The Worth of the World.

Here goes with a long overdue lyrics post (to our side of a split 7″ with our friends in Touche Amore–out today, officially):

How I Feel and Why It Scares Me

I say a drink might help me sleep, I say

I don’t sleep much at all these days, I say it’s cold, 

Besides, I’m broken.

Hard as earth the love of the past,

The worth of the world has frozen

Still.

Like the sheet of ice collecting on the windshield of my car.

Where I caught my reflection frozen in the glass,
A perfect broken image of the future I’d envisioned in the past–

Corrupted by fate now, fractured, and fading away.

Replace all I felt promised to me.

To be the one who figured it out,

Who knew what to do,

Who knew how to feel and

Felt that

Love of the past,

The worth of the world,

Just set it ablaze and

Thaw me out.

Dim lit in a room dark red, where I said,

“Can’t seem to break off from the way I felt, but

I guess you understand, man. We had no chance.

I’m tired of fighting with the hand I’ve been dealt.

So, I take the cards they give me

And keep my protest on the inside of my mouth.

If the best I can do ain’t gonna stop what’s coming,

What’s the point in trying to change how the hand plays out?

Don’t we all just die?

When you looked at the light

Did it hurt your eyes?

When you looked at the light

Did it hurt you

Like it hurt me?

 

***

At times I’ve shouted out unprovoked, at the world and you,

Just to see if the people around me react.

Sometimes I think they’re all acting,

At times I’m scared that I’m acting too. Like,

My movements or stage directions?

Was that a change in topic or a beat in a scene?

Have I been taking my emotional cues from a script I wrote at sixteen?

Maybe I just think about it all so much 
That that the fear stays close to all the ghosts I’ve touched.
Makes me question

Was it love or just lust?

Caked in blood or old rust?

I don’t know. 

Don’t we remember all the moments we remember the best

Framed in poems and in pictures, sang aloud in refrains?

Does this cycle of pain and disdain for the past

Not work exactly the same?

Maybe it’s just as much about what comes our way as it is about how we react.

Just as much about the things that we’ve still got as it is about the things we lack.

I know we won’t always keep around all we feel we need–

some are fading in frames, some were born to leave–

But if we’re still here, and we still breathe,

I guess we’ve still got time to figure it out,

To know what to do, 

To know how to feel,

Know the things that I’ve been making up inside my head, and

To know what’s real.

I want to believe that the way I am is just the way things go.

For the things that came, not the things I chose 

to come. 

I want to know if I had any control.

I want to know if it’d comfort me.

And if my heart just stops, pack my memories in it–

I want to know all the love I’ve got.

And if my heart just stops, keep me alive for a minute–

I want to know if a curtain drops.

(end scene. or fin. or something)

Mostly, I hope this finds you all well. More, unrelated (or mostly unrelated, at least), soon.

yrs, Jordan.

Sound and Fury

Although we aren’t playing this year, Brad and I will be hanging out at Sound and Fury festival this weekend. Since I picked up the 2006 DVD i’ve been so stoked to go someday and this will be my first year, so come kick it with us. Theres still plenty of passes if you are in California or want to make the trek, you can pick them up at http://www.soundandfuryfestival.bigcartel.com or hit up http://www.6131records.com/store where you can get passes and the third pressing of touche amore’s record.

No Sleep is going to be there and we will have our Touche Amore split available in person for the first time, including a pressing of 75 exclusive to sound and fury. We have a new shirt that will be at the no sleep booth as well.

Theres so much going on and so many people I’m excited to see, I can barely begin to tell you everything. If you do attend, make sure to check out our friends in:
Creatures
Deadhead
Defeater
The Effort
Hostage Calm
Make Do And Mend
Punch
Rotting Out
Touche Amore

and all the bands. I’m especially excited to see Bane, that most recent seven inch they put out is so good.

Show us a good time, California! We’re going to have a blast. I’ll be selling/trading paintings and drawings all weekend too so get at me at adamxvass.com if you want to meet up.

In closing, here is an awesome video of our friends in Trash Talk destroying the fest last year in a Uhaul

Trash Talk from KO Films on Vimeo.

Parents Just Don’t Understand

I wrote a guest blog this week for Absolute Punk and today it is on the front page. Check it out and see what my mom thinks of our kind of music, and maybe you’ll read about a band that you haven’t heard and will like a lot. Thanks!FIVE AND ALIVE.

-vass

it’s 7/7 today

take a look.

Link Party

Since we got home we have all been doing our own things and taking some time to relax. It has been a super long time since weve been able to say that. I’m in Indiana at my parents house kicking it with Native and trying out a bunch of new recipes from my favorite vegan resource, VegWeb. During this lull however, we don’t want you to forget about us. We have a new song up on myspace called “How I Feel” from our upcoming split with Touche Amore. I’ve also started creating the artwork for our split with Koji which is looking to come out in October.

As if there aren’t enough links in the above chunk, here are some websites I encourage you to visit.

Swallows & Daggers
a great resource for traditional american tattoo artists, with artist profiles and interviews. I often wear a shirt of theirs and someone in the UK snapped a picture of it during our set, and SND were kind enough to put it on their website with a plug for the TA split. While it was a kind gesture that I really appreciated, I would visit this website daily even if they said we suck. If you appreciate tattoo art, are considering getting a tattoo soon, or aspire to be a tattoo artist in the future, check out swallows n daggers.

Shirts And Destroy
The new Shirts and Destroy website looks so damn good! Theyre doing a lot of cool new stuff this year, including opening a store front in New York which I can’t wait to visit and eat burritos with Ryan and Lukas again. Ive been working hard this week on some new designs that we will have in the Shirts and Destroy line this summer and am so far very proud of them. When they go up, we will tell you again via the blog, so keep an ear out, but check out their website in the mean time and pick up some of their pre-existing awesome tees.

Hellfish
Hellfish has printed all of our american tour merch for about the past year and do a great job. I’m trying to get some new designs up in the hellfish store too now that we have time off tour for me to work, so check them out. they are too kind to us and its the least you could do to say “thank you” on our behalf to visit their website and maybe pick up a shirt (i want that bonus army one).

Make Do And Mend
you may have heard of MDAM since they are a part of The Wave, but aside from that, they are an incredible band. they just finished recording a full length thats coming out later this year on Paper & Plastick which I cant wait to hear. From July 22 – August 22 I’ll be their merch guy, so Sound & Fury, West coast, and middle america, come say hey to me and them. Check out the dates on their myspace.

This is all for now. I’m off to listen to Mysterious Universe, our band’s favorite paranormal podcast. That is, if I can somehow turn off this Lemuria record, holy cow its so good. I didn’t catch on right away but it definitely grew on me and I can’t stop listening to it.

Updates soon regarding the two splits and our plans for this fall and winter including some potential touring and a full length record.
-vass