new freedoms

mobility.

movement in circles and allowing yourself to breath. everyone eventually wakes up. i am convinced of that. some folks just act, "okay" about who and where they are. it's true. let's link it back to denial, you and I, eventhough there's not enough ether for a surgery this big.

nope.

pick a vein, any vein, and you could follow it to the source of the problem. that beating red thing. almost impossible to think that it could stop pumpin' ain't it? but there it goes, blip, blip blip... it only skips for three reasons... trauma, love, and cardiovascular disease...

reversal.

time move up and out. stand the ground. place your feet firmly. (watch out rob brezny, i think i'm getting the hand of your job) explore your sense of denial to the fullest... see where it takes you... when you are bored and feel the thrill of discovery has lessend, all you have to do is accept the truth and i guess you'll be free to move about the cabin.

grimm.

a long time ago

i used to sleep well... i'm not kidding... i could sleep for hours on hours and not think much of it. these days, however, seems like a few hours is all i can get. i'm not nervous about anything. i'm not too concerned about the inevitable socio-economic collapse of my country. i'm dreading the scorching summer heat and destructive humidity that accompanies it. so why am i not sleeping?

probably cause i snore like it's my only outlet of creativity.

this isn't some sort of musical insight as to how i write or create, is it? nope. it's just a thing. just who i am, i guess. i do like sleeping... maybe i grab a nap later.

these days have been spent emailing and updating and getting into a routine... which is good... but man i need to start doin' other things... maybe record somehting in my basement...? my lists of things to do are out of control... they mostly deal around the blogging, the booking, and the updating... right now i'm booking a tour for October!

we have our first confirmation... Thursday Oct. 21st @ the Cave, Chapel Hill NC. woooo hooooo...

no shows lingering on the horizon locally until august 3rd and 4th... those will be much fun... yup... you know.

the coffee is ready in the kitchen and i'm thinking about oatmeal... dreaming with one eye open... the other is half closed.

grimm

last night's show...

good times... excellent vibes... the 8x10 was fun,as per usual... although the sun was still out we seemed to play just hard as were it midnight... why is it rock n roll should happen after sun down? The uber excellent Tim Heaney was on hand snapping photos... so throughout this olde blog you'll see some of his handy work. we were well recieved with applause in the right places which is cool... or at least better than having molotov cocktails thrown at us... timmy wore the appropriate rock outfit... little know fact but that is the same t-shirt worn by Bryan Adams in the "Cuts Like A Knife" video... i'm not kidding.

mike ward really beat the shit out of keyboard as well... here's a pic of us discussing how much harder he should slam his equipment... er, the keyboard.



and mike ross focused his energy and attention on playing drums... wow

thanks to everyone who came out! we really appreciate all of the help and support! y'all are the best...



grimm

almost with you, i can sense you wait for me

much administrative happenings have been keeping me busy here at central command... my days start usually at 5:30 am, although today i was little late in getting started, a workout at the gym, a walk home, and then a lil' breakfast. i know, what a rock and roll life style for a teacher. but no longer teaching am i. resigned, finished, left the building... amscrayed, if you will.

feels good. feels strange. kind of like my prom. the weirdness will really set in september when school begins and i don't. the comforting smells of a freshly buffed school hallway speaks of new leaves being over turned before being re-over turned and patterns once thought to be left behind renew themselves, the cuts in the canyon that river water has no choice but to follow. the inevitable decline into routine and sense of person and place we all seem to gravitate back to, once again.

yeah, i won't being seeing that. instead, i click on the keyboard in some sort of digital hustle. book my band, yeah, book it... we're really good... we'll be pleasant for you... we have this new album, it's going to be awesome... it's going to make sense... you will love us... no, we don't have an audience... yet. but we will soon... oh please please please... book us now... you won't regret it...

gotta make some money. somehow.

andrew

recording days 3,4,5,6,7,8

where did my posts go i wonder?
i know i posted a couple things
but suppose they became lost in digital ether.

all recording for the album is finished...
we trekked up north with mike ward
to put some keyboard parts on the disc.

it sounds great... without any real touch up
to begin with... the raw straight up tracks.
by the end of the week i should have
some more proper mixes from mr. rubal.

the edge of something new
slightly emerges from the east
illumination tentative, imminent.

the show at the eastport street festival
was really really really hot. in a literal,
"I could have kissed the sun" kind of
way... i shed 5 pounds just standing
on stage... i've broken out in a sweat
just thinking about it right now...
yup... not very pleasant...
but we sold some discs and made some
friends.

more digital upgrades to happen soon.

grimm

recording day two... part II

studio day two

day one was a success... i arrived at
10:45
and by 2 o'clock we zipped through
thirteen songs... scratch vox and
scratch axe recorded...
today jason butcher records his drums...

i'm picking him up and buying
him donuts and coffee...

labor is cheap sometimes.

more later... from said studio... pics too.

i swearz

studio day one

heading up to harrisburg with studio stuff
to be done... scratch guitar and vocals
are to be recorded... tomorrow, drums,
wednesday, bass... and so on...

wanted to chat for a moment about william
blake. he seems to keep entering my life,
especially when i'm not paying attention...

5 years ago he popped up in my master's thesis
just recently i taught songs of innocence and experience
and then a friend brought to me, a 1942 manuscript
of a blake criticism.

blake, or god, or whomever is pushing me
to look at blake again... which i guess i will.

grimm

the roots cafe last night
fun to play and explore that
solo side... new interpretations
sold some cds and made a few bucks...
good for us.

ellen cherry certainly has
made her voice quite clear
she plays with pitch and slides
around with words... her guitar
sounds really good as well... it's
fun to play with her in these shows
because there's that interaction
that we have... maybe back and forth,
give and take, push and pull, heckle and
jeckyl, mallory and alex keaton type of thing
thought neither of us is alex nor mallory.

updates: album starts monday
scratch vox and guitar...

tuesday: drums
wednesday: bass
thursday and friday: bake sale

grimm

you can have it all; you can lose it, too

one of my students used
a semicolon properly. tears
and silent joys burst from
my brain, my mind. semicolons
bind our ideas, making room
for tone and voice. remarkable
in their hybrid personalities and
troubled by teenage abuse, semicolons
should be used wisely. do not
frighten said punctuation marks
with sudden movements or paranormal
threats. let them be who
they want to be.

tonight: roots cafe @ the common ground
in hampden

7pm ellen cherry, geoff himes,moi.
i will discuss why jay farrar
and i are two different people,
spirits, writers, musicians, and
punctuation marks.

grimm

the little stuff

waterfront was good last night
a lot of fun... i, being tired,
limped through part of the set.

now, as we go into summer
i dream of sleep, awake by
habit, shuffled and slurred.

cold club soda sipping straws
and melting cold cubes
manage to tickle the throat.

the ring of cymbals, waves of
metal vibrations, microscopic
attenuators shake imperceptibly

faster than you can hear.
someone's finger is pushing
on my cochlea. i swear it is so.

grimm

to all my friends

mickey rourke played a drunk
the drunk revealed a poet
the poet became a sensation
a sensation underrated
the rated poems slipped
beyond our periphery
into unconscious hearts
through the veins
clicked by valves
oxygen heavy
blasting
life
now

grimm

spinning slower than usual

i remember hearing an article on npr about how the older you get, the faster time seems to pass. this concept rears its face, to me. to me, this school year has sped faster than any year preceeding. there are no brakes. even breaks went fast. two and a half days with students, teaching? laughing? warping? shaping? what?

my days have become a series of short episodes linked by spells of driving.

at no cost to myself or to the people around me. i look forward to the next step. wearing a guitar. shoving my face into a microphone, and squawking.

back to memory... because the wealth of experience carved into our brains, as we age fewer new impressions burn into memory. that last 15 minutes of driving you don't remember... now alert, you look to the left and to the right and think? "God I hope there weren't stop lights I missed."

now you know, maybe.

grimm

a few words

Bumble bee wonders am I
his flower?

-Ron Silliman

just a quick note to log in
for the blog... i am thinking
to set up a paypal link to take
donation for the this recording
coming up... i have had one
generous offer to help fund the
project, which means much to me.

when people want to offer their
legal tender, the imaginary or tangible
dollars they have earned by sweat and or
endurance in order to get music
i haven't recorded yet... based on
who is playing on the disc... based
on songs i wrote, really touches
the fragile deep part of me.

thank you.

more when i get there.

grimm

time as an abstract

I believe in coyotes and time as an abstract
Explain the change, the difference between
What you want and what you need, there's the key,
Your adventure for today, what do you do
Between the horns of the day?

-Michael Stipe

haven't thought about REM
in a long long time. eons it
seems...

i started listening to rem in 8th grade
when jeff marzen taped the replacements, tim
and rem life's rich pagent... the phase of intense
teenage listening was beginning.

we had a two piece band
called the metal cicadas... our specialty
was rewriting lyrics "a la" weird al
yankovich. i didn't think about it at the
time but it was probably fairly
important as i was learning rhythm and
wordplay. such was my youth.

now here we are... again and again...
the future written in pencil and
foreign languages i'm learning to speak
each day...

grimm

new music and such

june 14th starts a new album project with jason rubal of harrisburg, PA. the role of the producer is essentially for him to be all ears during the recording process. we've taken in a few pre-production meetings to play the tunes and measure out the dynamics. completely exciting. players on this disc will be:

jason butcher
ryan finnerin
dave hadley
burke sampson
andrew grimm

already a mood has brewed.

songs are old songs from my solo albums... i'm making a stab at a more serious, substantial musical voice in the universe. so i'm going to spend some money... right?

songs:

without you now

if you leave
local 48
somehow
breakdown
arrows and rocks
declare
sweet division
pope of mexico
slow hours
wolves
inside
thunder

we should be wrapping up the tracking by the 24th of june... excitement

grimm

the process, as we know it

assemble some thoughts
form some words
link some notes
breathe some stops
loop some drums
thumb some bass
shred some shred
convince some guys
re-play some songs
push some buttons
wait some time
sell some discs
make some money
pay some taxes
assemble some thoughts

no news... of the sort

hey there... been out dah loop..

wif mah blah blah blah...
does it matter?
nah nah nah
ke$ha? nah nah nah
civilization will implode
as she becomes the model
of artistic value.

sheesh.

new drummer in line...
yes.. wow... good...

great.

clicks and clunks.

shows? look to your right...

there they are...

the time between

never really seems to be as much time
as one needs to acomplish the simpler tasks...
tuck in this
update that
rearrange those
snip them...

you know... will try to make better effort...

shows and songs don't promote themselves...
things are going in the right direction however,
my computer is de-virused... yes... am working
on websites now... maybe will some kind of
new news for you soon...

did the fawm...

you can download some songs to hear... here

see you around

grimm

short time short break

audacious and firm
i have paused from my
grading to say, "hello."

hello

end of the semester has
appeared and the kids will
change in a couple of
my classes... fresh start
for some... old hat
for others... oh brit lit.
what will we do... we will
explore the rundown alleys of
chaucer i suppose...
get ready for beowulf and
more vocabulary.

music music. we play tonight
at waterfront hotel. cortez
mission... the alter ego.

hey baltimore you are a real
cute town. the denizens of fells
point will filter to the hotel
to say hi. we will play some
songs about stuff. maybe love?

maybe love.
maybe love!
maybe love?
maybe love...

what rough beast slouches towards Bethlehem?

grimm