the clouds take five for a day

this morning has taken a drastic turn, from late last night to roughly 6am this morning I was battling a pretty severe migraine, but after some medication, a hot shower (with the lights off i may add, which was pretty scary...i kept thinking to the "here piggy, pig, pig" bit from American Horror Story...freaked me the fuck out pretty badly) and a cigarette, the pain started to clear. i usually am slightly pessimistic when it comes to "holiday cheer" but thanksgiving is always a different holiday for me. i find a feeling of simplicity in it. unlike christmas, there isn't the gift mentality present. it's being around friends, family, talking and sharing stories over a great plate of food. it's a time to remember that those simple things in life hold much more water than material things and gifts do, and being around people you love is one of the most important things we can attain. i also find myself in an interesting spot here in St. Paul MN. I am sort of in the middle of every great situation I could ever wish for. When I need alone time or isolation for my own sanity, I can just stay home, wrapped tightly in a blanket in my apartment, or when I need to see some beautiful faces and talk about what's been on my mind I can drive 50 minutes to New Richmond, WI to see all of my great, lovely Wisconsin-ites. and when I need to get back home to see my family and sit in the old "neck of the woods", I can drive down to Westbrook and hang out with mom for a few a days. I really have all I could ever want in three simple locations, and it's a day like today that I realize how lucky I am for the friends and family I have in my life. As I start to get a little older, the more I realize how important all of these people are in my life and how excited I am when I get to share a cup of coffee and a few stories of what's been going on lately and all the interesting things I get to see on a daily basis in St. Paul. and how could I forget all the great friends I have and friendships I've made in the past couple years, nothing is better than hanging out with tyler, koehler, ashley, cheyenne, and who ever else comes into the picture on a friday or saturday night that is nothing short of exciting. these are some of my best and closest friends, even if we don't see each other that much. so many of the fun times and experiences have been shared with close friends and family, but I wouldn't be anywhere without the unconditional love I feel and receive from my lovely girlfriend Anna May, the best friend I've found in my so far short walk of life. I could go on and on and on about all the beautiful memories we have shared, but it's a day like this that all those memories shine the brightest. I hope to anyone that reads this has a great Thanksgiving, and don't forget all the great people in your life that you hopefully will get to spend the day with

novi.12.nove//

my lack of sleep always plants a new seed on my "dashboard" page of my somewhat managed blog. not to lay my cards down too early, but really...there is no grand motive behind this post. nothing buzzing on my mind at the moment, i think for the most part my mind is in a calm, settled state..and i also think that my lack of capitalization and excess punctuation backs up my previously made point. i didn't really force myself to write anything, i have just been realizing many things lately, and thinking more than usual. for myself, this time of the year is a time when i try to slow things down and push everything away for a short time. spring time is a blur, for the most part, because the last semester is wrapping up and the excitement of the word "summer" starts to become a vivid reality much sooner than planned. summer flies by, with many drunken nights and soft-spoken conversations around campfires and cups of coffee. but it's autumn that grabs my attention the most, and yells "slow down!" very loudly in my ear. it's this time of the year that i start to think on decisions made in months past, and for this past year i have found one re-occurring word pop it's head out of the shadows....moderation. now, years ago, if you were to sit down in a person-to-person conversation with me (something similar to what i get to have with the love of my life quite often) and mentioned this word, it would slowly start to make me uncomfortable which may have resulted in an 'emergency phone call' that would allow me out of the room. for years, this image of myself has been portrayed as a loose cannon, don't really give a fuck about anything, type of guy. now, i'm not saying that person has completely dissolved (come on, i haven't even made it to twenty yet ;) but things have taken a slight turn. it was this time last year i started to involve myself into a plethora of chemicals and other things, and really started to loosen the nuts & bolts on what was barely holding me together. i'm not here to preach against anything i did, because quite honestly after listening to many people older & much wiser than me, these are the years that one looks for love, fun, and excitement..and i did find that, quite easily somehow. but that word, that horrid, ugly word that i used to hate has become something very important to me...moderation..hmm. even though this is a word that relies heavily on the context it is squished in-between, i think the meaning rings true to many things i am slowly finding out were "out of whack" if you will, in my own life. a few days ago, i was lying awake at 2 am in western wisconsin and started to think about why i have made some of the slight decisions for myself in previous months and i started to notice that my focus isn't truly where it should be...i believe that when you are making decisions you know will please the people around you, you focus more on a time span of staying true to something, rather than being aware of the situations you wish to stay away from. in the end, it really isn't about a number of days, it is about keeping something out of your daily life because day-to-day life & weekend life are two totally different things. leave the partying aspect out of it, people take time on the weekend to catch up or do something they couldn't do during the week because the focus of daily life is a completely different animal. the more i have pondered these thoughts, the more i realize that letting loose at certain times and not wanting to do it at other certain times is the balance we should shoot for. locking chains down on yourself to keep a work, work, work mentality 24/7 is only going to burn you out in the end and send you in a whirlwind back to where you started off. and the greatest thing is, having a different approach to your week vs weekend isn't a "cop out" and/or doesn't justify a person from partaking in certain things, it just keeps a healthy moderation to your own sanity. so the next time you think you have fucked up on a certain day or broke a certain streak, don't just start over. realize that every thing has it's right place, and once you reach that place, don't hesitate to let loose
"oh, isn't it strange how we move our lives for another day? like skipping a beat. what if a great wave should wash us all away?"

2:20

have you ever wanted to erase everything you remember?
maybe not completely everything, but pull out the broken memories and parts and leave a hole in place?
have you ever hit the ground so hard you decide to stand up for the first time?
taken a breath of fresh air that finally fills your soul and reveals the beauty that was blocked by a sky full of grey clouds?
have you ever stepped back to see yourself wither away in the arms of someone you love?
have you ever realized your faith is completely gone but remembered it was never there in the first place?
no matter how far the spiral takes you, embrace it. close your eyes and drown yourself in the darkness

want a 365 day long summer? here you go.

311////soundsystem////Transistor

here are a few albums i have really been enjoying lately. and yes...grassroots, music, from chaos, etc.. are fantastic albums BUT i think more people should throw in these albums because they are truly masterpieces start to finish. some of my favorite songs from these three albums are Evolution, Prisoner, Light Years, Rub a Dub, Borders, Random, Hive, Purpose, T&P Combo

every minute fades away with the wind passing through

well insomnia set in a couple hours ago, and as i was lying in my bed i was contemplating writing something for my blog. i do not have a direct incentive or purpose behind this post, i just feel like getting what is in my head onto this screen will put my mind to rest better than most things at this time. often times, i sit and wonder how i made a non-intentional transition from the person i was years ago to who i am now. you could name things, objects, people, experiences, and many other things until your head 'explodes' and still not be close at all. the truth is we walk down roads blindly and afterwards have no regret or feelings of any emotions because we did not intend on going any certain way. we just do what we feel is 'worth a shot' at the moment and dive in. it can be many experiences that have close connections to what i briefly described that truly transition us to someone new, no matter how small the change. i think of how much my mind has changed, and how i find things so dern interestin' (sam elliot) that i completely disregarded before. i do not think it is a matter of maturity or a higher level of peace within myself, i just believe it is evan madson at the moment. i have been for basically my entire life a very impressionable person who (from the outside looking in) can change his mind a thousand times over many decisions. but i don't want to hold back an 'itch' or inkling i have at any given moment just because i do not think that is what the current evan would disapprove of. i mean, yes you need to have some guidelines and know where your boundaries are at but the further you take that concept, the easier it is to see we use that to justify too many things in life that truly would not hurt us afterwards. i am not a person who likes to rob myself of things i can experience now in my life, things that may not come up again years after. i think this intertwines pretty well with myself as an artist. my art isn't strictly just sketches, music, or poetry. it's every artistic quality and experience (thesaurus!!??) mixed together and poured back into me as a person. whether it was playing in metal bands throughout middle/high school, picking up the acoustic guitar and singing for a crowd of local friends, or just playing the same slap bass riff for three hours, it all mixes together inside me and what comes out isn't the same as the last. there are so many sounds, musicians, sights & sounds that come into effect when i play or write i am not even aware of what is going on. so i am sick of trying to put the 'genre' box around myself as an artist. to set boundaries and wrap yellow tape around myself as an artist would be doing a very counterproductive process. artists need to grow but still sustain what they are producing. think of how repetitive and monotonous it would be if an artist painted 100 pieces with the same mindset for each piece of art. or if the band you like was always taking the same risks and never stepping out of the area they know like the back of their hand. there would be no innovation or creativity. the creativity might still be there, but it would not be anything close to creativity in the most pure, basic sense. i guess for me, this all means i am letting go of thoughts that hold me down as a person & artist and just try figure out what evan madson wants to produce today. not what i am trying to sound like. the thought really entered my head when i created a folder on my computer. it started out as "influence" and has solely one specific person in the folder. as time progressed, i found the folder grew substantially and has great variety inside of it. i don't truly have on set inspiration, my inspiration is finding new things that make me fall in love with my art & music and take it to a level i was not aware existed. that kind of sum's up a lot of what i am thinking of at the moment, and hey....this transition from a few sentences to the end turned out pretty decent. hmm.

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   Hey everyone. I haven't posted for awhile, so I thought I would write something up. Well, I have officially finished my first year of college. Though it is a very exciting achievement, I find a vast sense of fear. So much of my high school to college transition feels lost. Like there was a giant blur and BAM, I am one year away from finishing college. I am trying to grasp the reality of what happens from now on, but I still get a little tripped up. Besides finishing my classes, I haven't been doing a whole lot. I have found some recent hope with UPS, it was really nice to finally hear something back from a place I applied at. Besides that, I have been spending a lot of time with my Anna May and also some new compadres at Ashley's house. I can say I am pretty happy with my life right now.
   I am also stumbling down a road to discovering more of myself than I already know. For so much of my life, I have been a very impressionable person who jumps to the qualities of other people rather than my own. I have always had people I look up to, whether I have a daily acquaintance with them or not, and sometimes wished I was more like them. In early years of your life, this may be a normal thing but I still find myself struggling with it to this day. Slowly evolving into a musician has been a wonderful thing, but as I sit and ponder the past years of my life I realize that it has hurt me in some ways. Yes, I have grown as a person in many ways, but it really dumped a new pile of people to look up to on my plate. If you are friends with me on facebook, it is pretty obvious who I am "in to" at any minute of the day. I have had this issue for a lot of years and never really dealt with it. I just let it keep piling up until I mentally feel like someone else, not myself. It took some words from a close person in my life to sort of give me a mental slap in the face.
   I don't hate that I have influences and what not, but I do feel like I am enthralled by other people much more than myself. Mood swing after mood swing, occasional dips into depression have had an effect on me and helped me realize what I need to deal with as a person. The joy of music and playing the guitar feels like a fading mist. I am so captivated by how it felt the first time that I still sometimes search for that same feeling, something that will never return. I have devoted so many hours to six steel strings and a couple hunks of wood that I feel I have numbed so much of myself. It almost feels like a never ending cycle.
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influence.

colin greenwood//radiohead