goodbye 2007

Usually, the Napoletani aspettano fino a mezzanotte al capo d'anno. Io, no. For some reason, I could not wait until midnight on New Year's, I had to start early: I dropped my air-conditioner out of my window from my third floor apartment. Not exactly intentionally, I was trying to bring it inside the apartment so that I could finally shut the window completely. I've been out of town so long and was trying to clean, organize, and otherwise tidy up. But, well, sometimes I end up doing just the opposite. I kind of hated that damned air-conditioner anyway. Maybe I should just face up to the fact that I'm a bit of a klutz. Or that I should have called my ex to have him come over and help me since it weighs more than I do. My self-esteem is low enough that I'd rather not acknowledge it right now, though the evidence is rather glaring.

I know what the first thought that would have occurred to you might have been, and no, it wasn't my first concern. You're wondering if I might have endangered anyone's life on the sidewalk below. No, I checked beforehand, plus there's a bit of paved sideyard between the building and the sidewalk. I was immediately preoccupied with the fate of the CFC cannister. Miraculously, underneath all of that twisted steel, it is still in tact. Yes, I have called the Department of Sanitation, and they will come by on Wednesday to properly dispose of it.

For New Year's, I encourage you all to break unwanted domestic appliances in a similar manner. Throw all of your unloved crap out the window. Free yourself of extraneous material possessions. Destroy it before it destroys you.
I hope it doesn't get hot next summer.
Have a good one on New Year's Eve.
Anybody going to listen to the Radiohead live performance today/tomorrow?

P.S. if anyone in New York is reading this and you want to stop by my friend Kate's for cocktails with us, you are welcome. We'll be in Brooklyn drinking Brooklyns by a fireplace. Cheers.

one year later.

Last year at this time I was cruising around the South Island of New Zealand, listening to A Tribe Called Quest with my punk rock friend. You might remember my New Year's resolution from the time, which was basically to stock up on historic music and spend more time listening to the essentials.

(Aside: Christ, there's some purple prose in that post.)

I don't know that that worked out very well, although I did pick up LIVE AT THE APOLLO. Paradoxically, I found myself paying closer attention to new music than I had in several years, which I credit in large part to my participation here and the podcasts.

This year at this time, I am in northern Michigan (Harbor Springs, in the northwest corner of the lower peninsula) with my family at my godparents' house. We drove up yesterday, and my brother and I found ourself in the front seat while my parents were in the back seat. This was unexpected, and so we weren't prepared with CDs for the car. But there were the albums that are always there, two albums I'd have mentioned several weeks back in the discussion about parents and their music tastes: Simon & Garfunkel's THE CONCERT IN CENTRAL PARK and the soundtrack to THE BIG CHILL. And, of course, these tracks have a lot of history and a lot of memories for me, being two of the few CDs that my parents listened to on a regular basis. (The third, JOHN DENVER'S GREATEST HITS, wasn't in its case.)

I'm interested in how music affects people, I have been for a long time. I think about that feeling singing along with a friend to "Luck of Lucien" on the South Island, or the happiest day I had in a long time when I was driving to a friend's house and the sun was setting and New Order's "Run 2" popped on the iPod.

If you think this is leading up to a description of how these tracks affected me, you're wrong, because they didn't very much, mostly brought back memories of the past, and my previous New Year's resolution.

Which encapsulates one of my major problems: feeling guilty or feeling responsible for something that should be pure, unmitigated joy. If I was trying to make a living as a music journalist or historian or musician or cognitive scientist, then maybe making resolutions about music would make sense. But ultimately it was just kind of silly. Arguably, most resolutions are, but this was sillier than most.

And so I make this year's resolution, which is to care less about what I'm supposed to do and feel more about what I am doing. I don't know that I can explain this very well, but it has to do with the sense, for instance, that I had a couple weeks back that I should quit this blog because of the responsibility. And now I think: fuck that noise. I mean, it's writing a little bit about music or whatever the hell once a week, it's not taking care of a child or something. The worst that happens if I completely fail is that you find some other way to distract yourself on any given Sunday. And you're all grown-ups (I assume). Not. A. Crisis.

So hopefully 2008 will see less self-directed guilt trips and less agonizing and more simple reflections on the joy of music. (It may even see the end of my island series!) At the risk of overcommitting, however, there's a good chance it will see another project rear its head.

I mentioned my interest in how music affects people. I really believe it does, I really believe it can change lives. Not necessarily in grand ways. But I really believe your outlook will change if you listen to nothing but death metal for a week, or listen to nothing but Bach for a week, or so on.

But belief is not enough. So I intend to try to prove it.

Over the course of the next year, I will attempt to find weeks where, for that week, I listen to a single artist with a focused vision and nothing else. This will be hard, given my vocation (especially as I'm cutting a music series from February to May) and will undoubtedly be sporadic. But I'm really interested. Because if I saw, ultimately, that my quality of life was better when I listened to Bach than when I listened to Damien Jurado, should that change my habits of what I listen to?

Anyway. If you have any nominations for what will henceforth be called The Wack Experiment (after Mike D'Angelo's similarly single-minded experiment in auteur theory), let me know. I'll probably have to gather music to make it happen. Excluded are artists who have significantly changed their sound over time (The Boredoms, Lou Reed, Neil Young). Or there's some where I'll skip outlying albums (i.e. Albert Ayler is in, but NEW GRASS is out).

2007 Houston Style

Man don't you hate those year end round ups? Me too but I'm also lazy so here you go. A year end round up of some good and bad things from 2007 from my little corner of H-town.

Best Live Trend: Festivals/Showcases/Warehouse Parties
The Free Press and Houston Press' showcases are cool and all but they didn't have a lock of the festivals this year as there seemed to be an explosion of really good fests around town. We started off the year with Noise and Smoke (Notsuoh/The Axiom). Moved into summer with Feel Good Hits of The Summer (The Proletariat). Fall saw The Axiom Reunion (Fitzgerald's) and Texas Gone Garage (Rudyard's). Plus we just closed out the year with an awesome warehouse party - We are the Hollowmen. And that's just the ones I can name off the top of my head. Lots of bands, lots of variety, and that feeling that you will go mad from being in one place for too long. Hopefully we'll see more of these in 2008.

Worst Live Trend: Club Closings
Beloved venue closings seemed to be the trend at the end of 2007. While Southmore and Super Happy announced plans to move to new venues, it was The Proletariat's announcement that it was shutting its doors to make way for Metro's bulldozers that was like knife in the heart of the indie scene. Denise, Shawna, Dunnock and the rest of the Prolee staff past and present have have been indispensable to the music scene. The closing will leave a big hole that will be impossible to fill. Sure some other venue will pick up the slack but there was something homey about the Prolee that will be impossible to replace. Sad indeed. Photo Uncredited from Indie-Music.com

Best General Trend: Lots and Lots of Solid Local Releases
Jeez what a year in Houston. Grey Ghost, Feow, Mia Kat, you name it shit was getting released and a lot of it good to great - 7", 10", 12", and CDs. Here is my quickie list for 2007 there are other great releases but if I had to pick one from each format here is what I'd whittle it down to:

• Best CD Jana Hunter's There is No Home (Link)
  

• Best CD EP Hearts Of Animals Lemming Baby (Link)
  

• Best 7" Something Fierce's Teenage Ruins (Link)

• Best 10" Tambersauro s/t (Link)

• Best 12" Insect Warfare's World Extermination (Link)
  

For a more thorough list see Skyline Network who already covered this in exhaustive detail (Link: The Skyline 50 Parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5).

Best "New" Thing to Have Risen From the Bayou: Mlee Suprean
Mlee Suprean Hearts of Animals had everyone buzzing like bees. Yet, while Hearts of Animals received a lot of well deserved print this year, one great thing about Mlee is that she is so prolific so if you only heard Hearts of Animals, you missed out on a lot including her acoustic Mlee Marie which is itself genius. Whether it's her solo projects or her with Amye McCarthur's Wols or Mark Richardson's Oculous Sinister, Mlee was simply the musical King Midas of 2007. This post I wrote for the Free Press earlier this week pretty much sums up my admiration (Link: Let me sum up 2007 with one artist). Photo by Kaoru-h - Creative Commons License - (Link)


Most Ingenious Idea of 2007: Grey Ghost
All hail John Sears and his brilliant use of the CDR in his Grey Ghost series. Every week 13 copies of work by a local artist go on sale for seven days for only $2.00 at Domy books. It's like opening a Christmas present every week! Photo Rosa Guerrero.


Most Ingenious Live Idea of 2007: Secret Saturday Shows
An idea that seems to complement the Grey Ghost aesthetic which is to try to make something common special. The shows occur at the Shady Tavern and kick off at 2PM. The unnamed bands are ones that usually are playing that same night but not necessarily. Admittedly the 2pm time slot is a really bad pocket of time for my schedule but every week I hear who played and think man, I really need to figure out how to juggle better on Saturdays better. Regardless of my time management skills, kudos on a novel idea. Here is their myspace (Link)


Best "Fuck with People" Live Performance: Insect Warfare
Insect Warfare's noise set at The Houston Press Music Awards was pure mischievous brilliance. From the get-go you could sense the discomfort from the bar's staff and the soundman; this was clearly an upscale joint and the low-life scum had invaded. Sure enough, within six minutes the power was cut by the soundman and the show abruptly ended. "Wrong show for the wrong venue" is what the soundman told Beau Beasely on the balcony. How wrong he was.

Best Live Performance: Wols
If you heard Amye McCarthur 's lovely songs on myspace you would have been poorly prepared for the show earlier this month where the skeletal structures were gloriously expanded upon thanks to an able group of players: Mlee Suprean (Hearts of Animals), Will Adams (Black Snakes & Kangaroo), and Abe Houch (Hungry Villagers). The set at the Proletariat was one where the band appeared with no set list, had little rehearsal, flew by the seat of their pants, and pulled it off in spades. You have to admire their pluck. Photo John Van (Link)

Best Venue That's Not a Venue: Sound Exchange
The Shows were free, there was often beer, if it was too crowded you could chill in the car park, and best of all you could browse records - try that at any local club. Sure, their sound system may not be up there with Rudz' lovely board but when you have a small room with a bunch of cool people digging the band and making with the good vibes all you really need is the band, a mic, and an underpowered PA. Voila, you've got a party. Given that atmosphere it's no surprise that Sound Exchange had some sweet live shows this year. So, to Kevin, Kurt, and Beau all I can say to you guys is thanks for letting us keep you at work so late. Photo by Rosa Guerrero.

Best Taken for Granted Resources: Skyline and Space City Rock
Sure Myspace may be the open air market for bands and their fans but it's nice to still have industrious people like ADR at Skyline (Link) and Jeremy Hart at Space City Rock (Link) to help us sort through the muck. It's not that people don't read these (they do) but I doubt that people appreciate the work and dedication these sites require. So thanks guys, together you are the CNN and Weekly World News of the Houston music scene. I'll let you decide which is which.

Lowest Point in Print - Olivia Florez Alvarez
Olivia Flores Alvarez's Houston Noise article in the Houston Press (link) was so utterly ignorant as to make everyone wince. Not sure if it was coincidence but she seemed to have vacated her post as asst. music editor soon afterwards to everyone's relief.

Most Promising Point in Print - Chris Grey
Chris Gray took over for OFA and co-wrote a nice piece on the TSU Tornadoes (link) and a very nice interview with Denise Ramos of the Proletariat that made us all sad (link) . That made us pretty hopeful that the new music editor at the Houston Press had some kind of clue. Bonus points at the Press came from some excellent writing from Danny Mee and Nick Hall who also have contributed to this blog.

Most Definitive proof that God has a wicked sense of humor: John Cramer
Yes, John Cramer scored both the Christmas and New Years blog this year; it's like some ironic level of Dante's Inferno.

And A Happy New Year

My first proper job was at a movie theater. Or, rather, a "theatre," as they spell it. I was broke and needed money to keep going to school and they were hiring people like me, when nobody else would. Somehow I managed to show up looking for work just after one longtime employee had just quit. It was a lucky break because it's an ideal college job and there wasn't much turnover at this theater, so it was a hard job to get.

The River Oaks Theatre in Houston is an art deco styled theater, built at the tail end of the Depression. When I worked there it was pretty sleep--this was before the recentish popularity of independent cinema, so there were only a handful of people at any showing. It was a fading theater that had seen better days. The carpet was stained and paint peeled in spots. The paint, by the way, was the unfortunate color of Pepto Bismol--apparently the result of the theater's 50th anniversary sprucing up. Upkeep is tricky when there are barely enough customers to keep the doors open.

I spent many long hours listening to the muffled sound of movie soundtracks, while reading or staring at the carpet, musing about the subtle swastikas that were embedded in the pattern printed on it. Sometimes a co-worker--when there was a co-worker--would start a bored conversation about his conspiracy theory of the day, but conversations were rare. Mostly there was just the half-silence.

There was one other theater across town that showed the sorts of movies that River Oaks showed, sort of a rival theater. There are two kinds of arthouse movies: there is the hoity toity foreign language and period piece stuff and then there is the gritty indie film stuff. The River Oaks, on the edge of its hoity toity namesake neighborhood always got the former type. The Greenway, by contrast, got the fun movies. I thought that the people that went to see these movies were surely more interesting than the surgically altered types that frequented the River Oaks, so I was secretly envious of the people that got to work there.

A couple years later, the River Oaks' parent company, Landmark, bought the Greenway and through a roundabout path of leaving and coming back and working at other theaters, I ended up as a sort of a third-string manager at the Greenway. And I found that my envy was well-founded. There are people--regulars--who went to both Greenway and the River Oaks, but the non-regulars at the Greenway tended to be more interesting, more interested in movies, rather than being seen at some sort of cultural event. Maybe this had something to do with the Greenway's location.

The Greenway is located in what is technically the middle of a parking garage, but that can best be described as a labyrinth. I got lost there last week, in fact, after being directed into one of the lower parking areas by some overzealous security people trying to control Lakewood church traffic. There is--I kid you not--a hidden restroom that you can access by pushing open a door which is disguised as a section of wall. If you can somehow find your way to the proper level of the parking garage, find the proper section of the garage for theater parking, and then find your way inside, you must have more determination than the average moviegoer. You are the type that appreciates--literally--underground cinema.

In a lot of ways the Greenway was worse off than the River Oaks. The ice machine was never able to keep up with demand, so I would have to order ice to be delivered (by the drunk cowboy ice delivery man); the popcorn popper would fail, requiring that we drive over to the River Oaks to pick up trashbags full of the stuff to be served cold and chewy to unsuspecting patrons; and the Italian made projectors were constantly thirsty for oil, which they would then leak all over themselves (the River Oaks projectors were scrupulously maintained). It was all bubble gum and duct tape, but I preferred working there to the River Oaks by a mile.

This week, the Greenway announced that they will be closing. I can only imagine that the announcement was timed to occur during the week that people are least able to pay attention. There were many complaints about the possibility of the River Oaks closing recently, so maybe Landmark wanted to make the announcement below the radar in the way the White House makes announcements on Fridays in the hope that they will miss the news cycle. I went to one final movie last night and asked the guy in the box office how much notice they gave the staff before they were going to be out of a job. Nine days was his answer. Merry Christmas.

Related piece on what might have happened.

And now the links.

Don't be a popstar in Mexico.

Who is the biggest nerd?

Week 61: Music from a Catholic School Education 5

Part 5: Las Navidades en Puerto Rico

Christmas is the time when I most miss being in Puerto Rico. Earlier and earlier in the year I start missing it more, as radio stations in North Carolina begin to play Christmas music earlier and earlier in the year. This year, one local station in our area started playing non-stop Christmas music before Thanksgiving. That’s 24 hours of non-stop Christmas music, seven days a week, for over a month. By the time December first comes around it’s practically impossible to avoid hearing, several times a day, such inane classics as White Christmas or Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer or Jingle Bell Rock or, lord help me, The Chipmunk Song. The more I hear this incessant pap, the more I miss Christmas in Puerto Rico, and the more I miss the music we would make every Christmas in parranda after parranda between December first and the culmination of Christmas during the Fiestas de San Sebastian sometime around the 20th of January, which were basically a several day street parranda. I haven’t spent Christmas in Puerto Rico in many years and I understand things have changed since the last Christmas I spent there, but I miss it, at least I miss the music and parrandas I remember, with my rose-colored memory, those Christmases of many years ago.

[insert sound and visual effect here – maybe the standard spiraling of the visual field, with an increasing echo and reverb on my voice… voice…… voice……… voice…………voice………………]

And it’s Christmas in Puerto Rico circa 1982.

And the music coming out of speakers everywhere is still annoying. The two-step ultra fast merengue beat has taken over the airwaves and it’s being blasted at competitive decibels out of practically every store and radio station in town. But as my buddies and I walk down Loiza Street on the way to the record store, we are oblivious to the noise, we are too young to really care and we have plans. I’m buying a cowbell.

At the young age of sixteen, I have been through enough Christmases to realize that having an instrument that I can carry wherever I go, is almost a requirement during Navidades. Because even though you can have a parranda without any instruments, that would be like eating red beans and rice without sofrito, which is the spice mixture that gives them that particular Puerto Rican flavor. So we’re going to the record store because record stores, and during Christmas almost all stores, sell small percussion instruments you can carry around easily – claves, güiros, maracas, cowbells, pleneras, tambourines, bongos, there’s hundreds of them, a soda can and a stick work well too. I need an easy to carry instrument I can have with me at all times because one never knows when a parranda will break out. It’s after December first so, after midnight, it could be at any moment.

Hanging out late at night at a friend’s house, and suddenly, there’s a parranda at the door. Walking down the street in Old San Juan, and suddenly, there’s a parranda on the corner. Sitting at the bar Los Hijos de Borinquen with my buddy, and suddenly, hey, there’s no parranda, let’s start one. And like some kind of western gunslinger, I pull out my cowbell and my buddy readies his plenera, which is basically a tambourine without the little cymbals, so you play it like a hand drum. Right there we start one of the many traditional parranda choruses, most of which seem to be about drinking or about Jesus. There are some verses that everyone knows, but mainly the songs are designed for simple verse improvisations. Within minutes a couple of other people from the bar have joined our parranda and we warm up with a few easy songs. Abreme la puerta, abreme la puerta que estoy en la calle, y dira la gente que esto es un desaire. Open the door, open the door ‘cause I’m on the street and people will say that you’re snubbing us.

That’s always a good starting song, and with that, we do a shot of coquito, which is sort of like eggnog, figure out which house we’re going to hit first, and head out. Now it’s just after midnight, so we have to make sure to go to a house where we know they are already asleep. We park the car a block away and sneak up quietly to the front door, there’s only a few of us and we’re still mostly sober, so it’s not hard to do this. This will become increasingly difficult to do later on in the night when the group has grown to 20 or 30 mostly very drunk people. For now, we all quiet down, and on one, two, three, we scream, parranda!! as loud as we can and immediately break into a song. Traigo esta trulla para que te levantes, esta trulla esta caliente, esta trulla esta que arde. We bring this parranda to wake you up, this parranda is hot, this parranda is boiling hot (even if at this point the hotness of the parranda might be more of a wish than a fact, but it’s still early). And so it begins. It might take two or three songs, maybe four, but the occupants always wake up, put on some clothing and let us in. We stumble into the house as we continue to sing. Si no me dan de beber lloro, si no me dan de beber lloro, si no me dan de beber lloro, si no me dan de beber. If you don’t give me something to drink I will cry, if you don’t give me something to drink I will cry, if you don’t give me something to drink I will cry if you don’t give me something to drink.

Our bleary-eyed friends search for rum or vodka or whatever they may have, and serve drinks and snacks. It’s a very special feeling being woken up from a deep sleep to the sound of a parranda. One cannot wake up grumpy to a parranda, one expects it at least a few times during the holidays, but one never knows when it's gonna happen, so when it does it's impossible to not get carried away by the festive singing of plenas, bombas, aguinaldos and the various other traditional genres that are represented in the parranda repertoire.

We sing a few more songs and this is where the parranda selections might veer more towards prettier songs with a religious theme. Padre San Antonio mi devoto eres, llevame a la gloria mañana a las nueve, mañana a las nueve que no hay quien lo dude, que por el espacio caminan las nubes. Father Saint Anthony you are my devotion, take me to glory tomorrow at nine, tomorrow at nine there is no doubt, that the clouds walk through space. I think it’s a hangover song. Meanwhile the people of the house get dressed and ready to continue along with us, they are excited cause they caught the parranda early on in the night. So now, with a few more people, a few more instruments, and a few more drinks, we head towards the next house.

And so we go from house to house, at some point maybe a couple of people with horns join us and the music really starts to cook. By the fourth of fifth house the parranda has grown into a hefty group and our singing is getting better and drunker and the leading improvisers of the verses begin to stand out. La Pascua debiera ser, cada vez que hubiera luna y tener una laguna de aguardiente pa’ beber. Christmas should be every day there is a moon, and to have a lake of aguardiente (sugar cane liquor) to drink.

On rare occasions people will not answer the door, and there are a whole set of songs for those who don’t answer. I mean really, before a parranda gives up on a house, the whole neighborhood will have been woken up by the increasingly loud music. And that is just not nice.

During the last parrandas I was part of in Puerto Rico, we started running into gated communities where we had to jump fences to get to the object house. I doubt anyone is jumping fences these days. Drinking and age were also not monitored by the government, and neither was drinking and driving. I’m sure we were a danger to ourselves and others, and I have memories of a number of incidents reported in the local news. There were also different kinds of parrandas, early evening parrandas were little children could participate, more organized parrandas with professional musicans in public places, other parranda traditions from other parts of the world. But to me those will always be variations, as I am sure the parrandas of my youth that I am describing here were variations on the parrandas that came before us. But since this is my rose-colored memory, I won’t go into all that. We all know things change, and we all know the laws now, and we all know we have to be careful when drinking. We were careful then, but it was different, for better or worse, both in the United States and in Puerto Rico.

So by four or five in the morning getting quietly to a house is a difficult task. Someone driving home at this hour sees our caravan of cars and knows there is only one reason for it, he has a conga in his trunk so he joins the crew. By now on a good night, the music is smoking, and the songs have instrumental sections, all kinds of breaks, turnarounds, crazy improvisations and anything else someone might think to try, such as call and response sections such as this one:

Comadrita la rana, Sister the frog, says one group
Señor, señor, Sir, sir, answers the other.
¿Llegó su marido? Is your husband home? Asks the first group
Si señor, Yes sir, the second group answers.
¿Y que le trajo? And what did he bring?
Un ropón, a robe.
¿De qué color? What color?
Verde limón, Lime green.
Vamos a misa, Let’s go to church.
No tengo camisa, I don’t have a shirt.
Vamos al sermón, Let’s go to the sermon.
No tengo calzón, I don’t have pants.
La botellita, The little bottle,
No tiene tapita, Has no little cap.
El botellón, The big bottle,
No tiene tapón, Has no big cap.

And then everyone together,
Quítale, quítale, quítale, quíiiiii quítale el tapón, Take off, take off, take offffffff the big cap. Pon, pon, pon, quítale el tapón. Cap, cap, cap, take off the big cap.

Now that can only make sense at five or six in the morning with a huge parranda that’s been at it for most of the night. At this point, we know the end is near and someone calls ahead to what will be the final house to ask if they can handle a large breakfast. I don’t know of anyone ever saying no. And so, as the sun comes up, we sit in someone’s porch and drink some tasty home brewed coffee and eat eggs, bacon, toast, and maybe with some luck, just maybe, there’ll be some asopao, which is a soupy chicken and rice delicacy that is as good as it gets at the end of a parranda or on a rainy day. And the singing continues. Con pandereta, güiro y maracas, la serenata alegre va. Deseo a todos por despedida año de vida y felicidad. With tambourine, güiro and maracas, the serenade happily goes. Wishing everyone as a farewell a year full of life and happiness… happiness…… happiness ……… happiness ………… happiness………….. [and again, the spiraling of the visual field, the increasing echo and reverb on the voice...]

And I am back in North Carolina and it’s the end of 2007, and I know Christmas in Puerto Rico is not the same as it was then. Times have changed and that’s good. And there is still great music, in Puerto Rico and in North Carolina and around the world, played by people who don’t care about selling a single record or getting on the radio or TV, or making a statement, or musical history. It's music made for friends, for a drink, for a surprise, for fun. And really, isn’t that just the best kind of music?

Never Before

I did some things this Christmas I've never done before. Some of those never befores relate directly to Christmas and some don't.

I baked a chicken. I've done that before but not using Julie's suggestions.

I played scrabble. I've done that before but not using the Hasbro Online Scrabble Dictionary - which, btw, I'll never use again as it is far too lenient.

It accepts za as a form of the word pizza.

I'd never celebrated Christmas with just the wife and in some ways I still haven't which leads to my next never before.

I've never used Skype with a web cam. We peeked in on Christmas at my mom's house where my mom, sister, brother, sister-in-law, a cat and a three legged dog were swapping gifts. They couldn't see us though. So we sent them a couple of photos wearing their gifts.

I am demonstrating the virabhadrasana yoga position as demonstrated by the cat on the card in my hand.

Our cat did not participate, btw.

I've seen Stuff-on-My-Cat before but not in book form through a web cam.

I've never spent Christmas listening to a music station that I deejay. It's set to only play early rap (GrandMaster Flash and the Furious Five, Funky 4 + 1, Run DMC, Kool Moe Dee, Kurtis Blow...)

That was after I got sick of the station that was set to play about twenty different versions of Littler Drummer Boy (oddly the Jimi Hendrix version is not available).

I've never been in a rap battle before.

And so it goes without saying that I've never been in a rap battle before on Skype.

Or that I've never been in a rap battle before sampling my voice into a stuffed elf which then plays the sample back at a higher pitch.

I am the top elf
I bow to only my self
I got pots of gold on my shelfs
I fuck all your bitches
and all of your ho ho ho's

Btw, I could've kept rapping but that's all my elf could hold. I just think you should know that if you plan to challenge me to a rap battle. And hey I'm up for the challenge, elf or no elf.





This is for Chris King.
For a taste of what folks are doing this time of year around the world, click here.

Fuck Christmas

No clever anecdotes, no self-important simpering pleas for your attention, no good-natured jabs in the general direction of wholesome American holiday cheer.

This year has me posting the Christmas day blog for the good ol' NAP, and I gotta tell you, I am not even close to being up to the challenge.

In fact, before I even try to begin thinking of something worth a shit to say, I'll just give you the post I really wanted to write but was too much of a pussy to execute it in its raw form:

I FUCKING HATE CHRISTMAS.

Okay, great, with that out of my system, I'll turn this post on you, all six or seven of you, and ask for your input. If you had to pick the worst phase of your life. If you had to narrow down the agonies you've endured just to keep walking a little farther, if you had to whittle away the fucking oceanic mass of hurt that defines your life right on down to the heart of the fucking matter, how would you describe it?

I ask because I am embroiled in my worst case scenario; never would have guessed it, didn't see it coming, and yet here it is. And seriously, doesn't all that is bad always culminate on this very god damned day? Doesn't the bottom fall out every fucking year right around the time that people get all goofed up to celebrate the birth of a guy who couldn't possibly be who everyone keeps telling me he was?

Well, it sure does for me.

Fuck Christmas.

And fuck you.

Back to my hole.

take your mother salsa dancing for Christmas

I have been emotionally blackmailed into going to Miami. If I don’t see my mother during the Christmas holiday, she will inevitably have some sort of nervous breakdown mid-January which would force me to go back to Iowa, so I’m here, with her, someplace warm, as a sort of prophylactic measure.

waiting for mom in the airport

For those of you who would mistakenly believe that I actually like all of this flying around from place to place, let me assure you that there is a unique spiral in Dante’s inferno for would-be jetsetters somewhere between the gluttonous, the hoarders, and the wasters. When I die, as punishment for having had too large of a carbon footprint during my time here on earth, I will be condemned to fly from one airport terminal to another in perpetuity, never being allowed to exit further than the nearest concrete parking structure. And, my sound isolation earphones will be confiscated. You know what that means… endless musak will cause me to grind my own teeth until they are all gone. It won’t be pretty, no.

parking garage as outer limitation of new circle in hell

I did manage to take a Chinatown bus for part of this trip which should count towards some carbon offsets. The trickiest part was navigating four harrowing blocks with two pieces of luggage through from the Grand Street subway stop to the Fung Wah bus stop on the Saturday before Christmas when the sidewalk averages one person per square foot. For those of you not familiar with travel in the Northeast, the Chinatown bus is the cheapest way to get from city to city out here. A mere $15 got me to South Station. In Boston, I spent not enough time with my half-sister Linda, one of the only sensible people in my family, and some more time with the rest of that part of the family, who... well, you know, families, let’s not start that kind of a competition here, it’s the holidays after all. I’m sure everybody’s family is pretty fucked-up in one way or another.

One bit of maybe-good-but-don’t-get-too-excited news I have to report is that my relatives in Iowa (aunt, uncle, mom, step-dad, bio dad, step-monster, half-sister, various cousins) are all caucusing for Obama. It never happens that these people who have famously not gotten along in the past could possibly agree on anything.

At Logan Airport, they took my tweezers. I could barely restrain myself, having much the same reaction as New Yorker with half a memory would: “What? You’re going to take my tweezers nooow?!! Lotta fucking good that is going to do. It’s not exactly a god-damned box cutter, now is it?” No, I didn’t want to get arrested so the words did not actually come out of my mouth; it was more of a look that I gave them. Logan is a fucking terrible airport and should be systematically dismantled and reconfigured into a boat to send all of the Red Sox fans out to the Red Sea.

Now, I’ve arrived in a state where I can’t believe the people are still allowed suffrage after the last two election disasters. Here’s a special message to all you people who want restitution of your property in Cuba: it ain’t gonna ever happen, you’ve been played by the Republicans for the past XX number of years, and you’ve fucked up the rest of the country with your inordinate sense of loss. Thanks a lot.

Now, let’s go find some Cuban food and drink mojitos, Mom. Then let’s go find that Gloria Estefan club, the Bongos Cuban Café, and stay out all night. She is hovering. I think it’s time to go. I got her a bunch of Cesaria Evora cds for Christmas. I hope she likes them.

more and more high-rise condo construction

Napcast 48

OK, after 1 week of 3 visits of car repairs, 2 weeks of rat fixes, 2 weeks of child sickness and 1 week of business development timeline craziness and a flurry of visits from people I haven't seen in awhile, and the middle of Christmas stuff, I have posted the napcast to the best of my ability.


I went off Kilian's electronic entries so added the first song. Off of Anaconda's old school done new entries, I put in the Eartha's more recent stuff. Then because of the background singers in Cohen's song, I threw in the Laurie Anderson because she had background singers. Then it all devolved into rock and roll with a bit of the christmas spirit in Mel without the actual Christmas.

I hope everybody enjoys it!

P.S. Sorry for the blurry image. Can't figure out how to post to make it not blurry. Working on it.

give the gift of Health.

With the holidays almost here, no doubt many of you are last minute shopping for that special someone in your life, wondering just what you can get that says "I love you" like nothing else, that makes that moment under the mistletoe just that more magic. As I have always said: I am here to help you.

That said, get into the car, head to the local well-stocked independent record store, and filed under "H" in the "fucking awesome music" section, you will find the debut CD by a band from LA called Health. (If you're the kind of person who follows that link before blindly taking my advice, attempt to avoid looking at the picture of them, which makes them look like refugees from a Richard Simmons exercise video.) Immediately buy this album. Unless you are the sort of person who is buying a gift for a person who would not understand how an album that sounds sort of like a cross between the songwriting and guitar textures of Deerhoof and the tribal drumming and sustained atmospherics of Liars (without the gothy edge) would be, prima facie, awesome.* In which case, I am very sorry. I understand Celine Dion may have a holiday album that could suit your needs, although I am confident it will be filed in a different section of the store.

I thought of putting a description of how your Christmas morning might unfold with your loved one once he/she unwrapped this and you put this record on (or, if you've got kids, once little Timmy was busy playing DEAD RISING on his XBOX 360 and you have retired to the boudoir), but this is Nonalignment Pact and not Penthouse Forum, and I'm not here to tell you who gets on top or who blindfolds who. Suffice it to say that some of the rhythmic builds are lovely, the frequent paroxysms of rhythm and noise are effective punctuations, and "Glitter Pills" (the only dud on the album, although this may fall squarely into my blindspot for electronica) is a good time to take a shower. But once you've cleaned up, curl back up with your loved one in bed or on the rug in front of the fireplace for the dreamy closer, "Lost Time", which you'll be able to sing along with, even on a first listen. And then, hopefully you've put the CD on repeat, because everything will start all over again, and you will have an unforgettable Christmas.

Meanwhile, I'll be with my family in suburban Detroit, eating cinnamon rolls and bacon, getting ready for visiting relatives, and listening to Amy Grant's "Tennessee Christmas" (from A CHRISTMAS ALBUM), because I am not in control of the stereo in these parts and because I have no special loved one in my life at the moment to share the gift of Health with. But if I've made Christmas better for at least one of you, I'll have a little smile on my face, feeling like I've done my part to spread just a wee bit more holiday cheer.

Feliz Navidad, everyone.

*Put differently: this is the band I would have wished Ultra Hummus to be, could I have had enough creativity in my wishing to envision something this freaking awesome.

Good Morning Coffee, Let's Write a Rambling Blog!

Well it's been a slow week after the craziness that was last weekend. We had the Wols show and Texas Gone Garage. Personally I think Wols was the best live show I'd seen all year; in fact, so good that I knew that the Sunday night Texas Gone Garage would be, no matter how good, almost an afterthought. But you can read my full review of that show on the Free Press here in my weekly recap for that paper (Spot the Local Music Crumudgeon - Christmas Edition).

Texas Gone Garage's Texas Psych Night itself went quite nicely. The Mike Gunn played as good if not better than they ever played. Even John's biting stage persona was nowhere to be found though dude in the front seriously needed to chill and could have used a snide remark. (No, not every song needs to have your skinny ass arms jutting out of you wife beater with your fists clenched.) It was also nice to see the John Cramer and Tom Carter dual guitar action again. That's what is admirable about Tom for a guy who gets so much press in the chin-scratching intellectual music crowd, Tom has no "this is beneath me" issues with just rocking out. It was also nice to see that Scott Grimm could still play a show and disappear the second the last note finished ringing. Kurt Almaron Macky behind the kit and playing around the beat (surely to Scott's annoyance) was also quite refreshing. And yes Heids, you'll be happy to know they opened with "Bullinga".

The Mirrors reunion was also fun as people were dancing themselves into a frenzy. During the set, Travis (the promoter of the festival) came within inches of getting his ass kicked when he tried to join in with the dance pit (nigh a mosh pit). The people there were in a frenzy but they were generally self-contained with a few exceptions. Of course, just outside this area was some meathead who had the look of "I just can't wait until the first one of you motherfuckers bumps into me so I can kick your ass!" So, of course, when Travis tries to jump in the pit to his left he inexplicably careens backwards to his right and into, of course, Joe Meathead and his girlfriend and sure enough Travis came within inches of getting his ass kicked and would have were it not for others pulling the dude away. The funny thing to me about all this was that the second I saw Travis walk towards the stage, my first thought was "How long until Travis finds himself at the wrong end of that dude's fist?" The answer was mere seconds.

Other acts that played that evening were Austin's Sew What whose songs are good but she made the mistake of having a terrible backing band. Whenever she just stood on stage by herself and played her songs she was fine but when joined by her band it was like "time for a beer". The Freed played a decent set sounding like one long instrumental version of Hawkwind's "Master of the Universe". Hearts of Animals was, as usual, simply inspiring stuff. If I could sum up 2007 in Houston music it would simply be Hearts Of Animals' Mlee Suprean who I think just took all the rules and preconceptions of what a musician should be in Houston and ran them through a shredder (but I'll leave that tome for my Free Press blog later this week). And yes Scott, it is Rock and Roll. I won't say too much about my band's set. Let's just say that if you like to see a show with me retuning my guitar for long (really really long) stretches between songs then this was your kind of show. To my bandmates, who themselves played quite well (with the exception of the tempo on Monster), I simply offer my apologies.

Also, last night was the Free Press Houston Christmas Party which was kind of a low key affair at Helios. I had hoped to catch the Sideshow Tramps but they were getting ready to start just as I had to leave. Instead, as I was downing free beers, I went upstairs and who should be playing but Million Year Dance's Johnathan Welch. The scary thing is, when I walked in, he was actually singing in a (I shit you not) a bluesy style. The even scarier - it actually kind of worked. Without the theatrics and just an acoustic guitar he was actually quite good. Who would have thought? Surely not me.

After his set Sabra Laval was scheduled to play and, given ADR's unending praise mixed with my bad luck at trying to catch any of her other shows this year, I figured I'd try to stick it out. Unfortunately, the band simply played one song and then walked away. Pretty disappointing as it gave you no time to get settled into any groove and see what she can really do. Short sets are fine but a three minutes set can be summed up with "What? huh? Did someone just play?" Not sure why it was planned that way but it surely wouldn't have been met with any objections by the Sideshow Tramps if she'd played say a 10 or maybe 15 minutes set. Mrph.

Oh and hey, by the way, if you want to read an excellent wrap-up of Houston music as artifact in 2007, (despite the absence of Insect Warfare's release) you may want to skip on over to Skyline Network's Skyline 50 parts 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 which makes any other local lists moot. Also, I liked Space City Rock's review of Grey Ghost's 42,43, and 48 and not just because my band got reviewed side by side with Mlee Marie and Ben Murphy (which is insanely cool and humbling company to be lumped with) but mainly because Jeremy Hart goes into a nice John Sears/Grey Ghost appreciation post; it's nice to see John Sears and his clever idea get some well deserved props.

The Christmas blog this year falls upon John Cramer who I hear is goign to blog about his unending love of Mannheim Steamroller. Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night see you at the Hollow Men tonight.

Credits:
Wols Photo by John Van

Links (in order of appearance):
Wols
The Mike Gunn
The Mirrors
Sew What
The Freed
Hearts of Animals
Johnathan Welch
Sabra Laval

One, Two, Three

Ah, yes. It's Friday, so it's time for another weekly roundup of things that I found on the internet.

This week, I point you towards this piece on the Wired site. David Byrne somehow writes the most in-depth, fact-filled piece on the current state of the music industry that I've seen. It's complete with interview recordings with several people with actual good ideas and nice charts, which were surely influenced by Byrne's fascination with PowerPoint. Note that he says of Madonna, "Madge is a smart cookie." I'm not sure I agree with him there, but I eagerly await what he has to say about Jacko and Moz. Or even Posh and Becks.

But that's not all! Byrne does a second piece which focuses entirely on the economics of the recent Radiohead album. Note that Yorke says that "In terms of digital income, we've made more money out of this record than out of all the other Radiohead albums put together, forever — in terms of anything on the Net." Which sounds like an awful lot of money until you realize that he's comparing the money they have so far made on the latest album with the money they've made on online sales from their previous albums, which are currently not even available on iTunes. In fact, it's not clear where you could buy any of their previous albums online at all (nope, not Amazon either). So, that's not a very meaningful statement, but it is masterful hype.

And finally, a pair of unholy unions.

Week 60: The Future

To be without a home

Give me a snare roll or a nice organ line. Give me once upon a time you dressed real fine, threw the bums a dime in your prime, didn’t you? Now, give me back my broken night, but you know you only used to get juiced in it. My mirrored room, my secret life, you shouldn’t let other people get your kicks for you. It's lonely here, there's no one left to torture. You used to ride on the chrome horse with your diplomat who carried on his shoulder a Siamese cat. Give me absolute control over every living soul, and lie beside me, baby, that's an order!

Give me crack and anal sex, ain’t it hard when you discover that he really wasn’t were it’s at? Take the only tree that's left and stuff it up the hole in your culture. But you'd better lift your diamond ring, you'd better pawn it babe. Give me back the Berlin wall, and Napoleon in rags and the language that he used. Give me Stalin and St Paul after he took from you everything he could steal. I've seen the future, brother: it is murder.

When they all come down and did tricks for you, exchanging all kinds of precious gifts and things. Things are going to slide, slide in all directions. You said you’d never compromise with the mystery tramp. Won't be nothing, nothing you can measure anymore. But now you realize he's not selling any alibis. The blizzard of the world has crossed the threshold and it has overturned the order of the soul. Now you don’t talk so loud. When they said repent, repent I wonder what they meant. Now you don’t seem so proud about having to be scrounging for your next meal.

With no direction home you don't know me from the wind, you never will, you never did. You've gone to the finest school all right, Miss Lonely. I was the little Jew who wrote the Bible. I've seen the nations rise and fall. And nobody has ever taught you how to live on the street. I've heard their stories, heard them all, but love's the only engine of survival. How does it feel to be on your own?

Your servant here, he has been told to say it clear, to say it cold: It's over, it ain't going any further. And now you find out you're gonna have to get used to it. And now the wheels of heaven stop as you stare into the vacuum of his eyes you feel the devil's riding crop. Go to him now, he calls you, you can't refuse. Get ready for the future: it is murder.

You used to laugh about, everybody that was hanging out. There'll be the breaking of the ancient western code. When you got nothing, you got nothing to lose and your private life will suddenly explode. You're invisible now, you got no secrets to conceal. There'll be phantoms, there'll be fires on the road, and a white man dancing. You never turned around to see the frowns on the jugglers and the clowns. You'll see a woman hanging upside down her features covered by her fallen gown. People'd call and say, Beware doll, you're bound to fall. You thought they were all kiddin' you. And all the lousy little poets coming round tryin' to sound like Charlie Manson, they're drinkin', thinkin' that they got it made. And the white man dancin'. You used to be so amused. Ask him, do you want to make a deal?

You never understood that it ain’t no good. Give me back the Berlin wall, give me Stalin and St Paul, princess on the steeple and all the pretty people, give me Christ or give me Hiroshima. Destroy another fetus now we don't like children anyhow, I've seen the future, like a complete unknown, like a rolling stone and baby: it is murder.

Happy Holidays.

John Updike vs. the Blogger vs. Snowman Cookies vs. Jesus vs. JaayJaay vs. the City of Angels

"players hang around, tossing in their quarters, because folding is not belonging, and belonging is what poker's little democracy is all about" - John Updike



Winter is deeply settled in the Wintry City. We got ten inches of frozen sludge on the ground and a finicky sun in the sky. That means it's time for two things:

Numero Uno

The first annual churchbus Winter Podcast. Finding yourself a little figidity this week because you can't get your napcast on? Try the Winter Podcast. It's twenty five minutes of chocolate covered joy. I promise you that you will find a candy filling that is to your liking. AND It's the only way to find out who wins: Jesus vs. Snowman Cookies




Click here to get your own player.




Numero Two

Too cold in Chicago so let's check in with our Los Angeles Correspondent. Mr. Jaaay Jaaay. Damn, feel like I've been here before. Well anyway put some kicks on your dogs. Let's go

kilianamos (2:56:56 PM): Sad Nap checking in with da Plum Bomb. You there?

JaayJaay (2:53:39 PM): just climbing back in to the chair

kilianamos (2:57:23 PM): No kidding. How was lunch?

JaayJaay (2:53:49 PM): after a delightful visit to the Big Boy around the corner

kilianamos (2:57:49 PM): Oh yeah. Is the Big Boy a West Coast thing?

JaayJaay (2:54:20 PM): i guess so

kilianamos (2:57:58 PM): I don't think we have any in Chicago

JaayJaay (2:54:40 PM): didn't we have Kip's Big Boy back in H-town?

JaayJaay (2:54:52 PM): or something like that

kilianamos (2:58:31 PM): Yes. I ate at the Big Boy on Richmond (Editor's Note: Correction, Westheimer) a lot in Highschool.

JaayJaay (2:55:03 PM): i have some friends that stole the Big Boy once

kilianamos (2:58:54 PM): What did they do with it?

JaayJaay (2:55:28 PM): took it out into some pasture near La Marque, took a bunch of photos of themselves with it

kilianamos (2:59:17 PM): Send me one.

JaayJaay (2:55:43 PM): and then when they went back the next day to pick it up, it was gone

JaayJaay (2:55:50 PM): i wish i had a pic of that

kilianamos (2:59:48 PM): Wasn't that right about the time of the La Marque Sasquatch sitings?

JaayJaay (2:56:26 PM): lost touch with that bunch of hooligans long ago

JaayJaay (2:56:31 PM): Hmm...

JaayJaay (2:56:38 PM): i don't recall those

JaayJaay (2:56:40 PM): shesh

JaayJaay (2:56:54 PM): when was that?

kilianamos (3:00:51 PM): I don't know. I made that up.

kilianamos (3:00:56 PM): You got time to send the NAP some LA Love?

JaayJaay (2:57:21 PM): drat

JaayJaay (2:57:35 PM): you had me going on that one

kilianamos (3:02:37 PM): You told me you were blowing horns for Azalia Snail a while back...

JaayJaay (2:59:07 PM): yeah

kilianamos (3:02:56 PM): churchbus got turned on to her in the bus on the road to Austin once.

JaayJaay (2:59:32 PM): i was thumbing thru the LA Weekly and saw that she was playing a show with Lou Barlow

kilianamos (3:03:09 PM): She was doing something live on the radio

kilianamos (3:03:22 PM): you weren't there with her were you?

kilianamos (3:03:37 PM): cuz that would've sucked. I haven't seen your pretty whites in a long time, brother.

kilianamos (3:04:36 PM): I mean it would have sucked if we were in Austin at the same time and didn't hook up.

JaayJaay (3:02:26 PM): uh... nope

JaayJaay (3:02:38 PM): i never traveled any farther than San Diego with her

JaayJaay (3:02:56 PM): she did that Austin gig on the way to visit New Orleans

JaayJaay (3:03:07 PM): her mom moved there right b4 Katrina visited

JaayJaay (3:03:13 PM): (yikes)

JaayJaay (3:03:17 PM): all is well, tho

JaayJaay (3:03:31 PM): apparently, her mom's house was on high ground

kilianamos (3:07:17 PM): sounds like a soul song to me

JaayJaay (3:03:49 PM): right?

JaayJaay (3:04:05 PM): we played together for a couple of years

kilianamos (3:07:55 PM): but alas no more right?

JaayJaay (3:04:42 PM): correct, sir. i picked up the bass and started another band with a friend

JaayJaay (3:04:56 PM): played in both bands for a while and then left to focus on the other group

kilianamos (3:08:41 PM): bass huh. you can be in the LA franchise of my dance band then.

kilianamos (3:08:52 PM): the Step Brothers.

JaayJaay (3:05:27 PM): which i recently left to go and play with the drummer and guitar player from Azalia's band

JaayJaay (3:05:35 PM): totally

kilianamos (3:09:23 PM): I'm dizzy. So you're still playing bass?

JaayJaay (3:05:49 PM): i'm all about the band franchise

kilianamos (3:09:35 PM): Finger picker?

JaayJaay (3:06:00 PM): bass with a group called the Pick Up Sticks

kilianamos (3:09:48 PM): like it, cute. Cover band right?

JaayJaay (3:06:22 PM): i've used my fingers to pick since i was very young

JaayJaay (3:06:31 PM): nope, we do original stuff

kilianamos (3:10:20 PM): I didn't really think so but something about the name...

JaayJaay (3:06:47 PM): although, the Singer/Guitar player does a mean John Mellencamp

JaayJaay (3:07:05 PM): i need to start another band soon, tho

kilianamos (3:10:47 PM): Oh yeah why's that?

JaayJaay (3:07:23 PM): i like the yin-yang of being in two bands

kilianamos (3:11:21 PM): me too. the dance band is slow going though.

JaayJaay (3:07:49 PM): plus, i need to resume my horn playing

JaayJaay (3:08:02 PM): the trumpet and baritone have been gathering dust

kilianamos (3:11:52 PM): that's too bad. seems like a horn town too

kilianamos (3:11:55 PM): get to it.

JaayJaay (3:08:21 PM): right

kilianamos (3:12:09 PM): Let's talk for a min about this LA thing that's taking off right now

kilianamos (3:12:18 PM): I'm talking about the Smell

JaayJaay (3:08:45 PM): well...

JaayJaay (3:08:54 PM): i haven't been there since i saw...

JaayJaay (3:09:24 PM): a really great band that i can't recall the name of

JaayJaay (3:09:29 PM): Conor tipped me off to it

kilianamos (3:13:40 PM): maybe Conor will read this and do a little comment-editing for us.

JaayJaay (3:10:33 PM): i guess the only thing i could compare it to in Houston would be Catal?

JaayJaay (3:10:48 PM): but w/o the booze

kilianamos (3:14:26 PM): some how I'm picturing Harvey's.

JaayJaay (3:10:50 PM): or coffee

kilianamos (3:14:32 PM): same place. different smell.

JaayJaay (3:10:59 PM): yeah

kilianamos (3:14:46 PM): so is it byob or completely straight?

JaayJaay (3:11:19 PM): there used to be a great bar here, Alex's, and it was much more like the Axiom

JaayJaay (3:11:30 PM): it's byo

JaayJaay (3:11:33 PM): as far as i know

kilianamos (3:15:21 PM): that's how the old cabaret was in h-town

JaayJaay (3:11:52 PM): i can go do some recon