Sometimes the jaunt here feels more like a pilgrimage.

While Quux was running wire for power today, I went rooting around the building for anything of use. I found a few lovelies, the best of which is my new Throne...

I had to depose a small dynasty of mice from the Throne but they can be grateful I saw it at all... Bar was about to chuck it off a balcony. As funny as that was, you should have seen him trying to help Quux run electrical wire. I thought Quux would shove him over the balcony instead, lol. Bar's fucking around though meant Quux wasn't able to get more power up here for the space heaters (and it's fucking cold).

We have juice enough now at least for my laptop and some of the gear, which meant Quux and I could get started on a track. Internet's no trouble, thanks to an abundance of unsecured wifi (thanks, idiots). Quux apparently tied into an electrical box from an adjacent building and diguised the wires in with the telephone lines over the alley. Hope he camouflaged it well enough!

I'm now nestled in my Throne, tweaking and mixing the bass guitars I cut earlier... dark and spicy with a mellow burn... just like the pilfered rum that's providing my central heating (hey, Bar got that much right today).

Quux has tied up my laptop all afternoon loading up some beatz from his and installing some new warez for me. In the meantime I've been scribbling some lyrics in my notebook and trying to spit on pedestrians below. But since he's run down the street to pick us up some grub, I have a few minutes to post. Because these go out in real-time, I'm being careful to not give out any details that could be used by the cops to identify our location, now or as part of the inevitable future investigation.

We have established some basic ground rules. Like, we always have at least two of us here after dark (we've cut it close today with our late lunch). Also, we don't stay overnight unless we're not in good shape to get home. Someone has to bring a roll of toilet paper every day we're here (no getting caught out in critical moments). And it should go without saying, but we never, ever leave our gear here. After each session, we pack up and go back to our separate hovels.

That's the hardest part of the project. Arriving and leaving are both tricky, though the cover of darkness helps. But we've worked out a good system for discreetly unloading gear and getting it into the building in broad daylight, thanks to a particularly obscured access panel. It just takes an element of timing and keeping a watchful eye on the 'hood.

And speaking of timing, Quuxy's back. Chow time.

These two words, our bat-signal to the apartment, usually begin each day for us now that the project is in full swing. When I woke to them in yesterday's text from Quux, I knew it meant more recording that day (we haven't been recording at night to avoid undue attention). I should have seen the night coming.

Most nights so far have been Quux and I getting lit, emptying some bottles, and mixing the day's work. Sometimes it's all three of us, choking on the ever-thickening smoke cloud, horsing around, spilling beers, pissing out the window, and flaring up in arguments over whose tracks are loud enough or whose turn it is to do a quick scan for cops (nobody ever wants to, it's a creepy building to roam alone at night).

As it was a Friday, we came to play. Bar unloaded an assortment of six-packs and liquor and said he'd be back later with food and to put down some riffs. Quux and I got to work. Hours went by, still with no word from Bar. Eventually we figured he wasn't coming back, said fuck him and invited a couple of friends to finish out the evening.

By midnight, most of the beer was gone and we were onto the booze. Suddenly, we heard a maniacal scream and laugh in the hallway and BANG, the door comes crashing in, followed by a Cheshire-grinned Bar hoisting bags of burgers in his right hand and ziplock bags in his left.

"Surprise, assholes! Didja miss me?" he belted.

"You muthafucker!" yelled Quux as he lobbed a beer can at Bar's head, "Gimme a fuckin' burger and what's in the fuckin' baggies?! And you broke the fuckin' DOOR!"

Bar, ducking the can, flings the baggies at him. Bud in one, shrooms in the other. Cool.

Having had so many beers already, I passed on the shrooms and tamped some of the bud instead. The party carried on as I noodled away on my bass. Got some really bad tingles washing over me and I closed my eyes for a second, then it was gone. But everyone was looking at me. "What?" I muttered.

"Dude, you've been passed out for like 15 minutes," laughed one of the friends, "but you were playing the whole time!".

"WHAT?! Did anybody record it?!" I asked. But before an answer came, I felt a tidal wave of puke rolling up within. Or so I thought. The next three hours were a haze of cold sweat and hanging my head out a window, trying to puke to no avail. Finally I managed to pass out on a cold, dusty, concrete floor in one of the back rooms.

I woke to the bustle of the urban morning below, and an obnoxious fart and groan from the front room. Eventually I summoned my wits to get up and move around. Someone at some point had kindly dragged me out to the carpetted hallway and thrown my heavy coat over me, else I'd have surely died from exposure. Staggering back to the main room, head swimming, I belly-laughed at the appaling scene of four rotting, bloated bodies sprawled over each other, bespeckled by beer cans of all colors, a festering pile of fast-food garbage on the mixing table, and the effluvium of day-old tuna and puke stench wafting in from somewhere.

Kicking Bar repeatedly in the ass, I harped, "Hey fucker, what was in that shit?"

"Whu??" he whimpered.

"The weed! What was in that shit?!"

"Didja like it?"

What a load of crap. Yeah, it's been a while since I've posted. We've had to postpone the project for a little while due to issues at the apartment. The upshot is we got some tracks close to finished (just need vocals and some shinola), so once we're back in we should have something for you soon after.

So, what the hell happened at the apartment? Funny story, kinda. One night our space heaters conked out but Quux was too tossed to fix it, so we packed shit up and headed back to my place for the night. I think he may have forgot to close the panel on the way out because the next day he went back to look at the wiring and found a couple of bums setting up camp inside. The three of us assembled to show them out, pretending to be workers for the property owner. It went peacefully enough at first, until they realized we wanted them to leave! Then it all went crazy.

Took a bit of pushing and shoving but we finally got them out. One of them fell down some stairs and broke an ankle or something, so Bar dragged him off to the dirt lot out back. We figured they got the point, at least for a while, so we went down the street to grab a bite. When we came back, an ambulance was driving off and the cops were there talking to the other guy, so we ducked out of sight and headed home instead.

For the past three weeks, we've seen somebody watching the building. I think it's the owner's winged monkey (somebody brought in workmen to board the entrances up better), but Quux is adamant it's a detective (he's paranoid like that, lol). They'll give up eventually. Until then, we're just doing our thing.

check it, peepz...

we got together today and stitched up this sampler of first trax for ya. no vox yet but it's somethin at least until we get the digs back (see f00's previous post). we wanna work on shit but f00 needs the digs to belt out his vox. sit tight til then and enjoy the down payment... peace out homeskillets

Knocked a few back today, trying to figure out how and if to post this. But I guess there's no use pretending. For those who've been wondering or who are now just coming around, FooBarQuux is no longer. While we had some issues at the digs earlier in the year, there were other things pissing in the milk.

Bar (guitarist, well, more on that in a sec) had totally flaked on us. He got into something during the upheaval and got popped for it. We were hoping he'd get sprung but he never made his bail and his court dates dragged out, then he went down for 3-5.

In the meantime, Quux started a solo project called Quux Capacitor. He texted me last night to say he's gone to work at his uncle's electronics shop across town. I can't blame him for leaving. He'd been covering Bar's ass and laying down a lot of the guitars that Bar was getting credit for, as well as all his monstrous work on the beats and bytes. He did hook me up with a another gig that'll tide me over until kidnapped by the next fucked up idea (it's for an underground publication of sorts).

If there happen to be any new developments, I'll come back and post. Otherwise, thanks for your interest. See ya on the streets...

Had to come back and make this post today. It was almost exactly four years ago when we started out on this troubled project. I admit, sometimes I still entertain thoughts of finishing it myself, but it was meant to be a group effort, with all parts of it forged in the searing heat of its own chaos. And while that is still a possibility (so I hear), there are days like today that remind you it's true what they say: you can never go home again.

The digs are gone. Our hallowed, filthy halls are no more. It was demolished last month (only learned of this yesterday and rushed down today to snap this pic). A guy on the site told me the owner had tried to sell it off and wash his hands of it but the city deemed the building unfit and had it condemned; too old and trashed to be re-used.

So, in some sense of twisted irony, FooBarQuux succeeded after all in burning that fucking hole to the ground. #RIPdigs