portraits in progress

here are two more portraits in progress for mah book.
i've been spending too much time at the computer, i'm getting those pains in the base of your neck and stuff. arg. i need a full-time masseuse to hang around me, and snap to attention when i need 'em.





oh. happy mother's day all ye mothers out there.
-pete

ficticious portrait book

i started an art book project a while ago of a series of portraits of ficticious people.
as with most of my other projects, i was really obsessed with it for about two weeks. then i stopped all together. sooo. i started working on it again yesterday.

here's a new digital painting (in photoshop) of st. jerome:



and here are a few sketches i did that may or may not end up painted in the book.





-pete

back in l.a. and some new art from the road

Tuesday, May 8, 2007 17:29

i'm finally back in l.a. for a bit, after 6 weeks straight on the road. whew! that's the longest i've been out since this thing started. we had some really great shows this past leg. the chicago show was for sure a highlight. it was so great to play with everybody again! aranda, soular, dirt poor robins, and david martin. i always feel so lucky to be on the same label as them.
i have a bunch of things i want to get done in my down time here.. i've started two art projects while out on the road.
1. i started drawing and painting over the text of an old james bond novel i bought. here's the first finished page from it:



2. i play a lot of sudoku while riding in the van. so i thought i would make use of all those finished sudoku grids..
here are two paintings from that series:





that's it for now. i hope to have a lot more to show you all in the next few days here.
-pete

junkyard romp

we had the craziestcoolest day yesterday! we went to this place called 'city museum' in st.louis. basically its a playground of slides and caves made strictly from materials found in the city dump. there were two airplane fusilages suspended over the park that you could climb around in. you had to crawl through these tiny metal-wire tube-tunnels to get from one thing to another. it was great. when i grow up, i want one of these in my backyard.

we've had some good shows lately. lot of people signing up for our mailing list, which is good for us. we've sold some CDs, which is also good for us. (mmmm… recoupment…) tonight we're playing in rock island, illinois. incidentally, its not actually an island. but it is made of rock. rock n roll, that is!!!

-pete

new york then phili then new york then phili

i had a great week. 'sweep the leg' is now being spun on xm satellite radio. woohoo! we had a great show at the cutting room in new york on friday night. last night we played at grape street in phili, and it was so fun! i am constantly surprised at how many people are coming to the shows having already seen the video. and to look out into the audience and actually see people singing along! man, its a cool feeling. of course, it means i have more pressure to remember my lyrics..

thursday morning, we were on channel 10 in phili. it was fun. i met anna nicole smith's sister. (she was one of the guests on the show). we did a soundcheck, which was recorded, and it sounded pretty good. but for some reason, when it came time to play for real, something went wrong in the control room. only the drum mics went out to broadcast! so, everyone in the studio audience heard the show just fine, but people watching it on the teeveeee only heard DG's high-hat!! a little bit of guitar and vocals bled into the mic, so it sounded like the rest of the band was playing from inside the belly of a tauntaun.

now i'm sitting in the phili airport, 3 hours early for my flight (why not). i'm going to nashville, where i will chill in a hotel for two days. i'm excited about all the sleep i can practice! i need the practice, because i think lately i've gotten out of practice.

oh, we saw some dude at breakfast at the hotel who was wearing a cobra kai shirt. so of course, we ran up to him and told him about our song and video and such. his name was kevin. he was very polite, and patiently waited for us to finish our story so he could eat his omelet. i took the opportunity to demonstrate for him my amazing karate skills by shopping his omelet in half with my bare hand. it took me three tries to get through it.

-pete

gummi bears, bouncing here and there

hygiene takes an interesting backseat when on the road for a prolonged period. its as if there's this acceptable re-run schedule for certain clothes. my socks are currently in syndication.

i'm in kentucky for a few days, chillin' with neily. we worked up an acoustic arrangement smash-up of king of rock and sucka MCs. it made me giggle.

oh, christian and i saw 'blades of glory' the other night. it was cute, but i didn't love it. i give it a C, with gusts up to C+. our friend travis bought some chocolate covered gummi bears, which tastes exactly as bad as you'd expect. of course that disproves einstein's third theory that everything tastes better smothered in chocolate.

-pete

the other lebowski

its been an interesting couple of days. not much sleep, and a lot of shows. we're in orlando tonight - just finished playing at the liquid cellar - and we're back in georgia tomorrow night. we've done a couple shows with a band called helios, who are really great and talented people, and a fun, energetic band. the other night, at eddie's attic, we played with a band called y.o.u., who really impressed me. they had a fresh, original sound that drew from the well of solid 60s rock and soul. they were great players, had great banter with the crowd.

we did a really cool teeeveee performance this morning. the chef on the cooking segment had the same last name as me. so i had to knife fight him, with our hands tied together, to see who got to keep the name. he won, so from now on i shall be known at petey rosemary macgillicuddy. inform the post office.

-pete

wii, ameoba and smurfs

the other day i was in ameoba records in hollywood, and they had 11 copies of the album! woohoo! so if anyone is having trouble finding it in stores, please hop a flight to l.a. (just kidding. sort of)

i'm sad. i've been playing way too much nintendo Wii lately.. and so far, the only game i like is the free one that comes with the system. i keep buying these other games, and i end up hating them! but the super-simple sports games that come bundled with the Wii are great. i even tried to get my band addicted to the bowling game so they could save money on actual lanes. but alas, they weren't fooled.

i'm off, on a red-eye out of burbank tonight, to georgia. and then florida. which is great, because its been a while since i've been into the astonish office. and i miss all of my little friends there! (i say little, because in order to fit more employees into the office, adam shrunk everyone down to the size of bloated smurfs (smurves?)) (i like that i had to use double parentheses there)

-pete

fires in burbank

grabbed lunch at portos — this really yummy bakery/sandwich shop in burbank. its always packed in there, no matter when you go. after i came out, i noticed huge billows of smoke, off in the distance. then i saw the giant flames flapping on the side of the hills. that's one of the dangers of living in l.a.. in addition to occasional earthquakes and drunken cross-dressers, we have periodic brush fires in the hills. these fires can rage on for days. i hope this new one doesn't last that long.

i'm off to see 'the host' at the arclight in hollywood. its a korean horror/comedy/drama/action movie that's been getting some pretty good reviews. i'll let you know what i think.

okay. it was great. a lot of fun. great creature design. decent visual effects. charming characters. it was very suspenseful at times, and light-hearted at others. definitely an enjoyable film.
oh, and i found out that the brush was was caused by two teenagers setting off fireworks in the hills. over 150 acres of land was burned.

-pete

new year

happy new year everybody.
we had a great new year's eve festival-style show here in sunny orlando. all the bands on the label played as well as a few local florida bands. it was quite an amazing event. aranda sort of became the highlight of the night with an absolutely face-melting performance. the capped the show off with a michael jackson medley.

the bass players from the label seemed to be revolting or something. beau turned around quickly during our set and the head of his bass smashed my left arm, cutting it. during aranda's set, chris the bass player smashed gabe in the side of the face with his bass. so the whole night felt a little like a gladiator arena. i tried to hit beau back with my throat, but it proved an ineffective weapon.

on the 2nd, we did an acoustic show at the aka lounge in downtown orlando. it was a lot of fun. we did 'about schroeder', 'sweep the leg', 'zombie me', 'grand expreiment', 'this', and ended with 'overkill' by men at work. we worked out cool arangements of 'sweep' and 'grand experiment', which were much swampier than the album versions. a lot of fun to play too.

so, i'm off to new york tomorrow to meet with vh1, rolling stone magazine, and my publicist. it should be cool. i always love going to new york. keep your fingers crossed for the vh1 meeting. it would be awesome to have them premiere the video for sweep the leg.

-pete