In The Studio With AFI - Vocal Harmonies

Dear readers,
Odds are, if you're an internet savvy lad or lass, you've already found this gem on the world wide web. If not, then here you go. You're welcome. This is one of a few "Behind The Scenes" videos the record label shot while we (AFI) were recording our most recent record, Crash Love. If you would like to purchase this record, please do. Here are a couple of lynx. Over the next week or so I'll post a few other videos from in the studio. Hopefully this will excuse me from blogger's detention.



Yours sincerely,
Hunter

P.S. I really like what you've done with your hair.

Ghosts and Cat Tribes

"Hunter, why haven't you blogged in 6 months?!"
I hear questions like this all the time. People are curious, and I can't blame them for that. The truth is, I've been very busy doing this AFI thing, working on new Hunter Revenge material, but most importantly—writing a book. All of my "writing energy", as I like to call it, has been spent on this book. As of now, there is no release date for my book because I don't have a publisher. If you would like to help speed along this process by emailing your favorite publisher and demanding they publish my book, I cannot stop you. In the mean time, let's discuss the other reason why I haven't blogged in so long: ghosts.

Back in June I hired some ghosts to ghostwrite my blog (ghostblog?) on my behalf. This made perfect sense, since I was getting busier and busier by the day and little time or "writing energy" for trivial important things like my blog. However, I failed to realize that ghosts use invisible fonts as a default setting. So to the untrained eye, it looks as if no blogs have been posted since June. Oops. I tinkered around with some of the ghosts' laptops and fixed this font problem. It won't happen again. In fact, here is one of the previously invisible blogs I "found" while I was tinkering. It's called,

Cat Tribes
When it comes to irrational fears I am sure snakes, spiders, and ghosts* are on most of our lists. However the one absolutely terrifying thing I am sure we can all agree on is the fear that we will one day be overthrown by a tribe of Native American Cats.

The evidence of this potential threat is there we just don't want to accept it. The possibility alone is enough for us to place bells on the necks of cats so they are unable to sneak up on us, or more importantly, perform any type of ancient tribal ritual without being heard. Catch your own dreams, cats. Leave me out of this!

I personally recall one of the more notorious tales of forewarned cat doom that dates back to the colonial era when the leader of the ancient Catnipashaw tribe declared a curse on the lives of all that "walked on two legs and dangled yarn, like empty promises, in front of the faces of his brethren. "

This leader, a calico named Chases Own Tail, made it clear that neither he nor anyone from his tribe would ever allow the land that was rightfully theirs to be stolen, food sources depleted by the white man, or laser pens to lead them in confusing circles and away from the sacred lands of their ancestors. He warned, "If you take what is rightfully ours, what we have owned for years before your arrival, your future will be paved in bite marks and scratches."

You won't find much in today's history books about the sordid past of Native American Cat tribes. However, a lot of the way we share our space with the indentured servants of their tribe today is indicative of a past almost too dark to recall.

After the famous defeat at Fort Scratching Post, the captured cat tribesmen were taken to a makeshift prison, similar to that of an upside down laundry basket, where each was forced to sleep on piles of clothes and were given only a bowl of stale dried food that had been shaped to mimic meat but was mostly made of roots and vegetables. It was said some were even forced to accept the new religion brought by the settlers and to adorn their clothing.

"We want them to understand their place," General Crazy Cat Lady later wrote in her memoir The Fur On the Couch of Freedom. "If they think they can just walk around this land, batting at the ankles of every man that passes by, they're wrong. Our freedom is what we came here for and I'll be damned if they think they can take a nap on the pile of papers we call our Constitution."

Research tells us these same captured tribesmen were also forced into small boxes with ground ceramic pieces lining the floor that they were forced to use to defecate and urinate in. It was said many of these prisoners suffered the agony of the ceramic pieces being stuck in their fur and toes and at times they were unable to walk.

Tribal leader Sleeps In Sunspots wrote about these crimes against his people after he was captured in battle and forced into slavery. "My brothers and sisters may have lost this battle but the war is far from over. Rest assured, we may come into your homes as slaves but we will leave as victorious enemies. The spirit of the tiger lies within our hearts. Never shall you rest easy as we occupy the spaces in your sink or threaten to steal the breath of every new born baby. We will raise our paws in unity against the common forces against us. We will chase the tail of freedom. No man, woman, or ball of paper will keep us from our destiny. Like the sun shall always defeat the moon, so shall we regain our rightful place. Mark my words. Meow."

It is uncertain if the threats made against us so many years ago will come to fruition. The docile ancestors we see today seem to have accepted their fate as our pets, at least for now.

My suggestion? Sleep with one eye open (but definitely not two.) If your cat starts to bat at door knobs or seems to understand the working mechanics of the water faucet, take note. They're adapting. It won't be long before we see them hiding in cardboard boxes or preparing for attack inside a grocery bag. In preparation for capture, they'll try to block our access to technology by sleeping on our laptops or walking on the keyboard as we try to send a distress signal. They may try to physically cripple us by attacking our feet when under a blanket.

Like General Crazy Cat Lady warned in her memoir, "They will throw us off the path of war by disarming us with their charm. Never trust they stop plotting, regardless of the amount of time they seem to be sleeping. They're clever. And as they knead the blanket to ready for sleep, they too shall knead into the very jugular of our American freedom."

*inside joke for ghosts

Toronto Nights: A Casual Ramble Blog

Some bloggers blog every single day. I am not one of those bloggers. Would you believe I don't even know how to type? What do other bloggers blog about? Real things? They just ramble on in a casual tone about their day? That's so boring...but I'm willing to try anything for a quick buck! Here's a "casual ramble blog" for you:

It's raining outside right now. It was nice all day, but now I can hear the rain hitting the window of the hotel. I'm tired, but I can't sleep. I think this trip to Toronto has totally thrown my schedule off. Before I left LA, I was going to bed at a reasonable hour and waking up before 8am. Last night I slept from midnight to 3am and then from 6am until noon?! What a weird schedule! The only coffee I was able to find in a short period of time was Starbucks. It's odd—I never go to Starbucks when I'm at home or have a choice, but I flock to it when I'm out of the country. They must have a deep psychological hold on me. The coffee's never that great, and the baristas never know what they're doing, but it's consistently disappointing and that's what I count on. AFI had a four hour rehearsal today in some warehouse on a soundstage. We haven't really played a show in a while and our crew needed to run through everything, plus it was good for us to run over the songs again. I sang all my usual backgrounds and harmonies, and by the second time through the set, my throat was raw. I guess I'm out of practice. For the record, I'm over shouting. It really just hurts, and never sounds that great. My favorite vocals are the harmonies on Summer Shudder and the ooohs during the intro and re-intro on Missing Frame. Two of my favorite basses from the last tour cycle need neck/fret work and I am playing my old back up bass for the show tomorrow. I don't like it as much because it's a bit on the heavy side, but it still sounds great. Fender makes some great basses. I'm designing some new ones for after we start touring for real and I'm really excited about those. Nothing crazy...just cool colors. Tomorrow should be fun. It's been so long since we've played a show (KROQ's xmas show doesn't count because our set was so short) that even if it totally sucks, it will still be fun. I'm kinda hungry. I should have bought some chips or a clif bar when I had the chance. I think the rain stopped. I forgot to see if the show is indoors or outdoors. I suppose it doesn't matter. The stage is always covered. It's weird, I can't really remember that last time I was nervous before a show. I know I was nervous when we played Just Like Heaven during the soundcheck for the MTV Icon: The Cure show, but that's because we were playing TO The Cure. I was probably nervous in my earlier AFI days when I was the new guy. I had to learn 15 songs in a month and then play in front of thousands of people with one of my favorite bands. The catch was—these were thousands of Offspring fans, not AFI fans, so I was too busy trying to win them over to be nervous. Did we win over any of their fans? I'd like to think so. I still run into people all the time that tell me that their first AFI show was on that tour. This was back in May, 1997. I turned 21 in the middle of the tour. L7 was on that tour too. They called themselves our moms on stage. It was really an amazing experience to play such huge shows at that point in my life. There were many years of crappy shows and long van tours after that, so it was an unusual way to start a career with AFI...but I like to think that it has come full circle. In more recent years, we've headlined some of the venues from my first tour. Time is a funny thing.

I feel like this isn't boring enough, and I apologize. The casual tone is working for me, but my thoughtless rambling seems to drift toward interesting things from the past. Let me try to focus on more mundane things from the present.

My phone is always set to vibrate. It's been like that for years. It always surprises me when it gets turned off of vibrate by mistake and I actually hear it ring. About a year ago, I set the ringtone to "motorcycle" which sounds like vibrating. Problem solved. Tonight I watched the Wolverine movie. I didn't see it when it came out because everyone said it was so bad. Rottentomatoes.com gave it an 8 or something horrible like that. I think everyone, including myself, was expecting something truly awesome. I walked in tonight expecting something truly sucky. It wasn't totally horrible, and since my expectations were so low, I kinda liked it. The writing was awful though. The lighting and SFX were so weird in the New Orleans fight scene that it took me out of the element. I think they tried too hard to put a bunch of actors and characters into the movie and just lost sight of what makes a good action movie. The popcorn sucked. I need to stop eating it. I never enjoy it. At least I stopped drinking soda a few years back. If I had soda tonight I would certainly feel awful right now. I'm excited to see the guys from Rise Against tomorrow. They're close friends and are passing through while on tour with Rancid. Joe Principe shares my love for coffee and we never miss a chance to get lattes. I can't wait to see them play in a couple weeks in LA. It's awesome to see your friends' bands doing so well.

Come on...not boring enough!

I guess I should probably try to sleep. I don't have to be up early, but uninterrupted sleep is always the best, and those pesky hotel maids are always trying to break in and clean in the morning. I'm so glad I don't have to take time to wash and style my hair anymore. What a waste of time that was! If only I could have all that time back. I would have so much time on my hands! I could write a thousand blogs. It's raining again. Maybe it was always raining, but I just couldn't hear it. Okay, it's bed time for me. Blogger out.

Wow! That was boooooooring! I hope I never try that again! Casual rambling blogs might be fun to read, but they sure are boring to write! Until next time, Tranq out.

P.S. Which of the following should I do next? Another Psychedelic Photo blog? Horse Blog Vol. 2? A semi-irregular, Tranquil Mammoth multi-lingual statistic blog? Maybe another Tranquil Mammoth Challenge of 2009 like Horses vs. Fugazi?? Leave me a comment and let me know which of those you'd like to see.

I eat your horse!

I know you probably think that I've completely neglected this blog, and in a way you are correct. The truth is, I've been writing a lot, but not on a computer. I've gone old school. Notebooks. I am working on something big, and I will tell you more about it later. For now, I hope you accept this picture as a peace offering. I know it's an old picture you may have seen before, but I still think it's funny.

P.S. I never blogged about the great loss we suffered. RIP Bea Arthur. Thank you for being a friend. Bea has been and will continue to be an important part of my blog.

Bummo KISS

This is my concept sketch for a new member of KISS. It's a KISSafied cross between Emmett Kelly's Weary Willie and Pete the pup that Joe McGrath named "Bummo." I was going to dress up exactly like this and approach Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley when they were recording next door. I was hoping that they would accept me as a new member/character of KISS. I was even willing to be flexible about what instrument Bummo would play. Washboard? Cowbell? Synthesizer? This was my best career plan yet...until Gene and Paul ate our Uncle Eddie's* Vegan Cookies without asking. I changed my mind after that. As a result, the world will never get to see Bummo in real life. ;(


*Not to be confused with this Uncle Eddie.