Conceptual Crossroads

The Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago celebrates its 40th Anniversary with forty "free entrance" days and a populist exhibition, Sympathy for the Devil: Art and Rock and Roll Since 1967.

It's a rambling over-reaching affair but hey, well worth the admission price.

1967 is the year the MCA Chicago opened its doors. It is also the year Andy Warhol produced The Velvet Underground and Nico. And fittingly, the first Sympathy piece is a portion of Warhol's Screen Tests series. Between 1964 and 1966 Warhol filmed a variety of people for these screen tests, but to fit theme we only get VU.

Around the corner is Pedro Bell's the Electric Spanking of War Babies which eventually made it to a Funkadelic album. Great image, but probably here as much because Pedro Bell is a Chicago artist than any other reason; same reason Ed Paschke is represented with a supposedly glam inspired piece, even though Paschke didn't really have a rock and roll connection.

Giving a shout out to the hometown is understandable, but then where's Jon Langford? Perhaps his art didn't look rock inspired enough.



I dig,
Douglas Gordon's trio of bootleg concert footage featuring the Cramps, the Smiths and the Rolling Stones. Lux Interior taunts us from the first screen. He's wearing only black leather pants and high heeled shoes. In the middle of the room are two large screens leaning against one another showing slow motion crowd shots from Altamont. At the end of the room is a film of a young Morrissey toying with his worshiping fans, bare chested like Lux but in white pants.

Sympathy isn't just another frolic through cover art, although 1967 would have been a good year to start that celebration. The Beatles released Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band in '67.

Even more importantly, the next year Zappa released We're Only in it for the Money.

Anyway,
Molon calls Sympathy for the Devil, "...the most serious and comprehensive look at the intimate and inspired relationship between the visual arts and rock-and-roll culture to date..." The exhibition is a romp and I enjoyed it (and through November 14th it's free). But I don't think you will come out of this exhibition with a greater understanding of the relationship between the visual arts and R & R culture.

Maybe you will come out with more questions and that's not a bad thing
for which
to hope

for.

Which brings us to a conclusion,

the crossroads where conceptual arts always meet is a nebulous place called the avant-garde.

Rock and Roll just happened to be there a couple of few times.

Songs
Marcel Duchamp - Musical Sculpture
Frank Zappa & the Mother's of Invention - What's the Ugliest Part of Your Body?
Black Dice - ABA

P.S. Is it rock? Flosstradamus played the MCA SFTD Opening night. Turn it up a notch.

P.P.S. churchbus will record and rehearse in Rirkrit Tiravanija's piece Untitled 1996 (Rehearsal Studio No. 6 Silent Version) on Saturday, December 1st at 1 PM.

Happy Birthday to the NAP

Well. I can't believe it's been an entire year. I, for one, have used a guest writer once in these fifty-two weeks, a feat I will undoubtedly not reproduce. As for my opening promises, I have followed some, and ignored others.

I truly never "got" Jack White.

My self-exposure as a moron has been well documented.

I may have slipped a little on the Popol Vuh one, intending perhaps in my paltry wisdon to focus more on one big reference and then a handful of little ones. And in the process, I have yet to send some of promised music that I have simply let fall by the wayside. Remind me, one day it will happen.

Clearly I have not held back too much on my opinions, and have done so to varying degrees of success. live and learn, no?

I would have to say that in all fairness, I have probably seen about seven to eight hundred thousand faces, and may possibly have rocked a fairly respectable 74% of them. Over all, not a bad track record for our opening year.

No comment on the LA troubadour and his nefarious racket. Still won't give it the time of day.

I should take my promise number 7 to heart, once again, and let it do its thing once again, for the very first time.

And there you have it. A year of grumpy, whiny posts, a year of hopefully readable posts, and I have to tell you people, thank you for the support, the comments, the attention, and the fights. All have made this, at least for me, a rousing success.

And so, without further ado...

See you next tuesday, bitches!

sudden disappearance from New York

Hi- I've been transported back to Berlin with a non-changeable, nonrefundable ticket. There are many possible explanations for this, not many of them are plausible. One has to do with an ex-boyfriend whose new apartment I'm helping to renovate, whose lease ran out on his old one, who needed a place to stay and threatened publicly to move in with me- so, I said fine, but then arranged to be away. Another has to do with a dear friend who has gone to Chapel Hill to finish writing he ph.d. and had a room in Mitte to sublet. Another has to do with my curiosity about 'green' architecture firms based in Germany and Switzerland. France has some too... I've a large project on the horizon and may need to collaborate... or give the project away to someone who will do a good job with it. And yet another, not very good reason for me to have gotten on an airplane, is to learn a bit of the German language. So, sorry for the sudden disappearance; I had only about three days to arrange all this.

HO LEE SHIT!

It has fallen upon me to say a few words on this, the august occasion of the one-year anniversary of the Nonalignment Pact. I have a bunch of vague thoughts that don't really add up to much, but it is perfectly appropriate to the occasion that I share said half-assed thoughts anyway, and probably more appropriate than a desperate attempt to bring narrative direction to my misguided creative writing project while addressing the one song on FULL FORCE GALESBURG I have nothing to say about.

Duke Ellington once said, "There are only two kinds of music, good music and bad music." Although reasonable people may often disagree as to which music falls on precisely on which side of that line - and many people here have - we are all here because we love good music. (Or possibly because we are bemused by the writing of our acquaintances. But never mind.)

A discarded and much more pretentious title for this post was "We are winning." When I say we are winning, I mean that there has long been a battle, and the battle has been between those that want nothing more than to easily discover good music and those that wish to push commercial product down our throats. And we are winning because of technology, because the ability to gate keep has diminished over time, and because the fact that we come here and share helps inflame our passion.

Perhaps I speak too quickly for all of us. But I know that I spent more money on music this year than I have in many years; that I spent more time listening and thinking about it; that I played my guitar more than I have in years. And I did easily the most extravagant thing that I've ever done in the name of music, flying to the other side of the world for the Primavera Festival.

I'm not saying what I want to say. I don't know how to say it. Let me try this. Last week, Bruce Springsteen was joined on stage for his encore by two members of The Arcade Fire. I imagine at least one of you laments that the stage didn't collapse, but for me this would rank relatively high on unexpected musical collaborations I'd love to see. At the end of this post is their take on an Arcade Fire song and a Springsteen classic, and even if you absolutely hate both, I want you to listen to the first 30 seconds and last 15 seconds of "Keep The Car Running", in which the audience members near the camera phone completely, utterly, absolutely lose their shit.

That's what music can do - leave you stand stunned, unable to do anything but scream "HO LEE SHIT!"

One of the things I love about NAP is the absolute disinterest in the "blogosphere" or whatever the current trends in music are. We're all old enough not to care overmuch about trends, stubborn enough not to care what people think is hip. While other people keep track of who the latest MySpace phenomenon to break it big at CMJ is, we just trundle along and listen to Robyn Hitchcock or Violetta Parra or John Vanderslice or Part Chimp or Jesu or whatever we like. And it makes the day a little better, and sometimes it makes the day a lot better, and every once in a great while it makes us go "HO LEE SHIT!".

So, in closing, I mention a holy shit moment that I've never mentioned before here. For a couple years The Grifters were one of my favorite bands in the world, and I saw them probably six or seven times. They were at the peak of their powers in the summer of 1994, and I saw them with Versus opening. Versus was a band whose appeal always slightly eluded me, and I thought they were okay. Then the Grifters came out, and started their set with "Felt Tipped Over", and from the first crash of the drums until two days later, I forgot that Versus had played. Really.

But that wasn't the HO LEE SHIT! moment. It's worth mentioning that one of my favorite albums of all time, then and now, was IN A PRIEST DRIVEN AMBULANCE by The Flaming Lips. And at the end of one of their songs, The Grifters effortlessly segued into one of the great tracks from that album, "Raining Babies".

No, the Flaming Lips didn't take the stage, but the floor fell out from underneath me, a great band playing a great set taking a great song and making it their own and giving that moment of unexpected delight to which there can of course be only one response, whether or not you say it the same way that that dude at the end of "Keep The Car Running" does:

HO LEE SHIT!

So mention a HO LEE SHIT! moment in the comments, if you will, in honor of that dude at the end of the first video below, in honor of a year of NAP, and in honor of the fact that good music makes life better.

"Keep The Car Running":


"State Trooper":


The Grifters, "Holmes" (it would be too much to hope that YouTube had that performance on it, but I figure a taste of live Grifters is in order regardless):

Halloween Cast #41

Dio Boots

I'm sure you're all tired of the scene reports so this week we're going to take a break from the Sailors, Guilloteens, Animals, Jewelry and Clouds. This week we're going to talk about an American institution. You know who I'm talking about - The Rainbow in the Dark, The Last In Line, The Holy Diver himself - fucking Ronnie James Dio! I saw the dude ages ago...maybe it was the Last In Line album or maybe it was the Sacred Heart album, I can't really remember but the show is one that sticks in my head. I mean it's high school, the tour was dubbed "Magical Mythical Metal", and Dio was supposed to battle some metal warriors - how could I not go?

Now, it doesn't take a genius to realize that the advert was a bit of a stretch from reality and, sure enough, the metal warriors turned out to be these two mechanical knights at either end of the stage who would "battle" Dio in what amounted to the knight turning towards Dio on a turntable and stiffly raising and lowering a sword wielding arm. Yeah, kind of like those wind-up toys you buy at the five and dime except they were really big and they were being challenged in battle by a smallish fellow with long curly locks from New Hampshire.

Not impressed? OK, at least Dio brought out an arena sized dragon! You think Sonic Youth would have the balls to have an arena sized dragon on tour? Hell no! But Dio did and, more importantly, did so with not so much as a wink of self-consciousness. You could totally imagine Dio and his tour manager sitting at a table planning the tour when some intern comes in with coffee and asks why have a mechanical dragon in the first place. Dio and his manager then turn and reply in unison "Because it was just fucking cool to have an arena sized Dragon!" then proceed to kick his sorry poser ass.

In practice it was abit less imressive. Dio dodged, parried, and thrust with his sword (bigger than him by the way) and the mechanical beast would slowly move into position so that Dio could slay him. I mean the dragon may just as well have said "Is this working for you? I can move closer if that's too far for you to reach. No, really, I can." Yeah I know, hardly the heroic Beowulf scene. The Dragon (despite the flames and the size) was as much of a threat to Dio as the Washington Generals were to the Harlem Globetrotters but you know who fucking cared? Nobody, that's who. And guess what? Nobody cared that Vivian Cambell's guitar work was as sloppy as a drunk's or that Vinny Appice played with the skill of your 90-year-old grandma. All the stoners and the metal heads knew was that Portsmouth's finest was putting on a frikkin SHOW for them and somehow that was good enough. Amen brothas, it was good enough for me too!

---

On a completely different Dio topic, what the hell is the deal with Dio's boots in Rainbow in the Dark?! Somewhere in England these boots are sitting in a thrift store calling my name! If you know of their whereabouts please contact us at the NAP.

Super Neato Bonus: Check out these early Dio Pictures here and I'm not talking Metal Dio either! You'll note the bottom dio picture where he's playing a bass (yes Dio plays an instrument) he looks a hell of a lot like one Scott Grimm.

[And thus end the first year of NAP as it should be - with Metal! Tomorrow we turn one year old.]

Albums and Your Ass

The album is dead. Or so I keep reading. The theory is that now that we're all apparently downloading music, we don't have the patience for songs that we haven't heard. This is the same theory that the marketing geniuses at Clear Channel apply to commercial radio, leading to a panoply of bland that can bore even the shallowest of tastes.

I also keep reading about how the online release of Radiohead's In Rainbows will change the music industry. This album, by an album oriented band, was released as a single zip file, making it impossible to download single tracks from the official site*. So even if you wanted just one of the songs, you still have to download them all (And once you have them all, does it make sense to delete the others?). Radiohead are pushing their whole album on you and their download scheme is the savior/killer of the music industry, right? I guess they didn't get the memo about how the album is dead.

Memorandum

From: The Man

To: Underlings

Subject: Albums and Your Ass

It has recently come to my attention that some of you are still recording albums. I don't want to have to say this again: Stop. This is costing me a whole lot of money that I can better spend on yachts and golden toilets. I'm trying to get the word out that people are no longer buying albums and if you keep recording them, I have to work even harder. And I'm really bad at the working thing. If you fail to comply with my orders, I will be forced to dock your pay. HA! Just kidding! That's what I would say if I actually paid any of you, but since I don't I'll just have to say that it's in your best interest to do as I say, lest you find yourself with no career. Or worse. Capiche?

The Man
President and CEO, The Music Industry

cc: David Geffen

At the dawn of the phonograph era, songs came on 78 rpm records and it wasn't possible to put a whole collection of them on one record, so the clever makers of these records put them on several discs that came packaged in a book similar to the sort you would use to keep photos. It was an album. You can still find these actual albums at the occasional garage sale (and you may even be able to find a turntable to play them on there too). Eventually, improvements made it possible to put all the songs on one record, but we still called the song collections albums, because we get set in our ways like that.** It's just as well that albums no longer come in books, because I wouldn't want to haul around anything that heavy just so I could hear music of my choosing.

My personal relationship with the album goes back further than I can remember. Some of my earliest memories are listening to the loud classic rock that my dad or my uncles played on the hi-fi. I figure I was ten or so when I started acquiring albums of my own. It was cheesy stuff like the Star Wars soundtrack at first, but it progressed to things I saw on MTV or (rarer) heard on the radio. And by the time I was in middle school, I was riding buses around town to nowhere in particular, listening to cassettes of albums that my friends had made for me. And this is where I really developed a preference for albums.

Mix tapes were all the rage then, but they were rare for me. I preferred to listen to an album because, while I don't have anything against the sampler platter, I prefer the entree because you can really dig in and get your fill. You get a deeper appreciation for what's going on. So most of my friends just recorded the whole album for me.

I've resisted the shuffle function on the iPod (which I have replaced, in case you were wondering), but I listen to a lot of my music while driving now and it's tough to switch albums without looking at the thing, so gradually I have been converting because shuffle is more convenient than constantly hitting "next." Soon I may never listen to albums at all. Maybe the Man is right; maybe the album is dead.

*Sure, it's possible to get In Rainbows via BitTorrent, but even then only some clients support selective downloading, so you're still going to get the whole album.

**This makes a sort of sense, since the records were still collections, even if they weren't packaged in books anymore.

Week 52: My Summer Vacation 3, El Topo

One of the things I always look forward to when visiting my family in Puerto Rico is spending some time with my uncle. Yes, the same uncle that had the mysterious room filled with strange music, strange girls and even stranger smells that I've talked about before. My uncle is the closest thing I’ve had to a music mentor. As a kid, he taught me how to properly get a note out of a saxophone and gave me recorder lessons. As a teenager, he let me borrow his beaten up first guitar, which became my first guitar, and later taught me the fingerings for 9th chords and how they are used in Brazilian music. I also inherited many of his late 1960s and early 1970s heavy rock records, and when I was in college in the late 1980s he introduced me to Vico-C and other early reggeaton records, before the genre was stifled by its own popularity. Over the years, every time I visit, he always has some new music to tell me about, most often music that I can't readily access.

My uncle’s biography reads like a manual on how to be the black sheep of the family. His catholic high school principal (the same principal that would years later be my principal) spent the summer, personally teaching him the history class he needed to fulfill his graduation requirements just so she could hand him his diploma and send him on his way and be done with his long hair, his hiding up in trees to smoke, and his other un-catholic habits. Well, who would say not to that? So while his peers spent senior year doing what catholic school seniors do, my uncle saved some money and bought a one way-ticket to Europe. During his time in Europe he roamed the land with his guitar, until he had spent all his money on whatever seventeen year olds spend their money while traveling through Europe. But he's a laid back guy, so he simply sat on a corner with his guitar, and busked until he had enough money to buy a plane ticket back.

Upon his return he went back to living with his parents, and enrolled at the Yupi (pronounced U.P. as in U.P.R. as in Universidad de Puerto Rico) to get his music degree in guitar. He would spend six years getting his degree and then he spent a couple more to get a masters playing the saxophone. I will never forget going to see his master thesis recital at some dingy smoky bar in Old San Juan where my uncle and a few other jazz scholars laid down some mind bending free jazz for about an hour. My grandparents - his parents - didn’t seem as bewildered as me, fourteen years old, and probably more intoxicated from the heady atmosphere of the club than from the one beer I forced down in a weak attempt to not feel completely out of place.

The first time he moved out of my grandparents' house was when he married his first wife. They had a baby and my uncle, who always had a good voice, got a job as a news reader at the Yupi radio station. After some time doing that he decided to get a masters in communication, and soon he was reporting for a local paper. But I don’t think he can stop living his life the way he does anymore than sand can avoid being blown by the wind. So he found himself reporting at a local political rally when the mayoral candidate passed out while in the middle of a speech. The photographer that was accompanying my uncle tried to get close to get some pictures, and before she realized it, a group of the mayor’s bodyguards and assorted bullies had surrounded her and were trying to pry the camera from her hands. My uncle, a skinny hippie looking guy (see above photo), intervened and not surprisingly got beaten up by the bunch. Well, if they didn’t know it then, they know it now – it’s not good campaigning to go around beating-up members of the press. The next day my uncle’s face, complete with black eye and swollen lips, was looking out in a daze from the cover of every local newspaper, who unanimously proclaimed him the hero reporter.

After that he began to get some big assignments, traveling overseas to report on international events in Nicaragua or Russia, but my uncle was never a big time kind of person. I think his realization of this came after accepting the job of news director at a local TV station. He lasted about a month on that job and then quit without fanfare. No fun at all, I think is how he described it. So instead, he and his wife got a divorce and he started law school. Which meant he was back at the college where he had already spent at least 10 years and back at his parents house, where he still holds the record for most years living at home.

During law school, he met the woman with whom he would have his second child. He finished law school and open a small law office in Old San Juan, but the 4pm to 4am business hours are not the most conducive to a law firm and he left that behind to go back to work for the newspaper. He would eventually go on to have a third kid from a third partner, the one he recently divorced to go back to living with his mom for another year, just in case anybody else had any thoughts of breaking his long standing record, he told me. In the midst of all that, however, he managed to win the top journalistic award in the country for the last two years in a row. He has also grown a ponytail, probably to compensate for his thinning hair, although he claims, with a smirk, that it's because he's ‘old school’.

Like most black sheep and many musicians, my uncle seems to have the constitution of a horse, which has allowed him to spend most of his life standing on street corners and by pool tables drinking, smoking, playing music and doing whatever else night owls do until fifteen in the morning. Then, the next day, he gets up to put in a full days work while also finding the time to be a good father to his three kids, which by all accounts he seems to be. It really is a neat trick how he manages all that.

El Boricua has been a little bar on the periphery of the Yupi for many years. I had been there once about 20 years ago, but generally I didn’t frequent the Yupi bars since they required more driving than I liked to do, and generally there was plenty of good bars around my neighborhood. I remembered the bar as a typical local dive, which meant there wasn’t much to remember that I couldn’t find a block form my house. But when my uncle says to me that El Boricua has become a really good place to go see music, I pay attention, and I say, let’s go.

As soon as we got there, I realized that things had changed. We parked a block away and already we could hear the music as if it was in front of me. The reason being was that it was in front of us. The music wasn't being played inside the bar, but right on the sidewalk.

The bar is located on a fork on the road, so there is a wide sidewalk in front of it that ends in a point at the junction of the fork. This wide cemented area was now filled people hanging about or sitting on a few small tables and chairs that had been pulled out for the occasion. The crowd was energized as they listened to the band which was lined up on the sidewalk laying down some serious rumba.

Rumba is musical genre which originated in Cuba in the 19th century from the combined music of Spanish colonists and African slaves. It quickly spread through the Spanish Caribbean, and was easily adopted in Puerto Rico since learning it required only a few variations to already existing local genres such as the bomba and the plena.

In recent years there has been a traditionalist/revisionist movement that has been reshaping traditional folkloric music such as the bomba or rumba without popularizing* the genres. These music groups are using traditional instrumentation and musical structures, but are doing away with the formal presentation that has stifled these genres for many years. Picture the difference between watching a traditional folk music and dance troupe performing at Epcot Center, and watching those same people ditching the formalities and getting down at their local bar among friends. Something like that is what is going on, and was going on that night at El Boricua that night.



At El Boricua, five musicians were lined up on the sidewalk in front of the bar. Three conga players with five congas between them, one cajón player, and one other musician that switched between various hand percussion instruments, such as the claves or güiro. They all sang and were laying down the kind of rumba that prompted otherwise average looking audience members to spontaneously get up and dance, not with each other, but by themselves or with one of the conga players in a way that made them seemed slightly possessed.

My uncle and I stepped inside the bar to get a drink. My uncle suggested we get a ‘full court’, which is a shot of spiced rum and a Medalla beer (the local beer). I ordered two ‘full courts’ for us and the bartender said, that will be five bucks, so I corrected her saying I ordered two of them. Yes, I know, she said, that's five bucks. Five bucks for two beers and two shots of delicious rum! Could this night get any better?

Well, yes it could, because as soon as we stepped outside there was a special guest who was there and wanted to sing a couple of tunes with the group. El Topo, needed no introduction, everyone knew him, and he had been there listening to the band since we got there. My uncle explained that he has become a regular at El Boricua, but even my uncle had never seen him get up to sing with a rumba group. The only way I can think to convey the monumentality of the occasion to a non-Puerto Rican audience is with a comparison. Having El Topo get up to sing with a rumba group at El Boricua would be something like going to your local dive, say the Pik n Pak in Houston, or the Cave in Chapel Hill, and Bob Dylan is there and he gets up to sing with the ragtime band that is playing that night. Something like that.

El Topo is a legend in Puerto Rican folk music. A high school teacher turned singer-songwriter in the 1960s, Antonio Caban Vale, aka El Topo (The Gopher), has worked within traditional Puerto Rican mountain music to pen songs that have become standards of popular culture. His song, Verde Luz (Green Light), has practically substituted the Puerto Rican national anthem in most ways except officially. Verde Luz is the kind of song that thousands will spontaneously start singing during moments of national pride.

I can't tell you the pride I felt in seeing El Topo at the ripe age of 64, still out and about having a few drinks at a local dive, and getting up to sing with a local band of rumberos. It was very inspiring to say the least. El Topo, like the seasoned professional that he is, said a few words to the rumba players who then kicked into a slow güagüanco, the slowest of the rumba styles and the one best suited for lyrical improvisation. El Topo then proceeded to improvise three or four güagüanco songs in a row, each one more heart wrenching that the previous one. El Topo bared his melancholic soul like his life depended on it. It was truly a beautiful thing to witness.

Additional note:
Rumba is probably one of the most bastardized styles in latin music, everyone puts a little rumba in what they do and they throw the word around a lot, but traditional rumba is not that easy to find outside of museums and other art centers where it is stylized for mass consumption. So here's an excerpt from a good doc on the Rumba called "La Rumba" by Oscar Valdes. The narration is in spanish, but even if you don't understand what is being said, it is worth watching just for the rumba clips it includes and how these are juxtaposed with the more stylized versions.

Here's also a very good blog all about rumba, the depths of the rumba are truly amazing. Oh, and the blog is in english.

*By "popularizing" I mean the use of pop production, instrumentation and composition that is often applied to traditional genres in an effort to give them greater mass appeal.

Photos are of my uncle playing guitar by the river, and of El Topo singing at El Boricua.

Turds. Blood, Sweat, and Tears. Whitesnake. Korn.

An odd name, but hey, it's funk.

Over the years, this sprightly little piece of funk eventually became a favorite of mine. I love how it manages to mine a slow tempo while never not promoting ass-shaking. I can't say I'd ever followed funk very closely, but this was definitely a topic for further investigation.

Fast-forward several years, and I'm finally ready to investigate further...And suddenly I found that my uncle’s door had never been barred from me and that he was more than willing to let me have a peak into his world. And thus I discovered “grown-up” rock and roll.

H-O-L-Y F-U-C-K, they were the hottest shit I'd seen in a long time and I remembered why I was so excited about them the first time I heard them!

They were loud and unrelenting. They understood the primal nature of the "dumb" rock song and, just as importantly, understood (as Albert Collins once told me and some friends) the importance of a kickass tone.

The recordings are intricately layered the way you would imagine that a producer's recordings would be. They are the sort of thing Joe Mathlete would want to don his headphones for, just without all the cheesy rock clichés. For me, it's so disturbingly powerful, expressive, violent and aggressive that it makes punk rock sound like mere posturing.There is a golden haze encompassing this group of pig-killing choir boys. Man vs. Man. Boy vs. Boy... vs Nature etc., etc. It totally fascinates me.

My biggest problem with them at the end of the day however is the apparent need they seem to feel for interminably boring bonus tracks and unbearably over-serious lyrics. That shit gets old real fast. But the noodly, overcompressed guitar; the manicured production; and especially the high, screechy vocals are fingernails on my blackboard.

Suffice to say that I really love this album and you should buy it.

Really,

if these guys come to your town, go see them

and tell 'em NAP sent you.

P.S. I’m working on a theory of background noise to explain why I enjoy listening to all of this crap so much. When it makes sense, I'll post it.

Down to the Wire

Down to the wire, last minute, do or die, and I’ve got nothing.

Time in my house is of short supply. Two people scrambling to use one computer, two kids demanding all our free time, and it all boils down to a hobbled existence. There. I’ve said it.

Music is huge in my life. Yet I have marginalized the extent to which I have let music be a dynamic part of my daily events. Writing about music is one small way I have been able to keep near that which I hold so dear.

It’s not an easy place to reside in, and it’s even harder to admit it. It’s still no less true.

We all contribute in here once weekly and the only real common thread is music. Some weeks the mere idea of writing anything other than my own eulogy seems insurmountable. Bit dramatic maybe, definitely a touch colorful, but peppered with at least a shred of truth.

I don’t want to talk about music. I don’t want to entertain anyone this week. I just want to drain away a shred of the anxiety I feel with my current life - no details, just an open door that overlooks a steep hill, and we’ll let gravity do the rest.

It’s hard to imagine how I have come to find myself where I sit today. I don’t recognize myself when I look in the mirror. I don’t know who the fucking asshole is that is talking with my voice, wearing my clothes, and writing this pathetic drivel. All I do know is that I am a little lost at the moment, and I need to take account and go from there.

In December, the geriatric welcoming committee will be springing into action, and with walkers in hand we will take the stage at Rudz and do god knows what damage. If I wasn’t taking part, I might attend that event just to see how hard a train can hit a wall, and just what it would do to the damn thing, each car smashing into the other with relentless ferocity.

December is a long way away. I can’t imagine it actually exists.

For the time being, I can’t believe in much. There’s just too much to do.

Somehow, it will be done, no cheerleading. Things simply happen with or without my help. Perhaps lending a hand lends meaning, or stamps it over the lack thereof.

Then again, what the fuck do I know? What about you?

anniversary?

Holy shit! Today is the one-year anniversary of NAP?!

And I don't even have anything earth-shattering to report about this week's events. My friends took me to see Unkle, who I thought I would like but didn't because they were trying to create this overly dramatic epic apocalyptic sound that really wasn't going anywhere with me. It's just the mood I've been in lately.

I suppose it has to do with one client in particular that needs a lot of handholding. The ice melts in the ice-maker and it's as if someone ran over a baby. They can't get their itunes to work or a cable is unplugged and their reaction is to say that "the contractor has totally dismantled their soundsystem."

Meanwhile, I calmly discuss with other clients & contractors how to react when a wall has collapsed, the price of steel has shot through the roof wreaking havoc on the construction budget, how to replace a 6-story elevator shaft that the previous architect had designed to be too small for any known elevator cab, and what strategies can be used with city planning to rezone a half a block from manufacturing to residential.

Amazing how some people can suck all of the air out of a room.

P.S. I think Head Stapler may have linked to this video or posted it before. I will post more videos as my mood improves...



P.P.S. Has anybody downloaded the new Radiohead yet? It's available here. I think I'll do that now- that should improve my mood some.

NAPcast Episode 40

This show is Explicit, so if you're fixing old lady hair at the salon or accompanying your boss to church... turn it up.



Sometimes you guys can really creep me out with your submissions.

Bored? Here's some street art to look at.

Also, what do you think about ?

the island, part 9: weekend in western illinois

This is the ninth in a song-by-song series about why I chose FULL FORCE GALESBURG by The Mountain Goats as the one CD I would take to a desert island. Previous installments are available here.

Drunk on the moon and drunk on possibility and the lack thereof and drunk on vodka I am. Out here where our dreams take form.

What does that mean? If I only knew. But I do know. I just can't put it into words. Or any better words. I take another swig. The taste of vodka rich on my tongue. See, you got it. Don't worry that no one else did.

I imagine a day walking around my neighborhood in Auckland, long after every trace of the magic of living in New Zealand had dissipated, and it was just a place, like where you live is just a place. No place is novel and magic forever. Even now this island threatens to become staid, predictable. There is not limitless buried treasure or a hatch or any future surprises. Probably.

What was I saying? Right. I was walking. As you do. And I had "Weekend in Western Illinois" on my iPod pop up on shuffle mode. And the day just got better. It had been worse. You don't care why, and if you do, tough shit, because I don't want to talk about it. It was probably some self-indulgent tripe that seemed important at the time and seems irrelevant now here, under the stars and the full moon and with the sand on my back.

And the song made its way, as it had to, to the second chorus, which is not to discount the rest of this song, but the words hit one after another:

Yeah, we love these dogs
that loll in the rain here in Galesburg
as the new season rocks them in its terrible arms
Yeah, they howl as though the world were ending
as we are watching the sky unwinding
and some of our promises were binding
up here where our
dreams
take
form
up here in Galesburg

Look, I'll let you in on a secret, though it's not that much of a secret: I hate dogs. Like, really hate them. Either they're big and they scare me or they're small and annoy me. One hits the sweet spot between the two every once in a while, but essentially, I'm the least dog-friendly person that I know.

So it's nothing about the imagery that appeals to me, so maybe it's the music on this, one of the more densely arranged songs on the record (like, three whole instruments! holy cow!), or the melody, or the passion of the delivery, but I looked at the sky just as

up here where our dreams take form

hit, and I got chills, honestly, this is embarrassing probably that music can still affect me like this but fuck you and I have more embarrassing stories, the point is that the way I felt like then was something I could live on forever if you could bottle it.

It was miraculous, and I wish everybody could feel it.

I get up slowly, taking care of my bad foot, stare at the stars.

up here where our dreams take form

and yes i said yes i will yes.

yes


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

VIDEO #9 for people that don't give a shit about The Mountain Goats: an alternate me saw the Mint Chicks, New Zealand's official band of the year (no, really). Here's their video for their first single from their fawesome album, CRAZY? YES! DUMB? NO!.

Another week ends in Purple Rain.

Yeah, it's been a pretty busy week. To your left you can see the the new Tubes I threw in my 50 watt Marshall. The Russian power tubes are pretty good if a bit heavy on the midrange. On the other hand the JAN "Made in USA" tubes (that's the small ones) are frikkin sweet!!! Fuck George Bush and all those fucking losers in Washington; if you want to feel some pride in the good old USA just buy yourself some US made tubes!

There was other bad assitude going on last week. The Westheimer Block Party was a kick. Heart of Animals at Numbers was almost surreal - one woman, her Mac, and a guitar in a dark cavernous room - adding this kind of lonely detached ambiance to the music. Spectacular. Paris Falls played some sweet tunes. I didn't realize that Jen was playing all those guitar licks on their album. Man, sister has a sweet tone and some great melodies on the six string. Even though the sound was crap I really came to appreciate them more after this. Dead Roses played their punk old school which was refreshing. Unfortunately things ran late and I missed Golden Axe but it rules is what I heard.

The Axiom Reunion was pretty fun even if I only caught a bit of it on Saturday. Essentially I was called in to handle projections for Turmoil In the Toybox on that day which was a pretty cool honor. The played a pretty rocking set as did the Cave Reverend and the bit of Bayou Pigs that I was able to see was pretty sweet. All in all pretty nice. Kudos to Julie Grob and JR Delgado.

Unfortunately, Friday's Axiom line-up was pretty awesome and circumstances were such that I had to miss it. Luckily Sprawl played a show at Rudyards on Sunday which was nothing less than sheer joyous madness. The band shuffled through its Texas white boy funk/ska set with so much energy and excitement that you pretty much forgot it was a reunion and all feelings of nostalgia were thrown aside to make way for what was happening at the club at that moment. The two big husky esses were ripping it up on the dance floor as Matt Kelly whipped up the crown into a frenzy. The horns were gorgeous and the dude on guitar who had to fill-in was incredible. Yet, for me the sweetest thing was Jeff Nunaly hamming it up for his daughters. Girls let me tell you, your dad is a kick ass bassist.

Last night, I skipped on Qui and instead went to The Mink to see Will Freed's new band. Admittedly having one of those Hermione Granger Time-Turners would have been handy on a night like last night but such is the complexity of shows in Houston - there is either too much or too little going on in this city. But I digress, The Freed was a chaotic jumble of garagey noise as filtered through a VU prism. It was a decent show (with Kudos to Gina S. for filling in on Keyboards on a moment's notice) but I don't think they are where they want to be yet. Still, given the talent involved I expect this will build up to something spectacular. Cop Warmth played its crazy hyperactive set. The bonus was the woman singing who somehow juxtaposed screaming nutters vocals with a body language expressing terrifying stagefright. Double bonus was the 10 minute drum solo at the beginning. I kept wondering why and then it was explained to me "Oh the guitarist is busy fighting with his girlfriend downstairs and the singer is huddled in a corner too terrified to perform live." Now, it is not for me to say whether this was true or false but it's a damn good explanation and pretty damn hilarious so I'm sticking with that version of events. Indian Jewelry redeemed itself from the disastrous Rudyard's performance from two weeks back and played a brilliant and pulsing open-ended trance-inducing set. Yes that's right those are Syndrums in that picture to your right being used by Indian Jewelry. That is some fucking classy shit there. I can remember writing songs with one of those beasts. We used to joke and call it the Sin-drum because it was such a terrible drum machine but Indian Jewelry made it work so go figure! The crowd certainly had a good time!

Lastly, we will leave you with this. I made a quick pass by Diverse Works to see what was going down at a KTRU related event. I wasn't there very long (though it was pretty cool for the few minutes I was able to be there) but I was there long enough to capture ADR (of Skyline fame) and his bottle of Purple Rain MD 20/20. Well, Gators on a stick! If that don't put a nice cap on another week, I don't know what does!


Links:
Too damn many this week You smart use Google!!!

Bonus Blog...Bad Poster Artwork...

Oh I amuse me. I really do! We took this picture of Kevin and Kurt on Kevin's Motorcycle when we did the BBQ at Sound Ex a few years ago and I have always wanted to have an excuse to do exactly this with it. Well, that is one more thing off my list of things to do before I die.

¿Quien es mas Macho?

Let's talk about men. More specifically, let's talk about manly men. The rugged individual. The all-American cowboy. I think you know who I'm talking about. That's right. Barry Gibb.

Okay, so Barry isn't exactly American, but he is all man. I mean, would you have the cajones to wear all that polyester and show off all that fur, looking quite a bit like Dr. Cornelius.

And I don't have to remind you that Dr. Cornelius was an ape. That's how secure Barry Gibb is with his manhood: he's just fine looking like Roddy McDowell in an ape costume. He's so secure, in fact, that when somebody floated the idea of playing the Beatles alongside Peter Frampton, Barry Gibb said, "hell yeah." And then he sang in falsetto. Like he always does. Like he did in that duet with Streisand. Because he's a man and he doesn't care what you think.

Or perhaps you prefer your men a little darker. Maybe you like the bad boy. I have the man for you then. Your man is Rob Halford.


By force of will, Rob Halford turned his band of hippies into codpiece wearing, stud sporting metalheads. And not satisfied with that accomplishment, he did the same for all of middle America. While not strictly heterosexual, he's still all man in the way that only somebody who can make midwestern teenaged boys idolize a man who quite literally just walked out of a leatherbar can be. Oh yeah, he's breakin' the law.

These are real men. And this week NAP salutes them.

Week 51: Music from a Catholic School Education 3

Part 3: Graduation Express

Play this song while you read this. It’s a slow song with a synthesized harpsichord-type instrument leading the way with arpeggios and subtle middle eastern melodies. Play it while you read this so you can hear the music we heard as we marched down the center aisle of the church towards our graduation ceremony, our eighth grade graduation ceremony. Afterwards we would go to four years of Catholic high school, and this was our last stand as the oldest kids in the elementary school. And slowly we marched down the center aisle of a church filled with proud parents, standing as we walked by, with rows of marble saints peering over their heads from the side aisles. This was the church at the center of our school, and we were the 54 boys and girls that had been together since kindergarten growing up under the tutelage of mother church. We were the same boys and girls who won the science fair in second grade for our group project on medicinal plants, the same boys and girls who Miss Garcia allowed to pile the desks and books into a big mountain in the middle of the classroom on the last day of fifth grade, the same boys and girls that hooted and hollered during confirmation class in seventh grade, when Father Narcissus fell to his knees raised his arms to the lord and screamed, blasphemy blasphemy after Monica asked how we could be sure that Mary was a virgin. All 54 of us same boys and girls were lined up along the school hallway and told by the principal that for that bit of fun with Father Narcissus, we would not be receiving the holy sacrament of confirmation, not at this school, not this class. Not Academia Santa Teresita’s eighth grade class of 1980.

But no one left the school, and on graduation day, all 54 of us marched together, stepping in rhythm, boys and girls one next to the other arranged by height, while over the loudspeakers the music we had chosen for the occasion played on, the theme from the movie Midnight Express.

I was lucky with movies as a kid. One of my best friends was born just about a month after me, lived across the street from me, and his parents owned the neighborhood movie theater. El Grand, as it was called, showed daily double features, a different double feature of last run flicks each week. Samurai, western, action, horror and war movies followed one another in endless succession. If it had fighting, screaming and bleeding they would show it, though once in while, to break the routine, they’d show some slapstick comedy such as the Terrence Hill/Bud Spencer classics. It was a great theater, but it was no Paradise, and no one wrote any concept albums when they tore it down in the 1990s to put a drive thru bank in its place.

But from the moment we could run, El Grand was our home base. It was a big theater in the main business road of our neighborhood. Within a block there were pinball machines, a bar, a drug store, a hardware store, an empty lot, and lots of questionable people.

The theater itself was a classic, with uncomfortable seats covered in red velvet, sticky floors, a huge screen, and a balcony for those who wanted to watch the movie with a bit more privacy, or for us to throw spit wads at unsuspecting patrons below. For the first few years of our time at El Grand we explored its every corner. I don’t remember watching any movies, just the sound of gunfights and blood curling screams constantly in the background as we ate or threw free popcorn, ran through the aisles trying to tag each other, or played hide and seek through the darkened back hallways of the building.

At some point though, the movies started to get interesting. I think it was probably around the age of 10 or 11 when we started sitting for whole scenes, and not just to catch our breath or hide among the patrons. I do not, however, recommend watching stuff like the Omen if you are a kid going to Catholic School. Nor do I recommend watching I Spit on Your Grave if you are just entering puberty. But I will say that if you have a short attention span, there is nothing that will teach you to focus your attention quite like watching a girl your age, fuck herself with a crucifix and projectile vomit on a priest’s face. Once our attention was focused we started to really watch the movies, sometimes watching both movies back to back taking breaks only to go outside to harass the bums.

And so we get to Midnight Express, a movie loosely based on the true story of Billy Hayes, a young man who gets arrested in Turkey for possession of hashish. He is then made an example by the courts and sentenced to 30 years of medieval suffering in a Turkish prison. At the end he gets out, but not without the kind of suffering that in the movie was mainly represented by having to bite off the tongue of a snitch, and getting raped by a very scary Turkish guard.

We liked this movie a lot, but when I think about it, we liked it as much as we liked the Omen, or High Plains Drifter or Enter the Dragon or any of a number of movies during those days which included body parts being bitten or cut off in some semi-clever way. The thing that made Midnight Express stand apart from the rest, however, was not its violence, but its theme song, a Giorgio Moroder instrumental that became an instant hit in our occasional driveway parties.

It's hard to believe now, but back then some parents liked to put on driveway parties for us kids. A stereo would be dragged out to the driveway, a table would be set up with food, sodas, and other treats, and while the grown ups sat on the porch talking about their grown up things, we boys and girls would wrap our arms around each other and slow dance to songs like How Deep is Your Love or Do That To Me One More Time. Well, when i say we, I mean they; I personally did not do any dancing. It was beyond my comprehension how I could ask a girl if she would put her arms around my neck while I put mine around her waist so we could slowly and supposedly romantically spin around in circles. And it's not that I had any problem communicating with girls, two of my best friends were girls and I got along just as well with the girls in my class as I did with the boys. I had even kissed a girl, though more as a game than romantically. Dancing however, was not just about moving in circles with a girl, but it involved a whole other realm of being that turned boys into requesters and girls into rejecters or accepters. It involved a whole new way of dealing with the opposite sex that seemed to actually involve our gender, as well as an uncountable number of rules, rules that no one had explained to me.

Most of my friends, however, seemed to know the rules by heart, but to me asking someone to slow dance was the same as asking someone to make out with me, which was the same as asking someone to have sex me, which was the same as asking someone to marry me, which was the same as asking someone to have a baby with me, which for an eighth grader was, well, a little intense.

And it wasn’t just the slow dancing, these were the dancing 1970s. The driveway parties featured disco and salsa music with steps more complicated that most car engines. Yet somehow all the other 53 boys and girls in my class had managed to learn them. I guess not having had a father around and being an only child might have something to do with how by the age of thirteen I still couldn’t dance like John Travolta or Roberto Roena.

Lucky for me the graduation ceremony at the church didn’t require me asking anyone to do anything. My walking partner was assigned to me based on her height, and all I needed to do was stand next to her and walk in step and down the aisle to our assigned pews while the theme from Midnight Express played over the loudspeakers.

After the music was over and we sat down, the lengthy graduation ceremony began. But I quickly realized that the ceremony couldn’t be long enough, because afterwards there was a graduation party, and really, in eighth grade 1980, who wants to go to a graduation party? Not me that's who. I could see the party clearly, 52 pairs of boys and girls dancing the night away in a disco fever, while one angry girl stood alone waiting for me to ask her to dance. We would stand there through song after song while I tried to calculate in my head the best possible way one could go about the task of asking a girl to dance. And since I am cursed with a good imagination, it turns out that the possibilities for asking a girl to dance are endless.

So I sat in the pew listening to the priest tell us to head into the future with faith. And I saw the future and the future ended at the graduation party. In the end, the party would be over and everyone else would go to high school and then college and then they would marry their dance partners and have dancing children who would marry other dancing children. But not me. While the dancers would be busy living their dancing lives, I would be standing in the same spot I stood for the duration of the graduation party. I would still be weighing the pros and cons of the infinite ways one can ask a girl to dance. The years would pass me by, eighth grade graduating classes coming and going. My hair and beard would grow long and my clothing would fray and tatter, and I would stink like the years, and compassionate Catholic mothers would shake their heads in disdain and throw coins in front of me that I would ignore, and eventually my toe nails would grow so long into the ground below my feet that even if I figured out how to ask a girl to dance, I wouldn’t be able to move and I would become indistinguishable from a tree. Except to the girl who, thanks to me, wasn’t able to dance on her eighth grade graduation party. She would show up, take one look at me, and chop me down with a hatchet like so many trees. Then she would turn my wood into pencils that she would use to write novel after novel about the weakness of boys.

These were the thoughts of a young catholic boy on his eighth grade graduation mass, and yes those thoughts finally started manifesting themselves physically, and soon enough my stomach felt like someone had punched me repeatedly, maybe the girl that I wasn’t going to ask to dance. By the end of the ceremony, my stomach hurt so much that I could barely get up from the pew to exit the church. But I did, because at the same time I couldn’t wait to get to the reception area of the church so I could tell my mom that I was sick to my stomach and couldn’t go to the dance. Well, she didn’t care if I went or not, but she wasn’t about to let me off the hook that easy, so since my stomach hurt so much, to the doctor it was. To an obviously sadistic doctor who even though it was obvious that my discomfort was due to my nerves, still he insisted on examining me, just to be sure it wasn’t appendicitis, he said, and I swear I saw him wink.

At this point there was no going back. I was going to say, never mind, I feel better now, I think I’ll go to the party and dance the night away, but it was too late for that, and the truth is my stomach still hurt, and even if I knew it would feel better once the party was in the past, maybe a few decades in the past, I couldn't pretend it didn't still hurt. So I bent over, braced myself and told myself that if Billy Hayes could stand being raped by that Turkish guard, then I could stand this doctor sticking his finger up my ass, even if it sounded like he was whistling the theme from Midnight Express as he did.

It wasn't appendicitis, but after that I never again questioned the logic behind dancing. Well, at least not until the big dancing backlash of the early 1990s, but that's another story.

*Painting is Terpsichore, Muse of Music and Dance, by Jean-Marc Nattier, 1739
*Photo is Brad Davis as Billy Hayes in Midnight Express, 1978

For other parts of this series, click on the link below:

We Are the Dying World

When ice on the pond is three feet thick
and white snow stretches a thousand miles,
my heart will still be like the pine and cypress,

but your heart--what will it be?

"Winter" from Four Ziye Songs, Ziye (c. 265-420)

Aloysius

Here's an important aside. For some time I've thought about how to create a post that would provoke no response. In the beginning, NAP had a few comment-less posts. The last comment-less post was New Year's Day. I haven't come up with a rock solid way to insure a comment-less post. The "I'm too busy partying to write a post" post seems to have the best shot but it is not a guarantee at all because it hasn't worked (except New Year's Day). I thought Justin's well placed mp3 non-post might just have the alchemic blend - although I would not have put any money on it. So what I'm going to do is ask that you don't comment to this post in honor of what you like about nap.

Song
the Handsome Family - live and out of tune at Schubas - Amelia Earhart Vs. the Dancing Bear

Im Gedächtnis meines Großvaters

Giddy, Like a Child

My mother died a year ago, and her loss has taught me much. I had dreaded her death for years, much more than I dread their own, and I think it’s because I’d always felt that the sadness of losing that essential piece of my make up would simply be too much for me to bear. I have a long history with anxiety. We’ve become somewhat intimate over the years. I’ve had to reroute entire portions of my twenties in order to accommodate fear. In retrospect, I’m not sure what I thought would be so bad about her being gone. I guess it was just a certain feeling that came over me at the mere thought.

With a year now since she died, I’ve had plenty of time to both mourn her passing and to reflect on how it has changed my life.

One thing I didn’t really expect was the great sense of relief I feel now. My mother had serious health problems that could easily have crippled bigger, healthier animals than her. Her cancer, shitty heart valve (replaced twice), consequential heart infections (two of those too), pneumonia, corneal transplant, chemo, radiation, eight or nine pills she had to take three times a day – every day, shingles, and arthritis of the eye (no, I’m not lying), were the curse of all curses on a woman who in all honesty deserved none of it. The thing is, life-fucking ailments are the province of us all. No one is exempt from death and suffering. The Buddha was right about that one. Life really is about suffering. It is the one defining characteristic in our being that is constant and unyielding.

Now look here. I’m not trying to say that I think I’ve cornered the market on being able to savor the acquired taste of agony. What I’m saying is that despite my mammoth list of idiosyncratic shortcomings, I still somehow have managed to get by.

I’ve survived the one thing that used to eat me from the inside. In fact, her passing has brought me a certain sort of peace that I have really needed, in a sense. Yes, I miss her dearly. I miss being able to talk with her on the phone and make her laugh until I think she’s going to pass out. I miss having my mother’s love. That’s something you get no more of once it’s gone, and I am acutely aware of that. Nevertheless, I never expected her to live forever, and in the end, I don’t need her to survive anymore. She gave me what I needed in life, and I have taken it from there.

Given her pain and her personal issues in life, I think that mercy has a big place in how some things pan out.

One thing it took me a while to recognize was the anger I felt at her being gone. For several months, I felt pissed off, even more than my usual amount, and I mistakenly attributed that to the impending birth of my daughter. I knew from experience, having gone through it once already, that having a child puts a bit of a damper on your being a creative, independent individual, which is something I must view myself to be in order to survive. And for the record, that wasn’t what was pissing me off, but it should have, because, Jesus, it has not been easy functioning as a human with two children.

My wife shares my aggressive need for solitude. Between us, we have no friends that we feel the regular need to visit with; not that we don’t care for anyone. It’s just that we are so private that it is difficult for us to spend much too much time with anyone without becoming very uncomfortable. Having children in the house is the great equalizer. They don’t give two shits how hermetic you are. They just want to have fun, or in my daughter’s case, she just wants to eat, poop, smile, sleep, and poop some more.

So, it’s not that I’m lamenting the loss of my otherwise explosive social life, because I never had one to begin with. I just would like the chance to record at my leisure, or sleep in, or not care about paying for daycare, or play guitar all night without getting in trouble, or read a book because I’m not going to fall asleep the moment I crack it open, or not have to go to another fucking children’s birthday party where I have to pretend like I like people just because our children are banished to the same daycare during the work week.

I keep coming back to me feeling alien in this world. I think I have become pretty good at being there but not being there. Know what I mean?

So, my mother is gone for good, and I am able to deal with it, but things are just a little big uglier as a result – myself included.

I’ve mulled over the idea of eulogizing her in here right at the one-year anniversary of her death, but I ultimately decided to leave her memory alone for a while. Thinking about what to write this week, I decided it was time to mention her, and in the process, thank her for all the work she put into keeping our fucked little lifeboat afloat. Yeah, we were pretty much lost at sea, and yeah I’m as lost as I’ve ever been as I write this today, but if she taught me anything, it’s that you laugh, wave your middle finger high, and get out of bed in the morning. Sometimes, that a bundle.

I don’t have a word to share with you on music. Well, maybe this. I am the sort of person who is caught up in the machinations of his life. Sometimes I make the mistake of forgetting who my friends really are. The way I am, aloof, vague, distant - it’s a wonder anyone cares to keep in touch with me at all. And so, when someone does something thoughtful for me, something that shows they are thinking about me in my absence, that can sometimes be the size of a mountain.

Son of Raven, who you folks should recall from his time logged amongst our ranks, and who, I should add, has been too busy to come round these parts much, twice did a small generous thing for me that meant a great deal. On his perusing the 99 Cent Store just down the street from the bookstore I work in (as does he on occasion), the young Mr. Raven discovered some interesting items in their music section. Nestled among the cutout Menudo CDs, and the Lithuanian pressings of Paul Anka’s greatest Arkansas folk songs were a couple gems that are not only totally badass, they are also utterly bizarre.

He stumbled across a collaborative CD between bassist extraordinaire, Bill Laswell, and anti-jazz sax monster, Peter Brotzmann, titled Low Life. For you Brotzmann fans out there, and I know there’s a couple of you fuckers, Low Life is one of those items that stands out from the pack a little for its being a tad off the beaten path for the artists involved, and also for being something that is not only out of print, but real tough to find shrink wrapped and virtually pristine. Nonetheless, there it was, languishing on the shelves of the 99 Cent Store. And the man among men, Lord Raven, not only picked himself up a copy, he went one further and grabbed one for me. A small act perhaps, but a huge gesture of kindness from a guy who never delivers anything less. And then, to top it off, he went one further. The next time he was trolling the same store for new items of cultural misplacement, he outdid even himself for his talents of serendipitous presence. There on the same shelf, where just days earlier, he had run across Low Life, he happens across a Last Exit CD. Last Exit is a band comprised of Brotzmann, Laswell, Ronald Shannon Jackson on drums and vocals, and electric guitarist, Sonny Sharrock. This band burned its way across Europe in the 80s, virtually kicking everyone’s ass along the way. The CD is taken from cassette recordings made during their 87 Europe tour, and the damn thing smokes. They rage like no one else, make it sound fun, and throw in the distinct sound of American blues and soul whenever they damn well feel like it. At a collectors price, this CD would be worth every penny, but to be found, again, shrink wrapped and sitting on the shelves of the world’s most progressive 99 Cent Store is nothing short of miraculous.

I miss my mother. I have so much I need to tell her. She never was able to meet her granddaughter, and I want so badly to tell her how I am right now, what I am going through, and above all, that on this day, in this life, for reasons all my own, I am enjoying the rarest of sensations: I am giddy… like a child. She would be smiling for me.

And I thank you too… because, well, you know…

I-80

I did not get the opportunity to go hear any jazz or new jazz or fusion or new music at any bar within walking distance of my home this weekend; instead, I was captured by aliens and forced to go to an Iowa-Illinois football game among other bizarre things. Those aliens would actually be my various parents, aunts, and uncles who love me quite dearly, but, oh my, do we have to work hard at overcoming our mutual incomprehension of each other.

This is what has become to the house next door to my Aunt Jan’s in Iowa City, Iowa. One evening four fires were started on four blocks within 8 minutes by someone launching molotov cocktails onto couches sitting on porches. Apparently, the cushions readily absorb the cocktail part. The Vyacheslav Mikhailovich part signs some sort of non-aggression pact with the house and then it all goes up into flames anyway.

Lest one would make the mistake of believing Iowa to be devoid of art and culture, the photo above is Steven Holl’s contribution to the University of Iowa’s School of Art and Art History. If I were a student today, I would reevaluate my life, drop out of whatever curriculum at whatever university I was enrolled, and become an art student here. The building is that good. I’m not sure if they will ever fully appreciate what they have. Move over Falling Water.

This is a view along I-80, a fantastic freeway that stretches from San Francisco, through Salt Lake City, Wyoming, Des Moines, Iowa City, the south side of Chicago, all the way to New York. I think it was DD who pointed out how grateful he was for the national highway system (which was funded by the Defenese Department- more on that and related conspiracy theories about the destruction of our inner cities and the rise of the suburb later). I remain extremely grateful and indebted to American Airlines flight 4821 for getting me back to my crappy apartment in Brooklyn before I went insane.