Whale Procession

Besides finding myself in disbelief from the amount of trauma that BP oil has brought into our ecosystem, I've been attempting to use my music as an aid to my overall frustration within this devastation.

In turn, I've been using several aquatic animal samples within my recent shows and have been thinking about using this track as part of a release themed around our potential man-made apocalypse from BP oil

................... as our sea slowly turns to black.

Ocean Procession by swimignorantfire

Last Days of Man

Last Days of Man by swimignorantfire

Its inside you,

This baby will soon die in its mothers arms.
Softly squeezing
A Gentle Homicide -
Shadows inside the skirt of death
Teasing and eating you out
Embolism following
A bubble straight to her heart.

Easter

I was asked by my friend Jeremy Armstrong to be a part of his collaborative BoKnows remix album - in which all participating artists will layer over an initial loop from his demo, and then those layers are sent to be remixed and placed accordingly by the engineer of the overall album. Here's the song I chose to use; including all layers and the initial loop from the first track of this "loop" demo given to the collaborative artists.

BoKnows collab rough draft by swimignorantfire

With the transmission of my car pooping out, I have been reconfiguring/minimizing my set up to make it more bike friendly for shows this summer. Here's an idea I recorded by just using my Line6 DD4, Boss RC-20XL, and Guitar.

The sun went shining by swimignorantfire

Within The Body

Here's some coverage from a recent art show I played a couple weeks ago.

"Within The Body"

Special Thanks to Sophia Moreno!

The Child City

In Austin, Texas I had the opportunity to play a Moose Lodge and was given the history of the Moose community and so forth. The Moose Community has two places where a majority of their funds are sent to: Moose Heart and Moose Haven. Moose Haven is a place in Florida where Moose members may go for their retirement. Moose Heart is rural town in Illinois about 45 minutes away from the city that is completely devoted to raising orphan children and giving them broader opportunities that they might not have ever had. I have been shooting a documentary about this town since I have returned from tour and am looking to screening this at the end of my semester. This is a picture of the Documentary Crew and Kurt Wehrmeister (Public Affairs) on our last day of shooting last week. Kurt was a god send and a huge help for this documentary.

Back to Reality

The Winter break was all in all a great time, and will probably one of the last month long tours I plan on scheduling. On our last date in San Francisco, We started a 12 hour scheduling system between the people in the van which was quite treacherous but was sufficient with the amount of time it took for us to get back home. 2 dudes manning the front (9-8) during the day as the others slept and vice verse around with Patrick from Boar and I's night shift around 9pm to 8am. You never know how nostalgic you're going to get when its 5 am and the sun begins to rise over the Arizona mountains - and all thats left to listen to is Patricks Headbangers Ball CD as we begun to quiz each other in naming what nu-metal band was next. WE returned safely, broke, tired, and hardened from the road.

Delirious, hungry, broke, and calling all of my friends who have yet pick up my 7" in exchange for gas money; I drove into my hometown (Bloomington-Normal) hauling an empty 18-passenger van with me at 9am. I had an amazing brunch and conversation with my father and brother and was lucky enough to hop on to a show later that night in "uptown" Normal at the Acme Music Hall. Karl from BloNoShows was a great help in adding me to the bill in such short notice, which included: Citizen Stab and Lexicon. I used to play bass in Citizen Stab which was originally an dark-jazzy-improvisational group which would sometimes consists of 8-10 members or 4-5 members at a time. Now, Citizen Stab resides the name in a more minimal configuration between Nathan Parks i.e Natronicus - who is an absolutely gifted piano player and all around amazing artist/friend in the Blo/No area and his new drummer, Ryan Tauscher. This show made it more than possible for me to arrive back to Chicago with a fresh tank of gas, oil change, and a peaceful state of mind.

For this;

Everyone from Acme Music Hall and who came out that night - deserves a huge thank you for helping me when I literally had no funds to get back home by making a bittersweet ending to my long month on the road. Being able to have some kind of "Homecoming" show is always a great way to end a tour of any size.

Along with additional wasted time last week there are a few more places to find me:

Facebook

Twitter

Myspace

and

SoundCloud

Amidst all of these daily distractions I will be updating my Soundcloud account the most with different demos or clips from my new album this summer. I just wanted a place where I could upload rough and newer songs that I record throughout my weeks and post the demo versions up along for feedback.

WELL!!! Here's a few already!!!

A Jealous God Forgotten by swimignorantfire

Noprah improv #2 by swimignorantfire

Texas!