Slow slow slow...

a well of darkness with streams of light penetrating the seemingly neverending void.

That is what the Slowdown sound like.  The feeling of the heavier tracks from my favorite Lovedrug album (Pretend Your Alive) and prog touches of Porcupine Tree come to mind but don't quite provide an answer.  That is why I belive no band should be described with another bands name unless they really do suck.  But, The Slowdown are far from that lowly place.  Give them a listen.  "Reappear" is my favorite.

This description of frontman Sam Hoskins on the Pitch alone makes you want to give them a listen:

"Then there's Sam Hoskins.

Lead singer, songwriter and guitarist Hoskins, like his music, is part ying, part yang. As a personality, he is at once all smiles and all serious. His lyrics tap the subjects of alien life forms and earthly matters, like the death of a loved one. (Hoskins lost his father four years ago.) His right arm is clothed in tattoos, while his left arm is blank. His all-black ensemble renders his skin pallid, and his shaved skull draws lookers to his blue eyes."

-Hugh Welsh

Before the Nightfall...

Robert Francis' lyrics read like good poems:

"I reached to grab the glowing rose
But instead it burned my hand
It was just a thousand moths covering a light
Hoping that they'd found land"

-Nightfall by Robert Francis

myspace

Dream a Little Dream

"...here, on the nightward shores of dream,

loneliness washes over me in waves,

lapping and pulling at my spirit."

-Dream in "The Sand Man: Preludes and Nocturnes"

by Neil Gaiman

quote no. 5

"Wealth consists not in having great posessions, but in having few wants."

-Esther de Waal, author

photo source unknown

A Poem for Your Thoughs pt. 1

"i shot the lights out too"

i shot the lights out

on a million girls

when i should have stayed

balancing things
i could not save
born coward, taught slave
to be a fool
nourished on fears

and afraid

.....

i am lying alone

in a castle of bones

under a blanket
time to go
close the door

 leave me because i have only the one shot left

and i shot the lights out already

.....

-Ryan Adams "Infinity Blues"

These are my favorite parts of the poem.  Perhaps it's literary blasphemy to only quote parts, but I don't mind.

*photo source unknown

Méfiez-vous des apparences....

"We wrapped our dreams in words, and patterned the words so that they would live forever, unforgettable."

This is my new favorite quote for a lifetime.  I read it just yesterday in Neil Gaiman's "How to Talk to Girls at Parties."  The title gives you the impression of a funny tale both innocent and perhaps a bit dirty.  But, as with all Sci-Fi, nothing is what it seems.  Read it here.  I've written many quotes from the story in my Moleskine so I can read them throughout the day and enjoy a state of wistfulness.

I Remember Everything

"I don't think I can live with myself if I don't go to the Robert Francis show,"  I said to a friend last Wednesday.  I called her at nearly 6 o'clock, just hours before the event.  For three weeks, I'd been agonizing over the choice not to buy a ticket.  I had an important commitment at 8 o'clock sharp the next day and need to be, well, sharp.  But I couldn't take it.  So, a friend and I went to the show. 
     Robert Francis wore a plaid shirt, Levi's and no shoes.  He and his band brought Before Nightfall to life in a way that no stereo could convey.  After his set, I went to the merch table, Moleskine in hand, and said, "This might sound a little strange, but I've written about your music in my journal.  I was wondering if you might sign the page?  But don't read my journal."  He laughed at that and wrote:

Thank you so much for coming,

Love,

Robert Franics

I didn't hide the smile that overcame my face, as I was pleased with my whit, and said, "I'd like a t-shirt too."

Thoughts no. 1

"The optimist sees the rose, and not it's thorns; the pessimist stares at the thorns oblivious to the rose."

-Kahlil Gibran

I read this quote recently and it reminded me of a passage in "Letters to a Young Poet."  In the passage, I gathered that Rilke was saying that when someone enters a 'dead' state of existence (depression, or perhaps pessimism) he can no longer see the beauty around him.  Just yesterday, I was out for a walk and wrapped up in the vast world that my mind inhabits.  About twenty minutes in, I realized that I'd lost sight of the flowering trees.  The air felt like a warm bath (as Charlie in "The Perks of Being a Wallflower" would say) and the plants were parfuming the air in the most joyous manner.  I, on the other hand, was caught up in a thought that has been gnawing at my mind each day of late.  Recently, it has distracted me from the things that I should focus on.  After reading Rilke's passage last night, I realized that it was becoming my focus.  My almost overwhelming sense of empathy and sensitivity can make things hard, but I'm working each day to be an optimist-not oblivious to the struggles in life, but being able to see past them.