New Album: Tennessee

Chad and I are leaving for a short tour this wednesday, just a week around the south. our idea of a vacation... 8 cities in 10 days. yessssssss. including:

July 28th Knoxville @ Time Warp Tea Room

July 29th Atlanta @ The EyeDrum

July 30th Jacksonville @ Infintesmal Show!!

July 31st Gainesville @ CMC

August 1st Orlando @ Ethos Vegan Kitchen

August 3nd Tallahasse @ FarSide

August 5th Pensacola @ End of the Line Cafe

August 6th Mobile @ the Blind Mule

August 7th Chattanooga @ JJ's Bohemia

All around its going to be happy fun times, seeing friends, extended family, and most importantly... playing shows together as Spider + Octopus... my favorite thing to do in the whole world.

For this tour, we have both managed to put out new albums. Chad's is called "-ist" you know, like all the ists you can think of... minimalist, existentialist, fatalist... all of them.

Mine is just called Tennessee, named after this picture i took for the front cover... and because they were all written during out "stay" here in Knoxville... but knoxville is a terrible name for an album.

As you may or maynot be able to see, there are 16 songs. All recorded super lo-fi with shitty hums and dogs barking and recording noises... like the buzz of the actual equipment and me clicking on the keyboard... various other things that make it super fun.

I'm in love with it. I dont usually feel that way about a recording... i dont think i ever have actually. all my other albums were recorded with help from my friends, and while i accomplished much with them and those albums, this one is mine. All mine. i did everything, all of it is my work... in all its shitty glory. And I'm more proud of it than anything i have done in a long long long time. so there.

(this is the disc face)

if for some reason i wont be coming to your town, i will make this album available through CD Baby, Etsy, paypal, myspace or some other bullshit i have to do today. god i'm so happy about this. through all this shit... and i do mean shit... it brings me way down... this... this came out of it, and i am ... alright for now.

email me if you'd like to know more or purchase "Tennessee" and/or "-Ist", which is equally brilliant.

reneeisazombie@gmail.com

i keep these close

so that i remember who i am

dreams

you can't give up on those.

because if you do...

then what?

then you'll be doing something else, and even if its something you kinda like, there will always be that other thing you want to do more. that you regret not doing more. you'll start to wish for younger days, for better times, for open roads and romantic ideals. you will not be able to buy these things with your stable salary. i promise. i promise renee, i promise.

Family Portrait Time

About 12 times every year my mother insists we all go outside and take a family portrait.

This is the first time I am as excited to grab the tripod and "put on a nice shirt" because this time we get to use my new camera!

Also, for the past 5 years or so, family portraits have just been my mom, myself, and the dogs, and when we had no dogs it was even sadder! But currently our family is full of furry ones, three of them. The male presence really helps balance out our pictures... I'm not sure how chad feels being around 4 bitches all the time, but he's a blessing to us.... and he cooks really really well.

After family picture time it turned into chad and renee + new camera = happy puppy funtime

Fish Eye Lens!!!

my butt was supposed to be in the center to make it really big... this is alright too i guess... so i can tell my children... "look how skinny i was!!"

Ca-Razy "miniature effect" that I haven't quite gotten the hang of yet... it's supposed to make it look like everything is tiny...

chad just wanted to hide behind this tree...

this is our favorite feature... single color selection on black and white.

This is Chad's newest series entitied:

"the Four Seasons of Renee"

1. Nonchalantly Posing for a Belle & Sebastian album cover

2. Crazy-Go-Nuts-Give-Me-More-Candy

or

("Why must you always do this in the supermarket?")

ah yes, this one is perfectly captured:

3. "Pouty Face"

and of course

4. "Extreme Pouty Face"

Toothy and Peppy

\

I'm really into these stamp things, i apologize that i dont have the patience to scan them all and photoshop them into perfection, that's what a real artists would do I suppose.

Gary the Fish

I'd like you to meet Gary the Fish! He's one of the stamps I made. As I was carving him out, his personality took shape as well...

He's a pretty cool guy, you know... he's a fish, Gary the Fish.

Ok! those are kinda weird! And I'm very into them, I hope they were just slightly intrusive into your day... the way good art sometimes is... eh? EH???

Tomorrow I'll introduce you to Toothy and Peppy...

my new stamps that help us delve into understanding our own unhealthy relationships through personified inanimate objects... my favorite.

Bring your Blogger to Work Day!!and

Didn't I tell you?

It's bring your Blogger to Work Day!!

Which is almost identical to bring your new camera and stealthily take pictures of everybody trying to work day!!

I work at Mellow Mushroom near the UT campus, I'm a hostess, which means I take to-go orders, fill the ice machine and seat people.

It isn't nearly as stressful being a server, but I don't get paid the big bucks either, and I may or may not be surrounded by ladies 4-6 years younger than me.

Every morning the servers have a pow-wow where they fill salt shakers, roll silverware and generally talk shit about other servers... (no of course not, all the servers are amazing, all the ones pictured here especially).

Here's the prep cook breaking it down, his name is Franklin... or as I like to refer to him: Fwankyn.

The lovely dishpit! Shown here all super shinny and not smelling like vomit as it always does at the end of the night. my how things turn over in restaurants.

This is where all the magic happens, the shinny wonderful kitchen, very warm in here.

This is Matt, he's a cook, today he's on hoagie patrol. He makes really good coffee inthe morning. He's also a fellow musician, and on a side note, he and his friends are putting on this festival next weekend:

Boombutywah 2010

But enough about them! lets talk about mee!!!

"Mellow Mushroom on Cumberland Avenue, this is Renee, how can i help you?"

I'll walk you through my most important task:

(yes... sigh... i do have a biology degree... it's the new High school diploma apparently)

Watch out for the "Leaning Tower of Cheesa!!" (Matt... I'm not nearly that witty or cheesy)

Thanks for tuning in, come and see me sometime, I'll be here:

And then 5-8 hours after that I'll be here:

Tomorrow I think I'll post some cartoons of Gary the Fish, don't miss it!