Sweets! Sweets! Tricks and Treats!

I absolutely love love love October. It's one of my favorite months (the other two being November and December). Halloween's probably a big part of that. For me, Halloween means a plethora of sweets, parties, Simpsons specials (aka some of the best episodes), embracing your inner horror movie fan, and dressing up like someone you're not. Perhaps we have Hallmark or Hershey or both to thank for celebrating this holiday for an entire month, but all the same I love seeing the Halloween spirit come out in people. It's truly incredible to see how much energy is put into making the holiday memorable, especially when it comes to the costumes.

I'm sure everyone remembers the days when Mom made their pumpkin or ballerina or Raggedy Ann costume-or in my case, when my mom made all three in one year for my brother, sister, and me, respectively. Over the years, I've evolved from Rainbow Brite and the Pink Power Ranger to become Strong Bad, the Peanut Butter Jelly Time Banana, and Poison Ivy.

This year, I'm hoping a trip to Lucy's in Disguise and/or Goodwill will serve me well and that I won't have to scramble for the perfect costume. My top choice would be to go as Dr. Girlfriend (from The Venture Bros- if you haven't seen the show, shame on you!). And yes, it would be a couple costume with my boyfriend, i.e. he would definitely be the Monarch. The other choices would be Sally Jupiter, Silk Spectre, or anything else that seemed like a brilliant idea to me. What is everyone dressing up as this year? Any fun Austin events you'd like to share/have me do a write-up for?

In the world of DGAJ, I have some exciting news to share! Soon, Diamonds and Guns will be available on the east coast in a precious shop called Duchess of Devonshire, which is located in Queenston, Maryland. A glance at the website is all you need to find out why I'm so thrilled about this. Everything about it is too sweet! So, if you find yourself up in those parts or you know anyone who lives there, be sure to check it out and spread the word.

On a more serious note, I'm sure everyone's aware of the big news by now-the Duggar family will be welcoming their first child of one of the 18 children...Okay, that's not actually the big news but instead just a seed for food for thought for everyone. The big news I'm alluding to is, of course, President Obama being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Despite the lack of knowledge of the award or the recipient, there have been a lot of critics out there today. However, instead of asking whether Obama is deserving of the award or even if the award itself should have credibility, shouldn't we take this day of acknowledgment and be looking introspectively and asking ourselves what we've done to make the world a better place? I think it's ironic that the biggest critics of this hot topic, to the best of my knowledge, are not known for their service or dedication to humanity. Perhaps we should use this lens to look and see what we should be doing. I know I will.

Action Jackson out.

Austin City Limits: Zoo Austin Fall Edition

Admittedly, there's a few times during the year where Austin is flipped upside down and turned into a zoo. You could argue that the same thing happens on a weekly basis for football games during the fall, but that's a different story. The two times that immediately come to mind are South by Southwest and Austin City Limits.

I've braved SXSW twice on different years but have never gone beyond the outskirts of the ACL Lamar/Barton Springs barriers. Why? For that answer, all you'd need to do is ask any Austinite and wait for their all too "enthusiastic" response. And, in all honesty, an event that is 65,000 strong is enough to make any local run in the opposite direction. However, that all changed this weekend when I woman'd/personed up and volunteered for ACL.

Truth be told, the event lives up to its reputation of being a crowded messy zoo (especially this year with the Woodstock children rolling around in Dillo Dirt), but I had not anticipated the experience rating so well for me, especially since I was really bummed about Soinc Youth dropping out only weeks before. If you are thinking about joining the masses in invading Zilker, I'd suggest opting for the volunteer route which costs $10 and includes a free t-shirt, a $5 coupon for food, and free water and snacks...whereas weekend passes cost anywhere from $135-185 depending on when you buy them. Yikes! I was nervous at the outset of the weekend because my shifts were during the sets of all the bands I wanted to see, but you (and I for that matter) can be assured that someone at the top knows that the volunteers sign up more for the bands than out of the goodness of their hearts...and if that's not the case, well, I'm just a bad person.

By volunteering, I was able to see the Yeah Yeah Yeah's, Flogging Molly, ...And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead, The Decemberists, and Clutch all for a whopping $10 (if you care to see who I didn't check out and want to shake your finger at me for missing them or if you want to see who I'm politely snubbing, check out the lineup). I think the biggest downside of ACL is probably the people themselves mostly because the event draws in such a mixed bag of music fans. There's frat boys and girls, hippies, punk rockers, hipsters, people with babies and kids (whiskey tango foxtrot? yeah, I don't understand people bringing babies or little kids to ACL either), reggae fans, the list goes on. If you have good taste in music (and yes, I'll go ahead and reassuringly pat myself on the back on this one), you have to bite your tongue when talking music to most people at ACL more so than if you were at Fun Fun Fun Fest or SXSW, which can be tiring (seriously don't understand the people who chose to see Kings of Leon over Yeah Yeah Yeahs).

Might post more on this later...we'll see.

Action Jackson out.

We Make Stuff!

Recap time! I'll make this short though since I mainly wanted to share some eye candy with y'all. Yours truly was at The Scoot Inn this past Saturday from 7pm-12am for the We Make Stuff event (hosted by Electric Promotions). The night consisted of free Nadamoo ice cream, delicious drinks provided by Treaty Oak rum, raffles, button making with The Wondercraft, a fashion show from rockin Austin designers, and skateboard art! And, to top things off, proceeds from the nights' raffles went towards Art From the Streets. On a side note, for all you lovely people out there who love Austin's Rare magazine as much as I do, there's a great AFTS interview in this month's issue, so be sure to read (available in print or on Rare's website). All in all, it was a good night and I was lucky to have the company of fellow artists who I knew...and more importantly, liked. :) As always, the night featured a gander (yes, we're geese) of Etsy Austin's lovely ladies. Check out their shops cause these chicks seriously rock:
-Kim Soliz of DevilGirlDesign
-Anne Marie Beard of AnneMarie
-Samantha Hlavalty of NepenthesBathtime
-Cathy Fuentes of SweetWolf
-Merritt Gade of MerrittGade
-April Wright of AprilWrightDesign
-Jen Bryan of LucyBlueStudio
-Beth Hempton of SnuggleHerd
-Beth Albrecht of PairedHearts
-Kim Sae-Eua of Broken Ear Productions

Action Jackson out!

If it was easy, everyone would do it...

Been busy during the past two weeks with setting up Pro Tools aka my "studio" aka the adjacent space by my bed, writing songs, and a few things here and there with DGAJ. My bro and I are continuing work on the song he's calling, "Phoenix". Don't worry, that name's not gonna stick, it's just something he's tacking on for the sake of giving the song a name. I've just about got the whole bass line written out, so all that's left are vocals and a guitar solo, my favorite part.

I always dread writing solos because I'm not especially great with improv to begin with and my technical skills don't exactly match up with what I think of when I think of guitar solos. Perhaps that's the time to test out how high the gain on the distortion will go? Haha. Works for some people. I also dread writing vocals because even though I think I have good pitch, I'm not 100% on my actual voice. And when I say that, I don't mean I have a bad voice; I mean that it's like when you hear yourself on an answering machine and think, "do I really sound like that?!". Writing lyrics, to me, is kinda meh. The listener makes what they'll make of them. Even if they have a direction and an inherent meaning, they're still arbitrary and arguably the least important part of the song. That's not to say that they're not important, but when you look at how people from non-English speaking countries get into American and British music, it's probably not the lyrics that are selling them. Vis versa is true too. I think I like and agree with Frank Black's explanation for how lyrics are written. First and foremost, arbitrary. When you write the vocal melody, you sing certain syllables or sounds that stick after a while. Then, you write in words that fit with that.

Hopefully, this new song will be written and recorded soon. I write very slowly-hopefully that will change at some point. When I tell most people this, the feedback I get is, oh you should find someone to jam with. To this, I say no thank you. No matter how much I think my influences line up with another musician's, 9 times out of 10 (really 10 times out of 10 if you look at my track record), the influences are in no way reflective of the music the person makes. I realize that I'm not an expert on music, but I would expect musicians with good taste to write good music. More times than not, I find that whatever they've recorded on their myspace page isn't what I want to do at all, which then makes me wonder if there's anyone out there who isn't already in a band who wants to make good innovative music. This is by no means a post intended to be pompous and overblown; I still have a ways to go myself.

Moving on though before I go on a physics teacher/professor tangent! This week, I filled a new order at Parts and Labor as well as an out of state boutique (more details to come soon!). So, if you want to find DGAJ pieces that aren't on my Etsy site, you should stop by the shop! In other exciting news, I put in several orders this week for supplies and hope to start work soon on the Bioshock collection. Never fear! Pictures galore will soon be here. Speaking of pictures, I will soon be altering my light box and hope to show clearer high quality shots within the next two weeks...wish it was before then, but when you work, what can you do?

Also coming soon~pictures from We Make Stuff event from this past weekend and details about the Mexic-Arte Viva La Vida Fest (which will feature yours truly).

Action Jackson out!

Happy Birthday to Diamonds and Guns!

So, there's no exact date pinned down for when Diamonds and Guns actually began, but the force of DGAJ was unleashed for public consumption about a year ago when I opened an Etsy shop. Soon after, I vended at a few First Thursdays, participated in the Etsy Austin Holiday Bazaar, joined the EA team, did lots more shows... and voila! Here I am. I definitely have a love/hate relationship with looking back on a year in this way. It's a kind of personal recognition for what I've learned and the experiences I've gained, people I've met, etc. At the same time, though, I can't help but feel frenzied, thinking, "Omg. How has a year gone by that quickly?" It's pretty scary when you take that perspective. That all being said, I'm very grateful to everyone who has supported me from the getgo, all the people I've met who've been nothing but nice to me and have provided me with so much help and advice, and of course everyone who's noticed little ole me and my burgeoning jewelry line. If you are reading this, I'm sure I owe a thanks to you in some way or another.

And how am I celebrating, you may ask? Well, there's no cake at the moment. The picture from my 21st birthday(pre redhead days) will have to suffice in the meantime. That's a delicious looking cake though, right? Hmm...maybe there should be cake though. We'll see. I think I'm mostly celebrating by making more jewelry and churning out more ideas for everyone to see. Pictures are on their way, I promise! Also, for anyone interested, I'm hosting a sale in my Etsy shop through this Sunday.

Aside from the 1-year anniversary, I've been very very busy with guitar. I bought Pro Tools this past weekend with some old graduation money that needed to be used up. For anyone who hasn't made this leap, Pro Tools has a very broad/long learning curve and after looking at the manual, which might as well be War and Peace, I find myself wondering why I bought it. Overwhelmed as I am by this, I am digging deeper and deeper to summon my inner Winston Churchill to fearlessly take this on. I'm hoping to get a solid test recording in this weekend; I'll let y'all know how that goes. :) I'm currently also working with my brother to wrap up writing a song that I had previously made a loose structure for. It's interesting because we're working in a very technical music theory way as opposed to the route I took for the first song I'd written in whole, which I'm convinced had some sort of alternate power working toward its completion as I still have no explanation for how it came about. Such is writing music, right?

I'm hoping to make lots of new pieces this weekend (just in time for the We Make Stuff event next weekend at The Scoot Inn from 7pm-12am), get a test run in for PT, and get some writing done. It'll be tough since I have to go into work on Saturday and with this flu-ish thing I've got going on, but hopefully I'll be able to hit it all hard!

Action Jackson out.