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Last Friday was the other concert that we went to go see:


Aesthetic Perfection, doing an old-school set, plus genCAB and Whorticulture opening.

This one was cutting it a little closer to get there, since I wasn't able to leave work at all early, but luckily the class we were closing at work didn't keep me longer than usual, either. I was able to wear most of what I was going to wear to work, and change what little I needed to on the drive there, haha.

We actually wound up being down there earlier than needed, and had to circle like vultures for about fifteen minutes until one of the driving lanes turned into a parking lane at 7:00. As usual we car-bar/pre-gamed for a bit, then headed to the venue.

We weren't late this time, so we got to see our first opener, Whorticulture.



Whorticulture is a local band, and they've hit at least a little bit of success! We last saw them opening for Solar Fake (last year? the year before?). They got to play Dark Force Fest last month, which was pretty cool.

I've been impressed every time I've seen them, and even having only ever seen them live as an opening band, their songs have been memorable enough that I recognize them every time.

I always figure "hey, I should buy a CD!" and then don't have merch money, so this time was going to be the time! ...They do not have CDs at their merch table. I poked around on Bandcamp and discovered that this is because they do not have any albums... just nine singles released over the course of the last six years, haha. So I did buy their various singles, haha.

Their set was great, as they have been every time I've seen them, and even only getting to play four songs.


Three more Whorticulture pics + a music video embed



"Okay, hold on a minute. Time for an on-purpose wardrobe malfunction!"






Here's their song from last year, "Faust," which I quite like. The video is them being dramatically gothy in the Molly Brown House Museum, which is fun, too.


After that was genCAB. They were supposed to open the last time Aesthetic Perfection came, but had to cancel because the singer had Covid.



Unfortunately I found them solidly... meh. They weren't terrible, but I found myself getting a little bored. I couldn't understand more than a handful of words out of each song (just kind of nondescriptly loud and yell-y.) The singer also seemed... shy? Like he didn't want to look at the audience, ha. He's the synth player for Aesthetic Perfection while they're touring, so I feel like he's had a good tutor in stage presence, but... I mean, I'd be petrified and hate being on stage, so. Glad to have gotten to see them, but not someone I'd seek out to see again/look for as a headliner.


Three more of genCAB





Not really a "good" picture, but I liked the dramatic silhouettes.


And then, Aesthetic Perfection!


This is by far the best picture I got for the night, ha.

It was exciting to see him back, since he swore that the last tour would be the last one in the US ever. (He doesn't live in the US anymore, and he's always very open about the business side of being an artist. Basically it's just prohibitively expensive to tour, in a way that doesn't work out as a financial decision. He's said he'd be willing to tour as a supporting act, and I think he did so last year, but I wasn't interested in the artist he was supporting.)
I think the old-school thing was really meant to be just a single special show, and then expanded to a very small tour, and it was exciting for Denver to have a date added. It's very possible that this one is in fact the last tour, so I'm glad we got to go. (Or maybe there'll be another in a year or two!)

I'm actually less a fan of his older stuff than I am his like... middle stuff. I'm a 'Til Death fan, sorry. Even so, his older stuff has grown on me quite a bit.

He opened with "The Great Depression," which was a good starting song. Having the first words of a set be "Hey you motherfucking son of a bitch!" is pretty good, lol.

Got a lot of other faves from A Violent Emotion (and I'll be honest, while I knew most of the other songs, I don't have the albums they're on. I'll have to get them from Alex, as I'm sure he does, ha.) I was glad we got "Pale," which is one of my favorites from that album, as well as "The Siren" and "Living the Wasted Life."

The final encore song was "Spit It Out," which is a great energetic song to end on. I'm pretty sure that was the song he opened with at the first AP show we saw, way back at Castlemans (RIP a great venue.) The energy of the crowd screaming along with "Spit it out scream, spit it out scream!" does make it a great one to hear live.

Could have done without a small cohort of girls who came in about halfway through the set and pretty viciously shoved their way in front of me, but ah well.


Five more pictures










Bought Alex an Aesthetic Perfection shirt (since the last one he tried to get, he wound up with the wrong one and didn't realize until later. The cut of the one he got didn't work for him, so I wound up with it.)
I bought a Whorticulture shirt, since there's not an album to buy, haha. (Forever sad to have missed out on their "Goth as Fuck" shirts, which were styled to look like the "Queer as Folk" logo.)
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Thursday night we went to a concert! First one in quite a while.



Beborn Beton is a German synthpop band. Apparently the last time they were in the US was back in 2002, as support for Apoptygma Berzerk (Alex's five-ever favorite obsession.)

If you've ever heard of them, it's probably from their hit (within the goth scene) from 1997, "Another World."

-

I got off of work slightly early, having come in slightly early, which was good... but we still wound up running late. (Had to make a grocery trip that I assumed would be done before I was off of work, ha.)

It took a bit to find parking, though we wound up not too far away. Then of course it took a minute in the car to pre-game.


A very small ladybug landed on the car window as I was getting out.


Rainbow crosswalk.


I like the snake. And of course the queer stuff in the window.

We ran into PJ outside the venue and chatted with her a while. It sounds like she's doing well, which is good. She and Mark broke up last year, which was sort of a shock to everyone, I think, and then she also quit basically all social media (minus a wordpress blog that I never remember to check in on.) But sounds like she's happy in her new apartment, maybe has a new boyfriend, is doing well at work, etc.

Sadly we missed Faces Under the Mirror/Jake's set. ;_; We got inside just as he was finished and packing up. We did get to talk with him for a little while, though.

We were there in time for Voicecoil! (Mark) He played some things that are new to the live rotation, which was cool. Also the single off the album that will be coming out sometime this fall.



Got to chat with him for a bit after his set, as well. He's also doing well, it sounds like, minus some potentially-scary eye surgery stuff coming up.

Then Beborn Beton!


The struggle, even in a small venue, to get all the members of a band at least sort of in focus under stage lighting...

They did play quite a few favorites of mine. I'm a basic bitch who loves the singles, so I was very glad (if utterly unsurprised) that the single from a couple years ago, "Dancer in the Dark," got played (with a joke about whether we should go hang out at a nearby bowling alley, since the music video is, inexplicably, the band bowling.) A few others that I really like from that same album, like "I Watch My Life on TV" and "Last Chance."

Their intro to "Newborn King" was about how yes, it was 1997, and of course he was obsessed with Dana Scully... (the song being about aliens coming to earth.) I mean, same, bro.

And of course, "Another World" as the final encore. (With "yeah, I guess it would be a dick move not to play this one...") Afterwards, Alex said he had forgotten about that song entirely which was very funny to me. That's like... their one song that they're known for, lmao. I'm pretty sure that was one of the songs he sent me before we were dating!


Five more pictures + two youtube links:

Voicecoil! On keyboard is a new partner, Kat. I didn't get to meet her, but it seems to be going well.


One more of Voicecoil.


Beborn Beton, doing their introduction.




I do love catching everyone in a weird position, lol.


The "Dancer in the Dark" music video.


"Another World," definitely what they're still best known for.


At the end, I got one of the setlists!


Which I did get signed. <3

Mildly bummed that "Dr. Channard" (though a deeper cut) apparently replaced "Burning Gasoline," which is one of my faves, but it was fun to hear, too.

It was a very fun show, and I'm glad we had a chance to go out. We haven't been out since... last fall?

One more show coming up next week, too! We were really spoiled for a lot of excellent shows coming through between this and next week, but we had to be choosy, ha.
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SIAMES dropped a new music video today, and it turns out I quite like it!

When I heard that "My Way" was going to be the next song they were doing a video for, I was excited for another video (their videos are always wonderful animated things, often with really intriguing stories to them even outside of the songs), but I wasn't 100% excited about the song choice. It's one of their poppier tracks, with a message about being true to one's self, doing things your own way, etc. It's not a BAD song, but not one that I'd count among my favorites of theirs either.

The preview that they gave of the video was a group of girls looking in a mirror, and doing some makeup. The animation by RUDO Co. is lovely as always, but when the preview came out, I still had a sort of "aw, I miss when the videos were a bit darker" reaction, even though I was still very excited for its release.

OH ME OF LITTLE FAITH, lol.

This video is quite dark, and I really like the juxtaposition between an upbeat pop-y track about going your own way through life and the video's subject matter of... joining a coven and hunting people for sport and ritual sacrifice leading to rebirth, haha. Taylor said it has some Satoshi Kon vibes, which I agree with!

It's perfect and I love it actually.



Warning for stylized blood, gore, murder, and body horror.
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Last set of show photos through stagelights for a while. :P We were spoiled for shows this month!

This time Covenant, with our friend Mark and his project Voicecoil opening!


The show flyer.


Obligatory venue sign. Taken after the show. The little white dot at the top of the sign is the moon.


Voicecoil opening!


Covenant! (Mostly Eskel)

Mark got to make a very exciting announcement, too: Voicecoil has been signed to Dependent Records! They're a German label who have released things for a LOT of pretty prominent artists within the scene, including Covenant, so that's extremely exciting news. (He actually told me and Alex about it several months ago while things were still being ironed out, but it's official now!)

More below cut: )
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The show on Saturday was fun! Who wants some mediocre stage photos!?


Obligatory venue sign.


The lead singer of Priest. My favorite shot of the night, despite the rando taking up half the frame.


Combichrist!

I had that mandatory work meeting after work, though I'd told my manager that I had to leave at 6:00. But then Alex was running late, and the meeting was winding down anyway, so I stuck around. Then Alex arrived, but I got cornered by the head of compliance who wanted to answer one of my questions, which I appreciated, but I had to go! I did cut out pretty fast after that, but we were still not leaving until almost 6:30.

As we arrived at the venue, dreading the parking situation and hoping we hadn't missed much, we saw a huge line of goths waiting outside, lol. Checking on the event page, we found out doors had been postponed until 6:45, so the timing was almost perfect!

We pre-gamed a little bit, and then headed in.

More below the cut, including nine more pictures: )

We got home a bit after midnight, and managed to make it to bed by about 1:00, after taking care of the dogs. It's pathetic that I was as tired as I was after it! This "getting older" stuff is nonsense.

Bleh, photos were definitely pretty mediocre this time. The lighting was as not-conducive as always, but my phone seems to get worse every time I try to use it for things like this.

I know I have a lot a lot of catching up to do here, but it'll be one more night!
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Siamés is an Argentinian band known mostly for one pretty rad animated music video that got very popular several years ago:



After seeing that video, I bought the album, absolutely loved it, and continued to love most of what they've put out. (Including quite a few more very cool animated videos.) So it was very cool to get to see them live! They have been to the US to tour before, but not Denver.


Siamés!
(Sadly probably the best picture of them I really wound up with, heh. Annoyingly, my phone camera was being severely laggy, more so than I've ever had issues with before. I'm afraid the phone is on the way out...)

Taylor also loves them, so it was great that we got to go. The last concert we went to was... Silversun Pickups in February of 2020, right before everything shut down, ha.

We did take a rideshare down to the venue, because parking was so frustrating when Alex and I were there a few weeks ago. We got there about twenty-five minutes before doors, and it was VERY COLD to stand outside, but at least it wasn't snowing.


The tour poster in the window of the venue. (Sidenote - my friend from Voicecoil is performing as his other project, Gravity Corps, at Saturnalia tonight.)

We figured if we were going to be standing around waiting anyway, we might as well wait in the merch line. Semi good thing... Taylor and I got the last two (or damn close to it) Denver tour posters. :D (There are different posters for each stop on the tour... and somehow they were nearly sold out of Denver ones already!)
I bought Taylor the poster and a tour shirt as an Xmas gift, since they'd been struggling to come up with an idea for what they wanted.


(Crummy screenshot from a promo video, because that's the ONLY image I found of the poster, and mine is rolled up in a tube for safety at the moment.)

After buying our stuff, we headed back to the floor to hang out near the stage.

Continued below the cut: )
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Tour flyer.

genCAB was unfortunately out - laryngitis, apparently, though they should be rejoining the tour in a couple stops.

Whorticulture (who we JUST saw opening for Solar Fake!) was the local opener. (Super cool for them!)

Getting to the show was a bit of drama, lol.
the pre-show drama )


I didn't get any really great pictures of Aesthetic Perfection. They move around so much, lol. Plus stage lights, plus my phone's tendency to lag pretty significantly... this is probably the clearest shot I got of them.
Daniel singing, joined on tour by Joe on drums and Constance on bass/keyboard. (A great tour lineup, imo!)

six more pictures below the cut: )

Getting out of the lot was worse than getting into it, lol. Finally the person next to us left, and that gave us enough room to squeak out without hitting either of the cars behind us, heh.

Again, I realize I tragically feel way too fucking old to go out to a show, get home, sleep mediocrely, and then have to roll out of bed to go to work six hours later. Once upon a time I was doing that shit three+ days a week, but those days are long gone, ugh.
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Saturday night we went to our friend Mark's album release party for his band Voicecoil and their album Strange Days. Patrick played with him, and our friend Jake opened with his project Faces Under the Mirror.

I know that Saturday night is an ideal night for most people, but I had work both that day and the next, sobcry.

Still, it was really nice to get to go out and see people. Mark said he thought it's been close to 5 years since we saw each other, though I didn't think it had been that long. Then again... it might have been. Three years to Covid, definitely, but it may have been a year or two before that where we weren't going out all that much. (Ah, introversion and also a real job.) I think we ran into each other in passing at Tracks or Milk a couple times, but it probably has been at least 5 years since we hung out for more than a quick convo.

And I guess it's not too bad if the headliner still spent almost an hour talking to us pre-show, and Patrick spent another hour talking to me between Jake's and Mark's sets and after. <3 (Genuinely, it's kind of nice to feel like we haven't been forgotten even though we haven't been out and social for so damn long, including pre-Covid.)

Sounds like both Mark and Patrick have had a rough time of the whole Covid times... Mark lost someone super important to him several months ago (though not to Covid), and it really, really hurt him. Patrick is just isolated as hell living in fucking ALMA, CO, and he lost his job at the start of the pandemic, too. So I wish that everyone was having a better time all around. BUT STILL THE SHOW WAS FUN.


Mark and Patrick!


And Jake!

6 more below the cut: )

It was very nice to get to see people and have a night out. I was also quite relieved that I did not wind up hungover after my fairly piddly three drinks (but I was pleasantly buzzed.) I deeply wish Covid wasn't Still A Thing, because it reminded me that I DO like going out (if only occasionally), but sadly it IS, so we've gotta stay careful about what we choose to go do.
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Lazy day, which was mostly nice, but I meant to do more, ha.

Slept, read, went grocery shopping... decided to completely redo my plans for the silly horse sim game I play... napped.

So since I don't have anything super exciting to post about...

Snowflake Challenge promotional banner with image of ice crystals formed on a dead flower on a bright blue background. Text: Snowflake Challenge January 1-31.

Challenge #5: Something you wish you had the time/energy/talent to do.

For something in the time/talent category: I really wish I'd honed my visual art skills more, so that I could either make animatics or just sequential comics... specifically so that I could make videos or lyric comics for specific songs that I just... visualize the perfect music video to. A lot of those would be fan-vids (my sibling and I make a lot of fanmixes), while a few would be original stuff, but some just seem so perfect in my head. ;-; Instead, I just daydream about them.

[Particular favorites in no particular order:
"Glass Heart Hymn" by Paper Route paired with the Captive Prince trilogy
"My Dark Disquiet" by Poets of the Fall paired with the Captive Prince trilogy or Good Omens
"Yellow Flicker Beat" by Lorde paired with the Newsflesh trilogy
"The Escapist" by Nightwish paired with Bioshock: Infinite
"Hand of Sorrow" by Within Temptation AND/OR "Blame" by Bastille paired with the Shades of Magic trilogy
"The Calling" by The Amazing Devil paired with The Southern Reach trilogy
"The Road" by Hurts paired with Sparrow Hill Road
"Neon Wound" by The Silversun Pickups paired with the Broken Earth trilogy
"Take Me To Church" by Hozier paired with the original story I'm too scared to attempt yet - I know it's a cliche song to pick, fight me
AND SO MANY MORE]

More in the time/energy category:
There's a particular fic that I've been working on on and off for almost 15 years (the oldest word doc on my computer for it says 2008, but that's labeled "version 2," so I think the idea was even older.) In its various incarnations, it's probably had between 100k and 150k written on it.
Usually I refer to it as the "fairytale worldhopping monstrosity" if I ever mention it. (Kingdom Hearts, worldhopping between non-Disney fairytales, SoRiKai endgame)

After attempts that didn't really go anywhere in 2008 and again (twice) in 2009, I really tried to get it written in 2015-2016, and got a bit of momentum on another go in 2018 after ditching some parts of the outline I hadn't been enthusiastic about, but haven't done anything with it since.

I recognize that this project is a big source of "idea debt" for me, in terms of how much creative thought I've dumped into it, when it may realistically never happen. Yet I just can't quite give up on it!

It's the kind of thing that will appeal pretty much to an audience of me, and I've second-guessed a lot of big components of the plot, especially as I've drifted away from canon. But I still want to just write it, even if I'm the only one who wishes it existed!
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Today was errand-running day, but wasn't too bad. Pet store has no crickets, and Broccoli Cheddar Bomb is overdue for a feeding, but they think they'll have them tomorrow.

-

I listened to "ruin" by The Amazing Devil, which was released yesterday, and definitely enjoyed it!

In order of favorites, not track list order:

Taylor and I screamed and flailed at each other over text about to what extent "The Calling" is about The Southern Reach trilogy. (It's a very great extent, according to both of us and the sections of lyrics we were frantically copying and pasting to each other.) It's my favorite track on the album, I think. Also, when the choir comes in on the second chorus I just lost it, because it hit every emotional wavelength I wanted it to. The internal rhymes and near-rhymes are fantastic, and I just really love everything about the track.
(We show our love of things by making fanmixes, so this is very much the highest compliment we can give, haha.)

"Secret Worlds" is a bop, and pleasantly feral. I very much enjoy it. It has so many of the aspects I love out of TAD songs - the lovingly antagonistic us against the world vibe, the A+ imagery, the way duets sync up.

"Blossoms" has all of the above as well, and when the "love run" bits came in in the background, Taylor again flailed at me. And I really like "the saint of never getting it right." And for lyrics I anticipate appearing as titles of fanfic and chapters thereof, but also definitely hit right for me: "And for the first time in all my life/I know I'm more than what I fear."

"The Old Witch Sleep and the Old Man Grace" has the beat drop three minutes into the song and I love both before and after. I enjoyed it quite a lot, because it has a lot of "role-reversal-bordering-on-revenge" vibes, which I LOVE. Taylor has decided it reminds them primarily of Earthsea, which I can see, from what I know of the Earthsea books. (Taylor read all of them this year. I read Wizard of Earthsea a very hot minute ago, and definitely before I really "got" it, and haven't read any of the others, though they're on the interminable TBR list.)

"Inkpot Gods" treads the line between emotionally vulnerable and energetically feral in a way I enjoy. I also enjoy songs with a hearty "fuck you" thread underneath them, and this one has a "fuck you, I'm going to be a better person than my parents were to me" thread AND a "I will fucking fight god to protect you" thread.

"Drinking Songs for the Socially Anxious" is a fun song about bonding with/falling in love with the only other introvert at a party. "If God made us in his image, then God's a fucking nerd."

"Ruin" is all right. It's the most emotional/vulnerable song on the album, and while I think that's something TAD does well, it's still generally not my preference.

"Chords" didn't do a lot for me, possibly because parenthood is something I can't personally connect with and am relatively ambivalent toward, but I still think it's expressing a feeling I get. And "our love is shown in the letting go" is good.

-

NANOWRIMO

*faint screaming*

As always, it somehow snuck the fuck up on me, despite all the planning I was doing last week.

I declared my project today, and got 1904 words written.

Remembering that hey, I'm planning on getting together with Taylor next week, Thanksgiving is going to be a thing, plus how much work is making me want to die... this is going to be a hard month to keep up with.

I'll probably not spend quite as much time on DW for a while. I AM motivated by stubbornness, and two months away from the end of the year I want to keep up my daily posting. But it might just be a wordcount or a list of stuff I did. Not like my posts are exactly meaty most of the time, but... while my writing has been reasonably consistent, with a few big gaps, it feels like it's gotten slower. So 1667 words per day is outside of what I usually manage, and I know I've got to cut some social media scrolling and other time-consuming stuff.

-

I am NOT delighted to report I have a vague almost sore-throat. It's not swollen-painful, but more on the scratchy/feels like I need to clear it side. I HATE sore throats more than any other type of being sick. Also, I don't want to be sick.

-

It snowed today. Not a lot, just a few flurries, but... yuck. I know I should mostly just be grateful it made it all the way to November, which I am! But I still hate it.

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