My blog before last… how whiny. Oh well. To wit, more whine… the little Impaled / Engorged / Lord Gore mini-tour was fun, no doubt. The guys in Engorged are the funniest people on the planet, and I got a lot of love and respect for Lord Gore. We played some killer shows in LA and Phoenix. In the Bay Area however… well, death metal just isn’t worth it. That is, not for the 21 and up crowd.
I see no reason for us to be playing around here for adults who just aren’t gonna go see a show we’re playing. No amount of press helps, no amount of flyers… Impaled is playing what we love, and the people who also love it are about 10 years younger than us. If we can play for them, awesome. A good gig with a huge band? I’d consider it. In the meantime… no more headlining 21 and up gigs. Don’t even ask about us doing benefits. If it’s not a solid all-ages package, we’ll pass. I don’t feel like I’m too old for death metal, just too old to not be smart about it.
We have problems touring, because bookers want us to go out on the road to open for big-ass so-and-so for 9 months out of the year for pennies a day. Sorry… I like having a place to live. I like eating. I like being able to see my friends and loved ones. I can’t just go back to my suburb in Chicago and crash and mom and dad’s couch for a week until the next tour starts. Yes… that was a direct dig at metal-core. Deal with it.
That said, there’s some killer touring in store for Impaled. Just not a lot of it. I hurt people when I can’t balance my artistic life with my personal life. It sucks. I know, whine whine whine… I’m god damned lucky to have what I have. I do want to sacrifice for it… I just don’t want to sacrifice others. If someone has guidance for me on this, by all means, speak up.
I love what I do but I also love who I love… and sometimes the two come into conflict. And then strict art… painting, drawing… when does that come in? What about all this home repair I’m supposed to be doing? The only thing I do get done is my actual job, which is the thing I care about the least, but need the most. Gotta eat, gotta pay rent.
Damn, a vacation would rock. I don’t need goofy material wealth. All my toys, comics, books… I couldn’t care less these days. Even my CDs take on less meaning after I succumbed to the iPod generation. I just need my tunes and the news. Maybe the occasional book, but I’d rather just borrow it. DVDs? Nice to watch with some pals, don’t need the whole Criterion collection. Hell… I kinda wish we could all just sit around playing gin rummy or chess. That teevee takes up a lot of room. I’m not really bumming out, just reassessing. Shanel once told me about Saturn returning… said it was gonna be a bitch and like nothing I’d ever expected. I didn’t put much credence into astrology until I met her. God dammit, she was right again. Saturn is a bitch.