#her songwriting is unfortunately aging like fine wine

[cotyledonal]

the m*lanie mart*nez album was even worse than I thought it'd be, so that's a win for the haters, but I'm 3 tracks into LDR's new album and. it might be. Good.

[sierrabinondo]

woodland creatures - day 3 (orlando)

the first thing i woke up to on my birthday, monday, september 23rd on an air mattress was my google assistant singing happy birthday to me. which is unfortunately not like rolling over to the sight of my hot boyfriend, but i was on tour with my closest friends, so i was perfectly content. 

right as tour started i was still getting over the roughest cold i’ve had in years, and up until this particular morning i was still feeling super shitty on and off. we had a long drive ahead of us to orlando, but i needed meds so badly just in case. i felt fine thanks to the nyquil i took last night and the dayquil i then took (thanks matt), but i barely made it through the gig the night before. like BARELY. i was holding up and then the tickle in my throat returned in the middle of synapse fires, our last song in the set. we made a target run and then hit up a bagel shop. navigating target stores away from home is so difficult, i wish it was easier to get in and out. but target runs are always fun with these guys.

i was behind the wheel for the orlando drive, so i got to play whatever i wanted. we listened to some music and then an episode of my brother, my brother and me, my favorite podcast. the new episode wasn’t up yet so we just listened to the most recent one, crash bandicoot’s wallet chain (lol). i feel bad that podcasts are mostly what i listen to but everyone seemed to enjoy it, we were making dry aged food jokes for a couple days after. driving on tour is so zen, i can go for hours without stopping. i just hate pumping my own gas. 

drivers in florida are still as crazy as drivers in new jersey though. it’s tough to go fast in a huge van so people can be insensitive on the road. and sometimes turning is scary because you can feel the weight of the van shift. but otherwise it’s crazy easy. 

miraculously we made it early despite the long drive, and went to go get food after we parked in the venue lot. joe, kris and i went to hawker’s right across the street. it’s an asian street food restaurant, seemingly a lil upscale, but still on budget. the food was amazing. they showed us the size of the plates they were going to serve the food on which was SMOL, so i ordered 4 things. but it turned out to be too much food. i got a tiger salad which was grilled octopus and veggies in rice wine vinegar, steamed chicken dumplings, edamame, and one other thing i’m forgetting haha. it sucks, i have to be hyper conscious of what i eat before i sing because of acid reflux and just general discomfort so i couldn’t get anything crazy. but despite my dietary restrictions i still had an amazing meal.

load-in was super easy and chill. we set our merch up early and just hungout. i thought it was super suspicious that literally EVERYONE seemed to disappear after we did, but i just figured everyone was getting food or something. at this show we gigged with charlene joan who is a singer-songwriter that i met in diy tour postings and all gone grey, who is my friend daisy’s band. i connected with daisy when i originally reached out to her other band i met a yeti to book them. they weren’t available but her other band was, so i was like NOPe yup this is also good. just wanted to gig with her!! loved having ladies on this show. and being friends with daisy is so cool because we have no girls in prog post-hardcore. i think like maybe native world, lucrecia (more prog metal but i think they still overlap) and that’s all i can think of. even though charlene wasn’t the same genre as us i literally did not give a fuck. she’s an incredible singer. and i love mixed genre shows. she was super amped about opening for the tour from the JUMP, promoted the gig, and she was an absolute sweetheart. i can’t sing enough praises about both these ladies and their bands, so lucky to know them. all awesome musicians. and charlene gave me a PLANT for my birthday!!!

so i consider orlando as the worst set i played. here’s why. and this is going to suck because it’s also the BIGGEST positive of the whole gig, but so, soooo many of my friends that live in orlando came out. so many!! holy shit. people i had not seen in almost a year or a whole year. i was seriously overwhelmed by the support. and a lot of these people were people who had never, ever seen me perform in any capacity. so i got in my head and got even more nervous about performing. i fucked up and cracked soooo much. and i couldn’t read the crowd as well as i could the night before, i couldn’t tell if anyone was into it at all. so that sucked, i felt like i could have done way better. it was still fun but i was still just so stressed. 

on our past tours i used to sulk around after a bad set but it was my birthday and i knew i was going to experience a horrible depressive episode if i didn’t try to combat it. i remembered what my therapist said about trying to accept compliments even if i disagree, and that there’s no use trying to read into anything or discern whether or not someone is lying to me about how well i performed to be fake (literally have seen people do this to others!!!) so i decided to just shake it off. i was all the more better for it. 

on this tour i’ve been doing taylor’s skit in i drink juice during pulses.’ set (an honor!!!). so, i go up to do my part for i drink juice, and i grab the mic. and the guys just, stop playing. and matt turns to me and he’s like “it’s sIERRA’S BIRTHDAAAY” and i was like “i just wanted to do the skit” lmfao

um literally the cutest moment though, they planned it literally like that day in a separate nd secret group chat with my bandmates :’))) and everyone disappeared earlier because they were trying to find me cupcakes for after the show hahaha. it was weird to not have a typical birthday this year but not complaining whatsoever. my friends made me very happy.

i got way too carried away with drinking, after being treated to some shots and seltzers i was too trashed to pack up merch myself hahaha. i literally kept apologizing to everyone for how useless i was and those poor people had to do everything for me. i’m not super fond of white claw (more of a truly/bon & viv guy), but they had mango and it was the one flavor i STILL hadn’t tried. it’s easily the best one. i was only pregaming for the party back at the airbnb in kissimmee. which... was one of the best ideas we had for this tour. holy shit. what a move. it was so sick having a whole house to ourselves. we arrive and it’s in a little suburban neighborhood with terra cotta houses. first thing we did was settle down with our taco bell feasts and then get in our bathing suits to go swimming in the pool. 

after swimming we played quiplash for a really long while. after a few games i looked at the clock and it’s like 3:30 am, holy shit we didn’t go to bed until 4. but i was having so, so much fun that i lost track of time. we all did. i was laughing until it hurt and just basking in the bliss that i felt.