Happy Halloweeeeeen!

The best part about Halloween is that you get Simpsons Halloween re-run episodes all week long. Last night was the episode where Kang and Kudos kidnap Bill Clin-ton and Bob Dole and run for president. My favorite line:

Kang [running for President]: Abortions for all! [crowd boos]
Very well, Abortions for none! [crowd boos]
Abortions for some, miniature American flags for the others! [crowd cheers]

Couldn't find that clip on YouTube, so this one will have to do.

Boe Zegt de Koe

Paige loves both animals and their associated noises. Often in the morning we’ll hear her in her crib saying “Horse. Nay. Nayyyy. Sheep. Baaaaaahhhh.”

My niece Meagan was born while I was on my mission. In the airport on the way home, I bought her a Dick Bruna t-shirt with a cartoon of a cow that says “Boe zegt de koe.” (The cow says “boo.” Dutch cows don’t say moo – “moe” in Dutch means “tired.” You can’t have a bunch of cows milling about saying “Tired! Tired!”)

Meagan has since outgrown the shirt and passed it on to Paige. I was very excited when Paige was big enough to start wearing it. And Paige was very, very excited to wear a shirt with a cow on it. So much so that it caused quite a problem.

Spencer: Paige, let’s put this shirt on you. Look, it has a cow on it. [I pull it over her head.]

Paige: [Looking down at the cow shirt] Cow. Moo. Cow. Moo. Moo. Moo. Cow. Cow. [She starts grabbing the shirt, pulling the image up to her face.] Cow! Cow! Cow! Cow! Cow! [Going into stimulation overload] Cow! COW! COW! COW!

I had to quickly take the shirt off before her head exploded. I can only imagine what’s going to happen in a couple of weeks when Traci gives her the Elmo shirt that she bought her for her birthday.

Honk! Honk!

Traci's little sister Jillian just had a baby. Last night Paige was getting tended at Traci's mom's house (where the Jillian and new baby live). Paige picked up Jillian's breast pump and said "Horn. Honk! Honk! Honk!"

JTL update

The band has basically been on hiatus all summer long. When Traci and I moved to Taylorsville, it kind of screwed up the practice schedule. The Murray house was central to the band as car-less Danny works down the street at the library and Aaron lived around the corner. Between all of the time spent moving and all of the usual summer stuff, we have only rehearsed sporadically and haven't played a show since June.

Things are finally starting to get back on track. This past week we put together the basis of a new song, the first new song in forever. I'm excited about the music, but it's still without lyrics. That means we now have three songs with no words. (We play them live, I just make up new lyrics each time.) It's a bit embarrassing that I write all day at work, but can't for the life of me write lyrics. Especially now that I'm neither teenage nor angsty.

The band recorded basically recorded all of the instrument tracks for our album at least a year ago. It's still sitting on my computer, needing mixing and some more vocals. How can I start on all of my other recording plans - my rap album, my techno career, my acoustic songs - until I get the Johnny Tightlips album done? I've been spending a lot of time planning drums with Paige. Maybe I can teach her how to use ProTools.

Thursday Morning at the Gynecologist

So I'm sitting at the gyn-o-cologist this morning just minding my own bid'ness watching my two favorite shows, Regis & Kelly and Good Things Utah, when out of nowhere the doctor comes in and tells us we're going to have another baby. (I don't even know where babies come from. I looked on the internet at work, but a red flashing firewall screen said I needed to ask my mom.)

Traci's 12 weeks pregnant with a little alien that I saw on the ultrasound. The nurse spun the Wheel o' Due Dates and it looks like April 29 is the blessed day.

Elton Paige

Paige modeling her new Elton John glasses

Recent Paige-isms:

Boo-ya

At church on Sunday we were sitting in the first row of overflow chairs, right behind the last pew in the chapel, where all the old people sit. Paige walked up to the back of the pew and leaned up behind each old person and said softly, "boo." When the first person didn't react, she moved to the next old person, and then to the next. Her scare tactics were all in vain. None of the oldies even heard her.

Elmo's World

Also at church: During the quiet of the sacrament meeting Paige had to be singing a song in her highest pitched voice. Though I doubt anyone could other than Traci and I could identify the tune, she was doing her best to sing "La, la, la, la, this my song, Elmo's world."

Trace

Our little parrot now repeats everything we say. Last night, I hollered for "Trace," and within seconds my little friend had to be shouting, "Trace, Trace, Trace." She also yells "honey," and when I call her "sweetheart," she replies "babble, babble, babble, babble, sweethearrrrrt."

Baby's First Mass

Last night at Traci's parents, I showed Paige how to dump the assortment of toys out of the wire basket and put the basket on her head. She spent the rest of the night with it on her head, walking around saying "Hat, hat, hat, hat."

Today she was being babysat by Traci's mom. Cathie had left her in the other room watching an Elmo movie. When she came back to get her, Paige had changed the station and was now watching a Catholic mass on tv. And she was wearing the basket on her head. Cathie rushed to put in a primary movie before Paige had much time to change religions. She already hates nursery.

New Dashboard Confessional

Dashboard Confession
The Shade of Poison Trees

After the slightly disappointing sales of Dashboard Confessional’s 2006 release Dusk and Summer, teenage heartbreak heartthrob Chris Carrabba has gone to great lengths to give the kids exactly what they want. The Shade of Poison Trees replaces Dusk’s overly produced, full band arrangements with the familiar acoustic sound of earlier releases. While he succeeds with the reproducing the format – even down to the screen print album cover art - the quality of the actual songs is a bit mixed.

The album’s opening track is also its best. The story of a celebrity whose friends disappear when the money does, “Where There’s Gold” finds Carrabba opening up without falling back on his usual first person narrative with lyrics like, “You throw yourself into their arms/Mistresses have all the fun, but no one's ever there to take you home.”

The next few tracks continue strong with acoustic strumming and pop sensibilities, most of which clock in under the three minute mark. Standouts include the up tempo “Thick as Thieves” and “The Rush,” a love letter that any girl would die to receive - “I'll love you tonight and tomorrow you may just feel the same.”

About thee-fourths of the way through the album, however, the momentum is lost. “Little Bombs” sounds like signature Dashboard until the forgettable chorus and “I Light My Own Fires Now” seems better suited for Carrabba’s early work with Further Seems Forever. The lowest point on Shade is “Matters of Blood and Connection,” the Dashboard version of a rap battle, where a spoiled Cambrige kid is dissed for faking street cred. Despite the lull, the album finishes nicely with “Clean Breaks” and the piano-driven “The Widow’s Peak.”

Regardless of Shade’s missteps, Dashboard was wise to pull back from its leanings toward big, athemic rock songs. Millions of screaming girls have already proven that Chris Carrabba can fill an arena with just an acoustic guitar and his shaky tenor.

Rating: Burn a friend's copy

Where There's Gold [MP3]

X96 Big Booty S(ho)w

Jimmy Eat World

Since when does rock and roll ever start on time? Perpetually annoyed by the lack of punctuality in concerts (see Thanksgiving Point Jamboree), I was shocked by the X96 BASH last weekend.

The show was supposed to start at 11 a.m. and feature The Starting Line, Sum 41, Cold War Kids, Jimmy Eat World, Social Distortion and The Used. Traci was working until 2, but I figured if I left right after she got home I would be able to see everything I wanted to. Wrong.

I arrived to the cavernous Salt Palace Convention Center (38 degrees and rain all day moved the festival indoors) at about 2:40 and Jimmy Eat World was already 10 minutes into their set. We had already missed all but three bands. Now that's punctual!

Their 50 minute set reverberated through the concrete hall and was mostly comprised of Bleed American material - Get it Faster, Bleed American, Authority Song, Sweetness, The Middle. They only played two tracks off of Futures - Futures, Pain - and three from Clarity - Lucky Denver Mint, Crush, Blister. They also threw in one new track. Though it definitely felt like a radio show, it was great to see them, and my comrade Tim and I happily bopped along with all of the 14-year-olds.

After their set we stopped by the VIP room where I learned we were also too late for the free pasta. I got a Sprite. Yipee.



I don't know who decided the band order, but Social Distortion played between Jimmy Eat World and headliners The Used. It was demographical night and day going from the JEW stage to Social D. Tim and I were no longer the oldest dudes in the crowd. In fact, most of the people could have been our dads. That is, if our dads still wore black t-shirts tucked into cut-off Levi shorts, complimented by sleeveless denim jackets. Lotsa hot chicks there, too. The 50-year-old lady standing in front of us was wearing a calf-length cheetah print coat with matching cheetah-print shoes.

Nothing gets a crowd going like some good old fashion onstage banter. Here's some from Social D frontman Mike Ness:

"We want to thank, uh, the radio station. (He apparently didn't think to look at the giant X96 banner behind him.) When we first started playing, radio stations didn't play punk rock. We were stuck with Fred Nugent...[applause]...Dead Zeppelin...[more applause]...and Guns 'n Roses! [wild applause]"

Yeah, radio sucked from 1970 to 1992!

Tim and I stuck around until we heard "Same Ol' Ball 'n Chain" and then figured we could go. [Note: X96 has played that song everyday for the past 15 years. Nothing makes Traci more mad.] Neither of us cared to see The Used. So that was it. We went home. I think we were there for about an hour an a half total. I was home in plenty of time not only to make it priesthood session, but to eat some dinner and take a little nap.

Though we didn't see Sum 41, I did see lead singer Derek Whibley at the autograph booth. He's probably 5'2" and 85 pounds. I kept looking around to see if wife Avril was around, but no luck.

October Consumption

Music

Iron & Wine - The Shepherd's Dog
Dashboard Confession - The Shade of the Poison Tree
Ben Harper - Lifeline
Mum - Go Go Smear the Poison Ivy
Mum - Finally We Are No One
Mark Ronson - Version
Foo Fighters - Echoes, Silence, Patience, and Grace
Matt Pond PA - Last Light

September Consumption

Music

The National - Alligator
Get Up Kids - Guilt Show
The Chinkees - Searching for a Better Future
Mum - Summer Make Good
Hot Hot Heat - Happiness Ltd
Kanye West - Graduation
50 Cent - Curtis
Up Up Down Down Left Right BA - Worst Band Name Ever

They Made Frogs Smoke Til They Exploded

Múm - "They Made Frogs Smoke Til They Exploded" [MP3]

Here's a strange musical tip from my friend John. It's your run-of-the-mill ambient Icelandic 8-bit rock combined with some fairly disturbing imagery. It's a great pick me up when you're working at Insurance on a Thursday.

Functioning Shower?!

I tried my luck with the work showers again this morning. Hot water! Hooray! I never wanted to get back out. But it sounds like there's a chance I may actually be able to start showering at home again.

The home warranty repair man is at our house right now. He said that the water heater was not the problem, but some archaic valves in the shower. ("I thought I'd never see one of these again.") He was able to track down the part and is now making the reparation.

Could it really be? A functioning shower with water pressure and hot water for the Sutherlands? Cross your fingers.

Still Deaf

So I went to "real" doctor. He looked in my ear and said with congratulations, "That's the worst ear infection I've seen in a long time." So I guess the week of antibiotics didn't do much. Now I'm on a different prescription. I asked him when I was going to be able to hear again and he said it might be two more weeks. While I was sitting in the waiting room the nurse was standing in doorway saying something over and over. I finally looked at her at said, "Are you saying Spencer?" She was. I guess I'm deafer than I thought.

Morning Whine

I've been having a rough go of it lately. The house - the new house is a never-ending torment, the most annoying of which being the lack of water pressure in the showers. We're talking a drizzle here. Shampoo in, no problem. Shampoo rinsed back out, better stick your head in the sink.

We finally got the pressure problem fixed and thought life was great - until we turned the shower from cold to hot. Back to the drizzle. So now we're waiting to (hopefully) get the water heater replaced, which is under our home warranty.

Since it is gone from summer to winter here in the past three days, the cold shower in the morning is quite unbearable. Today I decided I would just go to work early and shower in the locker room. There's never a shortage of hot water there. Until today. I stepped in, got 30 seconds of hot water and then coldsville. Oh, the irony. I could've had a cold shower at home and avoided the awkwardness of seeing my coworkers naked.

After a week of antibiotics, I'm still deaf in my right ear. I feel like an old man because I have to ask people to talk into my good ear and lean in real close. I think eventually Traci is going to stop talking to me completely to avoid my incessant "Huh?"s. I've given in and made an appointment with my "real" (see also full price) doctor for later today. We'll see if he can fix me.

Jonny Wix & The Ear Explosions

A couple of years ago, my friend Jonny Wicks told me the following story (I'm sure the facts aren't exactly right, but here's how I remember it):

He was in a hotel with his wife in Cincinnati while they were scouting colleges. He said his ear started hurting incredibly bad and there was nothing he could do to ease the pain. Because he didn't have health insurance, he decided to just tough it out.

The only thing that made him feel better was standing in a hot shower, so he basically spent the whole night under the water. And that's when he heard the pop. He said a small piece of skin shot out of his eardrum, releasing all of the pressure in his ear as well as a steady stream of blood. He finally gave in and he and his wife headed to the emergency room.

I've had a cold for the past week. It started as a nasty sore throat, moved on to sinus congestion and, two days ago, moved into my ear. Because I didn't want to pay my doctor $75 to tell me that it would go away on its own, I tried to just ignore it.

By Monday night, it was hurting me so bad that I figured I had to go to the doctor. So around midnight, I decided to go to InstaCare. I looked up the phone number online and saw that they closed at 10 p.m. (Which I should have known, since I am the one who maintains the InstaCare info on SelectHealth's website. Duh.) So I looked for other options. I couldn't find anything that was still open. Traci recommended going to the nighttime place she had taken Paige last year, but couldn't remember the name. So at 12:45 a.m. I got in my car and drove to Murray - only to find that the place had closed. I came back home, couldn't sleep, and watched Prison Break and The Royal Tenenbaums. I fell asleep around 4 a.m.

I went to the doctor in the next morning - the ExpressCare in the Smiths. The pregnant, Asian nurse didn't speak great English, but she was very nice. The examination went along just fine, until she looked in my ear. "This is very, very bad. Your eardrum not supposed to look like that. Almost ruptured." She told me the thing was going to explode at any moment. She warned me not to blow my nose and certainly not to take a shower. Thoughts of Wicks went reeling through my mind.

So I've been taking my antibiotics and I still feel like crap. Two of my three sisters have told me their horror stories of the earache that would never go away, but I am crossing my fingers that I feel better by tomorrow - and that my ear doesn't blow up.

Honey Baby

Today Paige started called me "honey." Now if she's looking for me I'll hear "Daddy? Honey?"

Jamboree Music Festival

Traci and I spent 8 1/2 hours watching 4 hours of music at the Jamboree Music Festival at Thanksgiving Point on Saturday. Some thoughts:

The Aquabats

Lap steel guitar is the new Moog, which was the new horn section, which was the new - I don't know - three-headed guitar monster. By the time we had sat through three alt-country bands (Piebald, Limbeck, Cub Country), I couldn't believe how excited I was to see the Aquabats take the stage.

I know I just dissed them, but they really put on a good show. I solved the mystery of what they do with the old songs now that they've dropped the horn section from the payroll. For the most part, they just power through the ska songs, just using the keyboard. But on a few songs, such as Super Rad, the keyboard player just busted out his sax-a-ma-phone and handled the brass parts himself. Pretty impressive.

The So-Cal superheroes were up to their usual antics. They led the crowd an oath, declaring this the best day ever and renaming Thanksgiving Point "High Five City." This resulted in two pilgram-costumed men (the founders of Thanksgiving point, of course) coming on stage to challenge the name change. After an exciting battle, the Aquabats were victorious.

The Aquabats were also the only band of the day to get the entire crowd on its feet. No one wants to miss two six-year-old crowd members have a crowd-surfing race will sitting on blow-up swimming pool dragons.

The music wasn't half-bad either. I am really starting to dig on their latest album - the Aquabats vs. punk rock, plus Reel Big Fish-style vocal harmonies - "Charge!" More than anything, it was nice to hear something upbeat after all of the sullen acts that proceeded it.

The Format

The chance to see The Format was the motivating factor for getting the Jamboree tickets. This was the first time either of us had seen them and I wasn't really sure what to expect. Their album Dog Problems has been on constant rotation in my car for about a year. I was skeptical that they would be able to recreate the very orchestral sound of the record live, but was pleasantly surprised. The two man studio band becomes a six piece live band, with - at any given point - three keyboards, three guitars, a saxophone and a fugelhorn. The poor Thanksgiving Point soundguy couldn't keep up with all of that, but I could imagine how all those things were supposed to sound.

The Jamboree was The Format's last performance of a monster 55-date tour. After a year-and-a-half of nonstop touring, they were heading home to Arizona to write a new record. The band looked pretty road ragged, but sounded tight. I was surprised by the even distribution of songs of both of their two albums. I doubt all of the teens and pre-teens screaming for them had heard much of the material from Interventions and Lullabies, but what do I know? I didn't realize every little girl in Utah County loves The Format.

The forty-minute set was 20 minutes too short. I would have liked to hear Dog Problems in its entirety, or at least been able to choose which songs they played off of it. (We didn't get "Time Bomb" or "Inches and Falling.")

Toad the Wet Sprocket

Basically sucked. Fear is a great record. I had my mind made up that they were going to show up and say, "We're just going to Fear straight through." Not so. There was one of Glen Philips' solo songs. A couple of songs sung by the guitar player (Does he sing?) and a bunch of songs I didn't recognize. Not wanting to feel out of place with all the lap steel, I guess, they invited a friend up to play slide guitar for a few of their songs.

Philips seemed to be resentful toward the teenage crowd. ("This next song is dedicated to your parents, since most of you were probably in the womb when it was popular.") As far as can remember, Toad broke up because they hated each other. Now that they're back together for financial reasons, and it still seems like they don't really like sharing a stage. It felt like a band who was refusing to just play the nostalgic hits, but who didn't have enough chemistry to move forward with compelling new material.

We were thoroughly unimpressed.

Dashboard Confessional

After sitting in the same location for nine hours, the 45 minute wait between Toad and Dashboard was unbearable. Not because of anticipation, but because of frustration. Even though we spent a day away from our child, the parenting responsibilities couldn't be pushed aside. Dashboard didn't go on until almost 10:30 (the show was supposed to end at 10:45). We were only able to see three songs, before it was time to make it home in time to apologize for far overstaying our babysitting welcome. Those three songs, however, were filled with plenty of crowd singer/swooning. Part of the long set up time included the roadies putting up big wooden boxes on either side of the mic stand so Chris Carabba could stand high above the crowd and mouth the words while the adoring girls screeched them back at him.

In the End

The show itself was underwhelming, but it was a beautiful day to sit in the sun and listen to music. More than anything, it was a chance to spend 10 hours of alone time (alone meaning hanging out with 3,000 people and not with our kid) with Traci.

Matthew Myrup Loses Kid

Spartan alum Matthew Myrup lost his kid in the Uintahs. But he got him back, so that's a good thing.

Here's the story.

Hu-loh

I think kids (or at least little girls) are born knowing how to talk on a phone. We gave Paige a little red old school telephone rattle when she was really little and even though we have never had a phone that looks that, she somehow knew that she should hold it up to her ear.

Now whenever she gets her hands on a phone (or anything that looks like a phone), she'll put it to the side of her head and say, "Hu-loh." Then she'll babble some stuff and say "Bye," and put the phone down on her leg.

I've noticed lately Paige doesn't even have to have a phone to talk on one. If I just hold my hand up to my ear say "Hu-loh," she will immediately do the same.

Yesterday I was giving her a bath and she really cracked me up. She found the little plastic cover to one of Traci's razors and put it up to ear, "Hu-loh." It made me think of that part in Zoolander when Derek gets the call on his tiny cell phone and answers, "God?"

I unsucessfuly tried to find the clip on YouTube. Fortunately, I did find Traci's favorite part, the gas fight.

Johnny Acousticlips

The Johnny Tightlips debut CD, that I have been procrastinating about for the past year plus, is now on hold until I get enough of the new house unpacked that I can start recording again. In the meantime, Aaron and I recorded acoustic versions of a few of our songs. We sat in my concrete, unfinished - and thus acoustically outstanding, basement and recorded mic-less into an MP3 recorder. You can find "Airport Song" and "Heart on Fire" over at the JTL website.