I decided to write this so that at least you all know where i am coming from and have time to process it before we have practice tomorrow...

firstly, to respond to bec's suggestion that we take a further step back and practice less and do even fewer shows. That is kind of my whole problem. we had that talk a while ago where people said that they wanted to take a step back, only play one show a month, maybe cut back on the set and pick like 10-12 songs that we could rotate so that everything stayed tight but that we could start practicing less as well; this is not at all what i want out of a band. It feels like doing all of the boring stuff about being in a band without any of the fun stuff.. I want to be involved in something that i can throw myself into and write and make stuff for. I am so short on time at the moment that i really cant afford to be "half" in a band.. polish is great, but its not 100% the kind of stuff that i want to be writing and playing. I really want to be in a band like spotting, but i dont want to just play one show a month, practice twice a month for that show and then that be it, it really doesnt seem worth it to me. I would be fine with playing one show a month (if we could stick to that) practice for that show once a month, and then use the other 3 practices to just work on new stuff and actually make things tight and good, rather than just running the same set every week and making the same mistakes every time - but i dont think that is what anyone else wants, or has the time for.

i know that you say that you dont feel like you dont have enough time to practice.. but it has seemed, for quite a long time now, that as soon as there is a gap in gigs, or one person cant make it to rehearsal, we immediately use that as an excuse to have a break from practicing entirely, instead of using it as an opportunity to be productive and work on tightening stuff up or writing new stuff.. also, when i refer to practice, i dont just mean practice at catfood, i mean that it doesnt feel like anyone has time, or the will, to work on anything outside of those designated times. its totally fine if people are busy or dont want to do that, and i dont want to force people to do practice outside of rehearsal, but i want to be in a band with people who are so excited about it that they cant help themselves from noodling around in their spare time, and who are excited to do new stuff. I see rehearsal time as a time for everyone to put everything together and make it work, not as a time to learn everything on the spot. last week bec had to teach ali the chords to surface tension, a song that we have been working on as a band for over 6 months, and that me and ali have been working on for nearly a year. It is totally fine if that isnt the band that people want to be in, but as it is right now, this isnt the band that I want to be in.

I think the main issue that is making me not happy in the band is that I feel like there is, or has been in the past, some level of resentment towards me and the stuff that i do for it. That i am taking up too much space and that my writing songs, or doing artwork or whatever, precludes other people from doing something themselves. whether this feeling is real or just perceived; it is very real to me, and it really stresses me out. i thoroughly disagree with it as well, and feel like i have made a real effort to try and include people in the writing process of songs by trying to get together outside of practice, and offered to help people with using programs and putting stuff together if anyone had ideas for merch or a flyer or a video or anything, but nobody ever took me up on it. I could see that even just me being involved in the process might be a bit too stifling or it might feel like i was taking up too much space; so about june last year i decided to just step back entirely from everything, and i didnt write any songs or do any artwork or anything for the band so that there was as much space as possible for everyone to contribute if they wanted to - and nothign got done at all.. we haven't even done our own flyer for a show since the last one that i did in june, and we used to do heaps of our own flyers and do cool shit. I dont know how much more space i can give people - but then it leaves me stuck in a horrible position of feeling like i am not allowed to do anything because i take up too much space, but then that leaves this massive vacuum that doesnt get filled, and we end up stagnating..

I was looking through the google drive the other day and i realised that there are recordings of primitive form and I'm okay that are from april last year, and deception and day by day were both written while brayden was still in teh band.. and these are all songs that we still consider "new" and are not 100% on playing yet.. writing new stuff and doing cool shit is really important to me, and i just dont feel like it is as important to everyone else in the band. I have decided to start writing stuff again, more just for myself, and have been really liking some of the stuff that i have been come up with, and it bums me out that i know that we will probably ever only do 1 song in about 10, and that will take 6 months.. I know that we are all still relatively new to our instruments, and am not expecting us to be able to do one new song every two weeks. but it makes me sad when, in polish, we can write a new song together and be nearly at a stage where we can play it live, in about 3 rehearsals. Its not because everyone in polish is amazing at their instruments, jules has never played synth or even keys in a band before, anita has never sung and lauz has never played bass - the only person who can claim to be proficient at their instrument is dave. it is because everyone is excited about doing new stuff and works hard on it outside of rehearsal times and then brings what they have worked on to the group to put it all together. that is how i wish that spotting was, but i dont think that is what anyone else wants.

as for this coming as a surprise, i feel there are so many things that haven been unresolved for well over a year. i'm not sure how privvy everyone else is, but in may last year me and jack had a bit of an exchange about something, which turned into a broader discussion about stuff in the band in general, which culminated in me sending him a really long, heartfelt and honest email about how i was feeling about stuff, and that i was feeling, even back then, that i didnt want to do it anymore. he kept promising to reply to it but never did, and then came to the next practice and just acted like everything was fine, and nothing ever got said about it again. that actually really hurt when he didnt reply to that email, because i had said some pretty vulnerable and personal stuff about myself as well, and it felt like it was just ignored. but a big part of jack's argument was that he felt that i took up too much space and didnt allow anyone else to contribute, and that was the point when i decided to totally step back and make space for people and see if it would get better. by the time we play the rixe show (and the wives one) that will have been a year since that time, and i feel like that is long enough to leave something to see if it gets better.

this is not a personal attack on anyone, and as i said before, i understand that everyone is relatively new to their instruments and i am not expecting us at all to be an amazingly tight band. it is more just about attitude and about personal differences in what we want from being in a band and what we are doing it for. I feel like i have been going along with this for ages because i was too scared of taking something away that everybody loved and them hating me for it, but not actually getting very much out of it myself. And i just dont have the time at the moment to do that any more.

So i just really feel like i need a break from spotting. I am not saying that it needs to stop forever, but slowing down to a dribble is not going to let me have the break that i need. I would like to start another thing, but I just dont have the time to be in 2 and a half bands. and i would never be able to commit fully to anything else if i was going to have to keep time aside for spotting as well. I will be finished my PhD in around october or november, and then, if everyone still wants to go back to it, I would be willing to talk about starting it up again then. But right now, i just feel like i am putting so much into something that is not really giving me anything that i want back.

I am really sorry for this, and i know it is hard - and i apologise if it feels like it has come out of the blue for some of you. there was never going to be a good time to say this, and im really sorry for all of the hurt i have caused and i wish it could be different.

sorry