My plea for your pledge to the Hills of Elysium Kickstarter Campaign.

Oh fans of mine, I must confess
a pledge from you I do request
A small amount, not much at all
can bring life to dreams big and small
That which might buy an evening’s treat
or gas, in gallons, 2 or 3
I must persuade be better spent
or fear do I, my own lament
shall prove a louder song that’s heard
than those from which my passion spurs
Oh fans of mine, I do profess
this humble artist’s dream now rests
in hands and minds I know belong
to lovers both of art and song
I urge thee now, in modest speech
your pledge in haste, I do so beseech

© 2012 September Garland

(Click below to view our campaign video and make your pledge!)

Well, my birthday is over and I somehow managed to make it out alive. My friends and family went completely overboard for me this year and I am still blown away. After an insane surprise party, a visit from my lifelong friend from Okinawa, and a crazy night out with my band, sister and her boyfriend, I am birthday’d out.

Below is some photographic documentation of my night out at The Rock Box, an amazing Japanese style Karaoke club on Capitol Hill. I absolutely LOVE this place. It’s modeled after the traditional karaoke clubs in Japan with private rooms and Japanese inspired food and drinks. I haven’t had this much fun since going to karaoke in Okinawa.

Thank you so much to everyone who made my birthday such a blast this year!!
I will remember it forever.

For the past few months, I’ve been working tirelessly on material for Hills of Elysium’s forthcoming sophomore album. As a lyricist, I task myself with the job of Story Teller, and I take that job pretty damn seriously.

My words need to complement and enhance the music, but beyond that, they need to evoke emotions and provoke thoughts. They must be poignant and profound, yet accessible and concise. They need to be original, unique, thoughtful, and full of great insight. I meticulously pick through every line, verse, and chorus, rearranging, replacing, and reorganizing my words and phrases until the perfect combination is achieved.

For me, the entire process is both grueling and invigorating. I’ve always been a bit obsessive about lyrics and most any type of writing in which I engage. But at this point, writing for this album, I’ve reached a whole new level of obsession and quite honestly, I’m loving it.

Not to say I didn’t put my heart into my lyrics for past recordings, but this time around, things are definitely different. It could be because four years have passed since we wrote and recorded Cigadent. Four years is a long time in the evolution of a band, and for Hills of Elysium, those four years have proven to be of great impact on us as individual musicians and as a group. It could also be that this time around, we are writing an album as opposed to writing songs and grouping them all together and calling it an album.

With Cigadent, we had had a year or so of writing and performing the majority of songs that were put on the album before we even went into the studio. (Ironically, the one song we wrote in the studio turned out to be the most successful.) Call me naïve, but I never really took the time to contemplate the difference between writing music and writing an album. It seemed natural, to write songs, play them at shows and then eventually, group them all together and call it a record. That is, afterall, what a good percentage of underground bands do, and expectantly so.

Now that we’re writing an entire album of music at once, I have come to truly know the difference between throwing together some songs on a record, and actually writing one. Every song is well planned, musically and lyrically, and is written with the culmination of songs in mind. As we go through the writing and pre-production processes, something bigger than a collection of notes and rhythms begins to develop. It lies underneath each song, piercing through at pivotal points in time, ebbing and flowing like an intangible tide. It pulls your ears and heart from one song to the next, never quite present enough to point out, but is always, like a word lost on the tip of your tongue, just within audible reach. Whatever this force, this feeling, it is new. It is new to me and its hold is strong.

As we continue with the writing and pre-production stages of this album, I continue to realize the importance in our choice to write an album in such a manner. I keep on writing, revising, and pushing myself further into my obsession, all in the hope that when this album is finished and we are ready to share it with the world, someone else might hear what I hear. Someone else might feel what we’re all feeling.

More than ever before, this is what I aspire to achieve with my words.

And more than ever before, I feel like I just might succeed.

We’ll see. Soon….

Feeding on the crumbs that fall from the mouths of your leaders,

you hide your belly ache in fear that you are what you eat.

(You are what you speak.)

Minced words, minced meat.

Minced words, minced meat – they present as a delicacy.

I know better.

I’d rather starve.

Fuck them and their Speech Tartare.

© 2012 September Garland

There is a DO NOT DISTURB sign plastered to my face in the form of what I can only imagine is perceived as a disconcerting expression to anyone who happens to encounter it. I didn’t mean to put it there. I didn’t even realize it was there until I happened to catch a momentary glimpse of it this morning as I walked passed a reflective surface.

I can only assume that this sometimes ambiguous, sometimes uninviting expression has been occupying my face for a while. It’s been manipulating my eyes, mouth, and countless facial muscles in aims of organizing the millions of dizzying thoughts that dance through my head, inadvertently conveying an unwelcoming warning to its viewers. Although I’m just becoming aware of its existence, I can’t say I’ll be doing anything about it any time soon. It seems I’ve no expendable brain power to mask my own thoughts, as these thoughts are currently serving the all important purpose of weaving a lyrical tapestry grand enough in both size and substance to complement and complete an entire album of music.

I’m using words to create imagery and emotion, to convey ideas and dreams, to lament and to make bold claims, to tell tales and to right wrongs. An entire universe is forming in my mind, pieced together with words and rhymes, rhythms and melodies. Its characters develop and travel across its massive landscape, exploring untouched stretches of thought-lined paths, tearing down old ideas and building strange new inventions that spit out stanzas that run and fly and can breathe under water.

This universe is indeed wondrous, but it is all consuming. It occupies my every waking moment and demands my full attention. It nags incessantly, begging to be nurtured. It pulls my mind in and out of reality as lines of prose invade my mouth and interrupt simple small talk, confusing grocery clerks and bank tellers.

Immersed in my pursuit of mot juste, I forget about this real world. I forget about the universe that exists beyond the borders of my own skull. I forget how to discern between the feeling of a frown and a grin, a furrowed brow and a burst of laughter. I forget that any of these are even visible or that anyone might actually be looking.

I didn’t mean to put this sign here, but, maybe, until my tapestry is complete and my universe has been fully colonized, one might be wise not to disturb.