The City Veins

I grew up in a philosophy heavy household. I didn’t know it until I was in college and became a philosophy major; to me philosophy was just conversation. But my mother is an aspiring theologian and my father holds a PHD in philosophy, so the dinner table becomes a testing ground for all sorts of philosophical rhetoric and discourse. This, of course, makes us a bunch of asses. But this is what I see when I float metaphysically above my family and try to stare back at myself. A dangerous past-time indeed.

As a band, I believe we are guilty of spending an awful lot of time trying to define ourselves to the world. What is The City Veins? It is a constantly negotiated and created being. We write a shitty song and suddenly we are a shitty band. It certainly has happened. We write a great song and we are on top of the world. The same goes for gigging and now album creation. Each moment allows you the opportunity to redefine and shift your personal meanings. And when I ramble it solidifies my stake as a musician and not a writer of fine prose.

Spencer is combing through our lyrics to come up with names for the EP we are working on (actually, we’re not working on it yet). Admittedly this seems extremely pre-mature since we have yet to record a single moment of music, as well as come to some conclusion about what the EP will include. We probably need to write another solid song or two in order to really have a fine sounding EP. And of course we want to put our best foot forward as this is a Zeitgeist-construction moment. However, coming up with a name before the fact may help to point us in a direction, any direction. There is no one correct creative process that all bands go through, or at least I doubt there is. I often wonder whether other bands start an album with an idea, a note, a full song, an ideology, or maybe something more comprehensive. Often I will arrive at the end of an album or a song and wish that I had started at a different point; that the end product would have been better had I begun the process from a different point altogether. So let’s try naming an album before it’s complete, base the music and lyrical content of a portion of the songs on the name of the album and the cover art. After all, we are anything but a completed article, so why not start by defining something in a vacuous and flimsy way.

(Note: I am not being sarcastic; I actually think there is value in this)

So, like my parents dining-room table, I am using this blog as a medium for testing my ideas and philosophies. I always understand things better after I’ve said them, even when I’m spouting shite (as the scousers would say); talking bollocks. This is an area of construction, just like gigging, writing, etc. Check back as we start this EP-writing process…there is more bollocks to come.

(Authors Note: I am aware that Zeitgeist is not the proper word for what I am referencing; that the word has to do with ethos of a culture and people, not of specific entities within a system. But the word has wrinkles of meaning that don’t translate perfectly in English, and who can really tell what German words actually mean anyway. Also, to divert your attention away from this, I will point out that Charles thought the song “Glad Girls” by Guided By Voices was “Black Girls”—- making it the most racist song in history—because they “only want to get you high”. That’s some J. Edgar Hoover shit right there. See—he’s dumber than me sometimes).

Photo by Flickr user hive.