Journal: December 22, 2008. Time: 2:35 AM

A group of friends and I drove from Baltimore to New York City today. We had no purpose there, just to have a good time in the Big City. Going on the trip was a bad idea for me either way because I couldn’t get to sleep last night. It’s my fault completely; sleeping in until 3:00PM every day has its downsides.

Being opposed to classic rock radio, I brought my iPod and its device to play it in the car. Being opposed to “pretentious indie music,” my friends used the device to play their own music.

5 hours up to New York, 5 hours back. Christmas music. I couldn’t sleep in the car because the music was too loud. At some point on the way back, they shifted taste from Christmas music to pseudo-indie pop, the sort of stuff you hear radio DJs call “underground”. Ok Go, Postal Service, the like. Of course, all of it was too loud for any decent conversation to take place.

I was cold, tired, and disillusioned in regards to my peers as I scraped the ice off of my windshield to drive home from my friend’s house. It reminded me of when I had to scrape the paint off of the side of that dilapidated house in Baltimore this summer. I loved working construction. Anyway, I sat down inside of my 1989 Toyota stick shift and selected music to listen to on the ride home. I decided to go with CANNOT BE STOPPED. It reminded me of how much progress music has made from Christmas tunes.

Journal: December 24, 2008. Time: 3:45 PM

I decided to listen to CANNOT BE STOPPED again as I wrapped gifts for my family. My mother walked down during “Dull Fangs,” shot me a perplexed look, and continued about her day. I was listening to “Northern Lights/Southern Cross” when my head started displaying a strange behavior. Andrew Bird calls it “a nervous tick motion of the head to the left,” and I think that just about sums it up. It’s not exactly common for me; I’m not usually caught up in the music enough to let my head govern itself.

I don’t know what this percussionist (Farley Miller) was thinking, it’s like he’s speaking in tongues through the language of rhythm. It threw me off…in a good way. That’s why my head was ticking to the left. Every note seemed to be born anew with this irrational sense of drumming. I imagined the Flaming Lip’s Steve Drozd as he was first learning how to play, just having a good time hitting the skins. Farley M. of CANNOT BE STOPPED has a similar mindset.

TO DO: Become awesome at percussion.

There’s a more personal element to this record, which is rare among electronic artists nowadays. I can imagine that a real person wrote this, and that really says something about this album.

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