Peter Awesome

I like posted this a few days ago with the intention of re-blogging it and finishing it, but I accidentally deleted it completely and now have to start from scratch again. Instead of typing paragraphs, I will do a play-by-play with to-the-minute estimates. Enjoy.

9:03: My friend and I road trip from Redondo Beach to Ventura. We wanted to leave at 8:30. We also stopped at 2 banks and a Target on the way. Bad timing.

10:45: We arrive in Ventura.

11:55: We park. We only paid $5 for parking, which was super awesome. Less than the parking structure that was a good half-mile away.

12:05: Decide to go and see MC Lars first, and I immediately break from my friends to see the last 16 seconds of The Sheds’ set.

12:13: Went to the stage and decided not to wait until 12:35. Walked around and checked out some booths. Bought the new Set Your Goals vinyl, and had a nice chat with a dude at the A Day to Remember tent. So many shirts, OMGOMG

12:34: On the way back to the stage, saw another band that I wish I had waited to see more of, Lionize. I will catch them in Carson.

12:36: Watched MC Lars and Weerd Science. Never heard of Weerd Science before, but he was awesome. MC Lars has lost weight and grown hair on his face. Set is awesome.

1:10: I tell my friends I will meet them at the stage The Aggrolites are playing on, because I want to go watch this band Sharks that my friend told me about.

1:18: I arrive at Sharks’ stage and watch the rest of their set. I am blown away and become a fan on the spot.

1:35: I arrive to see The Aggrolites. They always put on an amazing show. I feel the music deep down in my soul and it is good.

2:00: I decide to get in line to meet A Day to Remember. I get to the line and apparently you need an Alternative Press pass or some such bullshit. The main point is that they were not accepting any more passes. Well fuck.

2:04: I head to the MC Lars tent to say hello. He remembers me! He’s a cool guy. My friend sees me and comes up. We talk for a bit. I fist bump Lars probably a billion times. I buy some patches. Lars says he will buy us a shirt. He doesn’t, but that’s ok. We mention our band to him and say we hope to play with him one day. He also says that.

2:32: We decide to head over to the KIA tent to meet Less Than Jake. Tent is right across from the TRUTH truck. They are having music based trivia for prizes. They say whoever names the song and artist gets a shirt. They play “Jen Doesn’t Like Me Anymore” by Less Than Jake. I laugh and then raise my hand when I see that no one is volunteering. A girl comes up with a microphone. Here’s the exchange:

Truck dude: Name the artist, album, and song.

Me: Less Than Jake, Pezcore, Jen Doesn’t Like Me Anymore.

Truck dude: What did you say the album was?

Me: Pezcore.

Truck dude: Sorry, it was actually on Losing Streak.

Me: But it was on Pezcore first.

Truck dude: That’s absolutely right! You get two shirts!

All this while still in line for Less Than Jake, hahaha. I say hello to all of them, they all like my shirt (Juicebox Clothing 4LYFE), and they sign my copy of their new EP. Tazy Phillips from Ska Parade comes over and asks if he can take a picture of us with Less Than Jake. We ask and they are nice and say yes. After Tazy leaves, my friend and I talk about how it was Tazy who asked, and he’s pretty well known in the ska community.

2:45: We head over to the Slurpee truck to get free samples. They taste oh so good.

2:50: We see some more friends and talk to them for a bit. One is going to help us record our EP/demo thing. He interrogates as to when that’s gonna happen. His girlfriend says it will happen eventually and that he should stop being so pushy. My friend and I agree. I tell them that I’m going to try and ruin Attack Attack!’s set by walking around like a crab. My friend won’t hold my vinyl, so I can’t really do it anyway.

3:00: I watch the first 1 and 1/2 songs of Attack Attack!’s set. I confirm my thoughts on not becoming a fan.

3:12: I wander around until I find my friend Mondo, and we talk about Attack Attack!. He says they apparently have a new singer, because he had to do interviews with them as part of his job. I confirm this because I’ve seen one of their music videos. We head back to the main stage and shake our heads. We split and plan to meet when The Wonder Years perform.

3:30: I decide to grab the snacks out of my bag and have lunch. I sit in one place, then I move to another place. In this time, I lost my Set Your Goals vinyl. I go back to their tent and try my best to see if I can get a new one. He offers it for $10 instead of $15, but I can’t spend that money at this point. I’m sad.

3:45: I go to the stage that The Wonder Years will be playing at and wait. I notice Unwritten Law is playing at the stage next to the one I’m at. They seem alright.

4:00: The Wonder Years start. I am super pumped and ready to feel positive because I lost my vinyl. I pump my fists downward. I accidentally hit myself in the crotch. I leave 3 minutes into their set because I now have to pee really bad. There’s a funny ad for clothing and piercing accessories in the porto-potty. I go back to The Wonder Years and feel positive. They rule hardcore.

4:35: Two bands I really want to see, Less Than Jake and Big D and the Kids Table, are performing very close to each other. I decide to see Less Than Jake at the main stage for their full set.

4:55: I accept that although I lost my vinyl, I wouldn’t have been able to carry it and enjoy the performances at the same time. I feel better about it.

5:00: Less Than Jake comes on to the People’s Court theme. I laugh. A good amount of the crowd up front is not as into them as I am. I don’t care, it’s Less Than Jake. They play a grand array of songs and I am happy. They bring a girl onstage and give her a mohawk. They play Animaniacs and Spongebob Squarepants, from their TV/EP. The people not into them accept them. Cool.

5:30: I stay at the main stage to watch Against Me!. I have never seen them before, but they are great. The crowd up front is not really into them. I am, and so is everybody behind me. I get into a verbal altercation with a douchebag. I stop paying attention to him, and he stops being a douche. I win!

5:45: I text my friend Ben who has a photo pass, saying I need water. He says to wave my arms when I see him.

5:50: I find out that a guy standing next to me might have a broken arm and is extremely drunk. It looks more like a dislocated shoulder. I tell him 1,400 times that he should leave and get help for it. He is right next to me, but doesn’t acknowledge. He definitely is drunk. Me and another guy make fun of a mole with hairs coming out of it on the back of his neck.

5:55: Ben sees me and throws me a bottle of water. I drink half of it. I feel I am now ready for A Day to Remember.

6:00: A Day to Remember comes on. I lose my shit. They are one of the most amazing live bands I have seen, no joke. Go look up “a day to remember” and you’ll see what the stage looked like. I point and sing at their bassist, Josh, and he acknowledges me. I feel so good. My death scream has never sounded so good. They play Heartless, the first song from their first album. I can’t believe it, it’s my favorite song. I am so happy. Jeremy, the singer, opens the pit up at the end of Heartless and and tells the drummer, Alex, to bring the beat back. During that time, I wander around the open pit area in a daze. I later liken my mindset to a lion hunting for prey.

6:45: I meet my friends at the Big D tent. My body, especially my ankles, is in much pain and anguish. I look like I just walked through a war. I watch the end of the Street Dogs set with them.

7:00: I talk to my friends about the craziness of the day. My buddy Ben says, and I quote, “A Day to Remember is fucking amazing.” He shows me pictures he got up front. I tell him that he did an amazing job. I tell my friend that I came with about how I felt during ADTR’s set. He is surprised and confused.

7:08: I go to The Wonder Years tent and meet some of them. I tell them all how good of a set it was. They are the nicest people. I am glad. I buy a vinyl of their album The Upsides, and I get it signed by 4 of them. I talk to one of the guitarists about his Four Year Strong shirt, and how I saw them both in San Francisco when I lived up north. We talk about the process behind writing their newest album.

7:18: I go back to my friends and sit down behind a sound booth. I keep asking everyone I know for liquid refreshment. I see a pile of ice next to a tent about to be broken down. I notice a can atop that pile of ice. I walk over and it is an unopened can of Hansen’s soda. I take it. I drink it. It tastes so amazing for the 30 seconds I have it. Somebody gives me a water bottle.

7:30: I look around and realize my vinyl of Less Than Jake’s TV/EP is missing. Not again!

7:31: I head back to The Wonder Years tent, and it’s resting on the table. They said they were gonna send a tweet about it, and they are glad I came back. I thank them, though I don’t need to.

8:22: I get a text from a concert friend, Maddie, who I had been trying to get in contact with all day. She tells me to meet her at the Advent Stage.

8:23: I don’t know where the Advent Stage is.

8:27: I walk to the opposite end of the park near the Ernie Ball Stage. I think of how I’ve been to every stage today at some point. I am confused. I ask someone where it is, and they say on the opposite side near the entrance.

8:32: I see someone planking in the pit during The Devil Wears Prada’s set. I laugh.

8:34: I arrive at the Advent Stage. I can’t find her.

8:35: I get a call from her, and she says for me to do a 180° turn. I see her.

8:36: We say hi and talk a lot. We recount each other’s happenings of the day, and talk about my band. She is super awesome. She tells me I remind her of Seth Rogen. I congratulate her on being the 1,293,455th person to tell me that. More of her friends come over, and she has to leave. We both agree that despite living far from each other, we will hang out soon.

8:52: I head back to the Big D booth only to find that it’s not there. I call my friend to see where he is. He says he’s by the porto-potties at the front. I spend the next 15 minutes trying to figure out where that is.

9:10: We finally find each other after a series of calls that don’t help. We walk back to my car.

9:15: We get to about 70 yards away from my car, and he offers to drive it to me. I give him the keys and instruct him how to turn it on (it’s a Prius).

9:16: He arrives at my car.

9:18: My car turns on.

9:19: My car begins to back up and turn towards me.

Still 9:19: He arrives and we switch seats. He says where to meet up with our friends for some dinner.

9:36: We get out of the long line of cars and begin finding this place.

9:43: We find the place and go inside. None of our friends are there. I request for him to wait while I get a glass of water and go to the bathroom.

9:47: I walk outside and he’s talking to someone I don’t know. I find out that he’s a promoter and works within the ska scene. That’s cool. When he leaves, my friend tells me all about him. He then tells me that all our friends are at a Little Caesar’s.

9:55: We arrive at the Little Caesar’s. It is closed, but our friends are on the curb waiting for their order.

10:05: We get the pizzas. I eat barely taking moments to breath.

10:24: Before leaving, I text Maddie telling her to have a good night and that she is awesome.

10:25: My friend and I leave the Little Caesar’s parking lot. We get on the freeway for two minutes and pull off to get drinks at McDonald’s. We get back on the freeway at around 10:32.

11:00: I need to go to the bathroom real bad. My friend says, “Good luck.”

11:06: We manage to find a Denny’s. I park and slowly walk in.

11:20: I exit the Denny’s. My friend tells me he’s really cold when I get back in the car. I apologize to him.

11:55: He tells me he really needs to go to the bathroom. We pull off the freeway in Westwood and begin searching for the Denny’s that is hardest to find in Los Angeles.

12:07: We find the Denny’s.

12:35: We arrive at my house. My friend and I part ways. Our day at Warped is over.

because it depicts his own suicide, and it will therefore cause many “suicides and needless PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder).”

Alright world, seriously, stop this. If anyone thinks that a MUSIC VIDEO is so influential that it can cause people to commit suicide, it is either the greatest music video ever created or those people are really dumb.

We need to stop blaming music videos and music and other things for our own problems. Just because Eminem commits suicide in a video (which, if you don’t know, is fake) doesn’t mean that he promotes it or believes in it or is telling people to do the same. He’s an artist, it represents something entirely different, so stop being an idiot. Eminem’s always been a controversial artist. This is literally the same uproar that came after Common performed at the White House. It needs to stop now.

If it really was going to cause any danger, MTV and his record company and whoever else would’ve stopped it from even coming out. But it wasn’t, so you know that smarter people (but, realistically, not that much smarter) thought about it and let it slide. The people crying out about this video need to do the same.

I’m watching an older DVD from Sum 41. It has a bunch of old movies on it, part of one showing the guys holding a camera while some girl unknowingly talks shit about them. After a few minutes they tell her that they are Sum 41. Then she tells them that, though they are “cool” and “hot”, they are still “pussy punk” and a bunch of sellouts.

I guess back in the late 90s/early 2000s, and probably before then, people who just liked to shit-talk used “sell-out” to diss bands that were popular rather than actually using it correctly. If any band that wasn’t your favorite genre made money, they automatically sucked. It’s not like a band doesn’t want to become popular. Hitting it big and getting a record deal is number 1 on most any band’s “Top Ten Things That Need To Happen To Us” list. Then again, I guess it can be expected when your genre is pop punk. It’s cool that, very recently, it has become a big genre and gained a stronger following. But, back when I was in middle school and high school, it was not fucking cool. I can’t remember days when EVERYONE didn’t talk about how much it sucked.

But, back to the “sellout” thing. I don’t really know whether or not they sold out, but I can definitely say that there’s little difference musically between their very first album, Half Hour of Power, and their huge breakout hit, All Killer No Filler. Both are very, VERY much pop punk albums. The music didn’t really start changing until Does This Look Infected? came out. I guess I can understand someone calling Green Day sellouts, and even then, it’s not like there were huge change from Kerplunk! when Dookie came out.

I guess my point is that “sellout” is a misused term, much like “literally” or “ironic”, where people just use it without really knowing the meaning, or thinking that it’s a different way of saying another term. A band getting popular doesn’t make it them sellouts. If they start changing their music for a specific audience, or bringing in other people to help write their songs, then they’re sellouts. There’s no way that while making All Killer No Filler, Sum 41 was purposely changing their music to reach a larger audience. They were all high school grad/college freshman age. And, what larger audience? It’s a pop punk demographic. Were there just more pop punk fans that came out of nowhere? No, they just got tons of exposure and they started headlining tours, and the many people who already liked pop punk noticed.

And besides, they never claimed to be real “punk” anyways. They made music they wanted to make. And that’s really what it’s all about.

edit: Had to re-up this cause I accidentally deleted it. Shit’s weak, especially cause people liked the post. FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU

bout to get slightly philosophical on y’all

I first saw A Day to Remember in 2008. It was on New Found Glory’s Easycore Tour, with Four Year Strong, Crime In Stereo, and International Superheroes of Hardcore. I was talking with a few people in line before the show, and when I mentioned I had not heard of A Day to Remember, people were flabbergasted. I also remember watching them play and being fucking blown away by what was happening in front of me. It was something I didn’t expect at all, and something I had never heard or seen before. I’ve been a strong fan ever since.

The first album of theirs I bought was Homesick. I really liked the album right away, and instantly became somewhat infatuated with the artwork.

A man standing in a dark and evil forest, surrounded by insects, wolves, and indecipherable signs. Not knowing where to go, all he has to help point him in the right direction is bright light in the distance. It definitely gave much more meaning to the term “homesick”.

When I then bought their first two albums, And Their Name Was Treason and For Those Who Have Heart, I noticed similar dark-leaning themes.

Unfortunately, I can’t really say that about And Their Name Was Treason because I’m not totally sure what’s going on in the album photo. What I can gather is that the man seated dead center is waiting for something, as he’s seated in front of a large, white board. From the way he’s dressed, I guess he might be someone in the military. His short haircut also suggests this. It makes more sense because someone in the military can commit treason. So, maybe this man who has committed treason is waiting for his punishment.

As for For Those Who Have Heart, a guy who looks like he’s in a prep school uniform (or, at the very least, a suit he isn’t keen on wearing) is holding a bat and a chain wrapped around his hand behind his back. What this makes me think of is someone who has beaten or destroyed something, or is about to destroy something, showing he has heart. But even then, he’s hiding the what he was responsible for. So though he may have heart, he might be afraid to show it. Looking deep into it, I know, but it does make a lot of sense. I was afraid to show how I really felt in high school. I can definitely relate to this.

I noticed a simple connection between the album covers soon afterward: they each show a man with his back facing us. This doesn’t apply to re-releases of the albums, just the original album covers. I thought it was pretty cool, because it connected all their albums. What really made me think about it was when they released their most recent album last year, What Separates Me From You.

A man trapped in a giant sand timer as the rest of it fills up, watching as others outside pass him by without even looking. Quite literally, he is trapped by time. He can’t do anything other than watch. AND, his back is towards us, like on the other covers.

As you can tell, I’ve thought a lot about this topic. I’m also apparently the only one who has, because I found 0 articles on anything close to what I’m writing about right now. But it really makes me wonder, why is it this way on every cover? Obviously, there is an answer for each cover separately, but to relate every cover to each other like this is very interesting to me. A man who has committed treason won’t or can’t show his face, a man who has or is about to destroy something can’t show his face or else be caught, etc etc. But even the framing of elements in the different artwork is similar. It makes me wonder if ADTR did this deliberately or it was just something that happened.

It’s a mystery to me, but it keeps my love of this band fresh. Keeps me thinking and trying to come up with an answer, and that’s always a nice thing to get from bands you enjoy listening to.

I took a nap today. The dream I had was crazy, and one of the few that I remember details about.

I don’t remember if I was a character in the dream. It took place in space on Mars. There were two astronauts who were doing studies on gravity between planets or something like that. The planets were not to scale at all, appearing much closer to Mars than they actually are. One astronaut was using a meter to measure this gravitational field, which was an instrument which had a straight line with numbers on it, like the light sensor in a camera. When it sensed a strong gravitational field, it would bend, and basically visualize, the field for those studying to see. After both studied that large red spot on Jupiter, and it’s intense gravitational power, they theorized about what it meant for the rest of the universe, and even what it meant for heaven. “Cover over a cover” is a phrase that I remembered. I also recall real vivid colors, like when you see a picture of a nebula on fuckyeahnebulas or something.

Wish I remembered more. It was CRAAAAZY.