A quick, supereasy favor, please! (Part Two!)

I sent this bulletin/blog post out yesterday, but good news! The deadline has very luckily been extended until midnight on Friday (YAY!) so please still help out if you can! Here's the original posting.

Hi!

I have a supersuper-EASY, quick favor to ask of you!

My friend Scott Irvine is a megatalented photographer from NYC and I really want him to win a photography contest! See, part of the contest (the "People's Choice" award, which is separate from the Grand Prize- which I hope he wins too, of course!) is based solely on the number of votes that he gets from the public, so I thought I'd extend some e-tentacles, cross my fingers (or cross my e-tentacles?) and see if some of my very sweet friends on Myspace might be able to help out.

If he wins, he'll be awarded an art show, a publication in a magazine, and a small cash prize. He's done a lot of work for John Zorn's Tzadik label, as well as some amazing CD work for bands like the Dresden Dolls, etc and I truly believe that he's an immensely gifted photographer that deserves to win this contest.

Anyway, here's the emergecny - TODAY is the last day to vote (only a few hours left! Eeek - so last minute!) so I'd really, really appreciate your help. You don't have to even sign up for anything, just click the star meter to 5! Really, I promise promise promise you that it'll only take a millisecond.

Here is the link.. just click, easy as lemon cupcakes!

Scott's link!

THANK YOU!! :)

xo Mia

10:31 PM - 7 Comments - 14 Kudos - Add Comment

EUROPE! Please come see my bands perform in your city! :)
Current mood: excited

Hi everyone! (Europeans!)

I'm about to leave for my European tour with my two bands Gregor Samsa and Kayo Dot. I'm so excited! If you can come to our performances, I can't tell you how much it would mean to me, really!

Here are the tour dates for just Gregor Samsa:

08th may | Leuven - BE | Stuk
09th may | Karlsruhe - GE | Jubez
10th may | Würzburg - GE | Cairo
11th may | Berlin - GE | Schokoladen
12th may | Leipzig - GE | Nato
13th may | München - GE | Kafe Kult
14th may | Vienna - AU | Chelsea
15th may | Foligno (PG) - IT | Feedback
16th may | Milano - IT | Leoncavallo
17th may | Pestoia - IT | Melos
18th may | Roma - It | Traffic
19th may | France | Tba
20th may | San Sebastian - SP | la Casa de Cultura de Okendo
21th may | Spain | Tba
22th may | Barcelona - SP | BeCool
23th may | Lyon - FR | La marquise + For The Chosen Few
24th may | Bièvre - BE | Tba
25th may | Brugge - BE | Cactus

Then here is the schedule for Gregor Samsa and Kayo Dot together! (Yay!)

26th may | Paris - FR | Mains d'Oeuvres
27th may | Amiens - FR | Le Grand Wazoo
28th may | Luzern - Luzern | Treibhaus
29th may | Frankfurt - GE | Elfer
30th may | Luxembourg | Dqliq
31th may | Münster - GE | Gleis 22
1st June | Duisburg - GE | Steinbruck

And finally, just Kayo Dot alone:

6/2 Berlin, Germany @ Cassiopeia
6/3 Copenhagen, Denmark @ Lades Kaelder
6/4 Dresden, Germany @ Az Conni
6/5 Prague, Czech Republic @ Chateau Rouge
6/6 Munich, Germany @ Feierwerk
6/7 Frankfurt, Germany @ Elfer
6/8 Rotterdam, Netherlands @ Worm

I really hope to see you there and meet you!! :)

xo
Mia

3:02 AM - 21 Comments - 17 Kudos - Add Comment

NYC! Amazing psychedelic art show on Friday! You can't miss this!

Hello!
My wonderful, super-talented graphic designer friend, Heung-Heung (Chippy), will be exhibiting some of her material on Friday in Brooklyn at the 3rd Ward Gallery. This is absolutely NOT to be missed! Her work is just fucking incredible and I seriously can't wait to see it in person. (You might be familiar with her mouth-wateringly creative work through avant-garde music label Tzadik Records! Yes, *she* is the genius behind that gorgeously classy design/packaging!) Anyhow, here is some more info about the exhibit! Go! It will be life-changing! I missed her last show (because I was out of town), so there's no way I'm missing it this time!

Chippyart, part of the LSD show curated by Seze Devres and Tracey Norman.
If you missed the trio show at The Proposition (click to view an example of Chippy's art and impressive bio!), come to see what was missed.

10:15 PM - 15 Comments - 8 Kudos - Add Comment

Does anyone know anything about Food Allergies?

If you get hives from something you ate, how long do they usually last? Because I have this weird, red, scaly rash ON and around my lips, and then some hives on the left side of my face and I kind of don't like it.

Monday night, I was eating pad thai at a Thai/Vietnamese restaurant when all of a sudden, my lips started burning like a motherfucker - they actually started blistering right then and there like a zombie movie (think: Dead Alive) and then my entire face broke out in these flat, red hives (but don't worry, bees didn't fly out of them). I took a Claritin (an anti-histimine) when I got home, which ameliorated the situation a little... but my upper lip is still all sexily itchy/crusty as fuck and I still have some hives on the left side of my face. And because life loves me so, I now have an attractive pink, crusty, Kool-aid-looking halo around my lips that make me look like I've been sucking off dinosaurs in a dinosaur gangbang for the last five years of my life... and okay, I KNOW that didn't really happen, but I can't help feeling self-conscious that people might think that anyway. This is actually not a fear that I pulled out of nowhere, just in case you're thinking I'm being irrational, etc. This movie is proof. (Warning: not work safe at all.) See, these things really do happen. :(

Anyway, does this sound like a food allergy to you? Do they really last this long? I can't tell if it's spreading. Uh oh.

P.S. - I really didn't partake in a dinosaur gangbang. I think it's a food rash. Impetigo? But not dinosaur gangbang.

P.P.S. - UPDATE: It's now June 17th and I'm *still* getting tips from Myspace friends and random strangers on how to make this rash disappear, even though it disappeared just 2 days after I originally made this journal entry, haha! (Lots of benadryl and vaseline and dinosaur cock. Wait no.) Thanks to everyone who helped out! Here's an un-rashed kiss for you! Mwaaaah!

10:07 PM - 25 Comments - 7 Kudos - Add Comment

Hey, Kayo Dot fans! Tartar Lamb (Toby & Mia of KD) CD is now available! Weee!
Category: Music

Hello hello, I know, I know. (I could have shortened that to Hello x 2, I know x 2, but it's too late now!) I'm sorry I don't really update my journal too often anymore. I'm kind of severely anti-internet/computer these days, coupled with that annoying/icky hermit mode that I seem to get off and on. When I use the computer now, the monitor light always feels bad/potentially toxic on my face (electromagnetism), shoulders become hunched, too many eyedrops, I can feel my eyes calcifying, etc. (In other words, computer = bad.)

But I thought I'd electromagneticute myself for a little bit to let you know that Toby Driver (composer/guitarist/vocalist/clarinet player of our band, Kayo Dot) and I have self-released a new CD! Here's the little blurb thingy that we've been posting around on the internet:

At long last, Sixty Metonymies is here! Performed by Toby Driver (electric guitar, vocals) and Mia Matsumiya (acoustic violin) of avant-garde rock group Kayo Dot and accompanied by Tim Byrnes (trumpet) and Andrew Greenwald (percussion) of Friendly Bears under the moniker Tartar Lamb, this full-length CD package features the title piece, a modern electroacoustic quartet exquisitely recorded by Randall Dunn (Sunn0))), Earth, Boris, Burning Witch, etc) and beautiful hand-painted artwork by Toby printed in a high-quality parchment insert and contained in a classy fiberboard jacket. Twenty-one difficult months in the making and 100% self-financed, we went through (to say the least!) great personal strife (including a broken-down van in the middle of a January snowstorm in Nowhere, Wisconsin where they didn't even have good cheese) just to bring you this delicious CD! We're selling it for $12 plus shipping (see shipping costs below). If you'd like to purchase a copy (pleeaaaaase!?), please send Paypal payment to  shirts@kayodot.net. :)

cover:



inside:



Shipping info, etc:
For shipping of the Tartar Lamb CD, please add:
$3 domestic (USA)
$4 for Canada and Mexico
$7 for overseas air-mail

Thank you so much and I hope you enjoy!!

xo
Mia

4:23 PM - 6 Comments - 9 Kudos - Add Comment

fat study part two + hi, my new name is connie chung!

Hmm... so the fat study (part 2) was a little disappointing. It was the exact same procedure as last time, but this time there was no exciting strawberry milk-colored pink blood at all! (presumably this was because I had been taking diabetes medication for two weeks and it did its predicted job?) It was what I was looking forward to seeing and photographing the most. I ended up having slept almost the entire time and when I finished, I still felt warm and whaley like last time. So, unfortunately, I don't have much of a story to tell this time, but I *did* happen to snap some arty-looking, morgue-ish looking photos!

P.S. - Because of the perspective, my boobs look gigantic here. This is very untrue to life because in real life they look more like crusty little mosquito bites with black, inverted nipples glued onto them.





... and then just today I chopped all my hair off. I felt like I needed some sort of change in my appearance, but it was a very bad move. I was pretty unhappy with it when I walked out of the salon, but it was still acceptable:



It just didn't suit me. And it was very, very greasy from wax (I felt like an unused candle made from old lipemia), so okay, I washed it. Uh oh. It's lost all texture and because of how thick it is and it looks like a gigantic round wig. To put it more clearly, now I look like Connie Chung crossed with a retarded, round-headed Asian snowman. SWEET! And I guess I'm stuck looking like Connie/Ball-headed Snowgirl until this thing grows out. Luckily, my hair grows like a ridiculously fast parasitic hair-monster and hey, let's face it: it's just some stupid, disposable, regrowable hair. But still. Remind me to listen to people when they tell me not to cut off all my hair next time. Thanks in advance! :(

(I tricked you, by the way. I don't *really* have black, inverted nipples! I am just so "clever" like that.)

7:32 PM - 21 Comments - 20 Kudos - Add Comment

Yay! It's official for the next Kayo Dot album!
Current mood: pants-peeing

Eeeiee! I just found out about this... Kayo Dot's next album will be released on Hydra Head Records, alongside such artists as Cave In, Boris, Khanate, Daughters, Mare, Isis, Oxbow, Pelican, Merzbow, and many others! Wow! I'm very, very, very excited/beyond happy about this! We're planning to record in late spring/early summer 2007 and are aiming for a late 2007/early 2008 release. :)

*peeing pants*

11:44 AM - 15 Comments - 15 Kudos - Add Comment

Atherosclerosis time!

As you might know, I love being a guinea pig in medical studies. That's why when I saw a medical study in Boston involving a 5-hour infusion of fat (lipemia) directly pumped into the veins in order to observe its effects on the circulatory system, it made my eyes widen and my heart flutter with curiosity! I had to do it! What creepiness could this one unlock? (or percolate, I guess, since we're talking about fat here.) Besides, the doctor assured me that the amount of fat being infused in my veins was only about the equivilent of eating about 500 calories, the same as a Big Mac. Couldn't be too horrible. (But then again, that's what I always think before entering medical studies. I just never learn because I have a mini withered brain stem, etc.)

So it started off with all the regular stuff - peeing in a cup, vital signs, etc. Then yes, the exciting part! The actual fat, hanging from an IV cart came rolling into the room, jolly as ever. (Sidenote: "Fat" and "Jolly" seem like two adjectives to me that have always belonged hand in hand, don't you agree?) I stared at the bag. It was a whole lot of fat (enough to fill a breast implant, really!) and it was white, oozy-looking, and viscous. It actually resembled heavy cream mixed with bacon grease. It probably *was* heavy cream and bacon grease for all I know. Sort of paranoidly, I checked the nurses' outfits for oil splatters, but I didn't see any. I shuddered a little bit at the thought of that half-liquid/half-solid coagulated semenish stuff churning through my veins, but it didn't dampen my spirits.

Here is a picture of the bag of hanging fat, next to a hanging bag of heparin, a blood thinner. Note that the heparin is completely clear and that the fat resembles an organic-looking, solid, white, globular mass that would readily multiply itself to take over a small suburban town in a matter of a few hours. Even the ants wouldn't be safe. It's not something you'd want to wash your face with either. You'd get acne.



So I sat there, cheerily staring at this pure fat pumping into my arm, feeling a teensy bit disturbed too. Here is a picture of the fat running into my veins. I know that it looks like a white tube is running into my arm, but nope, that's just that opaque white goodness of fat filling up the tube! :(





I was still smiling a little when the nurse came over to draw my blood. And that's when my smile disappeared because when she drew the blood, MY BLOOD WAS PINK! I'm talking bright, strawberry yogurt, strawberry milk, Strawberry Shortcake fucking PINK! The white of the fat was mixed with the red of my blood, resulting in this hideously unnatural baby girl-pink shower party happening, RIGHT IN MY VEINS. AHHHHHH! Not smiling at all anymore! :(


(Yes, I look 12 years old and prepubescent/goth in this photo. I'm going to attribute it to the Japanese hanadeka effect. Or maybe the fat did that? Uh oh!)

So I endured this fat vein torture for five straight hours. The nurses would come over every so often and draw my pink-ass blood and smile and I'd smile very uncomfortably back. You know when you mix cream into your coffee and it looks all tendrilly and pretty dancing about in your coffee? It was like that when she drew it up into a syringe, but a surreal pink hospital version! Admittedly, it was sort of pretty too though. From a scale of 1-10, I'd rate it a 6. For its stomach-churning abilities, I'd give it a 7, probably. By the time I left, I felt a little disoriented, warm, and like a whale, probably because that fat coagulated underneath my skin and formed a protective layer of blubber. Hey, Boston gets really cold this time of year. Maybe this benefitted me more than I think.

Most disturbing of all, this study isn't over! I'm taking diabetes medication right now (supposedly two weeks of this will protect my veins from the next liquid ambush of fat) and I'm supposed to go do this 5-hour fat infusion all over again next Tuesday, haha! My poor, poor veins! What will happen to them? I'll keep you updated.

3:38 AM - 27 Comments - 39 Kudos - Add Comment

Hurry! Go listen!
Current mood: cheerful

I recently recorded some violin for a track of the upcoming Ghastly City Sleep (the new project of current and former members of Gregor Samsa, City of Caterpillar, Majority Rules, Pg. 99, and some others... Nikki from Gregor Samsa also does some guest vocals for this track... yay!) and was able to hear the completed and mastered song on Myspace for the first time today. My violin comes in a little past the 6 minute mark. Please check it out at this link and add them as a friend if you like it! The album should be coming out soon on the wonderful Robotic Empire Records (same label to my band, Kayo Dot) and I can't wait to hear the entire album. Sounds breathtakingly gorgeous so far... wow!

Upcoming guest recording sessions: Yakuza and Starkweather! Eeeieee! :)

4:58 AM - 3 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

What is the bloody fetus photo from?

I get a lot of questions about the origin of that fetus photo in my profile, so I thought I'd re-post this to explain:

"Instructions For Use"

1. Mold a bloody fetus out of aluminum foil (skeletal structure), flour dough, hot sauce, and dog food (for eyes. And don't let the dog catch you stealing his food either. Be stealthy.) Place in plastic bag.



2. OPTIONAL: Smile at fetus in bag.



3. Spot creepy christian pro-life van (with suspiciously Nazi-looking symbol in the back) that suddenly just materialized/appeared in your neighborhood(!!!)



4. Place entire fetus bag on windshield of creepy Christian pro-life van.



5. Run away as fast as you can before they come out and possibly SHOOT you! AHHH!



6. Speed away in vehicle. (Your *own* vehicle, dummy. Not the anti-abortion van.)

7. End of story!

*P.S. - I swear that it looked more fetus-like in person. At least, an anime one. It had little arms and legs.

3:05 PM - 26 Comments - 43 Kudos - Add Comment