Matthew Richard...BACK on the internet!

After getting up on The Dark Horse roster list and the website being redone shortly after my presence was extremely short lived. However the time has come again! I now have my drums, a band and all the other appropriate information together and I am back up on the site amongst the other DHP artists!



Head on over to www.darkhorsepercussion.com and check the ARTIST section to see the whole deal!

My Year In Pictures

2010 was an amazing year for me. Probably one of the better years of my life. This blog is actually one quite contrary to all my other year ender blogs that I have posted in the past. I see this to be a very good thing. I set out to do things this year and I accomplished ALL of them. Everything went my way. I feel very fortunate and lucky to be able to say that. I've also met a ton of new people this year, I'm pleased to have met all of them, everyone is so awesome and respectful. Its great. I look forward to the lifetimes ahead with everyone. 2011 starts off amazing and I have only a vague idea of whats in store. Heres to having just about everything I could ever want.

April 2010: I moved out of my parents into the city of Providence.


July 2010: I was referred by a friend to talk to his boss/co-worker about a band he was working on. Thats when I met TJ, who is a dude thats totally on my level. TJ needed a better and more available drummer. Thats when I joined The Fortune Healers. Our Bass player wasn't working either, so I took the pleasure of getting my good friend Derek in the band as well. Not to mention I've known Jae for about 7 years. I'm excited to be in a band with good people.

August 2010: After over a years wait, I FINALLY received my custom drums from Dark Horse Percussion.

September 2010: I visited the country of Australia. This is me on the steps of the Opera House.

December 2010: After months of "dating", I have a new girlfriend. Its nice, different. Wish me luck! I'll need it!

New Years.

Partied with a lot of great people. This was one of the best New Years that I can ever remember. Oddly enough, it was with all NEW people in my life. Change is good.

Oh, Christmas Tree

This is my Christmas tree! Its my first Christmas tree in my first apartment! I think she looks pretty darn good. I wish I could take credit for how good it looks but sadly, I only put about, 20 balls on it. My room mate Kendrah did ALL the hard work. I just couldn't find a minute to strap down and say "alright, lets do this!". So thanks Kendrah for the good looking tree! I'll try to not suck next year!

Stude Dudes.

Healers in Trapdoor Studios getting work done! Our Ep is currently finished. Just needs mixing and mastering. Which will be taken care of during the months of December and January. We were hoping to have a complete finished product by January but the Holidays are a crazy time for everyone and we have some bigger plans in the works as to what to do with this EP once it is actually finished and in our hands.

We don't know what is in the future but we hope that its good. So as of right now there is no foreseen date to which these songs will see the light of day. Just know that it IS coming.

Giggin Vidz II

I almost forgot! Here are 3 videos taken from the Cake Shop show! They were taken on our friend Nates iphone. They aren't the best in the business but they work just fine!

Clementine

When The  Ship Comes In

Bad Days

New York, New York

The Fortune Healers played a show in Manhattan, NYC. The reason I post this is because this is a picture of the FIRST outside of New England performance of my life. I haven't played many live shows in my time but the ones I have played were only in Rhode Island and Massachusetts. Now I'm out of the box and out there showing NYC what I have!

I could not be any happier to be in a band doing things. No matter how small. I've had the dreams but I feel more grounded than I ever have before. It doesn't matter if there are 5 or 500 people there, I'm playing music! Every face I play for is an accomplishment. So many things to come and to happen. All I can do is be patient and wait to soak up every moment that happens. 

Publicity.

There is a write up on the Song Of Zarathustra reunion show thats taking place November 6th 2010 at The Cake Shop in Brooklyn, NY on a website called Brooklyn Vegan. This is cool because this is a show that my band The Fortune Healers is opening!

CHECK IT OUT HERE!

LIVE!

Here is a  picture of my kit thats on the Dark Horse website!

AND here is what it looks like in action!


My band(blog coming soon) played our first show last Friday. It was the musical side to the Love Thy Neighbor Art show tossed together by Mcinnis Tattoo. A place where many local and New England tattooers can come and show off their art and sell it.

It was a fantastic event to introduce ourselves to Providence. Lots of friends and just an overall great vibe and scene to be apart of. I could not be any happier with how the night went and how we played. It was a blast!

photos by: Rich Gaccione

Not Kansas

I think its fair to say that anywhere you go there are things that feel familiar. People are people, cities are cities and the world turns as it should no matter where you are in it.

However sometimes you go some where or see something that really puts you in your place and it says "YOU ARE NOT HOME ANYMORE".


This is the first thing that I saw in Australia that really proved to me that I was there. It wasn't the airports, the conscious thought that I was leaving, the 14 hour flight, the fact that they drive on opposite side of the road and from the passenger seat or even seeing the Opera house 30 minutes after getting off the plane, it was this beach.

This beach was in Nelson Bay, New South Wales. How far out of Sydney I don't really recall. We landed at 6 in the morning, got carted around the city the "long way" from the airport and stopped by the Opera house. Finally getting to the house where we would be staying at around 930am. Took a 2 hour nap and had a shower. Then it was a blur.


We stopped by Kristys fathers to say hello and her step mother cooked us an amazing pasta dinner. Where her fathers house was, I don't even know but what I do know is that they had a handsome dog named Gus.

After dinner we made our way to Nelson Bay to the "caravan park". Caravan park basically being Australias trailer park where they will go off on holiday in the summer. I hear its a really good time too. This is where we stayed for a night. Its a friend of the families and they were nice enough to let us borrow it and stay there. That morning we had gotten up around 6am. Since the girls do not wake up that early, the gentleman and I being Americans in a new country, we went off to explore and thats when we discovered the beach. Since its about a 2 minutes walk from the caravan. I have to be honest with you. I really didn't know what I was going to see. I had no sort of preconceived image in my mind when I walked over the sandy grass covered knoll. You could say that I almost took whatever could have laid over that hill completely for granted.

Just Got Back From Australia

I have proof!



It was an amazing time! The flight was utter hell but as soon as I got off the plane, both going to and coming from, all was worth it. I feel blessed for being able to have met the friends I had there which opened the door to this and made it possible.

I've tried to make a phony "Bucket List" consisting of small joys I'd like to accomplish. However it never really took off and it only had 2 things on it. One was to ride a tandem bike with 3 friends and the other was hold a Koala bear. Well you can now cross that off the list!

I got the opportunity to be driven up the coast of Australia 11 hours from Sydney to Queensland. It reminds me a lot of the drive to Syracuse. Lots of open land and cows, So many cows. Its nice though, with little towns in between.

This photo was taken at the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary in Brisbane and hour north of Queensland. I would argue on whether or not the drive was completely, "worth it" but it totally was. Considering Queensland is awesome and the only state in Australia where physically holding a Koala is legal. So its what HAD to be done because THIS was the WHOLE point of my trip! Lone Pine is the same place where all my other friends have gotten the chance to do this same thing. Not to mention the wall of photographs of bands/famous people in the gift shop who also cuddled a koala.

I'll slowly but surely start blogging about my trip or just posting a few cool pictures. I have a lot of pictures to start acquiring not to mention getting back into the groove of life and work.

Customs Are DONE!

Here is another sneak shot of them lugged up and assembled. Better pictures to come soon!

I cannot even express how I feel right now. They look PERFECT.

My Customs!

FINALLY! I got this sneak peek earlier this afternoon. I cannot tell you how stoked I am right now!

All they need is drilling, lugs and assembly and they will finally been mine. It's been quite a trip...and wait but it's finally happening.

This picture doesn't really do them justice, the inlay looks white, when it isn't and the glare is making the glitter make it look like a snow storm. I will be posting better pictures in September.

Giggin Vidz

I filled in for a friends band not long ago. They wanted to play a last show and since I had filled in for them before last summer, I said sure, why not and offered my services. After the original person that was supposed to play for them flaked (which I knew would happen) I took the duties.

I have always been a skilled drummer, well, not ALWAYS but I am now. I haven't been given much out of music. I've had the drumming blood flowing through me as a child until finally got my first real drum kit for my 16th Birthday. You would think playing 9 years I'd have something to show for it. I guess that I do, I have a Demo of the only actual band I've ever done, which wasnt very good and I have rough cuts of a handful of songs from my band that just never got off the ground. I only have a few pictures from these events.

Now however, I have video proof! I think that this is totally awesome! I'm also glad that I do not sound as bad as I thought I did that night. There is some minor misses but overall, I think everything is great!

If you'd like to see all of them you can go HERE. I'm just going to post the video that has me in it the most (natrually) and the cover of Martyr ADs "American Hollow".

Intro/First Song


Martyr AD "American Hollow"

Ode To Serotonin

The past few months I've been gearing up to the commemoration of my blogs first birthday. Only to realize I'm on my THIRD year of blogging. Whoops? So, HAPPY THIRD BIRTHDAY BLOG! You have been a good friend and I would like to take a few moments to talk about you.

As minuscule as it might be, this blog has had a very positive impact. It started out as an archive for me to jot down all the specs I had for the numerous custom drum kits I would create on a daily basis. I didn't really have any idea that it would turn into what it did.

I took it upon myself to steer this blog about as far away as possible from Live Journal as I could. Not only is Live Journal old news in the Internet world but I was also extremely guilty of being your typical "Live Journal user" in which I would disgustingly complain and pour myself into on a semi-regular basis about my troubles at hand and yes, they were mainly all about girls. I was no different than any other asshole on the Internet using that website.

Now, I've grown up. I've changed. It's time to personify myself appropriately. I will admit that I used to be a VERY melancholy person. From the ages of about 15-19, maybe even longer than that. I spent a lot of my years in all kinds of random holes. Some how all tied into "Love" in one way or another. What one even understands of love at that age is most likely complete bullshit anyway. So I guess that it was teens being teens. It was that, wasn't it?

In preparation for this, I've really tried to look at myself. So that I could properly distinguish who I am now, to who I was then. It's bizarrely all boiled down to 2007's down fall. The down fall of myself, if you will. If you have ever seen the movie Forgetting Sarah Marshall I'm sure you are familiar and in some way connected yourself to the dialogue between Peter and Rachel on the cliff. I too feel impervious to pain. I honestly feel as though I had hit the lowest point I ever had in my entire life that winter. Since then I have become a completely different person. It's obvious that there is only one way to go from the bottom and that way is up. I no longer worry about love. Sure things have not worked out for me since but I look at them so much differently now. My blog has occasionally been compromised with what I have dubbed "rule breakers" due to these missteps. Though instead of ranting on like a mindless baby, I try to convey the emotion artistically. I try to grasp it, understand it and profoundly express it.

I cannot even remember the last time I carried a melancholy vibe. I see this a good thing. This blog has given me a place to express who I am today and I think I do a good job at it. It might not be perfect, well followed an viewed across the Internet and my grammar might be complete shit but none of that matters to me. I don't look down upon the rule breakers. For it is human to feel pensive sometimes and it is just apart of me as it is anyone else. Its all in how you deal with it and I just choose to not make myself look bad any longer. There's no time to be sad and it sure as hell does not belong on the internet. I'm a bright, loud, smiley and fun personality. Thats how I try to keep this blog. It might be a bit corny to admit that I am always thinking of what I can blog next. What am I going to find or what am I going to have to say. I don't consider myself a writer and I probably never will. I wouldn't even consider myself a "Blogger" even though by argument I totally am. I feel that most dubbed "bloggers" are self-absorbed attention whores spewing their ideals across the web in attempts to gain some sort of credible mark in the world of journalism. (view what I'm saying here on my buddy Phils tumblr).

I am very excited for things to come. When I stop and think about how awesome life is going to be from late August-December it blows my mind. For those who follow, thanks. I'm glad you like what you see. I have no intention of stopping.

Happy Birthday Blog!

"those who escape hell however 
never talk about it 
and nothing much 
bothers them 
after that." - Bukowski

The Internet Is Sometimes Cool.

There's this social networking site out there called Twitter. Have you heard of it? Well, if you haven't, I'm really interested as to where you live.

If you have it and use it, then you're probably guilty of following a "Celebrity" or two. Come on, don't lie. Now whats the best reward that you can think of when following a celebrity? Hoping that they will respond to something you've said at them. Whether you admit it or not, that burning desire is there and one day, you hope it will be fulfilled.

Well, I personally don't like celebrities nor do I follow any. Well, I follow one. AND GUESS WHO REPLIED BACK!?



DESIRE FULFILLED!

I'll totally take posting wrong information for a reply back from Louis CK! He's my favorite person. I have all his DVD's and also plan on seeing him live next time he comes around on a comedy tour.

He has a new show on FX coming out called LOUIE that I am very excited for. Lucky Louie sadly only made it 1 season on HBO before it got canceled. So to see him back doing something is awesome. Check it out next week!

Snack Modeling.

Thats right, Snack Modeling. Its going to be the newest craze sweeping the nation. And YOU, yes, YOU are going to have the pleasure to know where it all began.

Fairweather and Faulkner

I am posting a new blog/re-posting an old Myspace blog of mine. I plan on removing myself from Myspace soon and I figured that I should probably get to moving old blogs over to save. This blog has 2 points. Point 1, Fairweather. Point 2, about how I got into William Faulkner.


I essentially would have really liked to wait to drop a blog like this in the glory that would be the band reuniting. However, in the event that it never happens, I would rather just get it off my chest and out of the way.

What can I say, I love this band. I may be guilty of growing older and my taste changing. Though they may not be in my playlist every day, it does not change how I feel. If the world was ever so lucky to be blessed with the opportunity to hear this band 1 more time live. I WOULD BE THERE. Front and center. Screaming and sweating.

Everyone has that ONE band they latch onto. That ONE band that means the complete world. Whether it was the first band they ever heard, the band that got them to pick up and play an instrument, got them into a specific music style or scene. Fairweather is really what got me into playing poppy emotional music. I was for lack of a better term "raised" on punk and hardcore music. Even though I had liked bands such as Piebald, Saves The Day and A New Found Glory, who in 1999 were still in some way hardcore punk bands but were totally on the verge of something different. I was so young and new to it all that I didn't really fathom what was going on around me, what I was a part of and what it all meant. Fairweather was the band that really grabbed me and opened me up to the lighter side of punk.

Fairweather to me, was MY band. I discovered them when they signed to Equal Vision Records. Who at the time had tons of bands I liked and was an amazing label for both hardcore and Post Hardcore, indie, emo bands alike. During the course of their existence I didn't miss a single New England show. I caught ALL of them.

Fairweather even lead to a great friendship that I still have with me today with a gentleman by the name of William Wheaton. Bill and I met at Iodine Fest 2002. A musical fest thrown by the label Iodine Records, which was a Boston based Indie label. We were both front row center, screaming every word enjoying Fairweather to maximum potential. Halfway through the set we looked over at each other to notice not only are we both acting like lunatics but we are also wearing the SAME Bane T-shirt, only different color scheme. We exchange pleasantries as well as jokes on how "gay" we are right now and later, names. After that, we just started running into each other through being involved in the same scene and later discovering us having mutual friends as I started to attend more and more shows all over New England always meeting more and more people. We still tell this story today to humor ourselves.

I also consider myself lucky to have a minor personal connection to them as well. After going to all the shows, always being in front, always saying hello, I got to establish a small relationship with them. We were never really "friends" so to speak but I guess I was that friendly face that they saw every time they came to town. Even though they were not a band any longer when the craze of social networking sites exploded, I coincidently found Jay and we kept in touch that way. The others I became friends with years after when Peter and Shane started Olympia. After publicly displaying my joy on the internet and attending their shows when they came to New England, I was now "that guy from the internet!" instead of "that guy at all our old bands shows!". With that statement alone, makes me wish we could all go back to more primitive, less...creepy sounding times. Out of that though, I got to meet another man by the name of Phil Williams who sang for Olympia. Phil is a great dude and someone who I am pleased to say I know. Whenever I have been in Richmond, hes the man I call.

Now to the original point of this whole thing. Here is the original blog, as it was in October 2005.

now you wonder, why post this? well, to be honest i dont really know. ive always been very into music. when i actually discovered what music, actually is, i cannot remember but, id like to say it started 5 years ago. i wish i could say i discovered Faulkner through my own interest by learning about him in a class room or hearing something through the news or something and read tons of his work, etc but thats not true. i heard about him through one of my all time favorite bands and a large inspiration to me musically and at the time of their exsistance as a band, a large part of my life. that band being Fairweather.

i bought the CD the summer of 2000 when it was released. very eager to listen to it, i ripped it out of the human proof packaging and demanded that Kate stop her life in her own vehicle and put in my CD and thats where it began. later i read through the CD booklet with squinty eyes due to their very small, hard to read scratchy font and there is where i discovered the last words of the last paragraph of this speech. the last paragraph, is exactly what fairweather meant to me. though, this isnt about music, its about writing, books, poetry, etc but that all pretty much ties into music if you choose it to. so in a way it all works out. fairweather was more than a band, they stood for something and meant it. they wrote from the heart and not of the glands. with their release of their EP "alaska" furthered their explanation of what they stood for. writing music for the passion, to feel, to be used as an outlet. instead of being what a majority of the bands are today, a bunch of watered down bullshit, where effort and feeling are second best due to style, image and songs about things they have never experienced. ill stop here, but if you made it this far, please read the speech and this will all make sense.

William Faulkner: Nobel Prize Speech
Stockholm, Sweden
December 10, 1950

"I feel that this award was not made to me as a man, but to my work--a life's work in the agony and sweat of the human spirit, not for glory and least of all for profit, but to create out of the materials of the human spirit something which did not exist before. So this award is only mine in trust. It will not be difficult to find a dedication for the money part of it commensurate with the purpose and significance of its origin. But I would like to do the same with the acclaim too, by using this moment as a pinnacle from which I might be listened to by the young men and women already dedicated to the same anguish and travail, among whom is already that one who will some day stand where I am standing.

Our tragedy today is a general and universal physical fear so long sustained by now that we can even bear it. There are no longer problems of the spirit. There is only one question: When will I be blown up? Because of this, the young man or woman writing today has forgotten the problems of the human heart in conflict with itself which alone can make good writing because only that is worth writing about, worth the agony and the sweat. He must learn them again. He must teach himself that the basest of all things is to be afraid: and, teaching himself that, forget it forever, leaving no room in his workshop for anything but the old verities and truths of the heart, the universal truths lacking which any story is ephemeral and doomed--love and honor and pity and pride and compassion and sacrifice. Until he does so, he labors under a curse. He writes not of love but of lust, of defeats in which nobody loses anything of value, and victories without hope and worst of all, without pity or compassion. His griefs grieve on no universal bones, leaving no scars. He writes not of the heart but of the glands.

Until he learns these things, he will write as though he stood among and watched the end of man. I decline to accept the end of man. It is easy enough to say that man is immortal because he will endure: that when the last ding-dong of doom has clanged and faded from the last worthless rock hanging tideless in the last red and dying evening, that even then there will still be one more sound: that of his puny inexhaustible voice, still talking. I refuse to accept this. I believe that man will not merely endure: he will prevail. He is immortal, not because he alone among creatures has an inexhaustible voice, but because he has a soul, a spirit capable of compassion and sacrifice and endurance. The poet's, the writer's, duty is to write about these things. It is his privilege to help man endure by lifting his heart, by reminding him of the courage and honor and hope and pride and compassion and pity and sacrifice which have been the glory of his past. The poet's voice need not merely be the record of man, it can be one of the props, the pillars to help him endure and prevail."

BATS!

This is Luke Taylor. He is the owner and operator of a fine Providence business by the name of Hope Street Tattoo. He is also my friend and one of my favorite people.

Since moving into my apartment and being dead set that the vibe of my bedroom would be "October".  I thought of a cool idea. Since I cannot even draw a perfect circle, let alone a distinguishable image of any kind, I called in Luke Taylor to aid bringing my idea to life.

What was my idea? Well, it was bats and webs!!!

Here is the end result: Bats and web at the head of my room/web in the right hand corner on the right hand wall.

I'm very happy with how it came out. Its exactly what I wanted it to be. A big thank you goes to Luke Taylor for taking some time out of his day to do it and being a good friend and artist, even though I didnt exactly challenge his artistic ability with a standard of "the more it looks like shit, the better!" but hey, Thanks Luke!

Apartment!

Okay, so one of the "things to do" in 2010 was to move out of my house. CHECK IT OFF THE LIST! I will soon be a resident of Providence, Rhode Island. Officially.

Moving is something that has been on my mind for some years. Though I've never been so adamant about it until recently. I've mainly just been looking for the right moment, the right time and to fall into a very good situation. Well, that happened. Fortunately enough, I've found someone that fits all my criteria. Someone who I can trust to get shit done and be responsible and make having a roomate care free and enjoyable. Plus, she has cats!

I've found a really nice place. For really cheap. I'm pretty excited on it and it feels really good. It's a lot of work at the moment. They've done work to it since the girls who lived there prior apparently set the kitchen on fire (ha, WOMEN) so its really dusty and dirty right now. Also considering the fact that people who lived there prior probably weren't as clean as I am. So I've been cleaning all the windows, sils and as of tonight floors. 

I plan on moving in slowly throughout the week and will hopefully be in by next weekend. Im excited to finally be in and have cleaning and moving over with and get to decorating. Me and Kendrah have both painted our rooms and after I took the tape off my room tonight, it actually started to look like a room. I immediately began to feel my love for interior design. DESIGN period, really. If im given the right thing, my mind goes wild and creativity starts to just spew out of me. Whether its a bedroom or a drum kit and considering my career, I guess it kind of makes sense. My sister is also really into Interior design, since we are slowly realizing we are the same person in most ways, I see no surprise.

Heres some terrible pictures I took of the place. (click to see larger versions)

This is the entry/dining room(left) and the hall to the Kitchen, bathroom and bedrooms(Right). Fridge not pictured. Fridge is now in.


This is the bathroom and kitchen, both located to the left. The Stove wasnt in at the time and they broke the window putting the cabinets in. That window is now fixed & the stoves in.
This is the living room. Its pretty big and has tons of windows, but it looks really good, nice and bright! Technical double parlor.

So yeah, thats about it. Im saving my bedroom for an entirely different blog. Its going to be a "before" and "after" kind of thing. I'm really into it. The color, the art im going to put up, the ideas that I have for other things in the room. It should be really cool. 

I feel really blessed to have everything work out so well. Kendrah found a really nice place at the very last minute. Lucky enough to have pretty much everything redone in the apartment. To find a place as cheap as this one is in a fairly decent part of town. The city is rough, unless youre on the East Side but I feel that I wont have any problems. Theres children playing on the streets and I have a 80 year old woman who has been there 20 yrs who speaks very little english and fills the hall with delicious smells. All will be well.