*In Bed

I told myself that I was going to write something here as soon as I got home from work. That way I could spend free moments thinking about what I would write. I imagined that I would come up with something brilliant by the end of the day. I don't know why I thought this would work. It never does, but it's a tactic that I employ all too frequently. Instead of coming up with something interesting, I just allow myself the entire day to procrastinate. And let me tell you, I am a champion procrastinator. So then I got home and had to face the music, as it were.

I lay here folding, unfolding, and refolding the Panda Express fortune that fell out of my bag when I took the laptop out, trying to think of something to write. Then I looked at the fortune: THE WISE THING TO DO IS TO PREPARE FOR THE UNEXPECTED. Well, that doesn't help. Or does it? Maybe if I use this fortune as an Oblique Strategy and come up with an occasion--relating to music, of course--when I got the unexpected.

Hmm.

I know. How about that time I went to Rudyard's to see a show where the Mooney Suzuki were an opening band? It was a weeknight, so the place wasn't very crowded--maybe twenty people. We all sat at tables, the way you do on a weeknight at Rudyard's. The Mooney Suzuki were having none of that, though. They stomped around and preened, trying to get more crowd reaction, but the crowd was just courteous. They played, we clapped. Apparently, this was not enough attention, though, so they set out to command out full attention. Suddenly they were on top of tables and the glasses which had previously been on these tables were in laps. Unexpected. We, the audience, were not impressed. They, the band, continued knocking over tables and generally acting like asses. Apparently they were determined to teach us hayseeds a lesson in how to appreciate them. At this point one of the audience members casually picked up his mustard bottle and walked over to the guitarist's effects pedals and gave them a good mustard soaking. Also unexpected. This brought the show to a screeching halt and resulted in a shoving match between this audience member and Mr. Mustard. Several times the shoving got close to the very large television which sits slightly precariously on its base. It teetered back and forth in slow motion, but it didn't fall. Then as quickly as this little melee started, it was over. The band packed up its things and made for the door and the audience waited for the next band.

Maybe you have an unexpected music experience? Probably even a better one?

(..............................)

Turn off the stereo, the volume on the computer, the tv. What do you hear? silence? Hardly, right? Close your eyes, plug up your ears, buy those new Bose noise cancelling headphones. Any silence? Nope. Take a rocket into outerspace, open the door, walk out of the rocket and take off your helmet. Silence? How about we go join a Tibetan monastery and meditate until we can separate ourselves from this world and quiet our mind. Silence? Where is the silence?

It's right here. Right...... here..... Can you hear it? Of course you cant. Listen closer. Try to listen between that noise and the next, can you hear it? of course not. Cause that tiny space between the noises is smaller than a hypothetical particle. Take a pencil, sharpen it, stick it in your ear point in first, do the same with another pencil in the other ear, slam your hands against your ears, quickly, hard, fast. Silence?

Silence...


















Silence...

Ye Olde Fish Eyed Heathens

A couple of weeks ago, I wandered over to the Pritzker Pavilion to catch the tail end of Mavis Staple's concert. She wrapped things up with the Staples Singer hit I'll Take You There and the spiritual Will the Circle Be Unbroken. These two songs are fitting examples of the balance the Staples Singers tried to achieve between secular success and spiritual foundation. For many within that particular staunchly religious community, the balance does not exist. While for others, like local hero Jennifer Hudson, that community is their bedrock from which they can achieve almost anything.

Jennifer Hudson entered the American Idol contest a couple of years ago with a golden voice, unfortunately accompanied by the body of a sea lion and the fashion sense of Aunt Esther. She didn't win but she did get noticed. One year later she won an Oscar for her role Dreamgirls,(which is playing this week in Chicago's Open-Air Movie series). On her mantel also sits a Golden Globe Award and two BET trophies. The girl has always beamed confidence even in defeat. The source of that confidence she credits to her community. One could tell, watching the many interviews she did here in her hometown (often at her church), that girl was going to be okay no matter what. Her aplomb was evident in victory too when she walked the Academy Awards red carpet. She was asked about her exercise method, and replied "I actually stopped working out because I don't want to lose my jelly."


Jelly or not, she cleans up nicely.

Aunt Esther however would not be pleased. In fact many folks in the Southern Baptist community would not be pleased with this secular use of talent.

Ms. Hudson is lucky though. She faces no controversy at least not in her local church. Like the Staple Singers before her, she is happy to admit that her first love is church music. That didn't help the Staple Singers avoid a round of community criticism for paving the way out of the church and on to the radio.

Shirley Caesar was one such critic back when the Staple Singers were gospelizing the pop landscape. In the late 60's she was a highly charged gospel singer with a big afro and a big sound. To A&R reps, Caesar must have looked like a big bag of singing money also. She turned down the cash because, as she put it, they wouldn't let her "rock for Jesus and roll for God."

I saw Shirley Caesar in concert a few years ago at the NAACP National Convention in Milwaukee. You might think that's a funny place to find a big white dork such as myself and yeah let me tell you it was. Of the couple thousand people in attendance, I counted only three white folks including myself. I was there to photograph the Sears volunteer gospel choir. At the time I was employed by Sears and the choir leader was my co-worker.

If it surprises you that Sears has a black gospel choir it shouldn't. Sears has a history of respect both for and from the black community. For an example, you need look no further than Roebuck "Pops" Staples, the singing group's patriarch, who is named after the company co-founder. His brother's name is Sears.

Anyway that trip is a story in itself. One I've already written here.

What I'm here right now to tell you brothers and sisters is that Shirley Caesar is one mean lady and I mean that in multiple respects. For one thing, like Aunt Esther, she'll put the fear of God in you with a look you will not soon forget. For another thing, she may do it for Jesus, but she certainly does rock. Here's her explaining in song why she doesn't "sing the Rock and Roll."

Songs

Shirley Caesar - My Testimony
the Staple Singers - Gloryland
Quincy Jones - Streetbeater


Well that's it. Another Wednesday series put to rest. So long Jesus, you had a good run!
Hey. We're lucky - former Axiom booking agent, Julie Grob will grace NAP Wednesdays for the next couple of weeks.




all photos are distributed promo shots except Fred and Aunt Esther so watch it sucka.

Death From Within

Two kids, a job, and middle age. I am revisiting my youth through a fucking reunion show. I’m starting to seriously doubt this concept. Twelve years ago now and there has been no internal clamor to get it started again. And yet, we have somehow wandered into a semi-agreed date to drag ourselves back up on the block. We can’t even get it together enough to arrange a single practice, and somehow we are going to take a stage in December and have a go at it? Fuck me.

Scott is always smarter than I am, and yet he has not completely committed himself to not doing this. There’s a trick in there somewhere, I just haven’t figured it out yet.

I don’t have any time in my life right now to do much of anything, including write. I am officially in cruise control at the moment. Being a functioning human with identifying characteristics, loves, and desires is, for the time being, almost impossible. Nice knowing you.

I’ve been playing the Gunn stuff on my guitar at home, and it isn’t exactly something found in the Segovia master class, so if we happen to suddenly become magicians and pull off a miracle, I’ll be prepared.

Don’t hold your breath.

Fuck music. Fuck this. Fuck me.

Fuck.

This week is a total wash; I’ll try and bring something of actual worth next week.

We’ll see.

XXXII

Click here for the latest NAPcast. Phhhew, it's almost all working- except that the embedded player at nonalignmentpactmusic seems to play Kilian's podcast from last week. Will fix that soon...

hipster olympics

the island, part 2: snow owl.

When you think of a deserted island, you think of solitude, of being left alone. But the truth is that while I am without human company, Dougtopia is full of other forms of life, with varying levels of annoyance. Most likable, both in terms of being not very disruptive and being reasonably tasty, are the fish. There was a time when I didn't have the stomach to clean and gut a fish. On an island with only bananas, oranges, lettuce, and a large store of rice and flour, such concerns dwindle rapidly.

The birds, on the other hand, are not welcome. They mock me. Their calls harangue me impossibly early in the morning. I thought I would adjust, but wherever I am, the days are long, and the night is not long enough for me to fully rest on the lumpy mattress until I hear their calls. I want to kill them.

And I do, every now and then. A sharp rock and increasingly better aim add up to a lot. They have little usable meat, but it would be a waste not to take advantage of it.

As I set to dismantling the bird, whose name I don't know, I listen to track 2 of FULL FORCE GALESBURG, "Snow Owl". I brought this album as a reminder of domesticity in a place where domesticity would be an alien concept, or so I thought. But here we are, and the narrator of "Snow Owl" is quite simply a lonely guy looking out the window at a bird.

I break off the wings for the fire. They are not yet worth the effort.

I listen over and over, trying to decipher the metaphor if there is any. "In your eyes were all the colors the rainbow forgot" sounds like an extract from a labored love song, but the follow-up, "your wingspan was three feet wide or better", makes it pretty clear his words aren't directed at a human.

I cut off the bird's head and split it down the center, and I hear his description of the snow owl's cry -

with your voice practicing notes from time's own beginning
you took apart the alphabet letter by letter

- and hear it as one of the infinite number meditations on this album about the limitations of language. I wonder, as I rip small pieces of meat from a bone, what I will have to say to people when I come back, what set of words would really give any sense of this experience.

When I come back.

If I come back.

I listen to the plucked, not strummed, guitar. In the early days of The Mountain Goats, plucking was a sign of reach exceeding grasp; "The Window Song", for instance, is chock-full of flubs. But here, the picking is, while certainly not virtuosic, then confident in a quiet way. Tranquil, calm. And a bit sad, as the narrator shares with the only being he can share with, his loneliness -

the dice were loaded against us ever seeing each other
but one of us had nowhere else to go

- causing him to reach out to the snow owl, a calm port in a storm.

And as I seal the bird's guts in the fish bait jar and skewer the meat for cooking, I look out to sea, and I see the dark clouds over the sea, I remember, I know, and I feel slightly sick -

- what comes next is not calm.

------------

VIDEO #2 for people who don't give a shit about The Mountain Goats: Roots Manuva's video for "Witness The Fitness", which has a lengthy setup before revealing itself as one of the funniest music videos ever.

Getting The Ship Over The Mountain

Today is Friday and I just sent-off artwork for the newest LP4 jacket which I am hoping will be worth all the effort we’ve put into it. Of course this whole endeavor has been brutal and we’ve sunk enough money into this album to make any business major cringe. It went from the possibility of making a tiny profit, to breaking-even, to “Well as long as we pay my parents back the loan for the last $1,000, we’re good!”

The reason we’re in this Terry Gilliam state is simply that as expensive as Vinyl is to press you can’t wholesale it very high to distributors which gives you a low ceiling of profitability. The easy thing to do would be to just print the jacket and the vinyl and just be done with it but no, we’re stupid like that. What do we do? We go with purple vinyl, CDRs, a 12 page insert, and even the jacket is going to have halochrome metallic ink. It’s the old “if were going to do this, we’re going to do it right” thing.

So here we are putting all this effort into this thing because we think it is the best shit ever to have been squeezed out of God’s ass when, via a link from Skyline, I realize that Camera Obscura has posted an MP3 of one of the songs. Suddenly, I’m not so sure. It finally hits me that it’s not just something we put together in the studio but it’s going out into the real world. All I can think is “Oh my god this is awful and irrelevant. Everyone is going to hate it. Just what little Decline of Western Civilization Part 2 delusion was I under by putting this out?” Is it good? Honestly, I have lived with this LP since March and I don’t know any more. It kind-of goes back to what Marshall told me once about how the irrelevance of your music is irrelevant – you just do it. He’s right. I mean, we put everything we have into this and if we don’t sell one copy, in the end, we’ve done right by ourselves and our music. It’s going to be out there not as an mp3 on fucking Myspace but a real object made with the real sweat, effort, and care that comes from doing something that is selfish, irrational, and pig-headed.

With music, if you even begin to think about what you are doing – really consider it rationally – you’d stop before you got to step one. That’s how you end up putting out Vinyl - the most irrational of formats. How is it that people pay $18 retail for a CD but around $10 - $15 for an LP when the latter costs about double to manufacture? See what I’m talking about? Just the economics are nutters. So I was talking with Adam Smith about this and all he told me was “The reason people put out vinyl is because they are obsessive nut jobs who will be dancin’ for coin on the street corner in a few years and the reason people pay so much for CDs is they are fucking stupid. Simply put, Capitalism met Music a while back and both decided that the other was not only insufferable and worthy of contempt but also a lousy lay. Ever since then we just keep them at opposite ends of the room.“ Thanks Adam that kind of says it all. So if you are doing anything creative just do - don't think. You can fret about how good or rational it is when you are dead.

Credits:

Image from Fitzcarraldo a film by Werner Herzog.
Cinematographer Thomas Mauch

Here is a Wikipedia entry on Fitzcarraldo

Hips Don't Lie

Recently I was sitting in a sports bar with a friend waiting for the burgers that we ordered, listening to the really bad music selection, when up pops Shakira. I tried my best to ignore it. Sometimes it's possible to let the music fade into the background with the idle chatter about baseball and the dishwashing sounds. Not so with this song. And it wasn't just the compression that made it refuse to be ignored (though admittedly there was plenty of compression). No, this song's thorn in my side is its gratuitous use of Autotune.

If you're not familiar with this beast, I shall do my best to explain it. Autotune is pitch shifting software that you can plug in to your digital recorder or that comes in special hardware for use in a live setting. It's not just any pitch shifter, though, its purpose is to correct something that is off pitch, like, say, Shakira's voice. You tell the software what key your song is in, and it will find notes that don't fit and drag them to the proper pitch. I know, this sounds pretty gee whiz cool, but in practice it just sounds like ass, because real humans don't sing like that.

For an obvious example, I point you to Cher's "Believe." That is the sound of Autotune in action. In this case, though, it's used mostly for effect. I mean, everything else about Cher is so cartoonishly fake that it only makes sense for there to be no trace of her real voice.

The Shakira song, by contrast, doesn't make her sound entirely like a robot, but it is very obviously corrected--to the point of sounding freakish. Why? I don't really mind the sound of a voice that is a little off pitch. Believe me, I have a record collection that is dominated by people who don't sing very well. This is the sound of a real voice and it's what gives pop music some of its charm. So I don't understand why it's important to make Shakira sound like a non-human.

There is a larger argument here, I suppose, that goes: If Shakira can't sing very well, why is she making music? I could be wrong here, but I don't get the impression that people like her because she's such an awesome singer; they like her because of her performance. Why not just skip the bit where she sings and just make the show into a dance routine? That way she wouldn't even have to pretend to sing.

Maybe the added revenue stream that comes from selling the piece of plastic with music on it explains why Shakira sings. Fortunately that won't last much longer. People are buying fewer of those pieces of plastic every day in favor of downloading and what are the odds that somebody is going to pay for a Shakira song rather than just copying it from a friend? Pretty slim, I'd say. And that makes the future seem a little brighter, doesn't it?

Week 43: Guitar Solos

The Master:


The Mouth Guitar Legend:


The Coolest:


The Classicist and his Class:


The Real Deal:


Bonus: Surreal!

Why Should the Devil Have All the Good Music?

Last week I sat down to watch a movie with my sister. With her version of devout Christianity, I have learned not to presume what movies she will and won't watch, though some movies are easier to estimate than others. In this case, it was Vickie Hunter and Heather Whinna's Why Should the Devil Have All the Good Music?, a documentary about the Christian Rock community. I wasn't sure my sister would enjoy this movie. But I was confident, no matter the motives of the filmmakers, that I would get something out of it.

I had some reason to believe that WSTDHATGM? would be more than a Christian Rock propaganda flick since I knew that the film had won the Audience Choice Award at the 2004 Chicago Underground Film Festival (which is happening this week as well). This was another reason I wasn't sure that the movie would present the Christian Rock community in a palatable way for my sister.

Actually, I was at the Movie release party at the Hideout back in 2004. At the time I was more interested in seeing what Steve Albini would come up with as the party DJ. Steve Albini happens to be the boyfriend of one of the film's creators and he is interviewed in the movie. Also playing at the release party was the Detholz!, one of the bands featured in WSTDHATGM?.

The Detholz! blew me away. I stood near the front during their entire set with an ear to ear grin. Their lyrics obviously dealt with Christian themes still I had trouble taking them seriously. Operatic glam rock based on the Left Behind series just seemed too hilarious to be genuine. I asked one of their entourage (the bald guy in the photo below) how serious all this was and was assured, in a manner that wasn't believable, that it was.

The show had more of the spirit of Bobby Conn than Jesus Christ and in fact the Detholz! lead singer, Jim Cooper, does occasionally play with Bobby Conn. BC's own lyrics are full of Christian references and he has called himself a new kind of Christian. Jim Cooper also plays bass for an apparently secular outfit called Baby Teeth. The Baby Teeth singer also plays with Bobby Conn but also happens to be Jewish. The plot thickens.

Or is it thinnens?

So anyway, seeing the Detholz! gave me the feeling that something worthwhile is going on in the Christian Rock community. In the past I found it discouraging or perhaps comforting that CR was so bland. Not to put all the blame on the CR thing, the Catholic church music of my youth was horrible. My spiritual community didn't put any soul into the singing, though the pipe organ was mean. The Mexican churches in my current neighborhood are just as bad. All those nasally voices singing in unison is enough to run the rats out of town. I would think that if I held the belief that the music I made came directly from God, then the music He played with my voice and hands better be pretty damn good. But that's just not the way it usually goes down.

At least some in the Christian Rock community can take this sort of criticism with a sense of humor. Like Rese Roper of Five Iron Frenzy who introduced a song this way, "...a lot of bands are always like, 'yeah the lord gave me this song' and then it's a horrible song. but um even if this is a horrible song I love what God does with it." Unfortunately for Mr. Roper (and God), the song sucked. Anyway, I was hoping something in WSTDHATGM? would shine a light where I once was blind.

WSTDHATGM? is clearly a low budget film, shot mostly with hand held cameras with poor sound equipment in a limited number of locales. The equipment was so shabby in fact that the directors confess to having to cut shots that clearly would have helped the film yet were not salvageable for some technical reason or another. That being said, the film is entirely watchable even at times cinematically pleasing.

Most of the footage comes from Cornerstone, an annual Christian Rock festival held in Southern Illinois. This is the Lollapalooza of the CR world. The film starts with the highly charged death metal band Zao which packs some instant shock value. This dark element of the CR world is largely represented by bands from the Tooth and Nail label. The appeal became less and less puzzling as the film moved along. Clearly there is a frightening side to the Christian belief. That young Christian kids want to take the dark side head on really isn't surprising even if it is occasionally humorous. The funniest scene in the movie is when death metal singer Brad Fitzhugh from the band Living Sacrifice picks up his four year old kid during an interview and asks her if she can sing like daddy. She looks broodingly into the camera and belts out a guttural Jesus.

Few of the musicians were familiar though some may be more familiar to the NAP indie contingency; bands like Pedro the Lion whose rambling leader gets a good deal of attention; also Josh Caterer who broke up his up and coming secular Chicago band, Smoking Popes, when he re-birthed. For me, other than the Detholz! I recognized only Stryper and the surprise appearance of Pansy Division.

Pansy Division, the seminal (yuk yuk) San Fransisco based gay punk band, are clearly not Christian Rock but they had the well timed luck of playing a gig at Chicago's Fireside Bowl with the Detholz! during the filming of this movie. The directors were blessed here because Pansy Division gives good interview and a nice segue to a discussion of gay issues within the CR community which turns out to be one of the best sections of the flick and includes the tattooed Jay Bakker (son of Jim and Tammy Faye) and a heartfelt interview with a Christian family whose eldest son has left the flock for the rainbow.

Few bands introduced to me in WSTDHATGM? were intriguing enough to want to delve further. The exceptions are Larry Norman (whose song names bless the title of this documentary as well as the Pixie's first release "Come on Pilgrim"), Steve Taylor (who the directors refer to as "the David Byrne of the Christian Rock world"), Victoria Williams (a twangy Loretta Lynn type figure who may already be familiar to Alt-Country types) and the Danielson Famile.

The Danielson Famile get about ten seconds of exposure in this film but that was enough to pique my interest. Their sound is like something from a Pentecostal Tent Revival. They wear nurse outfits with big red hearts on their sleeves. My sister hated it. I wanted more but I couldn't understand why they were given so little time. Turns out the directors knew that a full length Danielson Famile documentary was in the works.

Though WSTDHATGM? largely deals with the soul searching complications (and there are many) within the Christian Rock community, secular beliefs are given space in the form of Steve Albini (always a vocal interviewee), John Tolley (who gives a funny telling of being evanga-bribed with free pizza and rock and roll), and Dan Sinker (co-founder of Punk Planet who looks like our DD but with sideburns). The secular views give the film balance but I can't help agreeing with the criticism that these guys are just grumpy old men. Dan Sinker's interview especially sounds like misplaced bitterness. Take this quote: "as amazing as I'm sure some of the christian rock bands are, there's a lot more amazing 'real bands.'" Does Dan Sinker make similar exclusion statements for reggae bands and rastafarianism or the Beastie Boys and the Buddha? What is a real band anyway? I'm sure Sinker would say his quote was taken out of context and it might be true. In most of the secular sound bites we don't have the benefit of hearing the interviewer's question, which works to the detriment of the interviewee.

It isn't quite clear in watching WSTDHATGM? if the directors are Christian or not, though it becomes clear in listening to the commentary track that they are not. This is to their credit. Indeed, the directors faced personal challenges in the filming of this movie. Vickie Hunter says she threw up behind a tent at Cornerstone because she was so nauseated by some aspects of the event. Fortunately they were mature enough to present the CR community without polluting it with their own beliefs. That would have made the film ironically preachy. This earned them a thumbs up from the Christian Science Monitor. Clearly it works for secular viewing as well, since it won the Audience Award at the Chicago Underground Film Festival. Also my sister and I were able to enjoy this movie together.

Why Should the Devil Have All the Good Music? gets a Sweeney thumbs up. Check it out at on Netflix or wherever good movies are sold.

Songs
Larry Norman - Why Should the Devil Have All the Good Music?
the Danielson Famile - Pottymouth
The Detholz! - Club Oslo
Baby Teeth - Celebrity Wedding



photos are all PR shots - first is the Detholz!, then the Danielson Famile and the last one is Larry Norman with pictures of Farah Fawcett.

Don Gone and Sybil-less

I was in Rusted Shut for one night.

It was destined to be the night from hell, but with a little improvising, things ended up working out ok after all.

The Mike Gunn was heading to Austin to play a show at the Ritz with Rusted Shut and a handful of no-name Austin hardcore bands.

Even a minor road trip made for a good time for the Mike Gunn, and with Rusted Shut in tow, there was little chance that things wouldn’t at least be entertaining when all was said and done. The thing was, unbeknownst to us, by the time we had hit the road, the night was already falling apart.

By the time we arrived in Austin there was a message waiting for us in the club. Curt, our drummer, would not be making the entire trip in as he had opted to take his now infamous motorcycle to the show instead of riding in the four wheeled vehicles the rest of us decided to take. Naturally, it rained. This left Curt (and his homunculus, Captain Space) stuck drinking bad booze in a motel bar in scenic Columbus. The implication being that I would either play drums for the night or we wouldn’t play at all. Perhaps unwisely, drums it was.

As for Rusted Shut, things weren’t faring too well for them either. Don and Sybil had for no apparent reason decided to bail on the show as well. This meant that the remaining member, who at the time was Kenny (he of naked-defacing-of-Axiom-painting fame), who had the fortune to ride with us, would be Rusted Shut for the night.

After sitting through a coterie of truly unimaginative and formulaic straight-edge hardcore outfits, it was time for Rusted Shut to work their (his) mojo.

At the last minute, it was decided that Kenny would be joined onstage by me. If memory serves me correctly, our “set” was comprised completely of me standing up, bashing a floor tom and a crash cymbal, and Kenny “playing” guitar and screaming maniacal ramblings at the straight-edge kids. To describe their reaction as terror would be to understate the way in which these trust fund rebels were behaving. It was as though we had brought our truth potion, sprinkled it over ourselves, and then proceeded to lay down the law in grand, merciless style. Their response was to avoid eye contact and pretend that their cranberry juice drinks were so delicious that they were actually not hearing us. Pussies. Fuck straight edge. I don’t drink, and still… fuck straight edge.

It was stupid, deliberately provocative, asinine, juvenile, antagonistic, brash, confrontational, and utterly pointless. In other words, it was brilliant.

Their reaction was to key Scott Grimm’s car out in the alley behind the club as they were heading back out to Barton Springs or wherever their filthy rich parents lived. Clearly an act borne on the wings of true punk rock luminaries. I loved that they loaded most of their gear into a fucking pristine Mercedes sedan. Nothing but the best for these vegan, celibate babies.

Our work done, it was time for the Mike Gunn to do our thing. With me on drums, this amounted to a bunch of Pink Floyd covers, and some fairly well botched Mike Gunn songs. At that point, like many (if not most) of our shows, it was irrelevant anyway because there was no one there to watch us be the douches we so clearly were.

It’s funny to think back on that night and then to think ahead to now, a time in which we are to make a stab at coming back, if for one fateful night, to try and wring a last shred of pleasure out of that which so long ago made a fairly graceful and painless exit.

I am beyond amazed at the willingness of others to throw themselves on the fire as such. Me, I have no dignity. I loved being in that band even if it was agonizingly frustrating in so many ways. I can look back on it now and feel like at least I have accomplished a little something that I’m not ashamed of today.

In my years, I have learned that this is, to be sure, a monstrous achievement.

Knowing us, little to nothing may come of this experiment; the odds are spread fairly evenly across our completely running away, hating each other, or actually pulling it off.

We are negative creeps, this can not be denied, but I for one know that when we are at our best, we are capable of pulling it off well enough to be enjoyed on the merits of the music alone.

The odds of this happening are bad at best. Really I just hope we can find a sort of cohesion and a taste for why we hung in as long as we did considering our massive shortcomings.

I want it to work. I’m just not sure if it will.

Keep posted. Only the Shadow knows.

magyar contributions

What is the first thing that comes to mind when you hear (or read) the word ‘Hungary’? For me, it was goulash and a vague image of grey, decaying Baroque buildings neglected during decades of communist rule. If I thought really hard and remembered that this Pact of Non has something to do with music, I may have been able to dig the name Béla Viktor János Bartók from the recesses of my cranial cavities. At least, we in the Occident (a term not to be confused with the fascist French party) have access to his music and ideas of ethnomusicology via recordings, performances, scores, the radio etc. Music sometimes travels in a way that other parts of a culture do not.

What should have come to mind because they are so amazing, the likes of which I have not seen in the US, are all of the public bathhouses built over hot springs. Inside one of these complexes, there are usually a few elaborate spaces with pools of varying temperatures, saunas, steam rooms, cold baths, reclining chairs and benches for resting, outdoor areas to get sun, showering facilities, and separate changing areas with private cabinas. (When I finally have access to my own computer, I’ll upload some pictures. For now, you can click on any of the bathhouses listed here to see photos.) The Rudas Gyógyfürdö (on the Buda side of Budapest) have mosaics in them dating back to Roman rule while the remaining architecture dates back at least 450 years to the Turks/the Ottoman Empire. I visited the Széchenyi Gyógyfürdö (on the Pest side of Budapest) with my friends Enzo and Elena. These baths are housed in a sprawling Neo-Baroque edifice (Hapsbourg rule) and are roughly equivalent to the public space of the Piazza Navona in Rome; people from all walks of life go to these things, especially older people suffering from rheumatism or arthritis. I’m not sure how either the Huns (as in Attila the) or the communists (as in Russian, Soviet) demonstrably contributed to bathing culture.

If I ever get the chance, I would also like to go see Peter Zumthor’s baths in Vals, Switzerland, though I’m guessing they were a bit more expensive than the $11.50 (220 Forint) I paid for access to the ones in Budapest.

Just for fun, I looked for a map of the locations of geothermal hot springs in the United States to see if maybe we could all get rich by opening our own thermal baths for the masses. Rather inconveniently, I think the dots mostly overlap with areas of religious conservatism and deserts without large, concentrated populations.

At the Sziget festival which was expected to draw 385,000 people, by far the most interesting band that I managed to see was the Kerekes Band. A mandolin, a violin, a bass guitar, drums, and a recorder mesmerized a few hundred people into a dancing frenzy- a non 4/4, non head-bobbing, feet moving in every direction frenzy. The guy playing the recorder wore a Jimi Hendrix t-shirt, if that gives you any indication as their take on traditional gypsy folk music. As far as I know, they are all Hungarian (or Magyar), with a Hungarian recording, on a Hungarian label, and without distribution outside of Hungary- except for via the internet.

Am now in the hometown of Bach and Leibnitz suffering from a severe cold.

Dirty One

Click hear to here this episode of the NONALIGNMENT PACT podcasts. If you need help.... ask.

Know mystery tune this week. Leave a comments if you think that sucks (I know I will).

Usually clues may be provided if the songs cannot be guessed. Song and Artist must be guessed in order for you to win and provide the next mystery tune on an upcoming cast.


If you want to do a podcast, guest host a podcast, submit music, or submit artwork, or anything else relative leave a comment. It is a lot of fun.

the island, part 1: new britain

(Note: this is part 1 on a series about why I chose FULL FORCE GALESBURG as the one disc I would take to a desert island. See this post for an introduction.)

I awake on the beach, the cool waves licking at my feet: the tide is coming in.

Where am I? I have no idea. I must change this. The first thing, as always, is the name. If we can name something, we can delude ourselves into thinking we know what it is. For now, the name is Dougtopia. It may change.

A desert island and a deserted island, but a once-inhabited island, so the comforts are not entirely up to me inventing things from scratch. The cabin will need work, but the stove is good, the mattress is more comfortable than I hoped, and the view is unimpeachable. Also, there are enough D batteries to last a long time, and a CD boombox, and so I throw in the only CD that will keep me company, FULL FORCE GALESBURG by The Mountain Goats. The familiar aggressive acoustic guitar volley hits me, the only opening to a track I hear until I am rescued.

If I am rescued. I should repair the cabin, take advantage of the good weather, find fresh water to supplement the few bottles in the cabin. Instead, I sit on the beach, staring into the sun, like the protagonists of this song.

The name of the first track is "New Britain". As it happens, there are New Britains in Pennsylvania, Papau New Guinea, and Connecticut, none of which, I expect, are meant to be the subject of the song. (Neither the album by Whitehouse nor the far-right British political party, for that matter.)

I assume, rightly or wrongly, that New Britain is an old name for America, before a war was fought, battle lines drawn, a new relationship was borne out of years of blood and hatred, and certainly the Revolutionary War reference is explicit in the lyrics:

All the way across the ocean, they're gathering their strength again
lining up across the country's length again

But in the world of the Mountain Goats, at least in this era, the struggles of the world ultimately boil down to the struggle between man and woman. (The universe of the Goats has always been an incredibly hetero-normative one.) And this struggle, one more basic, one based around the inability to communicate and failures of language -

you've had it up to hear with my west country talk
you can hardly understand a word I say ...

I try to tell you secrets til my face turns blue
I am not getting through to you

- is no less challenging.

A common movie trope - and I assume it comes from life - is for soldiers or others in precarious situations to have a picture that sustains them through the rough times, usually of a loved one. Inevitably, the return home, where they come back to the vision that has sustained them through all of this, is a letdown, a catastrophe, and nothing as they imagined. The woman has found another man, or the dream job has fallen through, or what have you.

I could've taken an album of a dream, one that gave me a fantasy to sustain me. But that would be catastrophic. I didn't want to take a dream of a possible world with me. When the narrator of "New Britain" has had his world collapse -

I hold you in my arms but you're hardly even with me
This morning I know who you are

- it's not something to hope for. But it's something I know, the horrible feeling of holding somebody who is a million miles away, and it's not a pleasant memory but it will keep me human, both now and when I return, for the end of this experience, be it an ordeal or paradise, will not lead to a happily-ever-after but to a sloppy and complicated world interacting with humans, with challenges less visceral but far more difficult than any I will face here.

I hit play again, as the sun sets, and the guitar starts up one more time, and I wonder if it is the narrator who is New Britain, or the woman he fruitlessly holds close to him. The woman, I decide, who has made her declaration of independence. The man will be left behind. Alone. Call him old Britain, unable to adjust to a new changing world, plunging forward in redcoats in straight lines while being fired upon in unexpected ways.

I could listen to this song forever. I may have to.

--------------

VIDEO #1 for people who don't give a shit about The Mountain Goats: recently, the amazing director Michelangelo Antonioni died. I re-watched BLOW-UP (truthfully, not his best film, but I'd still be ecstatic if I made a film this good), and when I heard "Middle of Nowhere" by Hot Hot Heat a few days later, it reminded me of the video, which owes a huge debt to BLOW-UP but still manages to be its own, very cool thing. Even if the singer's hair bugs me.

Two nights at the Prole - one more sober than the other.

My plan was to go catch the early show at the Proletariat and then run off to Bohemeos. Satin Hooks was playing the latter and Nick has been officially added as their new drummer which is kick ass! Of course heading to the Proletariat meant booze and Jon Black (Whorehound) introduced me to the brilliant combination of Shiner Hefeweizen with a lemon. Genius but the lemon makes you forget you are drinking alcohol so with Jon and Dunnock's help I got snookered to the point where I walked out of the Prole and realized I was NOT driving anywhere anytime soon. So, instead of catching the Hooks, I spent the next hour or two at the Menil reading Granta (yeah get drunk - read lit zines! Woohoo!). Luckily, Melissa was good enough to play babysitter until I could drive back home. (Thanks sista your gold star is in the mail. ) So apologies Kerry and Lucas, you guys are heading for some heavy duty ass kicking shows with Nick in the engine room. I'll make sure to be a bit conscious of how many I'm dunking next time.

But the show I did catch was pretty sweet. The Dimes, who I haven't seen in a while, were fucking on. Iram was doing his drum beating thing and the rest of them were doing their smiling, happy, I'm so enthused to kick your ass bit. I especially liked a new song where Jose had this Tina Weymouth like bassline that was pretty cool. I taped it on my shitty Camera but unfortunately the sound was so blown out as to be worthless (note to self - a crappy camera is no good sock some money aside for a good one). When it comes to pop, the Dimes are just unbearably clever bastards on every level - composition, musicianship, and performance. It was nice to take a break from them for a while because, like any band, if you see them too often you begin to take them for granted; a break clears the palate and reminds you why you peed your pants that first time you saw them.

The act that followed was less a music show than it was a performance piece. The Show is the Rainbow was Lincoln, Nebraska's answer to some Chris Elliot rejected film project channeled through your crazy relative you'd rather not talk about. Darren Keen was the one man show that simply karaoked over his preprogrammed songs while projecting some utterly hilarious movies he's cooked up. He would writhe on the floor, run, dance, and crack stupid jokes to the point where on the blown out audio of the video I took the only thing you could hear clearly was my annoying laugh. It was engaging, clever, and brilliant but I'm not sure it's something that would translate to a CD. So while you won't catch me running out to buy the CD you may see me at the next show of his that swings by Houston.

The evening closed with Bring Back the Guns who played another great set. This band definitely falls under the category of bands we all take for granted. They just make it all seem so easy - like they just came together and just wrote a bunch of great songs out of the blue. Unlike, The Show is the Rainbow, this is one band I've been dying to hear in a studio release. I hate having high expectations but I think when their new album comes out, I can expect to be blown out of the water. Bonus is singer Matt Brownlie is heading up a new label, Feow Records, with Jana Hunter and Arthur Bates (Wicked Poseur). The label boasts a nice line up of confirmed releases with Deer Tick's new one dropping in September and BBTG's dropping in October. We are to running laps around Nap headquarters in celebration!

The next night was back to the Proletariat for a more sober night of music. Ume was playing and I hadn't seen them play in a long time. I think last year I caught them almost every show - they are just that good. So having not seen them since Noise and Smoke, I couldn't stay home - it was time to feed my Ume fix.

We showed up a bit late since we couldn't get a good word on who the other bands were but when we were walking up to the Prole we were blown away. I believe Rosa's comments were something to the effect of "Holy shit! That is an awful lot of ROCK coming from the Proletariat!" She was right. It was so much ROCK as to be startling. Inside were Austin's Those Peabodys. My first reaction when i walked into the room was that I'd walked into some fucked-up James Gang time warp. Here was this motley group of nutters. Notably a kick-ass beat-the-shit-out-of-your-kit drummer and a guitarist running his Marshall though two 4-10 cabinets and playing every 70's guitar trope with style and abandon. I love when someone plays clinches so well that you remember why they became clinches in the first place. The trick is to do them fearlessly and make them your own. Those Peabodys do just that and bless 'em for it!

Ume closed the night and blew me away (again). If you ever see me at a an UME show you'll find me studiously watching Lauren's left hand on the fret board. There are great guitarists and then there are great guitarists whose voice is singular and immediately recognizable - Lauren falls into the latter. Her spindly guitar lines are just great. She flails, spins, and puts on such a performance that, I feel , her musicianship and creativity are often overlooked. I was doing my usual guitarist-to-guitarist gushing to Lauren afterwards and she told me how once she actually had some woman ask he if she was really playing the guitar or was it pre-recorded. On the one hand it's pretty funny but on the other the fact that someone could think that is kind of infuriating to me simply because if she had some balls between her legs that same woman would never had asked that question. Anyhow, back to the show they played thee new songs and all were great. I cleverly recorded all three but again the sound was so shitty as to be worthless but if the new songs are any indication the last album will be surpassed in every way. They even had one song that was surprisingly poppy that I was just crazy over. I actually heard a false rumor that they were selling some new EP at this show but it was all BS. Eric told me assured me afterwards how the new album is in the works and they were working with the engineer or producer (I can't recall which) who had worked with Spoon and it's going to sound amazing. I'm not surely complaining if they can top themselves - just hurry it up guys.



Links:

The Dimes
The Show is the Rainbow
Bring Back the Guns
Feow! Records
Those Peabodys
UME

Move Along

This post will not be interesting. I've warned you, so you can stop reading now if you have a low tolerance for tedium.

This week I began migrating all of my CDs from their space occupying jewel boxes and into the space saving bags that Doug recommended. It's been a long process, hampered by my indecision and vague feelings that if I just find a solution that works okay, I will find the perfect solution just minutes after I get through spending all the time and money on the passable one.

To bring you up to speed on this situation, I'll start by describing my current solution, which is a black CD rack that I bought from my roommate for $70 sometime around 1992. I think I got gouged on that deal, but that's the price he was asking and my complaining didn't seem to affect the going rate. I don't really have many complaints about the CD rack. It has served me well; it has never tipped over or been involved in any other sort of catastrophy. But it only has so much space and I have long ago exceeded that. As a stopgap measure, I tried cheap CD boxes from Ikea. Not a good idea. These particular boxes don't work very well because they are slotted, so every new CD requires that I move several others to put it in its proper place. I know, I could just throw them into the boxes wherever there is space, but then I would never be able to find anything. And that would be bad.

Simultaneous to the CD problem is the book problem. The crappy bookshelf that I acquired from ktru a half dozen years ago was barely adequate for my books and was an eyesore to boot. So I unloaded that thing on some unwitting Austin sucker (of which there is no shortage) just before I skipped town.

That left me with several boxes of books and CDs with no home. This got old really fast because I've had to build a little path to the kitchen and I'm pretty tired of having to remember that they are there when I stumble to the refrigerator for a refreshing glass of water in the middle of the night.*

I won't bore you with the details of finding a new bookshelf, but I assure you that I explored all options and eventually settled on something. Once I did, I ordered a couple hundred CD bags just to see if they were going to be a good fit and then waited. After a week, they showed up on my doorstep and I set about de-jeweling my collection. The first thing I noticed was that the plastic that these bags are made of gives them a similar coefficient of friction to that of soap. Picking up a stack of them almost always ends in tears. The harder you squeeze to keep them in a neat stack, the more force they have when they eventually rocket out of the stack at all angles. Then you (and by "you," I mean "me") slip on them as you go to pick them up. Seriously, these would make a much better banana peel in a Keystone Kops movie because they are translucent, so they would be like stealth bananas. Imagine the hilarity. Anyway, those complaints aside, the bags seem to work well, so I ordered a bunch more.

Soon everything will be on a shelf and I will no longer have to trip over things. I eagerly await this day. Can't wait.

*Are they building fridges with light sensors in them yet? I don't understand why I have to be blinded by the full strength of the refrigerator light when I open it at night. The light shock just makes it all the harder to go back to sleep and I have a hard enough time with that.

Just a reminder - I'm rounding up songs for this week's napcast

You send it to nap a la yousendit.com

p.s. get your lasso tie at education-action.org

Week 42: Drum Solos

The Athlete:


The Virtuoso:


The Awesomest:


The Circus Show:


The Real Deal:


The Ultimate:
Play all of the above at once.

This is how a scrappy underground music scene helped shape Houston Theater.

I opened a strange email a few weeks ago. It regarded news about a Houston underground music reunion. The recipient list was itself a blast from the past, one that predates the concept of group email. The reunion is to take place in Houston's warehouse district at a venue once called the Axiom which was formerly Harvey's Lounge, aka Catal Hyuk, and then once again the Axiom and also previously Cabaret Voltaire III. The latest email in the thread was to tell us that the location is at risk because the theater company currently occupying the Axiom abruptly shut down. This was disappointing news of course, but also strangely cyclical.

Three of the reuniting bands were part of an Axiom event years ago, an amateur production of Rice & Weber's Jesus Christ Superstar. The show came about from some caffeine (or booze) induced late night conversation which led to the inevitable conclusion that Fleshmop's hefty hairy and exceptional singer, Jay Maulsby, must be Jesus. Once a thing like that is decided, everything else simply needs to fall in place. It wasn't long before all the bums on Lexington were involved.

A lot of effort went down on 2100 Lexington, especially in the body of Dave Dove. The cast, however, was from all dark corners of the city, including the KPFT Metal DJ Bill "the Master" Bates, the Joint Chiefs who included the tremendously powerful Leesa Harrington on drums, and Bliss Blood in a surprise role.

It turned out that Bliss Blood was a big JCS fan. She was a late entry to the affair. Her band, the Pain Teens, were on a higher level back then so no one thought she'd want to be involved in this piddly stuff. But she did, so she took the small but important role of whipping Jesus. One time, the actress playing Mary Magdalene couldn't make a rehearsal and Bliss filled in. She knew all the lyrics to Everything's Alright and had a beautiful voice for it.

So anyway

This is how a scrappy underground music scene helped shape Houston Theater.

While us slackers were sacrificing time to a non-lucrative endeavor based on a bit of Broadway Musical history with which at least half of us weren't previously familiar, Jay was keeping in touch with his old high school buddy, Jason Nodler, who was busy with the non-lucrative business of studying play writing at NYU. Jay was telling Nodler that he needed to hightail it back to Houston on account of the creative vibe, while Jason was sitting around Washington Square Park thinking this Hou-stoner kid must be nuts.

But Jason was in to the idea of rock theater, his mind warped by the likes of Bob Dylan and Pere Ubu.

Then this came out in the Public News. Jay mailed a copy to Jason.

The headline read "With Superstar, Houston Musicians Make Better Theater Than Local Theater."

That was what it took. Jason came home. The next year the newly found Infernal Bridegroom Theater produced its first play, In the Under Thunderloo, which was performed at the Axiom (although the venue might have been under a different name by then). It starred Carolyn Wonderland and many of the characters you can still associate with the IBP crew.

This is not to take any credit away from IBP and the fourteen years of innovative theater production they accomplished. IBP's successes are all its own.

Last year, IBP created their final grand scale work, a collaboration with indie hero Daniel Johnston called Speeding Motorcycle. This work brought national attention to IBP from the New York Times, Pitchfork Media, and No Depression among others. Strangely enough, I witnessed Jason developing Speeding Motorcycle here in Chicago during his brief residence.

Speeding Motorcycle,

is a musical

performed at the Axiom,

a part of this circle we are chasing

back to this email thread
where uno dude from the Cinco Dudes suggested some Axiom Reunion Show Awards such as "Most likely to have a heart attack," "Smelliest drummer," and "Best Axiom memory real or imagined." Immediately I thought of the KISS Hoot night that was spawned from the excitement around JCS. Cinco Dudes rocked the house as a mariachi band singing Yo Quero Rock 'n Roll A Noche y Todo Los Dios. Toby Blunt played accordion.

Then I thought of the memory I hold dearest from the Axiom.

Really I am not a nostalgic person, still a part of my heart resides at the back door out on the street where we hung for the short run of JCS.

The last time I felt the pang of this strangely lonely memory was playing with the IBP band at a fund raising gala held earlier this year at the Axiom. We played right on the spot where JSC was performed. That back door was right behind me. A fun talented group of people were right in front of me. The future looked bright. Still does, I hope.

For all the great people of IBP, in hopes you rise again

and for

If you have a JCS memory why not share it here?


JCS promo shot courtesy of Julie Grob. Top Row: Moi, Jay Maulsby, Clay Embry, Fleshmop Ben (peeking over), Joey Salinas, Heavy Metal Guy whose name I can't remember! Middle Row: Faith, Johnathan Sage, Bo Morris, the Reverend Dave Dove, Brett Needham, Bill Bates. Bottom Row: Brandon Holbrook, I can't remember this kid's name but he was a great baritone, Diane Koistinen

Above photo courtesy of Axiom Flicker Site. Top Image: Jesus (Jay Maulsby) comforted by yin/yang wearing Diane Koistinen, Faith ? and Molly ? Middle Image: Three Priests played by Diane Koistinen,??, and Brandon Holbrook Bottom Image: Jesus discusses with apostles -scrawny me on left followed by Johnathan Sage, Bill "the Master" Bates and on Jesus' right dear Andy Nelson and a Heavy Metal vocalist whose name I can't remember. The Sprawl Horns - Clay Embry, Dave Dove and Bo Morris lurk behind.

Scanned Public News courtesy of Jay's sister Eve
Axiom image courtesy of J.R. Delgado
take part

The King and His Credenza

My wife is the kind of woman who is always on some sort of mission. Something burns her from somewhere deep within, and she has no hope but to heed the call. It is exactly this sort of slavish devotion to her inner demons that I think is so funny about her makeup. I have similar feelings, but where mine are borne from a need to hear a record or to learn a song on the guitar, hers are more from a need to have a clean house or a nice, cozy couch. It’s a good mix, because between the two of us this makes for a reasonable mix. I am the spaced out dreamer and she is the pragmatic lover of furniture. As she pointed out the other night, if we ever split up I will be resigned to living in an apartment with little more than a bunch of guitars, cds, and a dresser full of t-shirts and jeans, and little more. Virtually all of the important stuff like kitchen utensils and appliances and even our bed were purchased by her, at her motivation, with her sense of reason overriding my sense of… aw, who am I kidding, I have no sense at all.

With this concept in tow, we headed out into the scorched 100 plus degree wastes of Houston this weekend with the sole intent being to locate a big cushy sectional couch.

From the great, wide reaching post-urban blight of Northwest Houston, we first headed south. Nestled among the dilapidated chaos of the strip centers and meandering sweaty mass of unwashed heathens was an oasis of American decadence. Within the confines of this cavernous pit were the gilded treasures and velvety skinned temples to tasteless comforts too dark to imagine without having witnessed their horrors for yourself. Here within lies the amassed pleasures which appeal to only those of the most base and nearly subhuman persuasion.

Virtually ignoring the last fifty years of design and going straight for the lowest common denominator jugular, Finger’s Furniture coats every corner of their aging warehouse with the sorts of things that only your grandparents could possibly enjoy. I personally expected to find cheetahs on chains being whipped by giant Negroes in headbands and loincloths, and gauzy draped maidens dropping grapes into the waiting mouths of bloated American ingrates, locked on to their cell phones to negotiate the finalities of satiating their desires for the delicacies of flesh forever offered for sale in the darkened hallows of our imaginations.

We made the rounds and then made for the door. Our spirits virtually bested, there was but one course of action. We went to Gallery Furniture.

Houstonians know Gallery well, and for those of you unfamiliar with Mattress Mac, I would imagine that every city has a soulless barker hawking the wares of horror to those of less than virtuous repute to whom they can compare. I have always fostered a certain perverted desire to see the evil that lurks within the depths of Gallery Furniture, but either never had the gumption, or the balls to do so. Thanks to my bargain searching wife, however, it was finally time to put this dream to rest.

As you enter Gallery you are instantly honed in on and maligned by one of a number of greeters whose sole purpose in their professional life is to harass hapless dupes as they enter the temple. Armed with soft drinks and bottled waters, these people accost you with the promise of quenched thirst and cheap furniture. Soon directed to follow your assigned guide into the great maw, off you are skirted before you run screaming with your better judgment winning out for once in your pitiful little life. After a brief questioning, our guide, Rudy, led us off in the direction of sectional sofas. Of all the items in this monstrous space, only two caught our attention in a way anything close to actual interest. The rest of the stuff was again the sort of thing you might find in Liberace’s house after he had gotten home from buying furniture with Ken Kesey and his Merry Pranksters.

As an aside, I might add that the place is like a museum for pop culture artifacts of the most banal order. Encased in a laughably poorly designed castle is a necklace that once belonged to Princess Diana. Sadly the necklace is currently on loan, but fortunately for me they did still have the giant, larger th