20 School children and six adults murdered with them in an elementary school. Parents, grandparents, brothers, sisters, friends, having to deal with the loss of their loved ones. It’s really awful, heart wrenching, and sad. When I give my son his Christmas presents next week, there will be parents in Connecticut with a wrapped present that will never be opened. I already bought tickets to see The Hobbit with my son sand I can’t help but feel the possibility that one of those parents may have had those plans brutally shattered as well. I tried to stay away from the news coverage yesterday. The coverage for this type of incident becomes sensationalist garbage because so little is usually known about the events when they first happen. The fact is Bob Geldof hit on the senselessness of it all perfectly when he sang the lines, “He can see no reasons/ ’cause there are no reasons” about a school shooting decades ago. The little news stories that ran yesterday about the types of weapons used, the suspects identity, the NRA ducking for cover like a bunch of pussies, or the other myriad of reports from reporters swooping down to interview victims or witnesses like vultures… none of that adds anything beyond the cold horrible facts of the first sentence.
So, mid-way across the continent, we have all these things going on with the module and sorry if you think I should be a lot more up about that but for the moment it seems a little trivial. “Hey, come celebrate our new anthology! Aren’t we neat!” No, the only thing we should be celebrating today is the people who raced to the scene to help. Like most of us, I was pretty upset yesterday at the news. I went to grab two things at the grocery and it took me 20 minutes because I just couldn’t focus and then I happened to look at my Facebook and saw something Charlie posted – this awesome quote from Fred Rodgers of Mr. Rodger’s Neighborhood:
“When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, “Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.” To this day, especially in times of “disaster,” I remember my mother’s words and I am always comforted by realizing that there are still so many helpers – so many caring people in this world.”
So, to the school staff who evacuated the children, to the police, paramedics, and all those others who rushed to help. Thank you. And to the families who lost loved ones yesterday, our hearts go out to you.
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OK, so I guess I should mention the whole Module release thing, huh…. I dunno maybe that’s what our job is as a band, have a trivial little pick-me up for people to make them smile or something; put people on the Magical Mystery Tour bus and try to make things a little bit better. So, here we go… some good stuff…
Alright, so yesterday there were some good things. First of all, love to my nephew, Huxley, who was born yesterday. Secondly, Kudos to Stevie Sims and Autumn for pulling the modules together at the last minute and also to Steve and Charlie who sat up until 4 am stuffing all the ones that were made yesterday. That image you see there is a picture Steve took of the completed modules. Nice.
There was a lot of other cool stuff too. The good folks at The Obelisk (“If it ain’t heavy, it ain’t shit”) premiered the theme song to “Assault on the Vault of the Ancient Bonglords” (You can stream it here – LINK ). That was pretty awesome! Nathan Smith at the Houston Press named Bag of Hammers his favorite local music release of 2012 (LINK). Thanks. Then this morning Space City Rock posted a nice interview piece (LINK). Thanks again, Jeremy. All very nice and appreciated you guys.
Lastly, after the debut of the video on Space City Rock (LINK) we let loose the video on our Vimeo and Youtube streams so now you can share this masterwork:
Youtube Version: http://youtu.be/tBIcd6i2kNA
Look for a mastered version of the song up next week as a free download. It’s our Christmas gift to you all.
Meh, I guess there is good stuff going on out there. Hug your loved ones, be good to yourselves, and maybe join us over at Cactus at 1pm for some tunes over a few glasses of St. Arnold’s.
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