I’ve been spending the last few months getting nestled and settle into a new place with my dear Z. Our band, The Dabbers, is one of the best parts. We practice in an industrial area of san diego where we can be incredibly loud and vibrate the walls, with no one to complain. Just try to hit a drum beat more than once in a residential cul de sac. Doesn’t fly with the neighbors, trust me on that one.

Being on stage in a two piece is a totally new experience too. Playing with four people (as I did in Braaiins!) allows one to disappear into the mix more, or if you make a mistake, there is often so much background and surrounding noise that the wrong note can melt in with the rest of the music. Stripping it down to just drums and bass keeps me on my toes much more, and allows me to take up as much space on stage as I want since Zack is glued down to a stationary drum kit. I absolutely love it! I’m having such a great time playing this kind of music, whatever one might define it (I’m not sure what the most current music lingo would want to tag us as), and we also aren’t playing so many shows that its exhausting.

We have finished recording all 12 of our songs at

Archival Recording with Mitch Wilson from No Knife, and are going in the studio this thursday to begin mixing. We’re are trying to avoid getting to tedious with this part. Just as Photoshop can completely change the original photo/art into a fabricated piece of computer genius, ProTools can alter the ‘realness’ of a track, transforming a messy chord into a microscopically clean and precise one. This is not what we are aiming for. We want to keep the grit, grime, and flavor, and thankfully Mitch is right on the same page with us (which I have to mention, recording with Mitch has been amazing, he is spot on to what we’re trying to accomplish, and has the most positively engaging attitude and personality about him).

Phew! Well that’s most of it.

Here are the most recent photos from the Casbah show on 3/7/09:

Photo: O

Photo: Luke Brown

“From the Land of Fear” video:

Kinsee Morlan & Jeff Hammett’s going away party!!

With performances by: Street of Little Girls, Bobby Fantasy, Confessions of a Corn Silo, and yours truly, The Dabbers.

We play last, but show up early if you want to hang out – doors @ 5pm. This Sunday, February 15th.

Flyer Design by Zack & Me. Creatures and strange drawings by me.

We will be playing tonight 8/29 at the Yard, a new house/music venue on 17th and Imperial downtown. The Sess, Witch Hat, Thin Man, & Scarlet Symphony will also be playing. We go on at the early bird time of 830, so get there early to see more of this:Photo: Sean Dejecacion

I completed the first half of this piece over the span of three weeks. But I took a long break, then procrastinated until I only had three days left to finish and frame it. So here is a take by take of the last few days and minutes of finishing the top half to make it in time for hanging it at the Ink Pencil Paint art show at the L Street Fine Art gallery downtown. These last photos were taken about six hours apart, between friday to sunday. It was a delirious and strange time for me, sitting in my room staring at this large piece of paper, trying so hard to think of anything, drawing it, and then coloring (using watercolors and markers) it on the spot. I am very happy with the finished piece. 

Monday July 14th 1:00am
(only one week left to finish it)

Friday July 18th 10:30pm
(not even close to being done..)

Sunday July 20th 3:00pm

Sunday July 20th 10:00pm

Monday July 21st 1:00AM!

Monday July 21st 5:00pm – FINISHED!

Besides the art, the musical performances of Christmas Island and Wild Weekend were, as always, super rad and added so much to the event. I must say that Mr. Lee Lavy did a fine job curating this show, from organizing the artists, music acts, finding a great DJ for outside (DJ Mane One!), and passing out hundreds of flyers…all for a really great friday night post-Comic-Con art show! After hibernating in my house for days and days trying to finish the piece, I found it a great release to be around people that enjoyed staring at it for minutes at a time. Almost overwhelming, I think my piece provides some entertainment, and I think that is my favorite part of it – making people feel that same thing I feel when I see an inanimate object ‘doing’ something funny. Maybe my head works a little different then others, or perhaps, I’m on imagination overdrive all the time, but I like to think that just for a few seconds other people were able to understand why a fire hydrant, or a paint roller are pretty cute little things if you think about them being ‘alive’ and doing what they do. The finished piece is titled “831 Characters”, because it does actually contain 831 characters all drawn and imagined by my strange brain. Yes, I sat down and counted every single one. 

My friend Trista was just recently interviewed on a fashion blog, and I just think it’s great. Not only is she intelligent, but her fashion sense and lifestyle and musical tastes are so refined and lovely and this interview tells all. Oh and you should read her blog
too, because it’s really great also.
Please meet Ms. Trista.

In other news my bandmates attacked eachother at our last show, so it seems we are on somewhat of a hiatus until our Tower Bar show on 7/11 with the Widows. I think the last few practices have been so tense that someone was bound to explode sometime…I just didn’t think it would happen the way it did. My string broke after only playing two songs and chaos ensued. Drums were thrown, bodies were cut, words were yelled. I’d rather skip the details. Despite this, the three other bands that played before were excellent. Christmas Island started the set off, then The Widows (always great), and The DeepSea Goes (a brother/sister combo out of LA that is well worth seeing) finished off the greatness. That is, unless, one counts our two songs and mini-push-shove-fight that ensued.
It may be better this way since I need some serious time to spend on my piece of the upcoming Comic Con weekend art show. I have a huge piece of paper, with not enough art on it. Until next time…

<3gubba