I got the offer

I'm happy to report that today's news was good.  I have a job.  :)  Thanks again to everyone who kept their fingers crossed on my behalf.  You can uncross your fingers, as I imagine that they are becoming quite sore.  Big sigh of relief, nose to the grindstone, pay back those loans, wife and kids, picket fence, dog in the yard and food on the table.  Go team!

In other news, I'm going to be in Chicago for New Years hitting up a sweet Margot concert.  If anyone's in the area and looking to hang out, give me a jingle. 

Here's a related video to get us all pumped up!  Standard complaints about the freeze frame shot that YouTube chose to represent this video, blah blah.

'Tis the Season

It’s time to come clean. For the past 3 weeks I’ve been working at a law office in Kankakee. I’ve been doing legal work, but it’s essentially an internship until December 30. On that date, my fate will be decided – they’ll let me know if the position will become permanent, at which time I’ll either get a year-long offer or I’ll be back out on the street. Am I nervous? Yeah, a bit, but I’ve never been the sort of person who backs away from this kind of challenge. Other kinds of challenges, sure, but I’d like to think I can hang with the best of them at slugging it out in the job market.

Heck, before this I was waiting tables in Champaign, which was no picnic, but you’ve gotta pay the bills somehow.

This is the time of year that many people find themselves reflecting. What’s important to me? What kind of life am I trying to live, and how can I make that happen? It’s also the time of year to think about family, and I’m very grateful for mine. Throughout this somewhat awkward job situation they’ve been nothing but comforting and supportive, and there’s really no replacement for that. I’m within spitting distance of one of the biggest changes in my life so far, and I’m calm enough to reflect on it without setting my crotch on fire.  Whew.

Here’s a song I wrote about 8 months ago that sort of captures that reflective, seasonal sentiment. You’ll have to excuse the chorus if it reminds you too much of a certain movie from the mid-80’s and its mantra of self-determinism. I suppose that’s just the natural product of my upbringing. But the idea is to be thankful for what you have, and to keep pushing forward. I might add that at the time I wrote it, it was Kyle’s favorite. So this one’s for Kyle.

Old Man Benjamin - Running Gin by seamonsters

Christmas Eve

Merry Christmas, all.  Not much news, but I hope you're all enjoying this holiday.  Here's a tune to reflect with.

Old Man Benjamin - Middle Distance Runner (Seawolf Cover) by seamonsters

News

Ohhhhh man, you guys are going to like this. We're getting really close to completing the Banquets and Bars album you have so long anticipated. Jason has finished mastering the tracks, Marion's done a little album art, and there are ten original songs on the final mix. This is the first CD I've ever really been a part of creating, so it's a little rough around the edges, but on the whole it's something we're all very proud of. These tracks were almost all written and recorded in Jason's basement, but we really tried to expand that space to make it sound as close to studio quality as we could. And I think it'll be good listening for just about anyone who wants to give it a chance in their CD player. The songs are simple and catchy and fun.

!!!!!!
As for the CD release, I'm not 100% sure on the specifics just yet. There will definitely be a website of some kind, and some .mp3's available for download. We'll be looking to recoup the costs of production, but if everybody throws in a few bucks it should turn out alright. But let's worry about that later, and for now we can revel in the anticipation. 


While you wait for further updates on the CD, here's a little Christmas gift from me in case I don't have time to give you something else before the holiday. It is an admittedly sort of crappy gift, as it is possibly the worst recording I've done in the last 6 months, but it's at least fresh. I recorded this in one of the very empty rooms in my new apartment. I love the acoustics of empty rooms, and I couldn't resist trying this one out, even if it was pretty late at night. It's sort of quiet, so maybe use headphones?

And if you really hate it, let me know on the new poll I just put up. UP TOP!

Overkill

Jake and Ben - Weight o' Lies (Avett Brothers cover) by seamonsters

Today's musical thing is an Avett Brothers song. It's called The Weight of Lies, and it's an excellent piece of music. Jake and I have taken to performing it at local drinkeries, along with several other songs by the Avett Brothers. Those covers are always quite well-received, especially among the ladies.

This version on top is one that Jake and I recorded the last time I was in Champaign. There was a celebration of some kind, perhaps we were just celebrating the fact that I was back in Champaign, but there was whiskey and we were probably somewhat out of tune. In either case, Jake rocks the banjo like the crazy musical genius that he plays on TV. I'm doing my thing, trying to stay upright and in tune. Watch out for when we drop the beat!

Unfortunately, the second version below isn't much better in terms of sobriety. This one's from a bit less than a year ago. Kyle, Jason and I got a little whiskey in us and decided to have a go at becoming Internet stars. Tragedy in tamborine form ensued. Actually, Jason's solo in the version below is one of my favorite that he's done. It's actually kind of similar to the solo from La Resistance, but it was entirely spontaneous at the time, and I had never heard anything like it. Go Jason!





At least we had the decency to later make ourselves into indistinct silhouettes.


So, yeah, two versions of the same song with different musicians. Life's like that sometimes, and you're just going to have to get over it and move on. Back to work, suckaaah.

A few things

I took my first ever deposition yesterday. All on my ownsies. It was crazy and hard and exciting and there was a lot of crying on both sides of the table. I must've gone through about 30 kleenex. Depositions are STRESSFUL, but I survived. I think I even accomplished some of the things I was supposed to accomplish, which is good. I still have a hell of a week left in front of me, so don't quit rooting for me just yet. To help keep you going, I've decided to give you a fantastic mix of two songs.



This first is a Decemberists cover that I did a little while back. It was in the morning, I'm pretty sure I still had bed-head, but the song was in my dream, so I thought it would be appropriate to try to record it as soon as possible. For the record, I've really always loved this song. I hope someday to orchestrate it better, but this is what you get so far.

Oh, and my facial expression for the preview is ridiculous. That's one thing I really do hate about YouTube - once you've uploaded a video, they give you three options for a stillframe to represent the video, and all three are with your face in the worst possible position. Just awful.

The second song is one that Jake wrote, and I'm really excited to hear that he's been writing words to his tunes lately. Go Jake! He was kind enough to allow me to share it with you, so let him know if you like it. I'm sure he'll be reading the responses to this post all too eagerly.

Jacob - Drunken Grave Walk Jam by seamonsters

A light touch

Aside from the fact that I'm really excited to now have followers of my little experiment in web logging called "Kitty" and "Kat," it's been a fairly stressful week. I've been doing a lot of driving - our firm has clients in several counties, and I've been to both the most rural and the most modern of courthouses within 24 hours. I've been appearing alone, mostly, which is fun but stressful. This morning I got up at 6 a.m. to make the Will County court call at 9, and in that room there were more attorneys than I've seen in a while. How. Many. Were. There? I haven't seen that many attorneys together since two ambulances collided last Thursday! Waaaaaa cha!

No, that was a sad event that never actually took place and I shouldn't make light of my profession.

What I'll do instead is share a song for your listening pleasure. This is the first song that Jake, Meredith and I recorded (I think..) and it's a cover of an Ingrid Michaelson tune. Jake's strumming on a mandolin, and I'm pretty far away from the microphone, so my apologies for the lack of clarity there. But Jake sings a great harmony on the chorus, so it's fun to listen to. Enjoy!

Seamonsters - You and I (Ingrid Michaelson cover) by seamonsters

Cross promotion

This is pretty awesome. I've not really said much about Pete Lloyd on here, but he's definitely one of my biggest musical inspirations. Not in a straightforward "I want to write songs exactly like he does" kind of way, but more like the simple fact that Pete is a guy who has followed songwriting to the ends of the world. He hasn't ever given up trying to express himself and, despite whatever else is going on, as long as I've known him he's been willing to sit down with another musician any time, any place and just play. And he's got a repertoire of songs that just stretches on for miles.

That's why I was sort of surprised to be included on his latest CD. It's called Cover Me, and I think it's a really interesting idea. Pete's gathered together some of the many different interpretations of the songs he's written and put them together on a single CD.

The song I did, "How Long is Your Love," was recorded before I knew that the project existed. I was just trying to see if I could do it, but it came out okay and I think it's a reasonable representation for the CD. Anyway, give a listen. And buy one if you like it. Pete's a really cool guy, and I'm sure you'll find his website a lot of fun to look around.

EPIC FAIL LOL (Just give me this one thing)

To date I've managed to accumulate about six pieces of furniture for my new apartment. The first is a small, round wooden table that serves as a desk and dining room table. But not at the same time, since it is roughly 2 or 3 feet in circumference and around 2 feet off the ground. The second is my futon, which remains unassembled due to missing parts (I appear to have forgotten the part that you sit on), so the futon mattress doubles as my bed. The third and fourth are a TV stand and a TV, the former of which serves as a sort of all-purpose flat surface storage area, and the latter of which sits silently in the corner for lack of a cable to connect it. The fifth piece is one of those camping chairs, and it waits in my bedroom until I feel like playing guitar. And, finally my nicest, most useful piece of furniture – one of those ergonomic office chairs.

I bought it while I was in Florida as an experiment in luxury. And also because I was having some minor back problems, perhaps as a result of living like a hipster, sitting on dumpster furniture, and working at my hipster desk on a folding chair. Who knows? Anyway, I’ve got a pretty nice office desk chair now, but I noticed a problem with it on the first day I arrived here at my new place: some of the screws were missing. No problem, said I, and I overcame that first obstacle by replacing them with some similarly sized screws I had from another piece of furniture. Luckily, they fit. But when I got the chair together it felt wrong. I decided not to do anything about it; maybe if I waited a bit it would go away. Problems do that, right?

Turns out the seat was on backwards. That is, the seat is supposed to slope down toward the front, so the chair allows your legs to sit naturally. Mine were being pushed gradually upward until they hit a weird lip at the front of the seat. I grasped this in a sort of eureka moment while making soup one evening and hurried to correct the problem. There’s not a lot to do in my apartment, honestly.

But it still didn’t feel right. The chair seemed to have a hard time leaning back, and my legs continually fell asleep whenever I sat down to eat soup on my little table.

Turns out the seat was on backwards. Again. This time, with respect to the legs. The top part of the legs has that little lever that allows you to adjust the height, and it also has a spring that lets your chair tilt a little backwards, but not a little forwards. Turns out I was tilting forwards, but I couldn’t tilt back. My attempts to lean back against the proper direction of the spring just cut off the circulation in my thighs, making my legs fall asleep.

So yeah, epic failure to construct one of the only useful pieces of furniture contained in my otherwise empty apartment. As it turns out, I built an anti-chair with no ergonomic properties that was probably worse for my health than a folding chair. That's gotta count as some sort of progress toward my evil genius status, right?

In other news, it’s incredibly cold and snowing! With wind chill, it’s probably in the low single digits, and it is really very windy outside. The power is sort of fluttering on and off at work, as it has been doing since yesterday. My landlord called to ask if any shingles had blown off my apartment (thankfully, none have), and the office heat apparently doesn’t work in my office. So here’s a song for the chilly winter. With apologies to Jake, who usually sings this live. I just wanted to try it! And I’m not very good at building chairs, so just give me this one thing, man. Just this one thing. Man.

Ben & Meredith - Born On the FM Waves (Against Me! cover) by seamonsters

Change

I've got a new apartment, and the first week of work is over. I think things are going really well so far. It's a little lonely living in a new city where I don't know anybody, but the worst part is probably that I don't have any Internet access. Right now I'm back in Champaign for the weekend, so I'll use this opportunity to put up a song I should've posted a little while back.

I wrote this shortly after I wrote Front Porch. It was a Tuesday morning, if I recall correctly. My best song ideas seem to come in mid-morning on Tuesdays. Maybe that has something to do with planetary alignments, but in any case I had a draft version by the evening, which Jake, Meredith and I took to an open mic and completely bombed with. Luckily, we had practiced other, less fresh songs, but oddly enough the crowd didn't seem to mind at all. They liked this new song, or at least they gave me that impression afterward.

This recording is pretty rough. The bass is way too loud, and I'd like to add maybe one more instrument, but you'll get the idea. Once again, Meredith's harmony is lovely, and Jake's bassline is so fascinating that I sometimes accidentally listen to it instead of the rest of the song.

It's topically relevant, what with my recent acquisition of a job and my move to a new part of the state. Hope you enjoy!

Seamonsters - Change (for the winter) by seamonsters

The Seamonsters

Happy birthday to me.