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Animal Collective - Blog Posts
Daily Routine (9/25/17) - Strawberry Jam
If today could be defined by one thing, it would be music. I spent the majority of the day listening to Spotify while simultaneously catching up on homework. Also, I recently have been reacquainted with my beautiful guitar. I’ve been playing on and off now for the better part of 6 years, with many hiatuses in between. I haven’t play since at least over 6 months ago, but for the past 3 days now I have consistently been playing.
I want to not only become proficient in guitar again, but also play live. I’ve only ever been in a band once and we only played live once, but that doesn’t deter me in slightest. Going to the house show last week and becoming more in touch with the local music scene have inspired me to find people to jam with and hopefully play live shows. It’s always been a dream of mine to be part of a successful band. I want to get started on it now.
So today I changed her strings. The new high E string snapped when I was tightening the peg, which was quite the bitch because it was the last string for me to change. Luckily I had a few extra packets of strings, but now I have a packet without the high E string, which irritates my inner OCD. She now sounds wonderful -- like brand new. I always forget how great your guitar sounds whenever you change their strings. It really makes a difference.
With my guitar re-stringed and me consistently practicing, I’m ready to start jamming with other people. I have actually met a few people who are already interested, they just have to free up their schedules. I also am in need of a drummer. If you live in the Richmond area and want to jam, just hit me up with a PM. I’m always looking for people to play music with (starting now).
Follow me on last.fm if you’re interested in learning what type of music I’m into
Daily Routine (9/14/17) - Coffee Break
I went to a local coffee shop called The Lab at Alchemy (Alchemy Coffee for short). You will probably see me post about this place often, as it is one of my favorite coffee shops in Richmond. Today’s experience at The Lab wasn’t really any different from any other day (except for the barista thinking I ordered a mocha instead of a normal coffee - only mildly infuriating). I ordered my coffee and muffin and sat down to be productive.
Productive in a sense at least.
I usually go to coffee shops to do homework, usually reading from my various textbooks or writing a paper on my laptop. Alchemy is different though. For some reason I can’t do anything academic while sitting in this quaint college student hangout spot. I’m not sure if it’s the people coming in and out, the buzz of drinks being made, or just being so close in proximity to people (if it’s crowded, space to breath can be pretty tight). It may be that I always have associated the place with de-stressing, but I add in stressors that prevent me from working. So now Alchemy is no longer a place where I can do “work” in an academic manner. I now see at as a place to unwind, and let my creativity sprawl in a different way
Creative writing.
I have determined that Alchemy is now my go to place when I want to write. Poetry, short stories, journal entries, and other forms of short prose - I feel safe and comfortable writing it there. Which leads me to this picture I’ve included. It’s an off kilter shot of my coffee mug and personal journal where I write all of my ideas for everything. I try and write in it at least once a day, whether it be a journal entry or something creative. Shown above is a series of short poems I came up with while listening to the song “Visiting Friends” by Animal Collective. In short, it’s a hypnotic, ambient, and drawn out acoustic guitar track with odd voices and sounds sampled into the background. While repetitive and long, the song is able to put me into an odd feeling where I make can write these unique dialogue poems that I’ve never been able to do unless I’m listening to this song. I now have 4 full pages of content while listening to this song. I’ll post them separately someday, probably with edits and rewrites in order for them to flow better. I also transcribed a short story that I wrote in my journal into a word document. It’s currently a mess, but I’m happy that I did it. I’ll post that story someday too when it’s ready.
It was quite a time at The Lab today filled with lots of creative energy and much needed de-stressing. I hope to be able to find a lot of other places in Richmond that have the same effect, hopefully free, as money can be tight for a college student. Honestly, any place that can get the creative juices flowing is fine by me. If you’re an RVA native and you write, please comment/PM with your go to places (oddly specific and far reaching I know, but one can hope).
Daily Routine (9/13/17) - A Description
I’ll start this first DR by saying how I’m going to format these. Each post will be accompanied by a photo I have taken from something I did that day. It does not necessarily mean that the photo is related to the DR. I just want a photo in it to make it look *nicer*. I’ll try my best to keep these brief - as in no more than a 1000 words each.
Today has been quite a whirlwind of events. I decided to embark on a new journey and have this blog be evidence of it. Why? I guess I finally decided I need to start expressing myself more - in ways that I’m not necessarily comfortable with or used to. So now I’ve decided to make Daily Routines and in general, be more active on this blog. This is marked by the change of name, description, and pictures for my profile.
First I’ll start with the name; Why “Ode To Overstreet”? Well it comes from one of my favorite songs of the same name by one of my favorite bands of all time: Console Warriors. So the name is near and dear to my heart - but I’ve given it my own meaning as well. I want to think of it as a description of this blog. “Ode to Overstreet” meaning in a sense: the song of my life. A far reaching metaphor, but I feel it works.
“Ode” meaning song and then “to Overstreet“ meaning describing a street where it may be difficult getting past (or in this case, going over).
The description on my profile is self explanatory. The new profile picture I found on Reddit on r/animalcollective. I just found it cool, especially since it was inspired by another one of my favorite bands of all time. I wish I could credit the original author. The cover photo is just a picture of myself that I’ve really liked. You can search my old posts to find it.
Well, there you have it - a full description of my blog. I guess to wrap up this first DR, I’ll comment on the picture I chose. This was a delicious cup of coffee I had while writing all of this. To me, it symbolizes the work I did to transform this blog and the effort I’m putting into it. A cup of coffee makes the creative juices flow.
Animal Collective | Brother Sport