Why Hello There

When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one person to assume the station of Monday writer for a nonalignment pact, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to such folly. In truth, I am somewhat/very reluctant to assume this mantle, for a number of reasons.

For one thing, writing about music is like dancing about architecture.

For thing two, I'm not sure I really have anything in particular to say, particularly on a weekly basis.

For thing three, sometimes I have something to say, but not necessarily to the entire world (I hear they all are big fans of NAP).

For thing four, there already seems to be quite a surplus of writing in existence. Is there really a need for more? If there were a lack, I would assume the value of writing would skyrocket. Hopefully you have a strategic literature reserve available for just such a case.

For thing five, the act of converting thoughts to language sometimes seems the height of arduousness. Sometimes I feel physically unable to verbalize and, of necessity, resort to grunts or gestures when communication is required. Sometimes the conversion from thought to language reveals a paucity of thought; other times it reveals the inadequacy of language (or so I would like to think in such cases).

For thing six, silence is golden.

However, I do take a certain pleasure in observing the occasional shapeliness and sparkle of my own creation, and am hopeful that in being forced to produce content on a weekly basis, I'll be able to create more frequently in other areas without need of the usual motivating factors (anger, fear of embarrassment, etc.) to overcome the terror of the blank page.

I expect that certain weeks I'll be posting quite a few words, and other weeks perhaps only a link to a song I'm into. I'm also hoping to have guest bloggers, and hereby lay claim to all future posts of former NAPsters. Anyway, not sure how long I'll be doing this, but for the time being, welcome to my world.

P.S. An early nonbelated Happy Birthday to America! It's a testimony to the strength of the republic that we can survive eight loooong years of subhuman leadership.

the placeholder trick

I wish I could say that I spent the plane ride home from paris and the layovers therein writing this nonalignment pact post, but I didn't. I'm sorry!

This week will be a placeholder with some links that I will write more about next weekend after things have calmed down.

The conference I was attending in Paris was called the ICAD conference of the International Community for Auditory Display. Since this is a placeholder, I'll save most of the details for next weekend, but here's a taste.



and

the germans.

and for those of you who are longing for something to play with, I'll send the links to the new toys next week.

Something I Thought of While Hurting Myself

“May you live long enough to look back on your regrets and see them as nothing more than what they really can be. Mistakes that can be turned into damaged and funny stories told amongst friends.”

I thought of the above bastardized, plagiarized, and paraphrased from somewhere unknown saying, while running the stairs behind the Brazilian jiu jitsu academy I train at. It’s a grueling run that usually fills me with instant regret and satisfaction for doing it. I was thinking of it more recently because thoughts of the past had been surfacing a lot lately. These were triggered by a project to document an era of time I lived through.

I participated in a book project not that long ago, two journalists interviewed me about the East Bay punk rock scene. They were interviewing everyone they could find from the various eras of the punk rock scene over the Bay Bridge from San Francisco. I don’t know what my era would be called or what defines when it started and when it ended. I’m really not sure of my so called place in it, but I know I was there and played a role in it.

I was involved with the East Bay punk rock scene for little over a decade. I started working at 924 Gilman Street when I was 18, in 1990. I worked there on and off for the next twelve years. I quit and came back so many times that my leaving just became a bad joke I was telling to a room full of half interested listeners. I was a recidivist criminal out on the loose for a while only to come trudging through those graffiti covered doors when there was a new problem, that supposedly only I could deal with. The last time I quit, I knew, even though no one believed me, that it was over. The biggest reason I knew I would not be back wasn’t that I had grown annoyed with hearing the same sounds come from so many bands, the same words spewed from so many dumb asses as they tried to explain why I shouldn't throw them out. It was that I no longer cared about all the problems that plagued these people. The things that worked them up so greatly, that made them tick, twitch, and continue to uphold the values of the club were just not my deal anymore. The microcosm of that place seemed so small it was strangling me. To quote Gene Hackman from Mississippi Burning, “The grits started leaving a bad taste in my mouth.” It was time to go, and go I did.

What a great time that was, even when it sucked, it was fantastic. I started touring with bands in around 1997. I went out every year for months at a time for the next six years. Once or twice a year I would climb into a van and drive a group of dudes around the country for a month or two. Every time I got into the driver's seat for the start of every tour, I loved it, it was amazing. The possibilities were endless, the wonderment at what adventures lie ahead was incredible. Day after day of just moving forward, no worries except what’s next. Nothing to connect me to anything except what was directly in front of me. Leaving all the bullshit of my “home life” for that moment when I had to walk back through the doors of my house when I got back.

The last days of tour were always the same: burned out, tired, struggling to finish those last drives knowing a full night's sleep was only a day or so away, knowing the post-tour crash was going to suck ass. The constant moving coming to a slamming halt, like hitting the brakes too hard at the first stoplight after spending the last four hours going 85 miles an hour on the freeway. Always made worse when sleep deprivation starts making 85 miles an hour seem like an average 35. I can’t count the number of times I stared at stoplights failing to grasp their meaning 'till I had to brake harder than needed.

Like working at the club, when the end came, it was very final. The band I had toured with the most consistently, Dead and Gone, finished a three month tour that took us all across Europe and the united states. It was fun, but stressful for the guys. When that tour was over I knew that was the last tour they would ever do. I decided I didn’t feel up to the challenge of getting to know another group of guys to share the cramped quarters of a van every summer. It was time to go, and I did.The last question in the interview that started my whole mind wandering back through the past punk rock exploits of my life was cool. It made me think about my answer, more than any of the others, as I answered it. The others were more about incidents and moments in time. Those answers I could just look back in my head and retell the moments without much thought.

The question they asked was, “What would you tell someone who was nineteen and just getting involved with the scene now?” The question kind of came out of left field but after a minute I had what I think was the perfect answer. I replied, “nothing,” and then I paused for a bit. Not for any sort of dramatic effect. More to refine the further explanation in my head before I said it out loud into a recorder. They came back with another question.

“No really, how would you tell someone who was just starting out to go about doing things. Doing things in a way that they wouldn’t make the same mistakes you made?”

“I wouldn’t dare. Even if I did, they wouldn’t listen to me anyways. I’d be some old dude trying to tell them what to do. That’s bullshit. Even if they would listen to me, they shouldn’t. Other than some really obvious bullshit, don’t do heroin, try to stay away from smoking crack, or selling your ass to pay for food. People need to make mistakes to see what they do and don’t want to do. Maybe it’s not the smartest thing, but maybe living in a broken down van, on a side street in Oakland so I didn’t have to work and I could do whatever, wasn’t smart. Maybe I needed to do that too so I could become the person I am today. Maybe some 21 year old kid needs to climb in and out a van all over the country for himself to see how he wants to live, or doesn’t want to live. Not everything you do today will be what you want to do tomorrow, but how are you going to know?”

My answer went on from there, but my point is made. Just like I can’t tell someone younger than me how they should do everything or how they shouldn’t make mistakes, I can’t look back at every one of mine with regret. Some of those burning embarrassing errors I made along the way are my best stories, while I’m sitting with my friends making them laugh and wonder about me at the same time.

I don’t regret those nights in the van sailing across the highway when I wanted to be anywhere but driving another three hundred miles. I don’t give a second thought to the nights sleeping in sheds, attics, basements, broken down vans, and park benches so I didn’t have to work a straight job and could keep doing whatever the fuck I wanted to do. The childhood I shunned as a young adult, trying to pretend it hadn’t been all that bad or weird doesn’t faze me now when I look back at it. The heartaches, soul crushing defeats and moments of depression were good for me in a way that I am not smart enough to verbalize, but that I know in my heart of hearts. The list of feelings and types of losses only become redundant and over played if I continue with them.

Mistakes will be made, it is inevitable. They will not always result in bad memories of time, money or emotions wasted. Even when they do maybe that’s for the best. The perfect way to learn not to touch a hot radiator, is to do it once. After that there is no question why you don’t do that. How could I possibly try and tell someone else not to try something for fear of making a mistake, those have been some of my best moments.

Jeremy Adkins

Wait. What?

Kilian's post, wherein he incongruously interprets this blog's namesake lyrics interspersed with fried squash blossom photos, got me thinking about whether people really listen to lyrics anymore. Well, actually I didn't start thinking about it until I sat down here as I do every Friday trying to think of something to write, but you get the idea.

For me, lyrics are secondary. When I listen to music I'm usually listening more to the way the sounds fit together than to the meaning of the words. I will usually only connect with a word or short phrase in a song's lyrics, often not enough to glean anything like meaning. So good lyrics don't often make a song for me.

By contrast, bad lyrics--assuming I can understand them at all--can ruin a song for me. There's nothing like bad Moon June poetry or dated political sentiment to spoil the mood. To my ears, Dylan is a particularly egregious offender in this department:

You used to ride on the chrome horse with your diplomat
Who carried on his shoulder a Siamese cat

I may never understand why so many seem to divine deep meaning from Dylan in what I hear as embarrassingly bad verse. To each his own, I suppose.

The Rolling Stones at least had the good sense to bury Mick's vocals down in the mix. I once read that Keith didn't actually know what the words were until he saw them scroll by on Mick's teleprompter. It's just as well. All you really need is a voice there anyway. Does anybody really care what Mick is saying?

The logical extreme of this, I suppose, is to fill the space that would usually contain words with nonsense syllables like Cocteau Twins or their slightly more modern counterparts, Sigur Ros, do. The latter recently released a song called Gobbledigook as if to state the obvous. And it's awesome.

Week 87: Spanish Guitars 1: Strings

This is going to be an informational series about Spanish guitars. This particular post is going to be specifically about Spanish guitar strings. If you don’t have a Spanish guitar, you can easily find them at thrift shops for $50 or less (I've seen decent ones for as low as $10) or you can buy one at your local music store for not much more than that. Many people already own Spanish guitars for home use or for when they go camping. I use mine to record and perform live and I love the sound of it and have not played an electric guitar in almost 10 years nor have any interest in playing one ever again (though that, like everything, may change). I love the sound of the two Spanish guitars I own, it is warm, round, full and percussive, running them through the right amplifiers (I stick these days to pedal steel guitar amps: Sho-Buds, Peavy Nashville) can at times make their sound have the fullness and percussiveness of a piano.

Once in a while a friend finds a Spanish guitar in a garage sale, thrift shop or grandma's attic, they bring it to me so I can tell them if I think it's any good. After checking that the basics are working, that the neck is not bent out of shape, or the bridge about to fly off the body, the one thing I always tell them is that it's all about the strings. In my 20+ years of playing Spanish guitars, the main thing I’ve learned is that the single most important thing you can do to improve the sound of a Spanish guitar is to put a good set of strings on it.

Spanish guitars come in a wide range of prices. You can, for example, buy this Geza Burghardt guitar for a bit over $25,000. Indeed it is a beautifully constructed guitar. The tuning machines on these high end guitars, for example, can cost over $1000 for a set and are works of art in their own right.

But as beautiful as these high end guitars are to look at, unless you are a collector, a professional classical performer, or super rich, you probably don't want to spend that much money to get a great sounding guitar. In my experience, you don't need to, all you need to do is invest on a guitar that works, and put some top of the line strings on it. Good strings will go a long way towards making your $50 thrift shop guitar sound like a $25,000 guitar.

Most guitar shops, even some that focus on acoustic instruments, only carry a few brands of Spanish guitar strings, often the brands that also have lines of steel strings – Martin, LaBella, D’Addario. Stay away from these. Most shops also carry Augustine strings. These are like the Burger King of guitar strings, available everywhere and fairly tasteless. To get the good strings you pretty much need to go online.

Italians, Germans and Spanish string manufacturers are constantly working on inventing better guitar strings for the Spanish guitar. I go to Strings by Mail and I have no complaints. They are constantly bringing in new models and generally have anything you may want in Spanish guitar strings at an affordable price and with great service.

For over five years, I have been trying out as many different kinds of Spanish guitar strings as I can. I keep a spreadsheet with information about each set of strings I try, what they are, when I put them on, when I took them off, if any of them broke, how they felt when I first put them on, how they felt a few days later, why did I change them, how they felt before I changed them…

I try each set several times and slowly eliminate sets that don’t work for me. Currently I’ve narrowed down the principal sets I use to a few brands, and am now in the process of combining the basses (low 3 strings) and trebles (high 3 strings) from different sets to see how these work together.

It sounds very anal and time consuming, but with Spanish guitar strings you can’t be too careful. Spanish guitar strings take some time to settle and generally are not at their prime until several days after you put them on. So I’ll change strings, play them for about a month (more or less, depending on gig and recording schedules) and change them to a different set (again, depending on gig and recording schedules, sometimes there’s no time for experimenting).

The life of a Spanish guitar string is a slow arch that can last up to a month or longer. They can take up to a week to settle (or grow up) into their prime playing condition. Then they might remain in good bright condition for many days afterwards, even up to a month or more depending on how much they are played and other conditions such as temperatures and weather conditions, at which point they’ll generally start a slow decay until finally they die. And by dead I don't mean they break, since Spanish guitar strings usually die before they break. When they are dead, they sound dead. You don't want to wait that long to change them.

What this means is that if you are playing regularly it’s good to know how your strings behave, and it’s good to have strings that behave consistently. For example, you would be in for a tough night if you changed strings a few hours before a show, even a day before a show could be risky without some extra considerations, but if you had to do it, you would want to know which strings settled the quickest, and which had the best initial response. On the other hand, if you have to record in a week you might want to know how much life is left to your strings, if you change them, will the new set be ready by the time you have to go record? Or do the ones you have on now still have enough life to make it through? So overall these strings require some attention.

Because of this slow life arch of Spanish guitar strings, I will not change just one string from a set because it throws off the rhythm of the whole set. Once a string breaks or dies, off comes at the very least the group to which it belongs (basses or trebles).

Spanish guitar strings can be split into three main categories: gut, nylon and polymers. Unless you are looking for something very specific, stay way from the gut strings. They are more expensive, less consistent, and require greater maintenance. The kind of research I've done is fairly meaningless with gut strings, every set is different. You probably also want to stay away from nylon strings. These are what you’ll find in most guitar shops, usually the low end nylon strings. There are decent nylon strings out there, but for a few dollars more you can get any of a number of polymer strings, and I think you'll be much happier.

There are a lot of polymer strings, so I’ll cut to the chase and just tell you which strings I found to be the best, though remember that guitar strings makers are constantly coming up with new technologies for new and better strings, so what’s best today, might not be best tomorrow.

I judged the strings mainly on the quality of their sound, but also on the consistency of their sound, the behavior of the strings (how fast they settle and how soon it fades), and durability (some strings are more breakable than others). All of the sets I mention can be purchased for under $25.00 a set.

In my opinion, the best string, bar none, out there right now is the Alchemia model by Italian manufacturers Aquila. The Alchemia strings are made with Nylgut, which is a synthetic gut creation of the Aquila group. The strings have a beautiful warm sound, superior stability and overall have the richness of gut without the problems. I can’t recommend these strings enough. They settle quickly, have a long life and have the fullest sound I’ve found. On top of that the basses and trebles have a great balance. I have not found anything wrong with these strings yet. If you can have only one set of strings, this is the set to have.

Another excellent set of strings is the Genius Titanio model by Galli, another Italian company. The Titanio strings are a Titanium/Nylon polymer and were my favorite choice until I found the Alchemia set. They have a beautiful sound and the basses are stronger sounding than the Alchemia basses. Currently I’ve been trying them in combination, but have not made a decision yet. Galli has also just come out with a Genius Carbonio model, made with a carbon polymer. I’ve liked carbon polymer strings in the past and coming from Galli, I’m looking forward to trying these out. If I want smoother, rounder sounding strings, I go with the Galli. But for overall, playability and sound the Alchemia sets are still in a category all of their own.

Another great manufacturer is Hannabach, a German company that has been making strings since the 19th century. Hannabach’s new Titanyl could give the Galli Titanio strings a run for their money, but the real highlight of the Hannabach line for me is their “Durable D” single string. For some reason the D string is the one string that actually breaks fairly often in Spanish guitars, and Hannabach has created this string that settles almost as fast as a steel string, sounds great and you can buy it in singles. I always keep a few of these in my gig bag and when I break a string, I always hope it’s the D string, cuase with the Durable D the interruption to the flow of the show will be minimal.

A lot of the Spanish manufacturers (Ramirez, Savarez, Royal, Conde Hermanos) seem to fall short with the medium tension strings that I prefer (I have not found any reason to ever use high tension strings), but they make the better low tension sets that are ideal for Flamenco playing. If I was only playing Flamenco I would go with some of these sets, but my hybrid style requires a stronger string. But I’ll talk about the difference between the Flamenco and Classical guitars and their strings another week.

Nonalignment Pact

In song, David Thomas pleads with a girl who goes by a thousand names to sign his nonalignment pact.



That's like an agreement to disagree isn't it?



The offer doesn't hold much promise as far as relationships go.



No hold out for actual alignment. Only the threat of total nonalignment.



At night he can see stars on fire and the world in flames. It's because of the girl with a thousand names.



I'm not sure what the deal is: he won't get burned up in exchange for what?

Devin the Dude

I think it’s interesting how there are people in the world of music that will float just beneath your radar for many years and then suddenly pop up to the surface and finally grab your attention. My latest addition to this club is a Canadian metal guy named Devin Townsend.

I know that me talking about metal is like me talking about myself, which is to say that I do it all the time and most of you don’t care for it, but I think this guy is fascinating.

As I have mentioned before, I work in a bookstore. Being in this profession means that I have a lot of access to magazines, and in this case, metal magazines.

The names of these magazines are usual pretty stupid. There’s Canada’s Big Words and Bloody Knuckles, which while being undeniably poorly named is also a pretty good rag once the dust settles. There’s the Brit mag, Kerrang, which is okay, I guess, and has perhaps been around a little too long. And then there is the cream of the crop. Decibel, from Philadelphia, America’s ad-hoc home of all things metal. For me, Decibel is the king of all metal mags. The writing tends to be fairly strong, they cover many genres within the metal world, they know their history, and they always seem to have a good idea of what good new stuff is cropping up before anyone else does.

With my limited attention span and the unending mountain of material out there, there is just no way to be aware of it all. Sometimes you simply have to make judgment calls.

The flipside of this tactic is that occasionally you run the risk of prematurely turning off something that might be an axiomatic event in your appreciation of the world around you.

My digression aside, as I have read god knows how many metal mags over the years, Devin Townsend was always one of those guys on the periphery of my awareness. He is so amazingly ugly that his looks alone put me off for years. Townsend is known for wearing a hairstyle that has come to be known as a “skullet.” Basically it means that Townsend is almost completely bald on the top of his head, while in the back he has gone ahead and grown out his remaining hair into dreadlocks. Terrifying. Add to that his soul patch and Mr. Peabody glasses and you have one ugly dude.

For years all I knew about Townsend was that he was insanely ugly, the frontman for a band called Strapping Young Lad, and that he was British.

It turns out that on the third count, I was wrong. The guy is from Vancouver.

Score one for Mr. Dumbass.

I made one of those hasty decisions to ignore SYL and moved on.

Too bad, because Devin Townsend is a pretty interesting guy, in fact, in the world of metal, he is an all too rare commodity: not only is he talented as hell, he is also smart, funny, and brutally self-aware. He’s also bi-polar, which must play hell on touring life, and probably goes a long way towards explaining his current leave of absence from public life.

Townsend first made a name for himself when he was plucked from his first band and named as the singer for Steve Vai’s band. This helps explain the frequent Frank Zappa influence in much of Townsend’s output.

Once on his own, Townsend embarked on a seemingly endless number of projects, always with himself at the center. The most celebrated venture being the band, Strapping Young Lad.

SYL is a brutally heavy band. Townsend is a master at plundering elements from many facets of extreme metal and using them to create something slightly unique in each incarnation. There are elements of death, thrash, grindcore, metalcore, black metal, the new wave of British heavy metal, cyber metal (sort of like Voivod when they were bearable), and a laundry list of damn near everything else.

The guy is near virtuosic on the guitar, but is also an amazing drummer, bassist, keyboardist, and vocalist. Plus, he has a great ear for engineering and production. His records are thick, clear, and well separated tonally, and no matter how harsh, very thoughtfully put together.

Best of all, the guy is funny. Nothing he does is to be taken too seriously, and in metal, that is a gift.

Listeners of the podcast may remember hearing the SYL track on last week’s cast, and also may remember hearing a track from his one-off one man show, Ziltoid the Omniscient.

Ziltoid is basically a rock opera about an alien who has decided to invade and destroy earth in the process of finding the universe’s greatest cup of coffee.

The Unspeakable kept telling me about this Devin Townsend guy behind the Ziltoid album, but it took my slow brain months to realize that he was the same hideous guy behind SYL.

Eventually Townsend worked his way into my head, and as I write this today, I am a convert.

And the coup de grace? SYL does a cover of the song Room 429 from the New York band Cop Shoot Cop. And even more surprising, I find the SYL version the better of the two. And coming from me, a huge Cop Shoot Cop fan, that is saying a lot. SYL trades in the brash confrontation of CSC and replaces it with loads of muscle and attitude. The build up at the end of the bridge is one of those hair-raising moments for me every time. I get all goofy whenever the song gets there. Metal guys can ruin anything, just look at the Metallica cover record. They butcher damn near everything they touch on that record. Devin Townsend takes a song no one would expect him to, let alone recognize for that matter, and completely makes it his own.

It’s learning about stuff like all this that makes music so thrilling for me year after year. Take a few minutes and look into this guy. You may not dig his music, but he is at the very least an interesting character, and maybe you might even get into him just like I have.

Carry on.

unfinished business.

This is my last regular post for the Nonalignment Pact. It's been a good run, but it's probably been obvious for the last couple months that the well is running dry in all senses: my reservoirs of time, ideas, passion, and inspiration. So it's time to step down and let some fresh blood in.

Perhaps my biggest regret is my unfortunate tendency to start series that I don't finish. So, it seems fitting to close things out with a few endcaps:

The Island. Perhaps someone is wondering what the hell happened to my track-by-track dissection of FULL FORCE GALESBURG by The Mountain Goats, while the majority of you are just fucking grateful you don't have to hear The Mountain Goats every week on the podcast. I'd love to tell you what happens to Island Doug in the end, but the truth is that the series was an experimentation with an open-ended narrative, and it stalled out because I reached a point where I had no idea of where to go. All I really want to say is that, for those who only listened to those eight songs and liked what they heard, pick up the album and listen to the other eight songs. I particularly recommend "Evening In Stalingrad". The lyric "your eyes were glacial and your promises all rang true" never fails to stir up something profoundly wistful in me every time I hear it, like nostalgia for a love I've never had but could imagine instantly on the basis of that line.

Electronic Music That Doesn't Suck. This series was cancelled because I didn't discover any other electronic music that didn't suck.

Aw, just kidding. There's some okay stuff that I recommend in various styles, from Fennesz to Pole to Quarks, just nothing that I ever felt like writing about.

The Crucible. This was my plan to reminisce over an old list of concerts that I'd been to that I found. Cancelled because, well, who really gives a shit? Some selected names that were on that list (a piece of paper I can't find at the moment because I'm packing): Robert Plant, David Bowie, Midnight Oil, 10,000 Maniacs, Anthrax/Public Enemy, and The Mike Gunn. (Playing at a club called MOD, if memory serves. I remember the opening band, Brown Paper Dog, more vividly, partially because it was the only time I saw them and partially because the bassist broke the G string, looked for it for a while, couldn't find it, loudly announced "G strings are for sissies!", and proceeded with the rest of the set on a 3-string bass.

The Experiment. Noted in passing at the end of the post was my plan to spend whole weeks listening to only one kind of music to see how it affected my mental and well being. This didn't happen because I was genius enough to go work on a music show, which basically made it impossible to control music. (Though, truthfully, most every show I work on would involve music, so who am I kidding to think I could have ever pulled off this experiment?) I'm sure the results would have been obvious. By the way, the final episode that I edited of that music show will be posted here from Wednesday night or so; it's the South Africa episode, and in my humble opinion the best of the three shows I edited.

The Best Shows. Apparently I began this post and didn't even get it posted. There's lots of treacly prose surrounding it, but basically it was an excuse to share YouTube videos from live bands that changed things for me in a major way. Namely -

Jawbox


(Also, weirdly, I found a clip of Shudder To Think, who were on tour with Jawbox in 1992 when I saw them, playing at that very show I was at! Revel in the Axiom nostalgia!)



Crash Worship:


Dog Faced Hermans


The Boredoms


Chaos And Control. I had forgotten completely about this one, truth be told. And considering I wrote this novel (still my best NAP post ever, probably; definitely my longest) the week after, no wonder I couldn't remember. I'm sure it ultimately would have been something controversial like "a mix of chaos and control is optimal in music", which isn't exactly inventing the calculus, so no big loss.

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

Is that all the unfinished business? Probably not. But it's probably already more than most people cared about. I don't say that disparagingly; I have a complex about disappointing people, and I find in truth that if I give the chance they are more often than not more forgiving of me than I am of myself.

And with that, I'm off. Next week, I'll be in LA, then I'll be in Michigan, visiting my family and backpacking around Isle Royale with my father and brother, then going to the Pitchfork Music Festival and a wedding in South Bend, Indiana, then back to LA, then back to Auckland, where I'm moving into a new flat, and immersing myself into filmmaking to an even greater extent than I currently do. At least, that is the plan.

Take care, and I'll be around when I can. Thanks, everyone, it's been a great time.

live-work space

does anyone else have a space that they use for recording, mixing, rehearsing, living, sleeping, cooking, laundry drying, composing, entertaining, and live music performing? if there were a way to transport you all here to see this space, i would, because pictures and video don't really do it justice.

i live in an old school loft above a store on U st in washington dc. it's about 1000 square feet, shaped like an L, where the kitchen part is the bottom of the L, and the rest of the space is open. it's all brick and windows with a fairly convincing real-wood laminate floor lying over old chipped black linoleum. whoever was here before me put in a quite functional kitchen and bathroom (separate), so once i put in the floor, i had me a pretty nice space.

the way i have it set up, i have all the control room stuff (and a few keyboards/pianos) at one end of the room (top of the L), a place to sit in the middle, and couches and chairs living-room style at the other end (bottom of the L). my grand piano is in the middle next to the window. the windows are all along the west and south walls, so the light is awesome. there is an ok-sized closet inside the bathroom, and i have converted that into a vocal booth for when i just can't work around sirens and birds and church bells and U st party-goers and the mc donald's trash taker-outers who crash their way through the alley 5 times a day. the rest of the time i track downstairs in my landlord's workshop. the only downside to that is that sometimes when the trash bins are full the stench is strong, and hours are limited.

i live above one of the coolest vintage furniture stores in DC, so the studio has a unique atmosphere. it's perfect for entertaining - people love to be here and they get all creative when they're here. this can be good and bad. they sometimes write songs faster than we can record them. but the fact that it's a living space means that musicians from out of town who come to record have a place to stay, so that's nice.

once a month i host the "tiny planet house concert slash dinner party slash Baha'i fireside." i think i've mentioned this before. last night was one such evening. the way it works is an artist is invited to perform and share the inspiration behind their music with the crowd. we are usually able to cram 50-60 people in here, so it's cozy and intimate. we have a production team of about 6 Baha'is - two of them cook dinner and bring all the food and set it up/clean up. Two others bring drinks and help drive around the cooks for shopping, et cetera. One prepares the playlists for the milling around that happens during dinner and after the show. i find the talent and prepare the venue. i usually record the firesides for later podcast on nextlevelradio.org. People show up at 7:30 and eat until 8:30. The performer usually goes for an hour or so, and then afterwards there's more milling around with coffee and a now-traditional chocolate cake. This part sometimes lasts as late as 1:30am. There is never any alchohol, which often surprises people who come for the first time, but it makes it a fairly unique kind of event. Sometimes people bring their kids and/or grandparents, which i think is awesome.

What always amazes me is the versatility of this space. It's a recording studio one day, and then (after hours of transformation), it's a performance venue, and then after everyone leaves, the (twin) bed comes back out into the middle of the room, and it's just a giant super-awesome bedroom with lots of toys. People always ask, "where do you sleep?" i don't always tell them.

what's on my mind this morning as i prepare to board a plane for paris is how much i love this space and all the happinesses it affords me and others. there are some annoying things about not having more space or better sound isolation, but those inconveniences are outweighed in the grand scheme by the light, the location, the birds, the air, and the vibe that draws people in and makes them happy. in the end, that last thing is really the most important to me, and it's why i do music. this may sound cheesy, but it's true. it doesn't matter who the performer is or what they do - 55 people usually leave happy. and you can't say that for most clubs.

i'd better pack now. the international conference on auditory display awaits me this week. maybe i'll have some cool stuff to write about on the plane back next weekend.

Buddy Bolden hides in The City of the Dead

Buddy Bolden (September 6 1877-November 4, 1931)

I don't know if any of you know who Buddy Bolden is. I didn't know anything about him, until I stumbled across him on Find A Grave. I don't remember exactly the trail that I followed to learn more about his life, but I was immediately interested in his story. His band was apparently very popular in New Orleans from about 1900 to 1907 as rag-time was cutting its teeth, when he dropped out of the picture. He is credited with being the first bandleader to play improvisation, mixing and mashing styles and sounds that would eventually come to be called "jazz" though the term didn't exist yet. He is remembered for having a loud and clear tone, for using brass instruments to play the blues, and stringed instruments as the rhythm section. In the foreground were clarinets, trombones and Buddy with his cornet. Louis Armstrong was a little boy in the front row, to name just one man he influenced.

His father and 5 year old sister died of Yellow Fever along with thousands of others, and apparently his mother "lost her mind" and all interest in everything around her. He is said to have suffered an episode of acute alcoholic psychosis in 1907 with a full diagnosis of schizophrenia during the height of his success. He was admitted to a mental hospital where he spent the rest of his life..... 30 years of the rest of his life... in a dismal and likely arcane mental institute. He was forgotten by the world outside, and the world inside of the hospital (though it must have been Hell on Earth--was probably nothing like the Hell inside of his own mind). The mind of a creative young god dethroned and locked up, lucky to fight off demons with heavy narcotics in a racist South-- (though sleep itself is an endless torment when the mind can't rest) ... It breaks my heart.

I thought there were no recordings of him--because that's what all the articles about him said which I had read-- except this one. I find it sad that there isn't more of a record, because he left such an impression on his community. It was an impression that he would never witness himself as he was locked away during a time when little about his illness was understood and even less was tolerated.

He was left to live his days alone for 3 decades-- as the most exciting time in jazz went forward without so much as a wink in his direction. He was buried with little fanfare in a cemetery that would later fill his grave with the bodies of 8 or 9 more deceased "indigents"... right on top of him. How many strangers buried in one plot constitutes a mass?

The below excerpt was painstakingly transcribed from "In Search Of Buddy Bolden: The First Man of Jazz" by Donald M Marquis.

"Bolden's body lay in state at the Geddes-Moss Funeral Home for only a day, and according to the witnesses, there were very few at the wake. Cora, of course, was there. Cordelia Alcorn, Alvin Alcorn's sister; Ida Baker, who had taken care of Alice Bolden in her final days; Lena Kennedy and Gertrude Peyton, both cousins, all paid their respects. Cordelia Alcorn remembered hearing that Buddy Bolden was being waked. She knew some of Buddy's cousins but had also heard some of the tales of Buddy's music and confessed to being a little curious. She recalled that he looked like an old, old man. Few, if any, musicians came by; it is doubtful that many were aware of Buddy's death. There was no brass band to say farewell, nor even a former sideman to act as pallbearer or to "walk the final mile" with the "king." The job had to be done by Geddes-Moss employees.

The pine-box coffin was taken to Holt Cemetery, a city-owned cemetery behind the Delgado Trade School, where many of the city's indigents were laid to rest. Bob Griffin, the caretaker and handyman, had dug out the customary six feet of hard, clayish earth and the remains of Buddy Bolden were lowered into plot C-623.

The news on page one of the Picayune for that day was of an airplane crash in Camden, New jersey, Huey Long, China asking for help against Japan, and Mussolini visiting the Vatican. The temperature was a cool 65 degrees. There was a typhoid epidemic in New Orleans and Griffin was kept busy digging graves. On the Steamer Capitol, Charlie Creath's Orchestra was playing for evening cruise dances. Nowhere was there a mention of the passing of Buddy Bolden.

Cora was unable to keep paying the upkeep on her brother's grave and in accordance with Holt policy, after two years his remains were dug up, reburied deeper, and another burial made on top. The plot number C-623 was changed, with no record being kept of the original burial. Records were not accurately kept until the 1940's and there have probably been at least eight or nine burials since Bolden's in that spot. Even if one knew exactly where to look it would be difficult to locate Bolden's grave. It is possible to find section C-- about the size of a quarter of a city block and guarded by a wide-spreading majestic oak tree-and to know only that Bolden's grave lies somewhere in that space.

Bolden's departure from the New Orleans music scene did not at first make any noticeable ripple... Bolden just sort of faded away. "Then we realized he wasn't around any more." It is almost certain that Bolden was no longer playing after September 1906, though people have mentioned hearing him later. Harrison Barnes recalled that one afternoon in 1907 he was playing a Bolden number with a band in the District, when out of the houses and saloons came the guys and dolls, waving and laughing, expectantly shouting, "It's Bolden's Band! It's Bolden's Band!" Few knew where Buddy was or what had happened to him, but the spell he had cast over black New orleans lived on-for a time at least-without him."



Bolden is second from left.


Bolden on Wikipedia

Buddy has been remembered in a few oral histories, books and a film in production (I think) called Bolden!


The map below can be zoomed in and out of. Somewhere in this plot lays Bolden and who knows how many other forgotten luminaries. Katrina had her way with these grounds and many others in New Orleans. Follow the link provided in the map window if you have time. I have been to this cemetery, and knowing what I know now of the amount of graves I actually walked upon.. makes me shudder.


View Larger Map

I didn't realize I would need to post today, and I wish I had more time to devote to Buddy and his story.


On to something cheery...

I have been meaning to mention (if I didn't already) how totally fucking badass this Hydraulophone business is.

Nobody Reads This Anyway

Different

Week 86: 25 Questions

Towards a Cosmic Music is a collection of texts by Karlheinz Stockhausen. It includes interviews, conversations, discussions, essays, articles, excerpts, a survey, a litany, a manifesto, and a questionnaire.

The questionnaire is part of an Appendix. Appendix #4. There are 5 appendices.

1. Chronology of Life and Works
2. Five Revolutions Since 1950
3. Comes Awakening, Comes Time…
4. To the International Music Council
5. Mantra

Number 4, To the International Music Council, is a questionnaire.

The introduction to the questionnaire reads as follows:

“To the International Music Council:

Your ‘Questionnaire No. 2’ asks questions which suggest that wise answers may lead to a better world. I have answered them after experiencing the Third Reich, the restoration of the international music scene since 1945, and a critical period of political and economic vulgarization of all music, knowing that I cannot change the situation. But at least my voice may be remembered as one which refused to agree or collaborate with the leaders in power. I am particularly disgusted by the world’s most famous interpreters who are not serving musical progress – which means performing music born during their lifetimes – but who serve their own fame and wealth.

Please excuse my limited English.”

And it’s signed, K. Stockhausen, 21 November 1984

The International Music Council (IMC) is a branch of UNESCO dedicated exclusively to music.

I did not know about the IMC until I read this book some years ago, nor that they had implemented International Music Day on October 1 of every year. I’d like to know more about them but somehow they are always below my easy-chair’s radar. Maybe if I lived in another country?

Their questionnaire, however, is worth revisiting every once in a while. We could probably spend the rest of the days left to this blog answering some of these questions. I have deleted Stockhausen’s answers, because the questions deserve attention by themselves.

25 QUESTIONS

1. Who is the respondent? Please give full name of the respondent, organization, or group.
2. Is the current status of music, in general, satisfactory? Has it changed in the last decade? What facts support your opinion?
3. What should the status of music be, in general? How can this view be substantiated?
4. What is the current status of music in comparison with the other arts, in general? What are the causes of this status?
5. What types of music do you participate in as composer, performer or audience on a regular basis?
6. What is the dignity currently assigned to the particular types of music? What arguments can be given?
7. What types of music dominate the current ‘soundscape’?
8. What would be the optimal hierarchy of the types of music? Is there an optimal hierarchy? How can such a hierarchy be justified?
9. Should the proposed optimal hierarchy of the types of music correspond to the relative proportions of society’s perception? How can this be justified and achieved?
10. What forms of practice (amateur, professional, private, concert, stage, etc) do you engage in when involved in musical activities? What forms of reception do you use (live, cassettes, records, video, radio, tv, etc)?
11. What is the current status assigned to different forms of music practice and different forms of reception? And does this status correspond to the quantitative representation of these forms in society?
12. What, in particular, is the role of live music in the status of music? Why?
13. What, in particular, is the role of the different means of mass communication for the status of music? Why?
14. What is the role of education in the shaping of the state of music? Why?
15. Is this status of music in your city a product of internal factors or are outside factors involved also? What are these factors, e.g. social, ideological, political, organizational, economic, fashion, artistic? Examples please.
16. Which individuals or social groups (classes, layers, professional groups, e.g. music, bureaucratic, social organizations, youth, etc.) currently play an important role in opinion formation as regards the status of music?
17. Which individuals and social groups should play a significant role in opinion formation and determining the status of music?
18. What currently contributes to raising the prestige of music in society?
19. What currently contributes to lowering the prestige or music in society?
20. What can be done to raise the prestige of music?
21. What is the highest position in the hierarchy of the State administration that deals exclusively with music?
22. Can the current attitude of the State and social organization administrations be seen in the level of subsidies given to music?
23. Have any legal acts been passed recently that affect the status of music? Please discuss them.
24. What can be done to raise the prestige of music? What role, in particular, can the International Member Organizations and National Music Committees and the IMC play?
25. Are there any other questions that deserve attention in connection with the status of music?

Stockhausen’s answers can be found here.

A BrownWhörnet Surprise

How a life on the fringes of the music industry made me the freelance software developer that I am.

Lessons for the business world from the world of broken dreams.








A BrownWhörnet Surprise

Here's a little practice space game a member of Brown Whörnet taught me that ought to keep those creative juices flowing just when you think the well is running dry.

Supplies:

• Four Hats



• Scrap Paper



• Pens



• Musical Instruments



• Musicians



• Recording equipment (optional)

To Begin:

Give each musician four pieces of scrap paper and a pen. Each musician then writes down the name of her instrument (e.g. guitar, Imzad, humanatone) on one piece of paper; his name on another piece of paper; a musical genre (nomadic blues, contemporary gospel, new wave of British heavy metal) on another piece of paper; and finally a theme (big money , loose women, the current state of live theater) on the fourth piece of paper.

These scraps of paper are then put into their respective hats. Each musician then draws from the instrument hat to find her instrument for the first round. Then a musician's name is drawn from the musicians' name hat. That musician becomes the conductor/producer of the first round. He then draws one paper from the genre hat and one from the theme hat.

Voila!

The game begins and the band now has fifteen minutes to organize and play/record a piece.

The conductor can choose to quickly write a song or otherwise dictate how the piece will come about. It's really up to her. (I've seen everything from quickly scribbled musical notation to telling the players what color they are to play).

It's a lot of fun! You'll be surprised what you take away from this experience. You might even learn how to play an Imzad!

Now how will you incorporate this fun creative game into your freelance software development teamwork? How do you apply this experience to your job!?

You tell me! I have no clue!!!

Damn I wish I was playing the Brownwhornet Practice Space Game right now instead of writing this SQL script. (Life really does sucks all the fun out of life)

NAPcast 72

Click here to get your own player.

Clean Up, Aisle Seven

Every here and there I get a wild hair up my ass and have to head over to Billboard to check out their top album charts. I think it’s the same principal behind probing an ulcer inside my mouth with the tip of my tongue. It’s such a sweet, sweet pain. I will openly admit that I have both a lust for celebrity trash and a fascination with the crapshoot that is popular music.

Mind you, I don’t think of myself as some sort of irony laden cultural ambulance chaser, there is still a part of me that is lured by the pretty lights and flashy noises of mob pop. Sure it’s shallow but sometimes it hits the spot.

Having said that, the thrill of dreaming up new ways to imagine the downfall of the J-Los and Terry Hatchers of the world is practically pathological. You build ‘em up just to knock ‘em down, and I will be there watching, smiling, and jonesing for more.

Yes, I am often that stupid.

But I digress. Today I want to briefly touch on the number one album in the country.

Care to venture a guess?

In this country of ours, in this vast land of 304 million people, the most popular selling album in the country is Indestructible by Disturbed.

Yeah, Disturbed.

What does that say about us?

Well, it primarily says we love shitty music. This is inarguable absolute knowledge. Christian apologists could use this fact to prove the existence of the divine. Disturbed sucks. No one could ever argue against this fact with anything approaching verity. Hell, look in the bible, right there in the book of Dale, chapter 12, verse 6: And the Lord did say, “Holy fuck, dude, Disturbed huffs sack!!” And the disciples did bow in supplication and rejoice in the playing of the new Earth album because it was so goddamn good.

The success of Disturbed also shows that young people bear a huge load in determining the sales of popular music: young, white, middle class, poorly adjusted, ill informed, and menacingly, threateningly stupid. They are the ones buying records and they are the ones supporting people like Disturbed, 3 Doors Down, and other moronic thug rock catastrophes.

But guess who else is on the top ten album charts this week?

Howzabout Journey, or better still, and this one kills me, Weezer.

Weezer? Why are they even allowed to live anymore?

I mean, for Christ’s sake, Journey is pretty bad. They don’t even have Steve Perry on vocals anymore; they have some other douche taking the honors. But still, it’s Journey. That’s like the fucking Eagles. Their suck knows no bounds and by contrast America loves every flatulent outburst from their interminable career.

I can handle that.

I can’t handle Weezer. I have always hated Weezer, have always hated Rivers Cuomo and his attempts to take three chords, a distortion pedal, and a dream, and weave them into nothing.

And Weezer has the number four album in the country.

As for has-beens, Jewel is also on the list at number eight.

Round it out with the Sex in the City soundtrack, and a couple hiphop/r&b entries with Chris Brown and Ashanti and suddenly, it’s what the fuck planet are we living on?

And fuck me; don’t even get me started on Katey Perry. Kissing a member of your own gender is still considered transgressive here in 2008. Her single is tearing up the charts. We are a nation of malls, Target stores, and flip-flopped teenaged suburban hillbillies coated in Abercrombie cologne. We are a nation of gas addicted, future diabetic fat-asses with our sights set on oblivion and we can’t figure out why the rest of the world is both amazed with us and in fear of us at the same time. We’re like an atrocity exhibition and we don’t even care. Just going to the grocery store now is like an adventure into a museum of gym-trolling hardbody strippers and weight lifters: shaved, tanned, and hormonally injected to such high levels, not a single hour can pass without an empty, pointless sexual encounter in the back seat of a Hummer. And we are beside ourselves with amusement because some imbecile with a record contract thinks a girl kissing another girl is out there? Oh man, what have we become? Deliver us from evil.

Stop the planet, I want off.

Fight the power, people, and go out and get the new Earth album, it’s called The Bees Made Honey in the Lion’s Skull. I’ll be wearing that baby out in the coming weeks. It’s brilliant. They just keep getting better and better and I for one am very grateful.

So take that, Disturbed, with your aircraft carrier stand-in penis of a stage, facial piercings, 2008 dreadlocks, baggy vinyl pants, MTV Cribs appearances, and all-around sucking. America deserves you, and you deserve us all in return. You’re number one!!!

music appreciation night.

So Saturday was music appreciation night in Auckland. Perhaps that phrase should be capitalized, as it refers to a recurring event, pioneered by my flatmate, wherein several folk bring music to play for others based around a theme. Each person gets a turn to play a track, and the rotation continues as long as the night continues, people adding in and dropping out as they come and go.

The concept is simple but it in some ways is odd to me that I have never been one to hang out with friends that play records for each other. We gave each other tapes or CDs or MP3 discs or recommendations, but just sitting there, playing CDs and making a night of it? Not really, not as an active point of focus. The last time I can think of being involved in something like "music appreciation night" was freshman year at Rice and the less said about it the better, although there was the night that I hosted the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion drinking game at my house shortly after ORANGE came out.

Each time music appreciation night happens the theme is different, and this time the theme was space. Despite my flatmate's principal role in instigating the event, I generally haven't been able to attend for various reasons, but this time I made a point of it.

My contributions were probably pretty predictable for anyone who knows me: Sun Ra's "Outer Spaceways Incorporated", Polvo's "Lazy Comet", The Frames' "Star Star", and Matthew Shipp's "Space Shipp". Other contributions for the night ranged from Bright Black Mountain Light to Acid Mothers Temple to the 3Ds to Cibo Matto to Nina Simone to Van Morrison's "Astral Weeks" to a disco remix of the Star Wars theme to a song by Young Marble Giants that somebody felt made "use of space in its arrangement".

(The latter was actually quite awesome, and I clearly need to investigate Young Marble Giants further.)

The attentiveness of listening came and went. With a group of people (that ranged from people I know well to strangers and all points in between) there was necessarily socializing and it varied inversely to the level of attention the music demanded. But being dogmatic about requiring focused attention would, I imagine, be self-defeating and unfun.

Mostly, it was interesting to listen with an open mind as people offered up something of themselves, in a context where you were sharing the listening experience in real time. Kind of like a NAPcast, but kind of very different all at once.

What theme should we use for the next one?

(georgetown, SC) can you turn that down?

two of my dearest friends got married yesterday. the ceremony was outside, where there was a woman who played violin and flute at various times. there was also the jetskier who apparently really wanted us to hear his fine motor.

my job for the evening was to "figure out the PA stuff" (bring the PA inside and set it up), help the other people who had prepared entertainment to share during the rest of the evening, and select "background music" to play over hors d'oeuvres and dinner. in between those two was a talent show, which replaced the more traditional stuff you usually find at wedding receptions. no cake cutting, no bouquet toss, no speeches, no garter. it was really a perfect wedding.

my friend damian was the emcee of the talent show. he had a pretty clear plan of how the evening was going to go, but i didn't. fortunately, jonathan was there to help me, and he was amazing. between the two of us, we managed to make things look and sound like they were somewhat planned. we were the sound people who make things work, but things would probably have gone more smoothly if we'd actually known what was going to happen. i find this a lot...the audio stuff is often an afterthought or there is generally not an appreciation of how much work it takes to get something to sound good or how much better it could sound with just a bit of proper preparation. for instance, a few hours before the wedding i was told there was to be a video presentation. when we got to the venue, the video screen was at one end of the room, and the PA was at the other. it also turned out that the dance DJ, whom they'd hired, had already set up her PA and it was a much better system than the one outside. after discussing various possibilities at length, we decided to try patching the video directly into the room's built in overhead speakers (mono). it was crappy, but fine. which they were, although there were a few of the classic amateur feedback problems throughout the program.

we made it through the video presentation, and then there were songs, dances, magic tricks, baton twirling, violin playing, and poetry. the magic trick involved squishing a banana all over the "stage" (dance floor) and when the baton twirler went out, there were still banana droppings. jonathan ran out with a rag. damian came up to me after the tap dancer during one of the songs with a cassette tape in his hand containing the back-up music for the baton twirler. sigh. i tried to imagine an expanding sphere around where i was sitting and how far it would have to expand before there might be an audiocassette player. he said the next performer needed a record player. i wasn't sure if he was joking. somehow before the number, they were able to get me the songs on a thumb drive and i quickly stuck them into my computer. i'm not sure what i would have done without jonathan, who was standing behind me with his computer open and ready to receive CDs and other media and convert them into something i could play.

after the talent show, we went back into the mode of playing the background music. there very few specifics about what this music should be - "upbeat, some 1960's, radiohead." hmmmmmm. i basically just went through and played stuff i liked that i thought would still be possible to talk over but would be interesting. radiohead is the groom's favorite band, so i played lots of that, but the thought of radiohead being background music makes me uncomfortable, so i think i was always pushing the limit of "background" volume. i know this because i was asked to turn it down twice. i don't really own much music from the 60s, so the only 60s they got were a few beatles songs and then stuff like mum, imogen heap, mozez, zero seven, boards of canada, jose gonzales, the best of cookin', st. germain, et cetera.

midway through the talent show the DJ showed up and had a mild panic attack when she saw what we'd done to her setup. she calmed down when it was clear that we were a) nice, b) being careful with her hard drive, c) knew what we were doing. fortunately, i got to turn everything over to her once the dancing started, and she got to bust out the dance jams and get the party started, yeah yeah.

The Only Ones

If someone were to ask me to name my favorite period in rock music, I would probably say the late 70s. (Sadly no one ever asks me these kinds of questions, but I still hold out hope that someday someone will). I think this is for two reasons. First, the early 80s was when I fell in love with music, sneaking into my big brother’s bedroom to sample his impeccable collection of Ramones, Iggy, and Clash albums. Some of my favorite albums from this discovery period – Elvis Costello’s This Year’s Model, Blondie’s Parallel Lines, The Buzzcocks’ Another Music in a Different Kitchen – were released a few years earlier, in 1978. Second, I think there was a tremendous energy and freshness to the rock music of that period. Punk had broken through the bloat of stadium rock and the beat of disco in the mid 70s, and the bands that followed incorporated the attack of punk with a pop sensibility. So when I saw a new issue of Mojo Classic called “New Wave Special: 1978 (30th Anniversary)" at Barnes & Noble, I had to pick it up. More than just a good read, it turned me on to a band I had never heard of before – the Only Ones.

The Only Ones meet of all of my requirements for a great undiscovered band from the past – they have a sound that is completely of its period coupled with songs that hold up well today, a dramatic personal story of drug use and squandered opportunities, a start-to-finish classic album and poppy hit song (“Another Girl, Another Planet”), and the courtesy to break up after only three years without leaving a trail of terrible recordings in their wake. Hailing from London, the Only Ones were together from 1977 to 1981, and only recently reformed in 2007 after cell phone company Vodaphone used “Another Girl, Another Planet” in a U.K. commercial.

The members of the Only Ones had diverse musical backgrounds, and definitely didn’t fit the typical profile of the band that saw the Ramones at the Roundhouse and decided to pick up guitars. Soulful-looking lead singer and songwriter Peter Perrett was a Lou Reed/Bob Dylan fan, guitarist John Perry had been traveling with the scene around psychedelic band the Pink Fairies, bass player Alan Mair had been in a Glaswegian group dubbed the “Scottish Beatles”, and drummer Mike Kellie was coming off stints with, of all people, Spooky Tooth and Frampton’s Camel. Unlike some of their “Class of 78” peers, the Only Ones can really play.

Their self-title debut album ranges from romantic ballad “The Whole of the Law” to brooding drug parable “The Beast” to the greatest Buzzcocks song the Buzzcocks never wrote “Language Problem” (featuring the lyric “I love my mother but I don’t want to have sex with her”). All of it is anchored by the nasal vocals of Perrett, whose voice falls somewhere between the sarcastic whine of Pete Shelley and the elegant croon of Richard Butler. Perrett is one of those singers whose voice is so distinctive that you feel as though the individual is singing directly to you, in Perrett’s case conveying both indifference and intelligence on the subjects of modern life and drugs. Kellie is a tornado on the drums, and Perry’s guitar reminds me of Television in the way it lays a busy scrawl on top of everything. (As I said to my husband Gregg, it’s as though the guitarist hadn’t learned yet that in this genre he’s not supposed to solo).

Sadly drugs were not just a lyrical concern for Peter Perrett, and both he and Perry had developed serious heroin habits in 1977. While Perrett’s heroin chic may have added to the decadent allure of the band, his story ultimately makes a strong cautionary tale. With serious musical success in his grasp, he and some of his bandmates fucked it all away on drugs, getting kicked off opening dates for the Who in 1980 and breaking up shortly thereafter. Perrett contracted hepatitis during a period that saw him transform from a promising musician with a drug problem to a fixated junkie and decades-long recluse. Twenty-eight years later, Perrett remains an addict, with footage from recent shows revealing a skeletal and prematurely aged shell of a man who was among the most promising talents of the class of ’78.

Is It Over Yet?

This week I went to the Texas Democratic convention in the Live Music Capital of the World.  Despite this moniker I heard exactly zero music in the day I spent at the convention center.  I did, however, manage to get handed a LaRouche flyer literally as I walked in the door.  This one detailed his theory about how McCain is in cahoots with the British government to defeat Obama.  Getting this flyer was probably the most exciting thing that happened to me all day.  I spent an awful lot of time pushing through crowds of people carrying their blue C-SPAN gimme tote bags.  Fortunately, the internet at the Austin Convention Center is free, fast, and available throughout the building.  I commend them on their fine network skills--because of them I was able to do some work while sitting in a healthcare caucus, a technology caucus, and my Senate District caucus.

After all that, I figured my participation in the democratic process was over.  It was not to be because Thursday word went out that Ron Paul was going to end his presidential run with an ice cream social at the Texas Republican Convention in Houston.  Well, I had to go to that.  I mean: free ice cream.  

Throughout this whole process I've been fairly disappointed by how disorganized Democrats seem to be.  They would call meetings and then not show up on time to start them.  They would shout over each other and not listen.  They would extend what should be simple voting meetings into the middle of the night.  And yet they want you to have faith that they can run your government.  This stuff would never happen at Republican events, I thought to myself.  In my mind, Republicans are like Germans, always running things efficiently and on time.

Well, I have to say that going to this event confirmed my suspicions.  I walked into the hotel ballroom and people were lined up waiting very politely for their ice cream.  And while it wasn't exactly premium ice cream, it wasn't exactly school cafeteria quality either.  It was middle-of-the road and vanilla.  Really it's like a metaphor for the Republican party.  

While we waited, were entertained by a singer-songwriter type at the other end of the room.  And what was this guy playing?  "Masters of War," "I Shall Be Released," and "Redemption Song."  Really.  

Everybody got their ice cream and as if on cue, a video cataloging inspirational moments from Ron Paul's campaign started, set to "I Won't Back Down," which is apparently the campaign song of choice.  There was also a spoof song with the lyrics of "New York, New York" replaced with "Ron Paul, Ron Paul."  Really.  At one point in the video a black woman says that she likes Ron Paul because he brings together people from all races and political backgrounds.  I looked around the room to confirm this, but the only black face I saw was carrying out the empty ice cream bowls on a tray.  I wish that were a joke, but sadly it is not.  Republicans are as white as their stereotype would lead you to believe they are--even the crazy, rebellious ones.

That said, the audience cheered loudest for the parts of Paul's speech that might have come out of the mouth of the most liberal Democrat: anti-torture, bring the troops home (not just the ones in Iraq, but the ones stationed in all foreign countries), eliminating the income tax.  Okay, two out of three are Democratic positions.  Nevertheless, it does seem that most Democrats and Republicans--even the ones in the heart of Bush Country--want the same things.  Which made it all the more disappointing to notice that the C-SPAN tote bags at the Republican convention were red.  You know, like red state red?  Et tu C-SPAN?  I never figured you for the divisive sort.

Finally, I point out that McCain is still desperately looking for some campaign music.  He can't catch a break.  It seems that he went with the odd choice of "Take a Chance on Me," only to be rebuked by ABBA.  Really.

Week 85: The Ballad of Stayed and Gone 10

Baby Camilia


the end of the first act. the cliff hanger. the curtain before intermission. the impu