The Ten Opening Promises

What I lay before you are ten promises directly from the horse’s mouth. These are things that will give you, dear reader, an admittedly broad overview of what you can expect from my future posts. And so, here without any further ado are the ten opening promises:

1) I promise that no matter what Jack White does in his excuse for a career, you will never read about how I finally “get” him.

2) I promise that even though I am a musician myself you will never hear me claim to be anything more than a moron when it comes to music (unless I don’t like you). *

3) You have my most solemn promise that I will try and work the band Popol Vuh into as many blog entries as I possibly can. Yes, I enjoy them that much.

4) I hereby promise to use this blog as a springboard for my opinions on music. This means that you won't be getting the Lord's gospel; you will be getting opinions. This means that I can listen to your record, whoever you are, and openly describe it as being shitty without fear of being accused of being a snob (unless you are overly sensitive, and egomaniacal). This also means that I will not bore you to tears by waxing philosophical for pages on end about bands I really don't give two shits about, or jerking myself off in print for the sole purpose of sounding like I am some sort of expert on all facets of any music scene. I won't be doing the latter because I don't care, at all, about being viewed as a comprehensive completist who thinks his encyclopedic knowledge of every talentless local hack that can strum an E chord deserves for me to notice, and worse, write about it. The world, hell, Houston, is filled with god-awful, interminable blogs that are replete with horrible writing about forgettable bands by people who really ought to look into another pastime for their useless creative energy (like playing Dungeons and Dragons, just like when they were kids - pre getting laid). If you give a shit, you will find out just how much I love about music, and why, and also what I think is intolerable, because ignoring what causes you pain is worse than facing it and holding it up to the light.

5) I hereby promise to see at least something in the neighborhood of at least a cool million faces, and lay before you, with my very honor, my most sincere intention to rock more than a good 75% of them all.

6) I am laying down a singular, heart wrenching promise to actually pay a mote of attention to the new Beck album. Hahahahahahaha, just kidding.

7) I promise to stop this silly promise shit and go back to listening to this bad-ass Popol Vuh compilation that Michael Harwell made for me a few years back. Seriously, the Aguirre soundtrack album absolutely slays me every time I listen to it, without exception.

* see promise number four

See you next Tuesday, bitches!

P.S. Seeing as how this is Halloween, I strongly recommend you rush to the nearest Hollywood on Montrose and Westheimer and pick up a copy of Dario Argento's Suspiria, because although it is unimaginably cheesy, it also happens to be totally fucking brilliant. And to top it off, the soundtrack by Italian prog creeps, Goblin is a classic in and of itself. Check them out on E-Bay, you won't be disappointed. And while you're there, pick up a copy of Suspiria, And if you find it's not for you, stick with the Raconteurs and Jeepers Creepers or some such shit. Happy Halloween!

Devil's Night

There are many things that I should probably do in an introductory post, like introduce myself, talk about New Zealand's music scene, make grand statements about my plans, et cetera. But I'm disinclined to do so, because tonight is Devil's Night.

Those of you who, unlike me, didn't grow up in or near Detroit, Michigan may have never heard of Devil's Night. Perhaps your municipalities don't have the quaint tradition of mass arson every October 30th. As in: 800 arsons at its height, about twenty years ago. I remember the sense of civic triumph the year that less than 100 fires were lit on Devil's Night. When you're from Detroit, these sorts of things are what you take civic pride in.

Devil's Night turns my mind to thoughts of Roky Erickson, not because of any Detroit connection but because - well, because the man was bloody obsessed with the devil. I'd imagine most of you at this stage have heard the 13th Floor Elevators (even if you don't know it - for instance, the movie version of HIGH FIDELITY kicks off with their version of "You're Gonna Miss Me"), but his solo career has been much less celebrated for any number of reasons. As in: years spent in institutions, electro-shock 'therapy', and an increasing obsession with Mr. Lucifer.

The excellent film YOU'RE GONNA MISS ME, which played at the New Zealand International Film Festival this year, chronicles the life and times of Roky better than I can in this short of space, and I highly recommend it if it comes to your area. What I can do, I hope, is convince you that your record collection is lacking if you don't have some Roky Erickson. Unfortunately, thanks to the sorts of complications that ensue when you're a popular and mentally unstable musician, his discography is a clustered thicket of half-assed recordings at the height of his instability, unofficial reissues from which he won't get a cent, et cetera.

My one-stop Roky Erickson solution is also called YOU'RE GONNA MISS ME, and while it's out of print, it's a reasonably comprehensive collection of his solo career highlights. (Apparently, there's a newer double CD anthology, I HAVE ALWAYS BEEN HERE BEFORE, which also includes some of his Elevators work.) As befits a mentally ill musician, it's schizophrenic, from achingly sentimental rock love songs ("Nothing in Return", "Starry Eyes") to horror-movie inspired rambles ("Creature With The Atom Brain" and "I Walked With A Zombie", the latter an egregious omission on the newer anthology) to wild-eyed screaming rock ("Two-Headed Dog" and "Bermuda", which has an outright scary closing vocal delivery - Roky Erickson can scream like no man alive.

But the scariest song, the sound of staring calmly at the ceiling while the city around you burns, is the deceptively placid, even beautiful "I Have Always Been Here Before". I've listened to this song 500 times if I've heard it once, I even named a short film I made after it, and I'm still not closer to figuring out what it means than after a first listen, even though it makes perfect sense. It's just Roky singing and either one or two acoustic guitars, and he's singing with a quiet determination completely unlike the scream on his rock songs, and his lyrics ramble about Stonehenge and Lucifer's temples and squeeze in lines like "that which was supposed to have frightened you, but somehow you never took to fright".

Maybe that's what scares me - the resignation of the song that's revealed in that line, the perpetual past tense, the absolute weariness. This is the sound of a man who has fought with his devils and lost. He can't even be scared any more, because being scared doesn't make sense when you have looked your devils in the eye and have taken the worst they have to offer. What's left to fear?

Other than experiencing it again. And again. And again.

For those who'd like to experience it yourself, I recommend dropping by the MP3 blog Buddyhead and downloading "Before" and two other Roky tracks there, including a downright terrifying version of "Heroin". I never believed Lou Reed when he said "I'm going to try to nullify my own life", but when Roky sings it ... oh dear god.

And everyone in Detroit: have a safe Devil's Night.

Party Shutdown #1

Post delayed due to rough Saturday night, an explanation of ‘rough’ follows:

The Nervous Cabaret, who performed at thedanger.com’s Halloween party, had good reason to be anxious. For non-New Yorkers unaccustomed with this city’s cabaret law, we’re living in a city where dancing is illegal in public unless the owner of an ‘establishment’ holds a license, has been fingerprinted, and can afford a back-up generator. I’m not sure if it was this particular law, the various Building Code violations, or the state liquor licensing laws that caused the party organizers to run afoul of the NYPD, ending the fun in a warehouse lost in Bushwick. Probably, too many people (around 3,000) wearing scary costumes showing up all at once didn't help matters.

It's tough to throw a party in this town, especially one with a sense of adventure while also meeting the authority's standards for 'public safety'. My friend Jennie best described the super-club and mini-club zones of Chelsea and the Meat-Packing District as the ‘Senior Assholes and Junior Assholes Quarters’ within the city: lines of people waiting behind velvet ropes starting fights with bouncers to pay for canned experiences of slick DJs, expensive drinks, new fake-old interiors. It's the acceptance of the new fake-old aesthetic that really bothers me as an architect, especially when this city is so full of authentic industrial decrepitude. Fortunately, someone is trying to make use of it.

We did get to see the Hungry March Band march, a bit of Subatomic Sound System, and several of the scheduled DJs spin prior to it all going wrong- but, I'm reasonably certain that neither of the headliners, Spinoza & Wolf + Lamb, made it on. The police showed up shortly after 2am to thoroughly disperse the crowd, so thoroughly that I lost all of my friends in addition to the ones I couldn’t find in the first place. Admittedly, this might have been aggravated by alchohol-impaired judgements on several counts. My friend Rob sent me this message a few hours later:

…I made it to 3rd Ward. I did not see you there, but that was no surprise considering how overcrowded it was. What a fucking nightmare, those guys should be charged with endangerment of their guests. On the way down from the third floor the bathrooms were overflowing and dripping down the stairs onto everyone's head, most people will probably wake up with E. coli…

Hopefully, Third Ward will be able to get a new Certificate of Occupancy and a bonafide cabaret license, because a lot of people would like to see it all go right.

Welcome to our Humble Blog.

A few months ago I got the idea of devoting a blog exclusively to music. I mean why not? I'd thought of some people whom I've always admired and, for some inexplicable reason, I was sure that they’d jump aboard. Thanks to the internet I was able to contact these people who’ve been a big part of my musical life and guess what? They agreed. So, welcome if you will:

Carlos Anaconda – (He chose to remain anonymous) performed in one of the most unique and singular bands ever to come out of Houston – Dry Nod. Truly a band that set standards I’ve rarely seen met and never exceeded.

Heidi Bullinga – former Station manager at KTRU. To suggest that I take chances with my DJ sets, she’s once told me “If you don’t play at least one crappy song during your show, you haven’t done your job.” The best piece of musical advice I’ve ever received.

John Cramer – Former Mike Gunn guitarist whose sharp and biting wit are equally matched by his love of music.

Justin Crane – One of the driest smart-asses ever to sit in a DJ booth.

Doug Dillaman – His band Ultra Hummus** was an assault on all that came within 500 feet of their shows. This band made noise like no other and to this day remains an inspiration.

Kilian Sweeney – His bands de Schmog* and Texas Guinness Lovers showed me that a band could be fun, kick up a party, and yet still be challenging and smart.

If you haven’t caught on, everyone here is from Houston or at least spent enough time here to be permanently damaged by its music scene. My hopes in rounding up these super-friends is to have a blog that provides some snippet of what music means to us - the excitement of a new song, the boredom of loading musical equipment before a show, the feel of a local scene, or what ever the hell strikes us or (when we choose to punt our column) our guests. In short this is our transmission to you and we hope you enjoy it.

Now, if you will excuse me, I have to shower as I’m off to see the Fatal Flying Guilloteens perform along with The Red and The White at the Proletariat – it should be a great show!


*My humble apologies to Kilian. I misspelled this as "Da" in my original post.
** Yeah, I screwed this one up too. Sorry Doug.