I never had the chance to meet Dominic but his words have and will continue to inspire me and many others for years to come.

Please, take notice of this tragic loss. Yesterday a tremendous mind and leader was taken from your generation. Don't ever let the heart you share with him be taken, as well.

My sincere condolences to his friends, family and loved ones.

Thank you, Dominic, for all of your inspiration and hope.

www. myspace. com/lastlights

www. myspace. com/hauntedlikeahouse

Rest in peace.

Clarity

For those who were even aware of this I never got a chance to fully explain much. I want to clear up some misconceptions real quick, from my own personal stand point.


First being that our old NAME was not Sever the Ties...in fact, for all intents and purposes, our old BAND was Sever the Ties. It started when I was 16 and ended when I was 18. During that time I had thought myself to be quite the know it all and followed Christianity pretty closely (to the best of my knowledge) because my girlfriend at the time had lead me in that direction after the split up of my family over matters of adultery. I've always been a pretty big enthusiasts and so I jumped right in and assured myself of the relevance of that religion in every way.


A few years had passed and much wasn't sitting right with me about calling myself a Christian (or about what the word really meant) or about forcing myself to write songs that I wasn't quite sure I felt.


The search for God quickly lead me to the search for truth and honesty and I found that honestly I was nowhere near or connected to what I had tried to do in the band Sever the Ties. Simultaneously the musical direction was changing. We had began seeking to find our own answers in more ways than one.


Decades formed slightly afterward. I was 18. We spent a year writing a demo that has recently been released as an EP called "Numbered". Since then we have been writing a load and have released demos of a few of those songs (i.e; H.I.H.A.
, Cig Burns), which leads me to my next point:

To the best of my knowledge I have never written an "anti-god" song. In fact, anyone who knows me probably knows that in some way I do believe in God. I just don't know what all that entails..

Decades has always been about searching and that original purpose was inspired by failed attempts of an earlier life.


Thanks for allowing me the time to merely explain myself. I don't want anyone to think that I write songs against God. I've written plenty of songs against things but that is one place, of many, in which I have no interest in telling people what to believe. My only interest is sharing the occupations of my heart and mind in hopes that maybe somebody, somewhere will be able to relate (by chance or design or whatever) and perhaps not feel so alone in this fucked up heap of a world. That's the way I felt when first listening to all the bands that made me want to play music and be a part of the punk community. That's all I can hope to do.


I apologize if my personal growth and soul-searching has left a bad taste in your mouth but all I know to do is keep trying to be as real with people as possible so that those mistakes of my past are not furthered.


Thanks for reading all of that.

-Cameron

So, last night we played a show at a place called The Info Shop in Oklahoma City. Grave Maker and Call to Preserve jumped on the show last minute.

It was pretty awesome. The venue was a little shack with lots of bikes hanging from the ceiling. I hit my head at least 5 times trying to get to the merch.

I'm bummed that we didn't get to hang out afterward. Trey and Flint had Take Control and Grave Maker stay and I got texts from everybody asking why we weren't there partying. Ross had work at 6 am.

Who wants to grow up, right?

Today's playlist:

Tom Gabel - Anna is a Stool Pigeon

Hot Water Music - Jack of All Trades

The Clash - Spanish Bombs

Jawbreaker - Accident Prone

Rival Schools - Everything Has Its Points

Also, listen to this band Kintaro. They are fucking great.

www.myspace.com/sexkintarosex

That's all..

Do you still feel wasted? Did you wake up restless again? Did you stay in bed all day, desperately searching for a reason to crawl out of it? Are you patiently waiting? Did you sleep through all the subtle hints? You heard rumors of a life waiting to begin...Did that cosmic sign ever come? Have you figured out what it is?

There's a fire still burning in your bones. Adam Smith has his hand around your throat. Don't let the flame be choked.

"The ones who love us best, are the one we'll lay to rest,

visit them on holidays at best.

The ones who love us least, are the ones we'll die to please,

if it's any consolation, I don't begin to understand."

-The Replacements

It's been a while..

I haven't made a posts in a long time. If there is one thing that I consistently do it's lose track of things that I mean to consistently do. Fuck.

Been reading Walden a lot, lately. Not reading as much as I'd like, though. I have a lot of books that I bought recently but haven't had a chance to get to. It's nice to know that a break is coming up.

Work and school tends to get in the way of all the things I care about. I want to be done with it because I'm ready to start learning.

They say that Thoreau swore off normal careers as a threat to his development.

Wrote another new Decades song last night. "Numbered" just came out in October but we already have nearly six new songs. Hopefully we can release another EP sometime after January... I'm ready to move on from that.

Two tests and a debate tomorrow. Then I'm going to head home and play my new guitar and drink the remainder of my bottle of Jameson. Tuesday night. A day in the life.

Nick and Chris let me hear a phone recording of a new Power Trip song today...sounds awesome. Check them out www.myspace.com/powertriphc

I should probably go to sleep. It's getting late.


Today's playlist:

-Chuck Ragan "For Broken Ears"

-The Clash "I'm Not Down"

-Alkaline Trio "While You're Waiting"

-Fugazi "Glueman"

I found this picture today.



















I should probably leave it at that.

-Cameron

June 7th and 8th

After waking up and having leftover brats for breakfast we headed to Hollywood Rebels Tattoo shop to hang out with everybody and get some tattoos.

We ended up only having time for Ross, Austin and I to get tattooed before we had to head to St. Louis.

After we left for STL we listened to Chuck Berry and Rage Against the Machine pretty much nonstop.

Arrived at like 11:30pm at a venue called Building R. I wish I had pictures of it but I don't yet. These two dudes named Gus and Dallas live there and it's an old factory warehouse in the industrial district right on the Mississippi River. They had a mini ramp in the back next to some huge windows looking out over these cooking oil refineries and the river. It was a fucking incredible place.

So many cool kids and all different kinds of them at that. After Fare Thee Well, Dude Nukem (hell yes) and A Death and A Promise we played..it was like 1:30am when we got on stage and it fucking ruled. The kids that were there were all going off and I was drunk as hell because Gabe bought us a case of Stag.
"Smokes...let's go."

All the bands playing ended up giving us their cash. I can't tell you guys how much it means to us to have such good friends away from home.

When the show was over I staggered into the van and we said "goodbye" to everyone then headed towards Cincinnati. Tried to get a motel room anywhere in Illinois at around 6 or 7am and after stopping at about 20 different places with no vacancies we were informed that there had been a major flood the day before and the government had been paying for tons of families to be staying in hotels as refugees. We booked it to Indianapolis, IN and got here at about noon. Wound up taking showers and falling asleep until 7pm.

Right now we're eating sandwiches, watching Ross play GTA4 and trying to find something good to do with our night off. This will probably be the first and last time we stay in a motel but it was cheap and we've been doing really well with money. It's been cool to just relax.

I'll finish this off with the famous words of Chuck Berry:
"Hail, hail rock n' roll."

June 6, 2008

Last night at around 2 o' clock we got to Columbia, MO.

It's been amazing here.

Dan, Tony, Randie, Lee, Jesse, Gabe, Caleb, John, Pants, Lars, Jeff, Adam and everyone else in Columbia are definitely like a second family.

We played at a place called East Side Tavern. It was kind of a rockabilly looking bar and the show started at 6:30 ish...which is considered a really early show for that area and though the locals thought the turn out wasn't as good as it should've been I was definitely not complaining. We had the best time.

I met Stag beer and we've been pretty good friends for the past two days.

When we got back to the house that night we drank and barbecued and Jesse made the best hamburgers, brats and pork steaks I've ever tasted.

Woke up and got tattooed for free by Gabe. I'll post pictures of it later. It's a wolf head with some hashmarks underneath.

Seriously one of the best times I've ever had.

If any of you guys read this. Thanks so much for everything. You left us in want of nothing.

June 5, 2008

June 5, 2008

Last night we played in Oklahoma City at a place called the Factory. It was pretty fucking fun despite the fact that Ross' kick drum kept fucking moving around all over the floor every time he'd hit it and that only three bands played. One was a local and then it was us and then the Golden Age. Those guys fucking rule. I think we've finally found a reason to visit Corpus Christi. Just another bunch of dudes spreading the 'buuuuuuuh' from coast to coast. I wish that we were playing more shows with them on this tour.

We stayed with some dudes named Flint and Trey. Trey has the biggest American Nightmare collection I have ever seen and a damn well notable vinyl collection past that. Nick, if you read this, you better step up your fucking game dude. Flint passed on the knowledge of the pink sock to us all and I fell asleep in the midst of everyone sharing strange sex moves that could easily rival any fatality on Mortal Kombat 1 or 2. Thanks for putting us up boys! It was a lot of fun.

Anyways, we woke up this morning and I found out that my checking account had a handful of over draft charges on it and I was in the negative like a couple hundred. Bummer. After talking to a few friendly, helpful people I was put on the phone with some hardened, unhelpful, leach of a supervisor at Wells Fargo's 1-800 number. She basically just lied to me by telling me that not even the damn CEO of Wells Fargo could remove a single over draft fee from my account because they were all just slaves to their fucking accounting software and wasted my time the entire conversation. Thanks lady.. shortly thereafter I spoke to the branch that I set up my account at and they removed four of the charges without question. Maybe there's no such thing as an honest job. Then I called my and she ended up loaning me some cash to cover the the negative balance until I get back and my work check should be coming in tonight. It'll be nice to be able to eat again.

Right now we are all in the van trying to access the local Topeka, KS weather channel radio station. It's been storming ever since I woke up a couple of hours ago. We decided to pull over somewhere in upstate Oklahoma and wait it out because there was a lot of talk of outrageous tornado outbreaks...no thanks. A trucker came running up to us and told us that if we were heading north than we "better fucking book it on out". We accepted his advice....with great fervor. We're currently outrunning that storm as I type. I think we're like 20 minutes out of Wichita, KS or something.. We thought about visiting Nate but who knows if he's busy with the family or if his power's gone out or what. I heard on the radio that most of the city won't have power until tomorrow. The last thing he needs is to take care of his wife and kid in a power outage around 5 dudes in a band with a severely immature sense of humor.

Tyler was looking out the window in Oklahoma at this huge fucking wall cloud and the spiraling dust and wind connecting the wheat fields to the grey sky beneath it... it was one of the most terrifying things I've ever seen in my entire life. "I didn't die in a tornado with my friends", he sang to the tune of The Beatles' "I Get By with a Little Help From My Friends"...or whatever the fuck the song is called.

The Clash is my favorite band to travel to but right now we're blasting the Beatles...ironic. "Phony beatle-mania has bitten the dust".

We are currently heading to Columbia, MO to stay with a promoter named Dan before our show tomorrow in Jefferson City. I'm excited for it but I'm especially excited to meet up with Bailey and the dudes from Grave Maker.

You should probably skip my whole fucking journal here and read what Ross has to say because it's much more colorful and funny. Plus there's PICTURES! Who fucking reads, right?

When we first left yesterday afternoon we were talking about what makes traveling highways in crowded vans feel so important and relevant..especially when you're just doing it to play shows to a handful of people in scattered cities across the country. It gets stressful, annoying and uncomfortable and sometimes it even feels like it has some sort of attachment to life threatening storms but still your head romanticizes the whole experience. On the road I never remember the bad things and when I do they do when I'm at home. They feel like disconnected memories that can be buried under miles until they're just stories to laugh at. Ross says it's the freedom of it all that makes it feel divine. I know he's right.

I'm pretty fucking easily distracted right now so that probably has been a cause for more words and therefore a more watered down expression. Either way...

We've only been gone for a couple of days but I still wish that everyone from back home could somehow be with us. They're the only reason I could never stay out here forever. Here in nowhere...or maybe I mean here in everywhere.

"The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding into the sky like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue center light pop and everybody goes...'Aww!' "-Kerouac


Go check www.objektivone.blogspot.com ...Ross has pictures.

Swamp Thing and Waking Up at 3pm

As it would happen TAAKA gin and Lime Gatorade mix together to make quite the beverage.

I'm impressed.

This is a test blog more than anything. Soon I'll fill this space with updates from tour, discontent and ranting, and all sorts of other forms of angst.

In the meantime, let it be known that there is a nothingness that permeates through all that you do as a human being and more importantly as an American. The means is not the end and when you start holding it in that regards you severely fuck your perception of morality and even purpose. Are you unfulfilled? Are you unhappy? Fucking semantics.