Just a reminder to anyone who catches this and happens to be in the Fargo area.

Tonight. Saturday, March 24th. 10 pm. Scar Tissue will be playing our first show ever in Fargo at JT Cigaros. Come out and discover new and fun ways to rock. Feel free to hang out with us after the show too. We don't bite.

We all have something that makes us feel insecure. The only questions than are "what is it" and "how do we deal with it?"

At 10 o'clock on Saturday night my band, Scar Tissue, will be playing our first every show in Fargo, ND at the bar JT Cigaros. You'd better believe that right now I am feeling the butterflies. Ever since I can remember I've been insecure about my singing voice. I'm not sure why. I've been playing guitar since the age of 12 when my sister turned me onto Led Zeppelin but singing is a totally different story.

I didn't start seriously consider being the singer for my band until long after we kicked out our original singer, Matt L. Throughout most of highschool JW, JS, Matt L and I were in a heavy metal band that went by the name Facelift. Even as big of a dick as he was, Matt L had the type of pipes that could blow the roof off your house. I'm not kidding. We recorded a demo actually though it never did justice to his voice due to a sore throat when we were recording. Back than I never even dreamt that a fear of how people would react to my voice would ever affect me. I actually tried doing back up vocals with Facelift only to be ridculed mercilessly by Matt L. Remember, a huge jerk! Maybe this has something to do with my current attitude towards my own voice, I don't know.

It wasn't until JW, JS and I were seniors in high school that we kicked Matt L out of the band. We'd finally had enough of his bullshit. We were tired of having to always play the songs he wanted to play. We were tired of having no input on the material that was being written. We were tired of the overt political message that he tried to slip into everything, one we didn't agree with. We matured and we felt like he did not.

College came and for reasons I won't discuss I moved away from home while JW and JS stayed. We still saw eachother all the time and most times we got together we would jam in our old practice space, each of us trying our hand at singing. It was a blast. Screw that. It was a FUCKING BLAST! Playing whatever we felt like, not caring at all about persission, being in key, hell even being in tune sometimes, and ripping solos when there was no solo called for. JW, JS and I are the best of friends. We'll tell eachother when something is great and more importantly, when something is bad I can always count on them to tell me. It didn't dawn on me until just now that they never once said I sucked. Really, that's making me feel awesome right about now.

Where was I? Between these jam sessions I spent my freshman year of college basically skipping class to impress girls with my guitar playing. Unfortunatly in my dorm there was no drummer and the only bassist dropped out after fall semester. I met a girl, as the story always goes, who had been in her schools choir. Sarah was her name. She was really the first person to tell me that she enjoyed my singing. Unfortunately our relationship was the one-month variety but her and I are friends and I talk to her on rare occasion.

I can't really tell you an exact date but somewhere between sophomore year and junior year JW, and JS got it into there heads that we should reform the band. I pushed against this at first, after all living away from home I initially thought would make things difficult. Perhaps this was the beauty of it though. Since it was impossible to practice together every single day maybe we wouldn't fall into the trap of taking ourselves too seriously. Hell, we just wanted to play cover songs anyways. The problem now was finding a singer. While at a house party, JW and JS were talking to Sarah behind my back, like I mentioned her and I are still friends, and I suspect that she had something to do with this. When we first jammed as Scar Tissue officially I sang an old STP song, "Creep" and JW suggested that I take up singing duties. I was like "WHOA dude...Back off. I did not sign on for that." I'm a guitarist afterall. Singers are egotisical assholes, not guitarists. JS sided with JW basically arguing "Hey, neither of us can hold a note and at least you can do that." After an intense argument I relented thinking that we'd probably find a new singer if we ever got really serious. After all, we were only just jamming together, we hadn't even contemplated shows yet.

This was more than 3 years ago. I still haven't gotten over my insecurities concerning my voice, and even developed a new insecurity, writing lyrics, when we decided to try being more than just a cover band.

I have a huge fear of people not liking my music, and not liking me. Even thinking about our show on Saturday makes my stomach turn. What if they hate us? What if they hate our music? What if they hate me? There is a way of getting around this though and it's not imaging everyone in there underwear. My friends are great. They've been intensely supportive of my musical endeavors. I love them all. It's through there support that I'm able to be myself, self-doubt and all. Like everyother show I've played, I know that I'm going to be scared out of my mind for a song or two. After that, even if everyone else is booing, I know that I'll see at least a few people with smiles on there faces and rock fingers in the air. I try to let them know how much that really means to me, how much better it makes me feel. I hope they realize that that's what really allows me to continue do something that I've grown over the years to love, making music.

A Taste of Things to Come.
To anyone who might read this and can make it. Scar Tissue. At JT Cigaros. Saturday, March 24. downtown Fargo at 10pm. In an effort to encourage you to come if your around heres the lyrics to two songs that we'll definitly be playing. Come out and let me know what you think. We'll bring the rock, you just bring an open mind and some fingers to throw into the air like horns.

"Two Moths"
You said lie until you love me
but not how many lies it would take
Are lies made out a habit worse
than lies that you create.

Plot your revenge find a lover
Find a strangers arms

And you'll forget the ghost that I became
You'll forget my name

The me that I became
The me that I've unmade
It's your time to misbehave
Your time to celebrate
Now I'm waking up alone
Longing for that crutch that I threw out
so long ago

I found myself a cure
you made yourself an epicurean

A sympton
A disease
an excuse
a final thread
and it's time to take back
all the trust you never had

Alcohol and labido
Two hungry moths
crashing on the bedroom window

The me that I became
The me that I unmade
It's your time to misbehave
Your time to celebrate
And I'll be waking up alone
Longing for that crutch that I threw out
so long ago

And you'll forget the ghost that I became
And you'll forget the ghost that I became
You'll forget my name

"Second Chances (Slipping Away the Key)"
Take the time
Some don't ever change the way they see
the problem, solution will always be left alone
It's so tragic how there don't seem to be an end
To this disillusioned decadence

Locked inside of me
Slipping away the key
and I'm falling
Now I won't believe that this is what is wrong with me
and I need time alone

And I guess time alone is just what I will need
To find the answer that I've been waiting for
Turn your lover into me
Is this the answer that I've been waiting for

Stay the night
One more chance to make one more mistake
I'll skip the bending, I'll just break
and down I go
What's my preference I don't know and I don't care
Is this synthetic justice so unfair

I can't stand to watch this
hold my pride in my fist
and I'm falling
I won't believe that this is what is wrong with me
and I need time alone

And I guess time alone is just what I will need
To find the answer that I've been waiting for
Turn your lover into me
Is this the answer that I've been waiting for

I'm alright
Not much else to do but sit and wait
Helpless, I think I'll take another breath
as I'm praying for another chance
But it's gone
It's gone

And I guess time alone is just what I will need
To find the answer that I've been waiting for
Turn your lover into me
Is this the answer that I've been waiting for

Our time has come
Our time is up, no more second chance for me
No more second chances

Life is Good.

It is. I haven't really been compelled to say it lately, and I think back over the past year and think about myself before I met Beauty a little over a year ago. I can barely fucking remember that person who was throat-deep in self-doubt, taquila, dangerous relationships, and S&M. J/k about the S&M, I just like the way it looks at the end of that sentance.

Things have gotten clearer. They have been for a while, but yesterday came the big epiphany. Purer. More honest. Fear and resentment have dissipated into sincere well-wishing.

JS taught me a little while ago to wish people peace. Like in my head, if I harbor resentment towards someone or something, to consciously wish them peace. "It makes you feel better," he says. It does.

Zen and the art of punk rock. Free-form mental outpouring. Poetry and several things like it but not quite as good. Life is good. Don't ask me how, but I was sitting next to a guy yesterday afternoon who had to find himself an AA meeting so he wouldn't go get completely drunk and fall of the wagon. Generally, I try not to do the whole masturbatory "boy my life looks good compared to yours" but this time I had to. I've always loathed comparative happiness. "Why can't you just appreciate what you have for what it is?" Because sometimes you have to see just how fucked up someone else's life is to enjoy your own. Incase your wondering, I had no idea where to find an AA meeting but I did try to help the guy, a couple of people at Cafe Latte I talked to got out a phone book and made some calls. I hope he found what he was looking for.

Rediscovering old albums. Going on a Melissa Etheridge kick (albeit brief). Alphabetizing my thoughts. Imaging how great it will be to run when my broken toes aren't broken anymore. Dancing at gay clubs (where the music is just plain better and no one tries to dry hump your girlfriend), Invader Zim in short controlled bursts. Cecil, the fine cat that he is. Tea with friends and the love of my life late into the night. Scar Tissue! – first show ever in Fargo next weekend. Friends that still love you even though you're an irresponsible bastard and at times a complete nerd.

Abandoning fear and jealousy. Being genuinely happy for exes and former friends who have found happiness and love in other people in other lives that you will never know or be a part of. Whether it's down the block or in the Chezc Republic.

NEW JOB. Haven't found one yet. And the process sucks. But I've hated this job since the third day I've had it, and even sheepishly serving a Non-fat Latte to a former high school nemesis is better than working in the mind destroying hell. Oh well, at least I get time off easy for scheduling shows. Keep your fingers crossed my darlings, would you? I've been crossing everything all the time.

OVERDRIVE ALLTHETIME. Lists of bizarre phrases and thoughts. Missing journaling at coffee shops, but see no real reason to be bummed out about it. There are coffee shops everywhere. It's just finding the time. And there is time. Energy is a problem sometimes, but that'll come. I've realized why people say that college is the greatest time of your life. It is. Next to right now, right here, wherever you are, THIS MOMENT, college is the greatest time of your life. And I mean, college. Not being college-age, but college. Loose schedules. Using your brain or your dick (depending on what kind of college experience you had) as much or as little as you want without and REAL LIFE CONSEQUENCES. Being surrounded by thousands of people your own age, with similar interests. It is a bubble of sorts, even to those of us that had to work our asses of inside and outside the classroom. Too much diversity for routine. Inconsistency, finding your own limits for everything from chemical intake to mental output. At this point, the best you can do is look back and replay the movie you drafted on the typewriter in the lofted bed of your mind. Stacks of dirty dishes that one of your roommates left in the sink for a week. The girl you met while black-out drunk, and probably would have married if you could have remembered it. Waking up, smelling like beer and ass and cigarettes and then eating a slice of pizza and watching cartoons all day. I love it for what it was and for what it is to me now.

Now, life is good. For all that was. EVERYTHING. I wish you happiness. I wish you clarity and pain and joy and regrets and misery and exuberance and ecstasy, and of course, whether with your lover, friends, or on your lonesome, above-average two-minute orgasms.

Happiness is not realizing a life you've always wanted.
It's surrendering to the reality that your life is exactly where it's supposed to be right now.

You can find your happiness.
Even if you have to have a conversation with an alcoholic to recognize it.

Love to all y'all.

Gavin

So yesterday was St Patrick's day, or as seems to be the tradition here in the united states, green beer day. It's funny, I don't even like beer all that much. I'd be much happier with a rum and coke or a margarita (mmmmmmmmmmmmm margarita's) yet when it's green I just can't seem to resist myself. I think the food coloring somehow makes it more fun, and who doesn't love the taste of fun!

Beauty and I hooked up with JW, Ms Kim (JW's fiance), JS and JS' new girlfriend Tracy. Though the party started at noon I spent an hour and a half prior at a local gym, Lifetime fitness, because really I enjoy working out and since breaking the two small toes on my right foot 6 weeks ago I haven't been able to run. I'm not supposed to do any cardio actually, so it's primarily weights. I do hop on the eliptical machines from time to time (I'd rather be running) but let's keep this our little secret. Beauty would be upset, she want's my little piggy's to get better so that she can rub her feet against mine in her sleep, something that due to my broken toes has been equal parts comfort and pain.

Where was I?

Met up with the gang at The Grand 7 bar. Luckily JS and his gal'pal saved us a table, he's always reliable like that. Spent about an hour there before heading down the street and hopping over to the 400 Bar, one of the greatest dives on the planet. Karoke there. A while ago a few of my friends said that U2's "With or without you" was my karoke song. I suppose it didn't help me that I used to only do that one at karoke places, I've since expanded my horizon. The thing I love about St Patrick's day, other than the green beer, is that one's love of U2 can be shown in full force without any real fear of taunting. I blame my older sister for getting me into u2 at a young age and warping me for life. Still, to late to help it now.

Later in the evening the 6 of us met up with another group of friends, 2 of which were ex girlfriends who I'm still good friends with and also who Beauty's become friends with (God I love her) and we all went out to the Purple Onion on Grand Ave, one of the greatest avenues ever created. The Purple Onion is a club down there, and we hung out/chilled/danced/partied there until they closed at 2. Seemed to be on an 80's theme there with the music which was ok. Your's truly is an awful dancer however Beauty is an incredible one and usually ignores how awful I am. Beauty had fun dancing with her friends as well while me, JW, and JS hung out like we did in high school, the band that's just too cool to join the crowd, however I did cut in with Beauty's girlfriends for a few songs, the best moment being when Depeche Modes "Personal Jesus" came on and she gave me this look like "If you don't dance with me like you want to make love to me on the floor than your going to regret it for the rest of your life." There was no need for the look though as I was giving her the same look back. All in all Green Beer Day 2007 was in-cred-i-ble. I hope you all had fun and were safe. Peace.

Gavin

Getting ready to meet some friends at either McGovern's, or The Grand 7 this morning and it just occurred to me that if what a friend said is correct than St. Patrick's day is a somber religious holiday in Ireland. I don't know why but I find that really funny, I mean here it's just an excuse to get as wasted as one can possibly get. I don't even like beer that much, more of a rum and coke guy myself, but I will say that it's hard to say no to green beer. Take it easy today everyone. Drive safely, and drive sober!

Gav