Chatty Cathy was a doll...

Just found this little nugget of wisdom while going through old folders. I would have sworn that I sanitized my life from any remote reminders, but hell, this was just TOO rich.

"There are things you address publicly, and things you address privately. If it is for the betterment of a large group of people as a whole, and isn't singling out people, it is a matter to discuss publicly. If you are singling people or a small group of people out, these situations are better discussed privately. Please remember that it is NEVER your place to share SOMEONE ELSE'S business...be a bigger person, and take the high road..."

-Someone that should have taken their own advice instead of doing the complete opposite of what you just read.

An Open Letter To 2010

Alright 2010...I'm looking at the last ninety minutes of your life-disrupting nonsense, safe in the knowledge that when I wake tomorrow you'll have been put to rest and finally behind me.

You really threw me for a loop there, 2010. You started innocent and promising, as I suppose most years start; moving into a beautiful new loft with the woman I was ready to spend the rest of my earthly time with, the rumblings of new music with new people, getting paid to play guitar (!), teaching more, et cetera. But you quickly did an about face and started slapping me around...and not even a month into you! I tried to ignore it, but you knew me too well, 2010. After three months of watching your screenplay of lies unfold in front of me, you added insult to injury, sending me a rotting bouquet of roses with a severed hand as it's centerpiece. But still I tried. Oh, how I tried! You took away my home and then invited me back, only to quickly displace me once and for all. I was thrown into a bleak pool of uncertainty, but things started to look up, however slightly...only not for long (you always have a better view of the sky when you're lying in the weeds). You teased me with possibilities, but always turned your back on me. Blindsided, hopeful, and ultimately too trusting, you stole from me, colluding with persons known and unknown. You allowed Fortuna to spin her wheel and leave me stranded on the side of the road, more than once. Everytime I started to gain ground, all I ended up doing was sliding back down the hill, Sisyphus-style. You dangled shiny prizes in front of my face, only to snatch them away at the last second. It was enough to drive a man to drink; or worse. Quite a few times I felt like giving up, although I never did. Giving up would have meant that you bested me. And regardless of how unsettling things got, deep down inside, I felt I would learn from all of this ultimately-avoidable chaos and someday be better for it, in spite of your godforsaken fuckery.

So now I look at you in your final hours, frail and dying, just about to blink out of existence, and I find myself smiling. Smiling, because I have the opportunity to take all of the horrible fucking "lessons" I've learned (or been forcefully taught, depending on your view) and make your newborn child, 2011, my bitch.

I just took back the controls, and I'm pulling up...hard. If your kid wants 'em, they'll have to be pried from my cold, dead hands.

In summary, fuck you 2010.

...

Dot. Dot. Dot.

Damn...

...shouldn't have gotten extra cilantro

Labels

Going through the almost 150 submissions I've gotten for singers (not counting the ones that were so unarguably bad that they were deleted right after I finished scratching my head in disbelief), I thought I'd share the labels I've got going to keep track of the submissions:

- Deathy
- Eh...Didn't Hate It
- Good "Singers"
- Good Heavy Voice
- Good Heavy/Sing
- Good/Bad
- GREAT Singing Voice (sadly, there have been only one of these)
- Greg Moog (if you're in the know, you'll see why this is kinda amusing)
- Heavy
- Hell No
- I Like This Guy A Lot
- I Like This Guy Too
- Industrial!
- Interesting
- Kinda Like This Guy
- Malleable?
- Nope
- Not Metal
- Probably Not
- Sing-y
- Sounds Interesting
- Wha???????

The good news is that we have locked onto one guy in particular. He's got 10 of the demos as of this writing, and the first thing he sent back was basically right on the money. He's also got an interesting pedigree, both musically and personally. And let me tell ya, after receiving golden turkey submissions like "The Badly Recorded And Even Worse Performance YouTube Karaoke Video Featuring 'Bodies' By Drowning Pool", I was starting to get sort of worried.

So, yeah, I'm pretty stoked. It's nice to give someone a song, and a few days later hear vocals on it. It's been so long, I almost forgot what that sense of teamwork and completion felt like. I'll be honest though...it's kind of a bummer every time I change the MP3 tags to "**Formerly AHC".

Eh...it'll pass.

Patience

A heads up regarding downloading "AHC" instrumental tracks for auditions; problems getting the site up. Should be soon.

MP3 (only) submissions should be attached to an email and sent to: NewVocalist2009@gmail.com. Please do not send Myspace links.

I'm Flattered By The Response...

...but the instrumental "AHC" tracks are for SINGERS ONLY, no curiosity seekers. You must submit something to get something.

And now, off to teach the childrens.

Time Flies

I knew it was kind of a long time, but didn't realize it had been 3 months. Hmmm...

The past couple months have been weird for me, as a band identified musician....realizing the band was probably over...just coming to terms with such a huge change...a major chapter in my creative life was wrapping up, so...uh, now what?

But, we soldier on...

I'm cutting this short. I just did a 90 minute interview over at AllKnowingForce.com, my brain is fried, and I'm all outta witticisms.


Ciao'

My New Gun

What am I up to now? 5? 6?

My brand new Pietta historical reproduction of Josie Wale's Navy .36
caliber blackpowder revolver. Among many, many other reasons, this
gift shows the awesomeness of my lovely woman.

This thing uses blackpowder, a steel ball as the bullet (it does actually hold six shots), and primer charges to make the whole thing esplode. I can't wait to try this thing out. Additional style points: It looks great on my bookshelf, next to the Holy Bible and Mein Kampf.

Blabbering At An Unknown Fan

Just decided to answer a random question from a fan on AHC's Myspace page. I know, I know...Myspace is a ridiculous fucking site. Trust me, if I didn't have a band that wasn't doing anything and was just barely holding it together, I'd never let that piece of interweb bloatware near my neocortex. Ahem...

The Question:

"I'm guessing this is Chad I'm speaking at. I am excited about hearing some new Head Charge tracks, still blasting The War of Art every couple of days, actually listened to The Feeding today for the first time in a while. It's got to be hard to put a record together when all of you guys live apart and have other shit going on. I've been trying to put something together with a long time musician friend of mine for 4+ years and still have squat. Maybe one track that's finished out of maybe 15 scraps. Jobs, girlfriends, drugs, any excuse possible.

Are you tracking all of the demo shit in your house? Do you wait for everyone else to work on songs, or are you writing most of the stuff solo?

I've just been curious.

- Jeremiah (last name withheld)

The Answer:

Indeed. It is difficult with 2 guys in the band living 2000 miles away from the rest of us. It took a year alone to get our respective heads on straight after coming out of treatment (which was 2 years ago for me).

On my end, I've got almost 20 completed demo songs; and I mean complete. About 1/3 of them I did with Justin Fowler, and the other 2/3 I did myself. I was actually just about to finish up the guitars (which are the last things I record) on a brand new one before I let myself get sidetracked with this reply. The AHC demos are just waiting for vocals to be added to actually consider them "finished" demos. Cameron has been having kind of a tough time creatively since getting sober last year (I was a year ahead of him in getting clean), and it makes it harder that he and I are separated by such a huge physical gap. We got together this past September in L.A. for a week and got a song out of it, and he's coming back out here to Minneapolis soon to do some work at my house, which is great news.

I've also been increasingly disappointed with "metal" as a whole, and wouldn't really care if any of the bands we've ever toured with dropped into a gaping chasm. If I never toured with another 93X type metal band, I believe I'd be a better person for it. So while the music I'm recording is indeed heavy, it's not like anything I've been hearing on the radio necessarily. It's sometimes easy for me to fall into comfortable writing styles, and I'm challenging myself (and succeeding greatly, I might add) to not be a lazy fuckhead that writes a million interchangeable riffs in drop C#, ya know? [EDIT:] As a matter of fact, when I started recording these AHC demos a little over a year ago, I stopped tuning down a half-step and have recorded everything in standard tuning (E and B), save for one or two parts of songs that actually needed a drop-tuning. I think it actually affects your brain differently to hear things a half-step back up, after years of hearing things put together a half-step down...or I'm just a nutbag with too much time on my hands. Either or.

Anyway, you caught me in a rare chatty moment. Good luck with your music, sir. And don't do too many drugs, if at all. They can really, really slow your process down.


Chad Hanks/AHC

My Process...

...involves pink, overstuffed slippers. I can't recall the source, but
remember the line (and I'm paraphrasing somewhat) "You know what all
the great thinkers had in common? Comfortable footwear."

I Am Ashamed...

...to call myself a musician after seeing this bunch of FUCKING
RETARDS on the cover of a magazine I've been in a few times. I don't
know if it's possible to be any more gay without the commitment to
sucking cock.

Hipped To A New Band

Thanks to my friend E for tossing this into my stream of information. Two drummers, heavy riffs, tuned LOW...Dig it. I especially enjoy tracks 1 and 4.

Kylesa

Isn't It Amazing?

Hospital intake ladies have somehow figured out how to always look
like it's 1987...in Nebraska.

I Got Mine

... do you have yours?

An Elvis Moment

This injured fucking cow...I yearn, from the depths of my being, to vaporize this bitch.

As Seen On TV!

And here I am, modelling the latest in shut-in fashion, The Snuggie!
(25 pound cat sold separately.)

Isn't Religion Confusing Enough Already?

Plymouth, MN

Minneapolis, MN

Currents (books)

Just Finished: Secret And Suppressed - Banned Ideas and Hidden History into the 21st Century.

In The Middle Of: Portraits And Observations (Truman Capote), Stuff White People Like (Christian Lander), and Drink Play Fuck (Andrew Gottlieb).

On Deck: World War Z (Max Brooks), Love All The People (Bill Hicks), Conspiracy (Charlotte Greig), and When Will Jesus Bring The Pork Chops? (George Carlin).

Go into the light until we meet again/That's what the Korinians said again and again/Knowledge is power!