrote "Sweatshops" right over the top of it. It was the first time i was able to express hidden feelings about why I buy thrift store clothes.

I have been wearing this shirt for a long time. When the "Sweatshops" wears off, I just rewrite it in different colors.

I sometimes want to buy the new U.S. made clothes because they aren't made in a sweatshop but they are so expensive. Then I feel like I just spent my whole paycheck to make a statement...I don't want to be a statement oriented person. I just want to be happy. I guess I'm saying I can't really be happy about my clothing choices unless some things change. Until then I will still shop at thrift stores and try to fix clothes that are falling apart from free piles and trades and stuff.

I just don't feel comfortable about filling the pockets of the rich and ignorant in the U.S. while 7 year olds are being forced to push their calloused fingers through over run sewing machines for barely enough to eat.

I work at at an office where I'm supposed to dress up formally. I do my best for what I can get. I am thankful that no one has said anything to me about my clothes but I just can't buy great fitting clothes that are super clean and fashionable. I know that it probably makes some people look down on me but I wait for the day when someone does ask me about it. I can't wait to tell them why. If It doesn't work out that's okay. It's more important to me to be the person I want to be than to buy new clothes from department stores, etc.

I have one other shirt that I wear regularly that I have changed what it says on it. It's a Cornerstone Festival t-shirt. I changed the n to an r. I remember going to that festival when I was 15 and it felt so much different. As I got older I realized why I felt less and less a part of it. It wasn't just because of the obvious. The big bands, MXPX, Relient K, POD....you get the idea. I don't like those bands. I will admit that I did listen to MXPX when I was younger. My point is these bands are big markets. They have images. Innocence has been lost and the t-shirts fly and the free downloads slow up computers. The festival has become Cornerstore to me. It's not what I would like to be a part of. There is a group of folks who go to the festival to meet new people and share ideas. I like a great deal of those people but I feel like we may be able to experience good things within this Christian Market, but it's just too overwhelming. Money has become so important in the Christian music world. It just makes sense to call it Cornerstore.

It also makes sense that it would lead to emptiness. A lot of people go to these events to be revived and feel better after a long year of back braking, or stress fracturing work. When I go it just makes me feel alone. I guess it's because I choose not to fall for it.

It takes work to find others that don't fall for it either and I'm not just talking about Cornerstone. I'm talking about Nike. I'm talking about McDonalds. *I have to say that the only good thing McDonalds has going for it is hot meals for cheap. I could never tell a family who is struggling to survive that it's wrong for them to eat at McDonalds. If your homeless and you have 2 dollars you can get enough food for most of your day.*

I want so much to live in a world free from this emptiness.

One of the best ways I've been free from it is believing in myself. It's a new world to me. It's so easy to think that I'm not ever going to be the person I want to be because of the massive heaviness that comes with all that marketing. I'm so tired of people telling how I'm supposed to feel. When I do what I love like make stuff, make music, share quality time with my friends and challenge myself to not feel down when tv commercials and grocery stores and big bands and sexism and racism and people accepting sweatshops as normal and being put down or...you get the idea. The more I am me. The more I am free.

tired

from the caverns of exhaustion comes some words and stuff. Great is the day that stakes a claim on effervescent knowledge outstanding hooliganary.

soldier fields imperial goal tending evolution coexisting to travel in time and stop aging again?

growth in the water population and it's going to just be that way. red pleather stether McClever.

Seond

cd covers/laundry/piles of work

work...sometimes it seems like thats all i do. I have to be up in 6 hours so I'll keep this short. I realize that I wouldn't be able to do half the stuff I do if it wasn't for friends. You know who you are I'm not going to get all mushy. Anyway....Kristen, Kelly and I made about 100 covers tonight. We have about 400 to go. Things are looking good. CD duplication is happening tomorrow at Truthsculpture Studios and I'm hoping to crash somewhere and play a solo show on Friday if everything works out...

We're sending out posters tomorrow too so If we're playing at one of your venues your getting a package soon. It's so weird to be doing all this stuff. It's true that at least this part of my life is getting to be diy enough for me to feel like I have some cred. I'm definitely not faking diy that's for sure.

I actually got laundry done tonight. I can't wait until a day when I can play music and produce albums with at least half of my time. The other half would be split between side jobs and time alone and with my friends and family. Time to relax and read stuff. Draw, Paint, etc... I think the only way to get there is right into the storm. At least when it rains next time I'll be prepared for it.

Have a good night or day.
later, Billy T.

it's ten and i should be asleep. oh overtime and work days and such. it's all i have during the week. rehearsal was super great tonight. we snapped right into everything. we hung out at chucks and ate pizza and hung out most of the time just talking but when we got to working on songs they felt so good. we have a couple of more rehearsals until we leave for the south and I feel great.

less than a week and we should have 3 cd's realeased. i'm so stoked.

overtime

I barely have enough time to think after I get off work anymore. I was supposed to wash my clothes but I should probably go to bed. I don't really dress all that well at my office job. I guess it makes sense though.

We got a show at Sluggos in Pensacola on April 11th! I'm so psyched to say that we have booked 3 full shows for tour. We still have 2 more to go. We're hoping to get rad shows in New Orleans and Chattanooga. So anyone out there reading this who wants to book us let us know!

I better go to bed. We've got rehearsal tomorrow.

Later,
Billy T.

Hooray

The website's done! Now I can spend more time on writing.

I wanted to write a little bit about the story behind the "Little Jesus" split with Jonni Greth and the Drones.

Jonni and I were at a MewithoutYou concert last summer and there was a man with Down Syndrome standing next to us with the biggest smile I had ever seen. It was contagious and Jonni and I were instantaneous happy. The man put his arm around Jonni and started to sway with him. I joined in after he gave me a look as if to say he wanted me too. After that he started to hug Jonni. This wasn't just a normal hug. It was filled with emotion and it lasted way longer than any hug given from a stranger. It just kept going and going.  At first Jonni didn't know how to react but it was so powerful for him he started hugging him back.

After the show we talked about the experience for an hour. It was such a powerful thing for Jonni. Even just being there was life changing for me too. He asked me what I thought about the situation and I said that the man was like a "Little Jesus" (he was very short, not quite 4.5 feet tall). 

A few months later Jonni started talking to me about recording and not being sure about what he should do with his music. He didn't want to just jump into hunting for a big label but he also wanted to be serious about his music. After some thought about his situation. I figured why not make a split cd. We both respect each others music even if it's totally different. He said he thought that it was a good idea. 

In October Jonni came up to Chicago and stayed at my sisters and we headed over to Mystery Street to record 4 songs one Saturday and then my band would go in and record the following Saturday and we would play a show at the Fireside Bowl in between. We learned that recording in a studio on a schedule where time is money was different that what we expected. Jonni took both days to record and we had about 3 hours. We cranked out 5 songs in 3 hours but after listening back I found way too many problems and wasn't sure what to do. I couldn't afford to go back in to the studio and almost gave up. 

About 3 months later I had dinner at my sisters and her roommate is in the Drones. She told me that she wanted to hear the split and was wondering what was going on. She told me that she really wanted to see the project completed and it was really important the Jonni as well as the rest of the Drones. I told her that we could put out their songs as an ep but my band just wasn't ready to record. She said that it wasn't just important for them to have their songs but they really wanted to have a completed split with me. She convinced me that I needed to do something. 

I spent the next couple of weeks trying to record my half of the split by myself on garageband and on a tape recorder boombox that I got at a thrift store. I had this elaborate set up with the boombox on the kitchen table with a blanket draped over a mop handle and a broom handle to muffle absorb some sound. It just wasn't working. I sat down at my computer and it all started to happen. I recorded two songs; Grayscale Rainbow and Hey Na Na Na. After a couple of days I recorded Rings. I played them for the band Overhang to see what they thought. Grant told me that he felt that the songs were more interesting but the recording wasn't as good as my other. I told him that I felt that it might be cool to have a lo-fi aesthetic  to change the feeling from Jonni's stuff and my stuff. 

I had been talking to some folks about some of my shortcomings recently and had heard a lot about how I didn't really throw myself out there very much and most importantly I didn't receive criticism very well. I realized this was one of those times. I talked to the rest of the band and they said they would be down to do more but I had to take on the role as leader of the band. 

I have never been good at this "leadership" thing. I always felt that it should always be an equal things when it came to bands, but then again, my bands never lasted very long. I decided to take it and I took on the responsibility. From then on I started meeting with the musicians in the band and taking it more seriously again. 

Kristen and I bought a minivan from our friends Allen and Lindsey Keating Moore who needed more money to move to New York and we thought having a van would be good for craft fairs and shows.

Because of this a tour became the result. So we started rehearsing to record and prepared a tour of the South. It would be a chance to release Consistent Themes #3 and continue toward the goal of touring the ep across the whole country. Then the stress of everything I had before me started to set in and I started asking everyone in the band if they were prepared to do what I wanted to plan. 

Everyone was down except Kevin. Kevin started out as our engineer and has become our bassist. Chris and I have been working with him for a while and it was hard to hear but I knew that it was the right thing. He said that he would continue with the role of being our engineer and it would be better because he would actually have more time to do that. 

So I needed to find a bassist. 

I went to a guitar expo with Jesse from Beard and he introduced me to his friend Chuck. I had been meaning to share the album Illusions of Repetition with Jesse for months. We had it mastered a long time ago but could never afford to put it out. I've been sharing it with people ever since hoping someday to release it. Chuck listened to it with us and really liked it. When he heard that we were looking for a bassist he told me he would like to try out. It's great to know that the first audition is the one. Chuck joined us and we prepared to have one last show with Kevin as our bassist. We soon after that went to the studio. I work as much overtime as possible and even ended up getting a promotion in the process. 

I got my tax return and thought maybe we should take the van into the shop to get a quick diagnostic. About 1600 dollars later and more than my whole tax return gone we are getting closer to having a great touring van.

We recorded 4 songs in two weeks. Mixed in 1 week. Matched up Jonnis songs and put them in order with ours. I contacted Ryan from See No Evil design and he helped with designing the cover.

About 5 months ago i bought 500 cd's for 50 dollars so I could just duplicate my own and Jonnie mentioned something about grocery bags as covers to keep things cheap. So thats the direction we went. 

I had a plan of duplicating 200 splits/100 copies of consistent themes #3/100 copies of consistent themes for promotion/and 100 copies of Illusions of Repetition.

I figured I may never have enough money to make a full booklet for Illusions so I might as well get some copies out there while I have the chance.

It was just yesterday that the cd was mastered and we started making the covers. The covers will be handmade and the cd's will be duplicated sometime this week. 

Because of positive glitch at the printers we got 100 extra copies of Illusions covers so we decided to scratch the promo idea and just have 200 copies of Illusions. 

So here we are now. Getting ready for tour and we haven't even been able to book all of the cities yet but we will have 500 cd's to sell. 

If it wasn't for friends then I don't know what would have happened. We are finally getting our music out there. 

Some bands already have financial backing and some don't have any at all. It's about time that some people heard a band like ours that started out with me being homeless and broke and working like crazy to get a good job and few days off a year to tour. None of us have just had this handed to us. We believe in our music and art and we work hard to for it. It doesn't happen often that a band of poor folks get their music heard by a lot of people but this is definitely one of those times so get ready. We've got some good music and art coming your way.

Thank you for all of your help!

Best,

Bill Tucker and Friends