Boa Drum 3/18/8

Went to see the Boredoms at the Fillmore the other night. Opening were Human Bell, who played slow blues-influenced mostly-instrumentals, apart from their last number, which randomly had guest vocalization by Will Oldham (!). Made me think of My Morning Jacket meets The Black Keys, although more sedate than either. Then came some boring (ha!) DJ type. And then, the Boredoms! They were playing "in the round", so a stage had been set up on the middle of the dance floor. They had three drum sets, one of which was (wo)manned by Yoshimi, who also had a little keyboard behind her. Eye rocked the mic, and had a stand full of effects (and possibly also CD turntables?) in front of him, as well as a guitar monster behind him that can only be described as Boredomsesque.

It was comprised of seven ex-Telecasters, cut and assembled to form a seven necked free-standing monster guitar. The necks alternated directions, such that four extended to the left and three to the right. The strings on a particular neck seemed to be tuned to the same note (Branca/Hummus style), and each neck to a different note, perhaps even forming a scale. Eye would swivel round and play the monster with drum sticks. There was a dude to the left of it whose main duty seemed to be retuning the monster when there was a chance, and replacing broken strings when necessary. Looked like he also had some electronic gear to monkey with when not being a monster guitar tech.

The show started in complete darkness, during which they must've crept through the crowd onto the stage. Then Eye started singing and twisting shamanistically at the center of the stage, with minimal illumination (a flashlight I guess?). My view was somewhat obscured by some tall hairy folk and their accompanying cloud of budsmoke, so I then decamped slightly to the left. The others gradually joined in, and before long a full-on Boredrum hootenanny was in effect. The music seemed to careen around the stage like a wave, crashing against rocks, forming eddies, circling around again building up steam. It's difficult to determine how they kept it going at a near-constant full throttle while still conveying a sense of upward motion, multiple climaxes, a rolling boil, the rhythmic equivalent of Shepard tones. This rhythmic motion was of course aided and abetted by Eye's masterful singing and effect manipulation, not to mention his tasteful monster guitar playing. The monster guitar was barely audible at first, but eventually they cranked it enough to hear its ringing chords. For their last piece, the guitar tech put drum sticks under the strings, Sonic Youth style.

They finished on a dime and exited, came back and played a great encore, and it seemed like the fun was over. I approached the stage to check out the gear. I leaned on a monitor on the edge of the stage behind Yoshimi's drum kit and observed. Ah yes, mmmm, interesting, etc. But I noticed that despite a lot of the crowd exiting, the hall lights had not come up and bad music was not yet being played on the PA. We all kept clapping for more, and lo and behold, they came back out for a triumphant second encore! I can't begin to describe how awesome this was. First of all, I was a foot away from Yoshimi, which was pretty exciting in itself, cuz she has a black belt in karate and takes lots of vitamins. But mostly it was awesome cuz I was practically onstage, and felt like I was inside the music. I could see Eye giving them Eye-cues, and everything was very much in stereo. After too short a time, they again left the stage. We valiantly clapped on to bring them back, but to no avail. I went over to the other side to check out the guitar monster. An older Fillmore dude guarded the stage and told the same Rick Nielsen joke to all who approached.

and now for something completely different.

In 1993, my first band Dyn@mutt went on its first tour. I believe we were excited that it was a multi-state tour, even though the total number of states were two: Texas and New Mexico. We toured with our friends in Seed. A star-studded lineup of two bands that nobody outside of Houston had heard of; a certain recipe for a disastrous tour.

And objectively, I suppose, it was more or less as disastrous as one would reasonably expect, but it was so fucking awesome being on the road for the first that, for me at least, it didn't matter, or if it did nostalgia has occluded my unhappiness. My memories of it are partial and random; one of the strangest was being in a parking lot outside of a Randall's somewhere, me eating a green or red pepper (capsicum, if you're a Kiwi) like an apple, and Brian from Seed saying, "now that's punk rock". Being a 19-year old geek, I took some small twinge of pride in this. Conversely, although I'm pretty sure we played Lubbock, I don't actually remember anything about it, other than some story about flaming Dr. Pepper shots that I had no part of. (The joys of touring when you're 19 and look 14.) I have much more vivid memories of not playing Dallas (or was it Fort Worth?), where our show was cancelled because it hadn't been promoted and it cost the owner less to keep the club closed and not run the air conditioner than it would to open the club and hope somebody besides our bassist Chad's parents came by.

Apart from a show in Copperas Cove, which merits an entry all of its own at some point (if I haven't written it already), I most vividly remember New Mexico. We played two gigs there. One was in Alberquerque, with Nothing Painted Blue. NPB were one of our guitarist's favorite bands, and we thought we had scored a coup getting this show. However, their fan base was neither large nor passionate, for those few that might have been interested were probably holding out for their show with another larger band (Tsunami, maybe?) 8 days later at the same club. (The Golden West, I believe.) I think we got a few random folks to pop in, though - maybe as many as 20 people, even.

This was like a sold-out 3-night stand in Madison Square Garden compared to our show in Santa Fe. We had a house show set up on a reservation outside of town with a local punk band, Dr. Romero, if I remember right. When we got to the house, it was clear that nobody that lived there had any idea we were to be playing a show. A few hasty phone calls, and a little bit later a couple people had straggled in so it wasn't entirely humiliating. I'm pretty sure we played a set, then Dr. Romero hopped on our gear (I believe they didn't ask everyone, causing somebody in the band to be fucked off, but I don't remember who) and played some of their snotty punk songs. (Dr. Romero apparently later badmouthed us, saying that we weren't punk enough or something. But do they eat green peppers like apples? I doubt it.) Their set, however, was cut short by the arrival of the pueblo police, as we were violating noise ordinances or some such. We packed up and left without Seed getting a chance to play.

That night, Dave and I stayed at the pre-school that a friend of ours taught at. In the morning, she showed up along with one of her young charges. We noticed a Fisher-Price turntable sitting around, and broke out ALLES IST GUT, the split 7" we were on, with our track "Blue-Light Special".

The beat kicked in (shamelessly if unconsciously ripped off from The Minutemen, albeit in a simplified form), and this young boy, who I remember shirtless and in a diaper, went crazy. I mean crazy happy. I mean dancing around like a mad fool hearing the sound he has been waiting to hear all his life, throwing his pudgy little fists up and down, bumping into the turntable and knocking the record around and barely noticing, too rapt.

At the time, I was mostly concerned about scratching up a record we intended to sell.

Now I look back and I think about how simple and pure that happiness was, and how rare and wonderful moments of grace like that are for us grown-ups. I have no idea why. Well, that's not true. I have ideas, but I still stubbornly hold on to the idea that they are possible, not just as rare events, but as a regular part of life, regardless of how often life conspires to prove otherwise.

I have been fortunate enough to have one of those moments of grace this weekend. My flatmate Heath is the handiest person with building things I have ever met in a walk, and on my suggestion has built a jib arm. A jib arm is a piece of filmmaking equipment that allows stable vertical motion of the camera. He's built it out of plywood, some steel he's lathed together, and some bearings he's bought, and it is fucking awesome.

When I think of making my own films, one of my major obstacles has always been achieving the fluidity of motion that is to me the heart of cinema. There are some movies that I love shot only on tripods, some movies that I love shot handheld, but when I see a gorgeous tracking shot in a Tarkovsky film or THERE WILL BE BLOOD, or a fluid camera movement like those that litter the underseen and incredibly brilliant Italian film THE CONSEQUENCES OF LOVE, my heart moves a little faster. But all the equipment used to do these things is typically quite expensive and without practicing it, it's hard to really know what's doable or not.

So my co-conspirators and I got together today with no plan and in three hours threw together a 1-minute short film using only that and another invention of my flatmate's, a CineSaddle (basically a bag that allows the camera to sit on the ground stably, allowing you to get some killer low angles that are impossible with tripods). We came up with the shots and a basic story, and the final* product, while certain not to win any awards and embarrassing in at least one major aspect (CLEAN THE LENS NEXT TIME, GENIUS!) -



- it is fucking revelatory in what it will allow us to do by putting these tools and principles to work on a larger canvas. And despite all the crap and pain that I've been dealing with in the past weeks (not a tenth of a single percentage point of which has anything to do with anyone who writes or has written for this blog, to forestall that being taken the wrong way), seeing this potential reveal itself makes me feel three years old, hearing a strange and beautiful music, and dancing because it is all I know how to do.

*This is not the final product, actually. The pictures are not graded, and I intend to fill out the sound mix more, either with music or ambient sounds or a combination.

My final post for NAP

Good morrow. it is 4:24am and I just got back from my requisite Menil walk which as many know is my way of walking off the booze when I've had too much. Much love to my friend in San Fransisco who was good enough to respond to my text teases for being lame and not being at the Dirtbombs tonight. She was good enough to talk a bit during my little sobering sortie and it was much appreciated.

In short, I had a lot of fun tonight. I'm still pretty tipsy as i write this but the point is simple - I love music, i love my friends, I love my city, I love my family, I love my wife, and i love my son. Music is an extension...an expression of our love for the world and that is the reason I'm neurotically obsessed with how people express it. Be it Mlee Suprean whose work I so admire, the Jonx whose technique is unparalleled, Jenny Wesbury whose wit is something we should all envy, Joe Mathlete or John Sears whose youthful enthusiasm reminds me why old people suck, Sharks and Sailors or Tambersauro who make me feel like the slacker I am, or any number of bands. The point is this - have fun and love those around you!

Fuck Bush! Fuck Hillary! Fuck McCain! Fuck Obama! That person sitting next to you? That person right there! Give them a kiss. Play them a Paul Westerburg song, a Deer Tick song, a Reigning Sound song, or what ever speaks to your soul. Take them to a show and let the music express what you cannot. My point is simply this - there is a lot of bullshit out there but cut past it and you will find good and loving people

I went to Rudyard's tonight and saw The Dirtbombs. They put on a great show but you know what? No matter how great the show was, part of the experience was hanging out with or talking to Kurt, Mara, Ted, or anyone else with whom I chatted. That was the core of my evening- people. God love them too. People are selfish, stupid, and many other bad things but when you get down to it, you walk up to a friend and you give them a hug and it feels like home. Music when you get down to it should be that and my point of establishing this blog was to express that joy of creation, sharing, play, and love. That is what it is all about. If you've become too old to love or express joy then maybe it's too late for you but, for me and my friends, we went to see the Dirtbombs, we got fucking plastered, and smiled like idiots at the beauty of it all. If you can't see the beauty in that then there is no hope for you. I wish I could help you but you are doomed.

So, Kisses and hugs to all my fellow NAPpers who have been so generous with their time, the peeps I hung out with at SXSW (mara, Anneke, and Maikke) who cinched my faith in good human nature, Rosa who has been such an inspiration, and all you good people who read my rambling butchery of the queen's English. I'll still be writing for the Free Press Houston but my time here is done. Long Live the NAP and all who sail with her.

I Was Halfway Through My Third Bowl of Jell-O

There have been some minor crises here at NAP in the last week precipitated by the departure of one of our contributors and the ensuing email storm that followed seems to have taken our founder out as well.  It also made me seriously consider whether I want to continue this weekly exercise of trying to think of clever words to put in this space.  This blog is certainly not worth all the drama of the last few days.  The drama was inevitable here, though, as it is in all creative pursuits.  That's one of the reasons that I am usually reluctant to become involved in them.

I have a history of staying with things long past the point at which I should have given up and today would seem like a good day to put that habit to rest.  Or that's the bag I hold in one hand.  In the other hand, I hold this big sack of restraint, which, in opposition to the one I clutch in the first hand, has usually served me well.  So rather than jumping ship in anticipation of this blog becoming more trouble than it's worth, I will continue here for a while until it really does.  I'll be sleeping with one eye open until then.

Another thing I did this week was learn to talk like a hipster.  You should too.

Week 74: Ladies

This past week, things have gotten a bit heavy around here. When I am told to "lighten up just a wee bit" by Mr. Cramer, who I consider one of the heaviest guys around, then I know I’m sinking into some heavy territory. I blame the moon.

So instead of trying to write something that will invariably turn heavy, here’s some ladies that always lighten up my day.

THE ROCKER


PURO SABOR


THE COOL CAT


THE VOICE


THE EXTRATERRESTRIAL


THE YODELER AND MY FAVORITE AUSTRALIAN LADY

[Here’s Part 1 and Part 3 of the Australian Outback series]

On the Psychology of Music Listening

Hello,
I am guest posting for Mr. Wednesday as he is detained out of the city for the time being.

So we'll give it a go. All I could think to write about was me and my music experiences, and luckily this Thin Lizzy stuff is feeding right into it. So, read on if you care to.

I'm not sure why I like some music over others, but I do know it definitely helps to have an open mind and encouragement to like something never heard before, or even heard but disliked. Look at Cramer's experience with Thin Lizzy. That's what I'm talking about.

When I began, my parents were into happy, friendly, 50s rock, especially the kind that leaned over a bit to the sexy side. So, that gave me a good base, but I kept hearing other music and I was intrigued. I guess it was curiosity.

What came next was rock of the Rolling Stones variety as well as disco. I was born in '68, so you can feel the era. So my first album was Donna Summers and my first tape was the Rolling Stones. I remember them because they were the only ones I picked out in a span of years which was probably 5.

My step-father gave me a bunch of country albums and I liked those as well. We're talking outlaw country. And that music is about having a good time, and I wanted my step-father to like me, and I wanted to have a good time, and it's fun singing about raising hell when you're 11. My step-father had a friend who once pulled out a gun to shoot a roach running around his dining room ceiling. He shot it. These were rock 'n roll attitudes, but in country. I liked it.

In the midst a friend asked if I liked this song by Hall and Oates and I'd never heard of them. She sniffed and was amazed I'd never heard of them. From then on, for some reason it was important to me to know what was going on musically.

Then new wave came along and everybody was doing it in high school. I went to my first concerts, Robert Plant, the Cure, Depeche Mode.

Then off to college where everybody in my circle of friends really listened to 60s music all of the time. It was really weird, actually, looking back. I'm not sure why we did that but it seemed so natural. I mean, I was going to Love and Rockets concerts as well as the Ramones, but I listened to so much Stones and Dylan and my god there was one night where everyone was singing Beatles songs. I had enough by then.

A close friend really loved the Grateful Dead and I really tried to like them and finally, after a few years, I liked them ok. Another close friend really loved Bruce Springsteen and The Modern Lovers. The Modern Lovers was an instant hit, but Bruce took a little longer. Today, I love that guy.

Then came the boyfriends and the music they brought.

Bob Marley, The Rolling Stones, Enya
John Cage
Led Zeppelin
The Lounge Lizards
this weird music that I can't even remember the name but I think D&D guys love it
Blues, the genre
one guy told me never to listen to live albums
Brian Eno, music that isn't really music
another guy told me jazz was dead and to stop listening to it
Leonard Cohen

At this point I'm listening to other stuff I never thought I'd like. I know I specifically said when I was in my 20s that I would never like any of that blue hair stuff like Mel Torme or Frank Sinatra. I'm the opposite now.

And I remember listening to this Grace Jones song on the radio in the 80s thinking it was the worst song I had ever heard in my life. I didn't know who it was for almost a decade, and then I recognized it and liked it!

And I never liked REM in the day, or the Smiths. Now I love the Smiths, and can tolerate REM.

And though I love blues music, I can't really listen to it right now, and haven't been able to for years. It might not come back, but I'm ok with that. But I could watch it live if it was a good show. Did you guys ever make it to a lounge, I think it was called Etta's Lounge, of 610 and around TC Jester or so, and Etta would sing with her feather boa? Man, that was a show.

So, what I think is that music is more about what you have going on on right now, personally, and not necessarily about if it's good or not.

Kind of like if you haven't heard about Jesus and then you die, I really don't think you're going to hell. If you want to think about it in that way.

It's better than thinking about like that one scientist who wrote an article saying that past a certain age you're not going to listen to new music anymore. Whatever. And I read another article that said each generation gets progressively more liberal, but more odd was that it showed that a person rarely changes their political thinking. I mean, people can barely keep their minds about anything, but they can keep a particular political view for the span of their lives? Bizarre.

I am just happy to keep finding new music, and discovering old music I never gave a chance or got a chance to really listen to.

The Thin Lizzy Appreciation Society

I grew up with rock radio. I couldn't avoid it, and for many, many years, I didn't try to either. In retrospect, It's hard to imagine or to understand what it was about me that kept me bound so painfully to a medium that in all honestly left me feeling empty and hungry. I guess ignorance had a huge part to do with it. And there it was, in the middle of the nightmare that was 80s album oriented rock, a song that always had me running for the nearest exit, The Boys Are Back In Town. I had no idea who did it, and I didn't want to know. I just knew that I had to avoid it because I fucking hated it. It seemed like the epitome of all that I found horrible in modern rock. In fact, for years I just assumed the song was done by Bruce Springsteen.

Eventually I found out that Thin Lizzy wrote it, and that was enough for me to write them off for life. I was a kid. I didn't have much of a brain then, and was abysmally stupid and arrogant about things that I actually knew little about.

Years later, a girl I was dating had a roommate who was an unabashed fan of classic rock much in the same way that Mike Simms from Rudz Pub is now. In other words, she lived and breathed the shit. So while I was languishing in their house, recovering from an operation, this girl tells me excitedly about the Thin Lizzy cassette she just got. Fuck me, I think to myself. And then she asks me if I want to borrow it. Too modest to tell the truth, I feign interest and borrow the tape. Then I listen to the thing in its entirety in front of her. I hated it. It was like an entire collection of Boys Are Back soundalikes and it was killing me. But as is often the case with me and the music that I hate but which someone I respect finds so wonderful, I had to give it closer attention. And this is where it gets interesting for me.

There I am listening to the Cowboy Song. It's a song about cowboys for fucks sake, written by a black Irishman, and I find that I am digging it.

I listen to it again, and then I listen to the rest of the tape, and it's the damnedest thing, this band and its front man are starting to grab me.

So I buy the album on CD and I wear that motherfucker out. I play that CD easily a hundred times before shelving it for a breather. I fall hook line and sinker for these solid, emotional rock songs with a working class sensibility.

So I am writing this as a response to the backlash that Thin Lizzy is getting here in the NAP at the hands of those who contribute and those who frequent and comment regularly.

I am here to tell you that I am not only an acolyte of Phil Lynott and his compelling music, I am a die hard petitioner for his sainthood.

He was a black Irish man who gained prominence writing deeply soulful rock songs on a bass guitar in the seventies. That is no small feat. He jettisoned himself into a world that was not too keen to listen to the music of a black guy from anywhere. Name me one other black 70s rock star. Hendrix? Anyone else? Eddie Hazel? Not a big list of guys. But his race had nothing to do with any of it, and that's because they lived and died at the hands of the songwriting. And what sort of material did Lynott write for Thin Lizzy? He wrote proto-metal, hard rock, soulful songs with an ear for Ireland and an ear for America and a deep, unironic love for every single note.

He lived it and, unfortunately, he died by it as well. The drugs and the drink got the better of him and by 1986, Lynott was gone. Stupid fucking loss.

And now, it's 2008, and Lynott's music continues to expand beyond its obvious connection with the era from which it was born.

Ramon isn't impressed, Kilian is practically offended, maybe even racially offended, and others just don't get it. Hey, I didn't either. I didn't for years.

So what can I say? I get it now and I am simply moved by this band. In fact, I still start getting a little choked up whenever I hear the Cowboy Song, and I am not sure why. I mean, "I am just a cowboy, lonesome on the range"? A black Irish dude sings that, and I get all dewy eyed? That is a testament to the power of his talent.

You may not ever understand what it is about Thin Lizzy that moves me. You may live your whole life convinced that I am a total and complete idiot for the way I feel about them, and that's fine. I can deal with that.

Just promise me this. Listen to this band. Really listen to it. Drop your preconceived notions about what you think is cool. If you enjoy strong rock, enjoy the sound of distorted guitars playing solos that are powerful and melodic, and if you enjoy a strong charactered voice, an honest voice, then just listen. Maybe you'll write me off forever as a fucking crackpot. I don't care, you may already think that anyway.

But, maybe, you'll hear what it is about Thin Lizzy that I love and you will love it too. That's the beauty of loving music and that is why I come back to this blog week after week despite the endless issues that keep me from loving the blog itself. It's the music, and it's Thin Lizzy, and it's Phil Lynott, and I would hate to have gone through life and never been able to get into this.

Oh yeah, and the Replacements are shallow, talentless hacks unfit to write a birthday card. And that is an indisputable fact.

NAPcast 61 Thin Lizzy

As I mention in the intro, I really wanted to have more time to put together a Thin Lizzy cast that I could really get behind. I am still behind this one, I just wish I could have brought you more.

Any volunteers for future host gigs? I'm always listening.

I'm a good listener.



Here's some useless information for you though:

Andy Garcia was a conjoined twin.
Debra Winger was the voice of E.T.
During Melville's lifetime, MOBY DICK only sold 50 copies.
Some toothpaste contains anti-freeze.
The eyes of some birds weigh more than their brains.
Armadillos have four babies at a time and they are always the same sex, and they can walk underwater.
There are about 5,000 different languages spoken on Earth.
Boris Karloff is the narrator for the Grinch who stole xmas cartoon.
Sheryl Crow's two front teeth are fake. She busted them out tripping because she rocked so hard at one of her concerts.
Aerosmith's "Dude Looks Like a Lady" was about Vince Neil.
and finally,
Van Gogh who began painting at 27, cut off his LEFT ear. His self portrait with bandaged ear shows his right ear covered up, because he used a mirror to paint himself.

Sorry about the playlist typos.
And the Rest of the Day to yourself.



Click here to get your own player.

happy Easter!

I saw Immortal this week. I may write something longer about Norwegians in greasepaint playing black metal at a later date, but Easter feels an odd day to discuss it.

In lieu of that, here is some happy Sesame Street footage.



--------

Okay, a bit more. The guys I saw Thursday night look like this:



and they make videos like this:



(a series of stylistic decisions, of course, that leaves them ripe for detournements such as this:)



But. Here's the thing.

They are so fucking metal. They could not possibly be any more metal. One of the people who convinced me to go to the show was a hardcore metal fan, the kind of guy who drops names like Decapitator and Mayhem the way I drop Superchunk and The Mountain Goats. He has long hair, solely for the purpose of thrashing in a circle at metal shows. (I asked.) And he turned to me halfway through and said, "This is the most metal experience of my life!"

And that was without the firebreathing, which sadly didn't happen. It was just ninety minutes of full-on metal, with lots of shades of darkness. Despite my near-chronic inability to recognize different metal songs, it never became boring to me, and the fact that this was a cathartic and legendary experience for those around me who may have been waiting almost twenty years for it just added to the joy.

So, yeah. It was awesome. Especially the bit near the end where the singer said in his Cookie Monster voice: "Thank you, Auckland ... Australia!" The riff started, and six seconds he later he came to the mic, realizing his mistake, and added, "New Zealand! Sorry!".

(Incidentally, I learned at this show that metal shows have very little applause between songs, because everybody is holding their hands in the air making the metal sign after shows.)

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

The issue I was alluding to at the top, and one I haven't got my head around properly writing about, is to whether I should or should not have an ethical issue spending money - and in Immortal's case, it was a LOT of money ($80 NZ) - on bands who have beliefs I find disturbing. Now, in Immortal's case, the more I investigate the less I find to really bother me - these guys aren't killing their bandmates or burning down churches. And really, if the choice of values is this:



or this:



or this:



then it's not that problematic for me to spend $80 on what's behind door #1. But I do think it is an issue all too easily dodged. On a seemingly unrelated tangent, I've been listening a lot to Clipse lately, who are fully awesome but also fully dedicated to their subject matter of cocaine dealing and related material acquisition:



Of course, Clipse would not give a shit if I said "hey, why guys gotta rap about coke?" - they basically say that in so many words on the WE GOT IT FOR CHEAP VOL. 3 mix-tape, which is credited to Re-Up Gang but includes members of Clipse.

But I do think a lot about what values are being put into the world. And while I don't think good values makes good music -



- (and fuck, I didn't remember that song being THAT bad) -

- I'm not sure if they're mutually exclusive. Anyway, this is more a "something I'm mulling on" than "something I've reached any conclusions over".

Hope you had a good Easter weekend.

Why the dude with the Travis Bickle hair mattered....

While blogs and print give us various options, let's face it the most influential arts paper in town given print runs and readership is likely the Houston Press and Houston music fans have always had a testy relationship with its music writers. We've been cursed with the all time worst music writer Anthony Mariani who combined ignorance and arrogance and last year Olivia Florez Alvarez was awarded worst music writer ever by many people too young to recall Mariani's atrocities. In both cases, the writers eventually left their post at the Houston Press to everyone's relief. Yet these are the more extreme journalistic horrors we've suffered. More often than not, what we have are decent writers that have, at best, a casual relationship with music. Some don't get out often enough and others took the same editorship position because it was the best gig they could get.

Last year, for once, the paper via John Lomax made a great decision and brought down Chris Gray from the Austin Chronicle to fill in as assistant music editor. Immediately it was apparent that this writer was different. He had something that was missing for too long - honest to goodness passion. The guy gave a shit and you could tell. For one thing, people actually saw him out at shows. Imagine that? When I was out, I came to expect him to at least poke his head into a bar and see what's up. He'd also do things like ask questions, seek out bands, and even champion bands. On top of all that, he was a damn good writer. In short, he was exactly what we'd been waiting for at the Houston Press for ages and we were all pretty excited about what he brought to the paper and to Houston.

Unfortunately (if the past tense doesn't make it obvious), The Houston Press' parent company made some cuts and Lomax was bumped back down to his old position and Gray was bumped from the staff. Which , no offense to Lomax, means that the Houston Press even fucked it up after they finally got it right. It was kind of like watching Democrats lose elections to chimps, where you just think "Man, they are on a roll now! How can they fuck this up? It's impossible!" and sure enough they go right ahead and fuck it up.

So the sad thing is that, first off, Gray got jacked by New Times who brought him down only to then drop him mere months afterwards. The other thing is that Houston really does need good writers like Gray who give a shit about what is happening in the trenches and not what is happening in the latest press release to cross their desk. Good luck Chris, we're pretty sure you'll find a solid gig with your talents and New Times Media - hats off to totally fucking it up .... again!

Credits:
Chris Gray Photo by AasimSyed

PS Apologies, Justin. This post is being posted early - though dated for the right date - because I don't have Internet at home. (Thanks Comcast!)

Peek A Boo

Junior High I lost my mind.
I don't know why. It's a terrible thing.
Since that day it's been a struggle
Trying to make sense out of scrambled eggs.

Wait. Huh? Make sense out of scrambled eggs? This is a verse from Daniel Johnston's "Peek A Boo," one of his early songs and one which is used in Speeding Motorcycle, Jason Nodler's mostly fictionalized musical about Johnston. Having seen the play twice in Houston (once with Johnston himself sitting behind me, singing along), I figured I should see how the Austin production compared. My quick review: Overall, the show was better in Houston, but the bits with Kathy McCarty in Austin were well worth the drive.

Anyway, back to the eggs. There are lots of lines in Johnston's songs that just seem to come out of nowhere, which hit you a little sideways and force you to either find an explanation or just dismiss them as the ramblings of a crazy man. The play uses a few of these for comedic effect. But, what's he talking about there with this "scrambled eggs" business? Is he talking about his mixed-up thoughts? He has certainly written plenty of other songs with lyrics which refer to his mental condition, so that would be a good guess, but I don't think that's the whole story here.

Earlier this week, I watched American Idol, where the theme--for the second week--was Beatles songs. Sure, listening to Idol contestants mangle Beatles songs is annoying (though hardly more annoying than their mangling of any other song), but the real soul killer is the Beatles hype. For some reason, when the Beatles are involved it's necessary to rehash all the useless Beatle trivia. For sheer obsession, only Dylan's fans can compare, but whereas Dylan's fans just trade notes about his lyrics and try to glean meaning, Beatles fans collect any detail remotely associated with their heroes. And they will gladly pay top dollar for it. Go to any record convention and it won't take you long to find the Beatles collectors. They will be the ones with the buttons and jackets and dolls and lunchboxes and, and, and. Try not to be creeped out, I dare you. There seems to be no satiating a Beatles fan's appetite for more bits and pieces of a forty-plus-year-old cultural phenomenon. And just when you think there couldn't be anything else, those wily surviving Beatles will release a multi-hour documentary, or several box sets of outtakes, or--when all the source material has been thoroughly mined--a mash-up album with--what? What would be really crazy here? How about a Vegas show with Canadian mimes? That should do it. Nothing could be more ridiculous than that. Or so you think. Just you wait, they'll think of something.

So after one of the contestants performed "Blackbird," Simon Cowell pulled some trivia out of his ass (he'd probably call it an arse) about the song originally being about a sparrow. I'd never heard that bit before and since there is so much Beatle minutiae out there, I'm skeptical about this story because by now I would have heard it several times if it were there to be heard. By contrast, when another contestant performed "Yesterday" (notice the focus on the sappy McCartney numbers), Randy Jackson mentioned that the original title was "Scrambled Eggs," a bit of trivia with which I was well familiar, but had managed to forget. He might well have gone on about how that song came from one of McCartney's dreams and how, for a time, he was convinced that it wasn't original. No, Randy didn't mention any of that, but my brain filled in all those pieces as soon it heard the anecdote about the title.

Now, brain filled with Beatles gunk, I watched the Daniel Johnston play again. And that line made sense:

Trying to make sense out of yesterday

Too much of a stretch? Well, let's not forget that as Beatles fans go, Daniel Johnston easily ranks as an alpha-obsessive. You don't need to go further than his many lyrical references--or heck, whole songs--about the Beatles to realize this:

When I was born in '61
They already had a hit
They worked so hard and they
Made it too
They really were very good
They deserved all their success
They earned it yes they did they didn't
Buy their respect
And everybody wanted to be like them
Everybody wanted to be the Beatles
And I really wanted to be like him
But he died
A legendary rock group
Like history now to read
Like a magical fairy tale that's hard to believe
But it really did happen
Four lads who shook the world
God bless them for what they done
God bless them for what they done
--"Beatles" Yip/Jump Music (1983)

There's little doubt that a Beatles fan like Johnston knew the original title of "Yesterday" and it's not that surprising that he would appropriate it and use it in a clever way with multiple layers of meaning. It only seems crazy. As tempting as it is for some to paint him as a guileless manchild, I think he realizes that crazy sells. Crazy is what has made Johnston the rock star that he believes he is. You have to imagine that making a living by playing up all the his psychological shortcomings is one bitter lithium pill for him to swallow. But swallow it he does. I've seen Johnston onstage several times recently and one of his favorite things to do is to give the Hitler salute to the audience. You'd have to be crazy to try something like that, right? Can you imagine Beyoncé peppering her between song banter with a few Seig Heils? It's an instant career ender, unless you're crazy, because Hitler is über-evil. His evil has comic book supervillain proportions. And anybody familiar with Daniel Johnston will tell you that he knows a thing or two about comic books. So Johnston is selling you crazy. And you buy it. Everybody wins.

Week 73: Car Music

My great grandfather raced cars. Not the way cars are raced today. He raced the slowest cars. The slowest car wins kind of races. The last car to cross the finish line wins kind of races.

My great grandfather was an engineer from England. After his father died, his mother remarried, but he and his brother had problems with the new husband so they left for Canada. His brother didn’t like it and eventually went back to England, but my great grandfather got a job with the Guanica Central Sugar Company, in 1909, the third biggest in the world. Guanica Central sent him first to Puerto Rico, where he met and married my great grandmother, then to Haiti then to the Dominican Republic, and then he quit and opened a car shop in Puerto Rico.

My great grandmother was a psychic, played Ouija, traveled only in sail boats, no steamships for her, and every time she got pregnant she would take a sail boat back to Puerto Rico to give birth and then go back to her husband.

But this is about my great grandfather and the cars he raced. His license in Puerto Rico was number 621. That means there were 620 drivers in Puerto Rico when he picked up his license. That’s 620 possible clients for his shop. I suspect many of those 620 were also automobile enthusiasts, mechanics.

In those days and for the group of mechanics my great grandfather hung out with, how you went was more important than how fast you went. So my great grandfather and his friends would slow race.

Most of the race revolved around working on the engine, working on it until it was perfect. Unfortunately I know hardly anything about cars, otherwise here you would get a description of the specifics of how my great grandfather worked on a car before the races… instead I'll mention things like balancing the pistons, and filing the plugs, and shaving the wheels, things that I’ve made up in my mind about what a mechanic might do, things that to a real mechanic probably sound like gibberish. But that’s how I picture it. A little bit like a British Burt Munro in Puerto Rico, but instead of trying to make his Indian go fast, he was trying to make his Model T go slow. Because the last one to cross the finish line would win.

I'll say it again because it's such an awesome concept: the last one to cross the finish line wins. Now, the trick is that your car can't die or stop along the way. If your car stops moving forward, you are disqualified. If the engine stops, you are disqualified. So it was all about the engine and how slow it could run without puttering out. I imagine these are the secret races that mechanics still hold during their secret mechanic meetings, right next door to all the comedians telling each other the Aristocrats joke, right next door to the pedal steel players convention.

You don’t need a lot of room to do a slow race, but you need enough room for it to take a while. But not so long that the race takes too much time away from adjusting your engine. No 60 second pit stops here. Fine tuning that engine was their meat and potatoes. Tweaking it until the idle is just perfect, purring like a cat, moving imperceptibly forward, imperceptibly to the untrained eye. Not to the mechanics, of course. The mechanics listen and hear when an idle stops advancing, they taste the oil and can tell how slow the engine will go before it stops, they read the history of a car in it’s exhaust.

My great grandfather and his friend mechanics would then line up the cars, and start the engines. Then, instead of getting in the driver’s seat as one would expect a driver to do, they would stand next to the car and with one hand on the wheel they would gently guide the car as it moved forward, walking it as it where in their slow forward march. Some mechanics would make subtle adjustments to decrease momentum, some would correct the course to maintain inertia. All would calculate minuscule movements of their machine, but for the most part they would let the machines do their job, inch by slow inch. How slow can one go?

I’m sure in the sweltering heat of the Puerto Rican day, these races must have seemed like the slowest of motion mirages, all the mechanics dressed in their white linen suits, and straw hats, gentlemen guiding futuristic self propelled machines the way one may guide an old lady to cross the street.

Following on my great grandfather’s footsteps, my grandfather also loved the sounds of cars. During his courtship of my grandmother, he expressed his love and affection by making adjustments to the muffler and sending secret messages with his accelerator as he drove around her house at night. From her bedroom, my young grandmother fell in love as she listened to my grandfathers’ driving around the block serenades.

My grandfather’s three children did not hear the cars. One of them went into horse racing, another one into journalism and my mom into a life of exploration and family. One of my first cousins, however, did hear the car call and has been playing with cars since he was a toddler, from Tonkas to Big Wheels, to Hot Wheels, to go-carts, to stealing his father’s car at twelve, to late night drag racing in empty highways, to selling high end custom cars, driving them, fixing them, beat ups, muscle cars, compacts, trucks, racing cars - cars. He can sit there and just listen to an engine, and like my great grandfather, hear a symphony.

Now listen to this here. It’s a recording of the idle of a 35 year old, 1973 Toyota Celica with something like 40k miles in it, and then the idle of an 18 year old, 1990 Jeep Wrangler, with about 200k miles in it. The idles go back and forth. What do you hear?

When I was a little kid, my mother took me to the car races. The sound of a hundred engines revving up was so loud and horrible to me that I just cried and we left before the race even started. When I got home I put on side one of the Beatles, Yesterday and Today – the first track, "Drive My Car".

Women to Watch on This, the 79th Day of the 2,008th Year of the Common Era; Also Featuring A Commemorative Song.

This is my extraordinary wife, obverse of some terracotta figurines from the Shrine of the Nymph. The photo was taken by a notorious satyr moments before official reproof (one must not steal limelight from the gods when one photographs at the Acropolis).

The deviant iconographical garment adorning my wife I destroyed in a tragic clothes dryer incident. My attempt to make amends, when I stumbled upon a reincarnation of the shirt in a Southern boutique, was abrogated by tragic repetition - - History is indeed bound to repeat itself.

The occasion for
The occasion for the inclusion of
The occasion for the inclusion of the intention of
The occasion for the inclusion of the intention of my affection is

this imminent exhibition in Washington D.C..

No doubt, individual recognition is relished in this time of self-sacrifice. Hence we sing her praise.

For those who might find themselves in the Capital City next week, please get in touch. The Women to Watch 2008 Opening is a private affair for which we possess the means of solicitation.

We thank Kelly, friend of Justin, for her gracious offer of lodging. We look forward to this visit and the chance to break bread with our friends in Brooklyn later in the week.

(Beneath) worshipers raise themselves in praise of their goddess.




A Song for Tricia.

It is now later still. Life goes on. Rise Above :)

Chicago
o r n e r . . .	A little something to commemorate this verdant week - two local professors turn their house green.

NAPCAST 60

Yes... I fucking know. It's "Every rose has its thorn". I'm sick. What do you want from me?

Thanks to all the guest hosts the past four weeks. It was a nice break and I enjoyed seeing what you guys came up with. Sorry this one is a bit late. It's kind of hectic around here.

I hope you like this cast. Are there any ballads you think should have been on this one?


Click here to get your own player.

Stillness, Still So Far, But Always Seems So Near

Lately, I’ve been thinking about getting myself into a live performance situation once again. I don’t exactly know why it is that I continuously, after so many years of disappointment, return to the allure of live performance.

Maybe I’m not being clear.

I love to appear before an audience (of preferably more folks than, say, me and the people who work at the club) and make something out of nothing. I am fairly unsteady when it comes to stage confidence, or at least to a certain extent anyway. I’m not the kind of person who pisses himself with fear. No, I am more the sort who is in a near perpetual state of generalized discomfort.

To go one further, it is fairly rare for me to ever get to the point on stage where I feel totally comfortable. Though, I might add, I fake it rather well.

This might be a completely normal state of affairs for people who are staking themselves before their peers in a performance capacity. For me this is definitely the case.

I can get the job done, but I rarely am “feeling it” when I do, and that is a goal I strive for whenever I touch an instrument.

So anyway, I have been thinking about reviving my Powers of Light and Darkness project. I have total freedom in that guise, and that is something that is eternally appealing to me. I can play songs in any style I wish, or not play songs at all, and I don’t have to argue as to whether or not the fucking “crowd” will get bored if I play six measures instead of the apparently court ordered four.

Here’s a tangential thought on the above concept.

Fuck the “crowd.”

Play what you are inspired to play and let the “crowd” come to you. No one lives in a vacuum, but we also don’t have to bend over and ask those who watch us to shove their sanctimonious opinions up our asses either.

Naturally if I even do it at all I will eventually end up in a puddle of semi-realized failure, another side effect of creative entropic decay. Such is the life of a loser in mid life.

I guess I just honestly love the internal tension I feel whenever I play a loud electric guitar in front of others and do so with little to no preparation.

Do I love it more than I hate booking, flyering, and hell, promoting in general? Ultimately, no, I don’t. And that is why I am constantly walking this tightrope over a sea of oblivion. I will do a certain amount in order to get myself out there, but beyond that I pretty much clam up and stick to the place in which I find the most comfort: my head.

Despite that fun packed endorsement for live performance, I suppose now is as good a time as any to start trying to get things up and running again, if only for a little while. Basically the way it ends up, after a long enough hiatus from it, I start to miss the playing live part enough to deal with the rest, at least for a spell.

I mean, it doesn’t help me at all to be the way I am. No one will get excited about a musician they can never hear, find, or contact, unless the musician in question has a fairly airtight shtick like, say, Jandek. That guy is a fucking wizard when it comes to effortless self-promotion. I ought to tear a page from his book except that I can’t read his mother tongue: Nut Job.

Reading about the LP4 playing SXSW, despite knowing how demoralizing it can seem to play the festival, or at the least how overwhelming it is, makes me remember how much I enjoy the act of playing live itself. The rest for me is pretty tedious, truth be told, but playing itself is still pretty rewarding.

Considering all the idiotic razzing I have given Ramon in the past few weeks, it might be easy to make the mistake of thinking that I have no respect for the guy. In fact, I have the utmost respect for his drive, his passion, and his motivation to do his thing with almost total disregard for how pointless it all is beyond easing things for his band to exist on their tiny little planet.

That’s good stuff, and I posses practically none of his better qualities.

So keep your eyes peeled, because buried somewhere in the last page of some paper, in the tiniest of small print, opening for the openers who are opening for the band opening for the band on tour no one has ever heard, at some minute closet of a club, on a Monday night, at 6 PM, in Baytown, you just might see a listing for a band called The Powers of Light and Darkness.

That band is actually me, and if you have an ear for self-indulgent meandering (not sure if anyone ever has), then put aside that night with your kids, that rendezvous with your paramour, that band, ________, playing at _________ to a guaranteed crowd of hundreds, and come on down and watch me play.

But don’t put it off too long, because I’m sure to give it up again after six months or so.

What’s it like to be me?

No need to ask, folks, no need to ask.

new guv

David A. Paterson is being sworn in right now. The inauguration and his speech are being broadcast live. Don't know if NPR around the country is broadcasting it, but they are here in New York and it's pretty damned good.

Text of the speech here. It would be better to listen to a recording with the laughter, rowdy applause and ovations.

Have lots of catch-up work to do today. Will be going to Utah soon and I have a client sticking it to me- hasn't paid his bill for 10 weeks and is wondering why I'm demanding upfront payment for any new services. Sometimes I really hate this job.

On top of that, I've identified that I have some anger/emotional outburst management issues.

Today, I moved boxes into out of a cab which was tricky because the street is narrow with construction work, cars parked on both sides and traffic maneuvering along the middle. The cabbie and I debated whether to block the parking lot entrance, block traffic, squeeze into a parking space further down, or if the traffic could in fact get by. The stoplight turned green and I spent two seconds getting out of the cab. The car behind us laid on his horn and the driver rolled down his window to start something with me. Instead he got a full frontal verbal assault from me telling him to "go the fuck around" because we had left space. I swear, though, I was so pumped full of adrenaline that I would have fought him if he had gotten out of his car.

Last Friday night, my colleague Tom nearly got into a fight with two women when we were out because they had moved our coats without telling us. In Tom's coat was a Form Z (software) key worth $2000 + iphone + cash, credit cards, keys. In my coat was a substantial check from a client + $200 cash + cellphone etc. (and this would have made the third time this year I had lost things). We ran out the door to see if we could find the people who were standing by our coats. When we came back in, I asked the women whether or not they had seen the people who had been standing there. They acted as if we were accusing them of stealing our coats and suddenly morphed into violent, not-going-to-take-any-shit-from-a-man -attitude-armored lesbians. That about landed us in fisticuffs.

Additionally, there was another instance of my pet peeve: a woman was repeatedly bashing into me with her purse at a party, even after I gently put my hand on her shoulder to gently indicate that I was in her immediate proximity. Sometimes women hit things with their purses without realizing it. Apparently, though, she realized she was hitting me and just expected me to move. Did I have the self-control to just move, because it's just a party and we're all friendly here? Uh, no.

I gotta get some deep breathing yoga exercises going on...
... it will be better for my heart and overall health in the long run.

Happy St. Patty's Day. Maybe I'll go try to find some live-action bar fights.

flame on.

HANDS UP WHO WANTS TO DIE?

Or maybe it's an exclamation point. It parses better as a question, but as spoken - shouted? sung? summoned? - by Nick Cave at the start of "Sonny's Burning", the opening song to the Birthday Party's THE BAD SEED EP, it doesn't sound like a question. It doesn't sound like anything you want to be in the same room as.

These days, lyrics have been rendered mostly impact-free, due to the corrosive impact of irony. You could imagine some annoying emo kid singing "Hands up, who wants to die?", and it wouldn't have any impact. And dozens of metal albums every month are probably more "challenging" or "controversial" in their content.

But those albums plow a well-trod path. This is something different. Not just because it's earlier. Time has not, for me at least, drained any of its power.

The drums kick in, something that could be described as a tribal beat. A tribe you would like to avoid.

"Have you heard how Sonny's burning?"

And here - look, burning and fire are songwriting metaphors as old as the hills. "Burning For You". "Eternal Flame". Mr. Hendrix's "Fire". Et cetera. So you might not look at the title and think anything of it.

But here, in the sick way that Cave holds on to the first syllable of "burning", is the hint that there's no actual metaphor here to speak of.

Before you process this, though, the guitar and bass kick in, a sickly din, on one note, disruptive, then cutting out. As the verse goes on, the interchange between the vocal and guitars gets more overlapping, until we're drowning in the chaotic interface.

Have you heard how sonny's burning
Like some bright erotic star?
And he lights up the proceedings
And raises the temperature.

And then we get to what, for lack of a better term, is probably the chorus, which consists of the otherwise insistent drumming rhythm suddenly going apeshit on the cymbals and Cave shouting "Flame on! Flame on!"

Which is what The Human Torch used to yell before he set himself alight. Is this a conscious reference? Is this a crazy man about to set fire to somebody, a sick throwback to youth and innocence amidst the creation of a human effigy?

The character of the song - which, given that it's sung in the first person, may well be Cave himself - is, at least in the text of the song, apparently capable of it.

Someday I'll cut him down yeah uh
Now I've seen to Sonny's burning
Yeah someday I think I'll cut him down
But it can get so co-cold in here
And he gives off such an evil heat.
Flame on! flame on!

Where do you start with this? "Cut him down?" Seriously, did this dude tie up some guy, hang him from the corner of the shack, and set him on fire? Or in the opposite order?

Or maybe we're metaphorical after all? There's that erotic reference in the first verse, after all. And maybe Sonny's burning with the singer's "love" - which would mean basically he's tied up Sonny and raping him on a regular basis. Whether Sonny is dead or not may be an open question.

Whatever is going on, it is deeply unpleasant. And it gets worse. But I will leave that for you to discover, for trying to even describe the end of this song, as the music churns more or less into complete noise and Cave's guttural yelpings become even more primal, is well beyond my abilities. Whatever it is, it is horrible and I can not look away. I have been obsessed and been playing this song over and over, trying to uncover its secrets, but slightly afraid to all at once.

Anyway, this is what I was thinking about instead of going to WOMAD because I was too sick to drive six hours on my own.

Unrelatedly: Clell Tickle, Indie Marketing Guru.

Belated NAP SXSW Blog or Fun Fun Fun

Oh SXSW! Where else can I start the evening listening to the majestic music of Jandek and close with the happy happy joy joy pop of Matt and Kim?

Here is the deal. My band gets to play an official showcase and we accept fully expecting to play to near nobody (we were playing far off the beaten track). Sure enough that's what happens and nobody shows up but, to my surprise - aside from jokes about it sucking - nobody is really and honestly bitching in the band. Everyone seems to be just having fun, working hard, playing hard, and enjoying SXSW for what it is. We are all grateful for being offered the opportunity do to something as foolish as hauling your equipment to play to "a few bartenders." We were all honestly happy to be there playing. Man, it's SXSW and it's a huge party so, if you sit back and enjoy it for what it is and hook up with some awesome-sauce friends, you've got a recipe for a great time.

I'm sure it's easy to find things to complain about with SXSX. I know someone who did just that - making fun of hipsters, 20 year olds, and SXSW endlessly. Now that's great if that's yr party but me? No! Fuck that negativity shit. That's for pussies. You go sell that wristband. If I want to be jaded I can always turn to the presidential race on TV but I am here to have fun - see ya! So I mercifully went my way and proceeded to have a blast with people who were uncool enough to just have fun and enjoy the experience.

You can read my blogs on SXSW on the Free Press Blog (see the blog links below this one). All I want to say here is sure all I had for sustenance was beer and whiskey for three days*, sure at one point as I looked for a place to shower and shave I stunk like ass for half a day, sure I had no idea where I would end-up crashing on any particular evening, and sure Saturday I had such a raging hangover that my blog for the Free Press was honestly weaksauce, but when all was said and done I really really really really had fun and was sad to see it end.

So I'm going to leave you with a video from Matt and Kim (who was the last band I saw at SXSW) whose happy bounciness pretty much sums up my SXSW experience. Yeah Yea!




*I'm not shitting you. Ok, well, except that I did have a biscotti and a coffee at Bookpeople Cafe every morning as I blogged for the Free Press. Beyond that, nothing.


Photo taken by Flip Osman on his IPhone.

SXSW hangover - Now with with Day 4 update

Hey guys. I'm really hungover and I need a bath so here are lks to my free press blogs on SXSW. I'll have some commentary here when I have a chance but until then...

DAY 1

DAY 2

DAY 3

DAY 4 (added Sunday 03/16)

Look Over There

I don't sleep very well. I toss. I turn. I stare at the ceiling. I count sheep. If I do manage to get to sleep, no matter what I do, I can't stay that way for long. The magic number seems to be 3:00 AM--that's the time some part of my brain decides that it has to be awake. This is the sister time of 3:00 PM, when my brain decides that it really, really wants to be asleep, no matter how much work needs to be done. At 3:00 AM I wake up and become mired in self-recrimination. I quietly blame myself for everything. I replay the days events and think about how all my decisions were bad ones. I replay events from years ago and think about them with regret. It's all totally irrational, but automatic. One part of my brain laments while the other thinks about what a waste of time and energy all this moping is. Of course, that conflict just serves to keep me awake. After several hours I'll wear myself out and slip into some vivid REM sleep.

I don't remember much of the dream, if there even was much, but one day this week--after the hour of grief--I had a brief dream which involved several incidents which had the tone of a horror movie. Mind you, this wouldn't have been a very good horror movie, because the really scary things weren't really all that scary, but the anticipatory dread was the same. I would see a medicine cabinet and it would seem to have non-specific supernatural properties. Maybe it was filled with spirits or something else. It's hard to say because the feeling was never resolved. I would just fix on an object and feel horror. This happened several times until my brain finally came up with a way to disarm the situation.

I--or somebody, it's not really clear--would just say "Dance, dance dance" and suddenly everything was peachy. This being a dream, there was no explanation of why; it was just all better. I would continue along until the next object of dread popped up and then I would dismiss it with my new mantra. It wasn't until I woke up covered in sweat that I made the connection to the Joy Division song. Maybe, in fact, there was no connection. Usually if a dream reflects something of real life it will be something that happened in the last day or so, but I don't think I've listened to "Transmission" for several months--probably sometime right after I saw Control. Instead, I think my brain has just assimilated that phrase and made something new of it. To fix just about any bad situation, it told me, just dance, dance, dance.

Unfortunately I'm not much of a dancer.

And now this week's links.

Here's another left channel/right channel comparison of a band's soundalike songs. This week's formula belongs to Linkin Park.

I stumbled upon this piece of software this week. Doing Autotune one better, it seems to have the ability to change the pitch of a single note in a recorded chord. Now Linkin Park or some other furry-legged demon can play literally anything and it can be rearranged later into something catchy and marketable.

And finally a YouTube video:

Week 72: Guest Post by Todd Cobra, Rock Chronicles 4

My friend, Todd Cobra, excellent songwriter, guitarist and rocker from bands like The Spinns and The Gondoliers concludes his guest post series. Thank you Todd for some excellent road stories. And now the conclusion, for now, of the Rock Chronicles... Chronicles... Chronicles...

* * *

Rock Chronicle 4: Cross-Country 2

Driving to the west coast has both its beautiful and, as it is a long haul, boring moments. There are snowy mountainous landscapes that descend into vast, arid plains. As you get closer, cactus appear. Then other-worldly landscapes featuring mountains that are made up of giant red/sand colored boulders. Then descend into plains again until finally it is night and lights begin to emerge on the horizon. Our humble band had made it to LA. This alone gave us a feeling of accomplishment. Our tour partner band/friends had been to the west coast before so they had their own places to stay. We stayed with an old friend of our drummer, Jolson's, in LA very close to Hollywood. Apparently we were on the same block as Glenn Danzig's house. Our hostess (let's call her Lucinda) was incredibly hospitable. She loved rock and roll, especially metal, and smoked giant doobs with us every day. She also had two bottles of some presumably expensive clear booze called Potcheen, that she had been given by her boss. She rode with us to all of our west coast gigs. We went up the coast and played a few gigs. We met up with a friend of mine I hadn't seen for over a year since he moved out west, who put us up in his practice space/studio, which was nice. We picked up a gig with a killer band we'd really wanted to play with, thanks to another friend's band that was also on the bill. On the drive back down our bass player Ralph and I got hammered drinking the Potcheen. The weather was incredible.

Then we went down to San Diego. We played a really cool bar, the building of which was slanted like The Leaning Tower Of Pisa due to a truck that ran into it years ago. The next day we went to So. Cal. Beach. We ate burritos and went down to the sand. There had been talk about going to Mexico. A bunch of hospitable locals said they were going to get a keg. That's the last thing I remember hearing before Ralph and I got in the van and left for Tijuana.

This was before entering Mexico required a passport. All one had to do was find a place to park, then walk over the bridge. Ralph explained that this very high bridge was were a drummer/friend of ours had drunkenly fallen off! This would have been a life threatening fall which must have caused a scene. When you enter TJ on this bridge, you see a mountain with a city on it. In the middle of this big hill flies a GIANT Mexican flag. Once you find your way through the tourist trap maze that exists before entering Tijuana proper, you find yourself staring down a kind of main drag. As a couple of shaggy gringos, Ralph and I were easily perceptible to the business owners on either side of the strip. They loudly beckoned us from several shops away.

Tijuana must be the most lawless, debaucherous place on Earth. We had heard that one could enter a pharmacy and leave with any pharmaceutical known to man sans prescription. We didn't want to go out of our way to investigate this but that turned out not to be a problem. Every other storefront was a 24 hour pharmacy with no front wall and a man in front of it's counter pushing product, "anything you want". Besides the strip clubs and leather shops, we were constantly being approached by people in the street who offered to get us "anything" we wanted. We got sucked into a strip club. We were taken to a table where we were immediately set up with personal female companions. These ladies didn't waste any time sizing up (so to speak) a potential customer. Then I was grabbed underneath my jaw and had my head pulled back. Some cat poured Tequila down my throat. THEN he stuck out his hand for my money. We got out of there pronto before our loot was completely drained. After that a cat on the street took us to, "a place where we could just sit and have a few beers". "There's prostitutes upstairs too" he explained. When we were out of cash we attempted to get friends and family to wire us money. Luckily that didn't work or we surely would have got into serious trouble.

We got out of Mexico and drove to a venue to meet up with everybody. Our friend's band had picked up the gig of their dreams; opening for a band they loved for a record label (that they wanted to be on) showcase. Ralph had some pills. I'm still not sure where they came from. I ate one or two and he ate a bunch. A little while later I was zombiefied. The name of the record label in question was Swami records. I was told later that in between songs during the headliner's set, there was a moment of silence during which I was heard to moderately opine, to the offended bewilderment of all in attendance, "Swami Records sucks". Later when we went to our van, it and Ralph were missing.

Jolson, Lucinda and I woke up the next day in our friend's van. Our buddies were inside sleeping with their new friends whom apparently didn't care for us. When our friends finally came outside, shower fresh, they found us in the little alcoholics' community adjacent the van, playing guitar (and being served some terrible food) with the residents. We returned to the scene of the crime. For hours, despite intensive effort, we could find no sign of Ralph or our van. There was a gig in Las Vegas that night and our friends had to go. Jolson, Lucinda and I stood at the top of an exit ramp leading back to LA. Jolson suggested hitching back to LA. I figured that I was a third wheel in the situation. Jolson had been talking about moving to the west coast (did I mention, he and Lucinda were "old friends"?) and I figured this was "game over" for our band and the tour. I optioned to go with our buddies, leaving behind my gear, my clothes and my dreams.

It didn't take much driving to realize that the worst part about leaving was the uncertainty of the safety of my friends. I think, looking back, I can honestly say that I simply did not know what to do. I had no money and no legitimate place to go besides back home on the only train leaving town, so to speak. With every additional mile I knew I had made an increasingly questionable decision. Then the storm broke. A call from Ralph's ex-old lady back home. She, being in a successful touring band and having received a call from us while we were still looking for Ralph that day, knew the territory and knew how to proceed. She told me that she had contacted a police station that we had somehow missed. Ralph was in jail and the van was impounded. Apparently Ralph had tried to drive our van somewhere and hadn't got far before hitting a parked car. Ralph's ex was also able to concoct a plan for the wellbeing of Jolson and co. It turned out that Jolson had optioned not to hitch hike and walked back to town. There he picked up a paper where he found out that a friend's band (also successful) was playing in town that night. Our friend back home called the club owner and got them into the show with the additional hospitality of a few free beers. As luck would have it, this friend's band was on their way to LA the next day.

Later that night we rolled into a really cool bar in Vegas. There was already a good sized crowd in the joint. Video gambling was built in to the bar so that drinks could either rest or be served on it. They served a homemade concoction, Ass Juice. We announced our presence to the bartender and were directed toward the door man. He took us aside and, unlike any pay for play situation I've ever encountered, he gave us our drink tickets (chips in this case) and envelopes with our pay upfront. There was $150 in there and fifteen drink chips per band! As far as Vegas was aware, our band was here and ready to play. I had only played solo gigs a few times in my music career up until then but I wasn't going to say no to this money which I so desperately needed. I went to the van, wrote a set list of tunes that could be played solo and quickly practiced songs I had