Mundane Arcana

Last week

2009-06-28T18:37:00.002-04:00

It's Sunday afternoon and we're back in Long Beach. We drove here after our Fresno gig, and we technically have our last show here tonight, although it's a house show and it sounds like a request by residents of the house not to spread the word too widely has led to such little promotion that someone who lives there recently asked Alan where the show is. So, we're not expecting much tonight. But I'm happy to report that the second half of the tour was superior to the first half, and we don't feel the need to accomplish anything more than hanging out at Alan's friends' pad with a computer, ceiling fans, comfortable bedding, and a wonderfully chill boxer mix named Pyrate. We'll be here till tomorrow and then it's back to DC for me and back to PDX for a few days for Shravan and Forrest. Alan is technically homeless for a month, and then he's headed to Europe for three months to tour with Born/Dead, Doomsday Hour, and Witch Hunt. To recap since my last entry:

Eugene sucked, and we drove to Portland immediately after we played. I spent Saturday afternoon hitting record stores downtown and ran into my college friend Steve. He lives in Portland, but I ran into him last summer in Seattle as well. I had given him my email address but he lost it, so it was great to cross paths again. We caught up over breakfast a few days later when I was back in PDX for our second show. Take that, Facebook. Our house show that night was the most remunerative of the tour; Portland always comes through. Sunday was Seattle at Squid and Ink, a small vegan restaurant in Georgetown. Uninspired turnout, but we got decent money anyway. The Squid is closed on Mondays, but the owner, a friend of Alan's (and of the folks we were staying with right down the street), insisted on opening up to feed us brunch and then tried not to accept any money. A true gentleman. We got a slow start that day, ate brunch late and ended up with not enough time to do anything around town before we had to be in Tacoma for that night's show. It felt a little like a wasted day, but sometimes those are unavoidable. Tacoma was a house show with surprisingly good turnout. We spent the night in Seattle again and I made the most out of our day off on Tuesday by taking a bus to downtown, walking to Capitol Hill, and taking another bus to the U District and back. Hit four record stores (one was closed) and rounded things out with gelato and a newspaper by the water with a relatively uncloudy view of the sun going down behind whatever mountains it goes down behind west of Seattle.

Wednesday I brunched alone at the Squid (the owner only charged me $5 for a meal that was probably worth more than twice that) before we headed back down to Portland. Good show at The Know with some partying afterward. I went to sleep around 2:30 in a windowless practice room in the basement and got up at 9 in complete darkness to meet Steve for breakfast. I found out from Julie that our beloved feline bookend/paperweight Miss Kitty had taken a turn for the worse and the vet gently insisted she be euthanized the next day. 21 years is a hell of a run for a cat, but it's sad all the same. It's been a bad couple weeks for pets in the District. Beaujolais, one of Brighter Days' favorite charges (despite his proclivity for bisexual rapings), died shortly after I left town; and then another dog that didn't have anything wrong with him that I knew of was put down a couple days ago.

Thursday was a day off, and I did the whole drive to Oakland. It took us only 10 hours with stops from Portland, much less than I expected. Driving was a great relief from the boredom of passengerhood. Friday we hit Telegraph in Berkeley for food and records and then more food on the Oakland end of the street. Warehouse show at the Hazmat in Oakland went fine. Saturday we brunched at Rudy's Can't Fail Cafe, a restaurant apparently owned by the Green Day dudes. Overpriced bland bullshit. At least they forgot to include my OJ in the bill.

As soon as we drove out of Oakland we hit hot weather. It was incredibly abrupt. We relented and relied on AC the whole way to Fresno. I thought it felt bad just because we'd been so spoiled with great weather the whole tour, but then we got to Fresno and were told that it had hit 106. Let me set the scene here. It's a birthday party/house show. We walk into a backyard featuring multiple shopping carts and almost immediately see a kid in a full clown suit being barked at by a small dog named Butters. Now you know everything you need to know about Fresno. Actually, for as much as I felt like I was in a west coast version of Gummo, people were friendly and we had a good time. We were only there for about 3 hours total and then we set sail for Long Beach. I'll probably post one last update when I'm home, but till then...

Expired ID, indoor dust storms, and surprise benefit shows

2009-06-20T21:40:00.003-04:00

When we last left our intrepid noise punkers, they had been accepted into the waiting brazos of Madre Mexico. No exciting border shootouts or anything, sorry. Anyway...

We hung out at a home in Mexicali for a couple hours before the show. There was what appeared to be a citizen-run checkpoint at the entrance to the neighborhood, just to keep tabs on who comes and goes. The salsa flowed like hemophiliac blood and the beer flowed like...beer. Actually, there was a keg, so my bandmates got a little loosey-goosey. Beer was in no short supply at the venue either, which was really nice and had this crazy Floyd-themed lounge area flecked by dancing laser lighting. Apparently our show was only the second one that had been staged there (after the Warcry/AI tour). The first band didn't start till after 11, and when we played last, three bands later, we actually had to cut our set a song short. Which was annoying. I don't remember the first band's name. Coaccion was good; we had played with them at Gilman last summer. Bumbklaatt blew everyone, us included, off the stage. I think I've heard the 10" Alan put out for them, but I didn't have any expectations before they played. Holy damn, they tore it up.

We stayed at a different house than the one with the lunch party earlier. Everyone was really friendly. The guy who lives there kept trying to get me to drink (I told him a couple of times that I don't), as well as my bandmates, who had imbibed impressively all night but who were ready to be done by the time we crashed out at 3:30. Well, actually Forrest gave in and partied for a little bit. I can't say how many neighborhoods in the US would put up with a bunch of kids rolling into a neighborhood after 3am, unloading a keg, and blasting metal out of a car stereo. But our hosts did it like it was no big thing.

We drove through Mexico to Tijuana the next day, stopping only at a "Routine Military Checkpoint." Love that phrase. Apparently there is one route to TJ that features a vertiginous cliffside drive, complete with old cars piled up below; but there's a new toll road that we took that was less exciting. Still plenty of winding through mountains though. We've been in pretty mild weather almost the whole tour, but we basked in AC for that whole drive. The guy who set up the TJ show hooked us up with cheap burritos when we got there, then we went to the venue (a bar/pool hall) early and Forrest and I played two of the longest, most incompetent games of pool in the 6,000 long years that the universe has existed. Turnout for the show was pretty low, and, just like last time we played TJ, most people stayed seated. Tijuana: the City That Never Stands. We got payed the equivalent of about $50 total for both Mexico shows.

We decided to cross the border right after the show to avoid daytime lines. In the 15 minutes we did have to wait, we watched squeegee kids, a carpet salesman, and a one-legged man walking on his hands, all trying to squeeze a few last pesos out of the departing gringos. Now, I had noticed on the second day of tour that my passport expired three months ago. "Uggggh. Oh my god," I said when I realized my passport had become an ex-passport. "Fuck. God fucking dammit." I probably said some other things that I won't repeat on a family blog. But Alan assured me that at worst we'd get hung up at the border for a short while. This did not keep at bay jokes about what the border guards were going to do to my virginal parts.

So, here we are, sitting in the slowest line back into the US, run by a woman who seems to take her job rather seriously. We pull up, and Alan hands her our passports. I'm riding shotgun; Shravan and Forrest are in captain's chairs in the back. She asks us how long we've been in TJ and what we were doing. Alan tells her we're a band and we just played a show. She walks around the driver's side of the van, tapping here and there either to check for drugs packed into the frame or because she just can't stop the primal rhythms that can bubble up inside a person, demanding to be released as audible manifestations of defiant hopefulness in the face of a godless, meaningless existence. While I can identify with the latter, I believe she was doing the former. She arrives on my side of the van and opens the back door. "Who's here? What do you do?" That is, what do you do in the band. She sounds stern but friendly at the same time. "Shravan, I play guitar." "Forrest, bass." She looks at me. "John. I play drums." "It's always the drummer," she says as she walks back to her station. Always the drummer who does WHAT, I'm thinking. Always the drummer who HAS AN EXPIRED PASSPORT AND NEEDS TO BE DISCIPLINED WITH HOT IRONS...?

But she just meant it's always the drummer who rides shotgun. I figured it wasn't worth explaining to her that, actually, Shravan almost always rides shotgun because he has control issues around music selection in vehicles, and that Forrest and I don't mind because we don't have these sorts of control issues. We were at the border for three minutes, tops, and now we were waved across. We spent the night in Chula Vista, a short drive from the border, in a garage attached to a home owned by the parents of one of the Bumbklaatt guys. Apparently Alan's used it as a post-border pit stop for years. The next day we drove back to Long Beach so that Alan could run some errands and I could pick up some new sticks, having left my stick bag in the thieving manos of the aforementioned Sra. Mexico. Then it was on to Isla Vista, on the coast next to Goleta, about halfway between LA and SF. We played at the house I had visited on tour five years ago with Kadd and Rachel and Rasmus. Low turnout, but at least playing in a living room made it feel like there were actually people watching. We had a good time. Listened to the locals complain about the Irish summerers who descend on the area every year. Before we took off the next day, I wandered down to a cliff-studded beach three blocks away. Very scenic. I saw a dead ray in the sand. It's really, you know, it's kind of a shame. A shame about that ray.

Our San Francisco show was at the same spot we played last summer, then the Balazo Gallery now called Sub-Mission. I met up with Derrick B. before the show at Aquarius, where I picked up various records they were holding for me and of course grabbed a few more of the shelves. There weren't a lot of people at the show, but for whatever reason I really like that place and was happy to play there regardless. I think we ended up getting over $100 from the door, which is a good night for us, and both of the local bands were excellent: Suicide Bomb, which includes members of Condenada, Born/Dead, and Artimus Pyle, and Morpheme, the young crasher band with a Japanese singer. They've got an ep coming out on Prank, but the singer's moving back to Japan, so the band's done after one more show, I believe. We spent the night at our always hospitable friend Matt's house.

Arcata: good show, good turnout. We played with a crappy PA, which basically meant no vocals, but the kids went crazy anyway. First show where that had happened. There was so much dirt in the carpet in the room we played, sent airborne by the attendees, that when we finished playing, the drumset looked like it had been sitting in a basement for five years. Got fed pancakes the next morning. Excellent.

Eugene: lousy show at a tattoo shop made worse by the fact that the people who work there unbeknownst to the bookers had turned it into a benefit for their friend who had put his hand through a window (under not entirely unreasonable circumstances, I'll admit, having heard the story) and fucked up tendons and nerves and stuff. So we got zero money from the door and left for Portland right after we played. That was a day and a half ago, and I'll have to leave it at that for now. I've got a van to Seattle to catch.

First actual tour update

2009-06-15T23:59:00.002-04:00

I have not been online since we left Long Beach, and I will probably have to condense this a bit so as to not spend my whole night in a Tijuana internet cafe. Have to play a show, etc.

We had a chance to practice before we left LB, which was fortunate. We needed it. The last couple of times I played before leaving for tour, my left wrist was hurting. My wrists haven't bothered me in forever, so I was actually kind of concerned. It bothered me a little bit at practice here, but not as much as it had. And it's pretty much held steady in that condition. I've noticed it at every show, but it's not consistent or intense. Kids: learn good technique. Warm up before you play. Then when you experience pain, you'll be able to say, 'I hurt, and I have no idea why.'

First show was in LA (Boyle Heights) at the Boulevard Cafe. Unimpressive turnout and interminable, mediocre opening bands. We made over $100 in merch though, which is a really good night for us. We've got more stuff to sell this time than we usually do: three shirt designs, last copies of the LP, a few copies of the second ep, brand new third ep, patches, pins, Lotus Fucker demos, and a few copies of the Framtid 2007 Euro tour DVD that just came out. (We got a few because they included footage of all the bands they played with on that tour, and that means us. Haven't watched any of it yet.)

We spent the night at a house with a bunch of people near route 10, which we would need to jump on the next day to get to Tempe. At some point I was awoken by a coupling, the intended level of discretion or indiscretion of which was rendered moot by its extreme proximity to my head. Oh, tour.

When we left LA, the temperature was around 70, but the Phoenix area was more like mid 90s. We found a vegan comfort food restaurant and filled up before heading to the venue, which was an industrial park storage space cum practice space cum performance space. I had been trading messages with my old hometown friend Jason about meeting up in Phoenix, where he lives. It worked out, and he and his partner and I shot the breeze in the parking lot outside the venue for about a half hour. The last time I saw Jason was at his wedding in Pennsylvania maybe four years ago. He's divorced now. So it goes. It's funny: I generally think of Brighter Days as my first foray into enterpreneurship, but technically I made my first stab at selling my wares with Jason when we were 10 or 12. Those of you who lived through the 80s will surely remember friendship bracelets, those multicolored tied string thingies that were like a half inch to two inches wide that everybody wore. Jason was good at making them. I tried and kind of sucked at it, so I made a really dumbed down version of them that looked ok. We got the local five and dime to take some of our 'J and J String Bracelets' on consignment. I don't remember how many sold. It was Jason's idea, he was always an industrious sort. I distinctly remember learning what the word 'profit' meant from this experience. 'How much profit do you want to make?' he asked me. 'Oh, uh...' 'You know, how hard you wanna make it rain? We doin' this for our health or we doin' this for the motherfuckin' Benjies?' It was 1989 and I'm quoting Jason verbtim. 'Don't trip, son,' he definitely also said. Ok, maybe I'm paraphrasing.

The show was ok, nothing special. Crossing the border at Calexico into Mexicali the next day was a breeze. I'm running out of internet time and should get back to the venue, so I'll have to leave on that suspenseful note.

If you're reading this, you have the city of Long Beach to thank

2009-06-11T23:00:00.002-04:00

I wasn't sure if I wanted to bother keeping a tour log on this trip. And I'm still not sure that I do. But there have already been a few moments, brought to you by (and I know I said this last year too) the seriously beat-down burnout of a town that is Long Beach. I commented to Forrest earlier today about the incredibly high number of obviously intoxicated and/or visibly mentally ill people wandering the streets. We had a chuckle about it, but...it's not really hyperbole. Forrest speculated that it was a shared quality among beach towns and likened it to Virginia Beach. Here are a couple of great micro-encounters we've had with the locals so far:

1. In order to facilitate easy unloading of our bags last night, Alan briefly double parked his van in the mouth of an alley by his place, blocking the sidewalk. It's around 1:30am. We were inside a few minutes later, and a woman accosts Alan in his doorway and asks, "Is that your van?" "Yeah." "Ok, I need to get your name." Nothing about the woman's appearance suggests she has an even distant relation to the law enforcement profession. "Why do you need my name?" "Oh, uh... never mind." She walks away.

2. Forrest and I were walking back to Alan's after lunch today, and a hard-livin' type dude asked Forrest who did his "tat work," which was visible on both of his sleeveless arms. Due to an underabundance of teeth in the guy's mouth, I thought he had asked Forrest who did his tax work, which I thought an odd but not unreasonable question. Everyone needs tax work done now and again. Forrest replied that the artist is a friend of his back in Virginia. We continued the last half block to Alan's, where we hung outside for a minute. The guy stopped to chat briefly. "I got a friend who does that. He rides a bike around. Name's Tattoo."

Back to the big picture. All three of us had delayed flights thanks to the positively biblical weather visited on the mid-Atlantic last night. (By biblical, I mean "diluvian," not "weather that never happened," but thank you for asking.) Forrest's flight took off less than an hour late, but landed five minutes after his connecting flight was supposed to leave Cleveland. Run, Forrest, Run he did and made it. My flight was two hours late. Shravan had to spend the night in Atlanta. Fail. But here we all are. Forrest and I drove into LA to pick up Shravan this afternoon because poor Alan needs to vacate his home/record store by tomorrow, so he's off hauling all his shit into storage. He's also been throwing out a bunch of stuff, and while we were helping him last night, he made Forrest carry a box of overrun Parasytic covers to the dumpster lol. Right now S and F are practicing the set list with me occasionally vacating the keyboard to tap out a fill on the desk. Tour's so easy.

Into the sunset

2008-07-11T20:27:00.002-04:00

Hey, it's summertime again. Which means it's time for me to travel long distances to perform in front of very drunk people. Shravan, Forrest, and I all flew into southern California Wednesday on separate flights. Mine was on time and no sweat. Shravan had to go through Atlanta, was delayed an hour and a half, and was seated conveniently between a pair of single mothers with a young child apiece. Forrest shared a row with two women of a certain size to whom he had to essentially give lap dances in order to access the bathroom from his window seat. Forrest and Alan, our Long Beach host, picked me up about two hours after my flight arrived, and we had to kill another hour and a half before Shravan was ready to be picked up.

We spent Thursday sleeping in and walking around Long Beach, which seems to host a large population of hard-luckers. This hadn't been as apparent to me when we were here two years ago. Alan lives in his record store with a roommate and four cats. It's a comfortable arrangement with enough room to shelter at least two bands; we stayed here with Imperial Leather in '06, and Giuda will be bedding down here tonight. Our first show is in a couple hours in Rowland Heights, a town equidistant from Long Beach and L.A. proper (if there is such a thing). We're playing at an outdoor arena that primarily showcases wrestling. Apparently it's pretty cool except for the bouncers, who behave as if they work at an outdoor arena that primarily showcases wrestling.

Almost time to roll. More later.

.

2008-04-23T00:14:00.001-04:00

Chris Morris: A Thinking Man's Pervert

2008-03-18T21:22:00.002-04:00

In the fall of 2005, I had the privilege of making contact with English and Welsh soil for the first time. Had it not been for certain difficulties in the area of automotive technology, I'd be able to speak of a similar introduction to Scottish soil (but I wouldn't be able to say that I spent the first hours of my 27th birthday sleeping in a van with eight other guys in a gas station parking lot in the middle of the jolly English countryside). Seeing a dozen new cities (including my first and all-to-brief experience of London), hanging with the members of Night and the City of Broken Promises (who, when not busy inconveniently suffering punctured bowels, served as more than worthy banter-mates), and watching the drowning of New Orleans on the BBC were unforgettable experiences. Though I spent a considerable percentage of my cumulative half-day's worth of time in London inside the Tate Modern, the bit of art that has stuck with me the most from that trip was on a DVD I watched at our driver's house in Barnsley.

I had never heard of the show Jam. I didn't recognize any of its cast members, and none of the related TV shows our host mentioned rang any bells. Jam ran for one season in 2000 in the UK. If you've never seen it, it's like this: think of the darkest sketch comedy you can conjure. Oh come on, you can do better! Slap yourself and try again. You probably still can't compete with Jam, and now on top of that you've slapped yourself for nothing. Jam is relentless in its coverage of the taboo. And it features a sort of anti-laugh track: the arty, often sea-sickly cinematography is underpinned by an unsettling ambient soundtrack. You should be able to decide in the following 20 seconds whether you need to see more:

You can't get the Jam DVD in the US, and though I've done my best to describe my favorite sketches to friends, I was worried that I would never be able share the full experience. Then I remembered a little thing called YouTube, that honestly I don't spend much time on and is not usually at the front of my mind. All the good stuff I see on YouTube is either sent to me or posted on message boards. I don't do much mining on my own. But sure enough, Jam is all over YouTube. Before I get to the brain behind the twistedness, here are a few more of my favorite sketches:

If you find those bits to be right up your dark, dark alley, then continue over to YouTube and search for "jam sketch" or some such thing. There's much more there, including quite a few I haven't even watched yet. So, as I was revisiting these videos on the internet, I started reading about Chris Morris, the satirist behind Jam. He's been at it since the late 80s; highlights include the radio programs On The Hour and Blue Jam, a Jam precursor. On The Hour morphed into the television program The Day Today, which further evolved into Brass Eye, a spoof current events show that anticipates Sacha Baron Cohen's antics in its humiliation of gullible celebrities and government officials. Below in three parts is the Brass Eye show entitled "Paedogeddon," a hilarious pull-no-punches send-up of the media hysteria that surrounds pedophilia. It racked up the third most complaints in British television history.

Morris is also responsible for a trippy, irreverent video remix of the Archbishop of Canterbury's eulogy for Princess Di; as well as the brilliant reworking of Bush's 2003 State of the Union address that you've probably seen without knowing who did it. I leave you with those two videos and encourage you to hunt down more from this under-exposed perverted comedic genius pervert.

Aural Suppository

2008-03-04T01:03:00.003-05:00

Denman and I started a music blog. As for its content? Well, we both like metal. We both like punk. Denman likes tropicalia and dancy DJ music. I like ambient and 20th-century classical. So we can honestly say "a little bit of everything." We welcome everyone's comments, be they ad hominem or expert.

Mundane Arcana will remain active for mostly non-musical postings.

US and A #1

2008-02-29T19:20:00.004-05:00

In what is perhaps the most obvious fact in the universe, the existence of prisons continues to be the most damning proof that prisons don't "work."

Oldworldslumming

2008-02-21T21:50:00.003-05:00

Some of you have already been directed to this via email, but I thought I'd post here as well. Julie and I uploaded the best of last summer's Europe trip pictures into a Photobucket account. If you want to check em out, go here and log in with "oldworldslumming" and pass "ven1ce." There are a few pictures of Bologna and many each of Venice, Berlin, Prague, and the famous ossuary at Kutna Hora.

Bonus blog feature: the following photo was taken down by Photobucket, presumably because of a questionable violation of their policy on nudity. This is a close-up shot of a diorama of East Germans playing volleyball on the beach that was featured in the Museum of the DDR that we visited in Berlin. Apparently Communism was much better at providing people with a sense of generalized dread than it was at providing them with bathing suits.

Top X of MMVII

2008-02-08T17:37:00.000-05:00

Click on the album titles for download links via Sendspace.

X. THE ANGELIC PROCESS - Weighing Souls With Sand

It's a bummer to find out about a good band in the last year of their existence, especially when they've been around for awhile. The Angelic Process started in 1999, and Weighing Souls With Sand is the last recording they completed before a hand injury kept one of the two members from continuing. I have yet to listen to most of their earlier material, but Souls can be summed up like this: latter-day Isis filtered through an even more washy and distorted My Bloody Valentine with programmed drums and emotive vocals. Good songwriting and a signature uber-distorted guitar sound help these guys stand out from the rest of the post-Isis global pile-on (and to be fair, '99 was a long time ago in post-Isis-global-pile-on years). I have this on LP, but I've heard the production on the CD version is better.

IX. GRAILS - Burning Off Impurities

After my initial post-purchase listen to this album, it didn't exactly stick with me. But a subsequent spin later in the year made me "sit up" and "take notice," as the kids say these days. I would have loved to see Grails live in their Burden of Hope period, but that would have happened only if I were a resident of the west coast, which, as the kids say, I'm "not." Seeing them live in 2007 was actually a little bit of a letdown. They're still good songwriters and probably as adept in performance as ever, but you know how it is when you expect to hear certain songs at a show and then you don't. They're more psych influenced now. Maybe not my fave live band, but on record, where I can enjoy them while sitting in my room or harassing the cat or what-have-you, they're still impressive and engrossing.

VIII. DEATHSPELL OMEGA - Fas - Ite, Maledicti, in Ignem Aeternum

Probably the most chaotic black metal record ever made. Certainly the most chaotic I've ever heard. If you were to ask a diehard which contemporary band is tops in the genre, there's a good chance the response will be these guys. In 2004 they released Si Monumentum Requires, Circumspice, a towering, instant-classic album shot through with post-rock gloom, Gregorian chant, and memorable guitar lines in the BM tradition. Fas is their second release since, and it doesn't top SMRC, but, really, doing so would have been a feat and a half. There are some slower, more meditative parts here, but mostly it's a warren of extremely complex, slashing guitar lines underlined by busy drum work. I love the drumming in Deathspell, because it always sounds like the dude's not quite good enough to pull it all off but somehow does anyway, which adds to the chaos. I'm sure that the corpsepaint set would find the comparison, uh, blasphemous, but really this album is to the rest of black metal what vintage Dillinger Escape Plan is to hardcore. A total neck-snapper. (A word to the wise: the band is French, but the singer is a Finnish dude who runs the Northern Heritage label, not exactly a bastion of progressivism. Bootleggers are referred to as "j**ish businessmen" on the front page, and there other misappropriations of the J-word in other parts of the site. If this offends you, as it should, don't buy Deathspell or NH releases. The actual lyrical content of DsO tends to stick to the Satanic and philosophical realms.)

VII. ALVA NOTO - Xerrox Vol.1

Alva Noto, aka Carsten Nicolai, is one of my favorite minimalist artists. His Vrioon collaboration with Ryuichi Sakamoto will forever live near the metaphorical top of my metaphorical go-to late-night records pile. I'm happy to have him blip and bleep me to sleep. Xerrox lies at the other end of the minimal spectrum; it's full of sprawling washes of ambient sound. Rather than try to paraphrase my way through it, here is Nicolai's explanation of the process involved in recording straight from his Raster-Noton imprint's site:

xerrox is the new, self-contained project of alva noto, which like his transall-series (transrapid, transvision und transspray; raster-noton 61-63, 2002-2004) is intended to be released in five parts during the next years. on xerrox, alva noto works with samples from muzak, advertising, soundtracks and entertainment programs. these sounds we hear randomly in everyday life and thereby they become an always present and available public domain. with xerrox alva noto manipulates these recognizable melodic (micro) structures by the process of copying. he alienates them beyond recognition so the results manifest their connection to the original only suggestively. in this respect: the original is copied to the original.

alva noto used several samples from these sources: narita airport tokyo, in-flight program air france, telephone wait-loop lufthansa, hotel apollo paris, suizanso hotel yamaguchi, seven-eleven tokyo, forma london, reaktor, www.kkmovie.com

xerrox sample transformer was designed by carsten nicolai and built by christoph brünggel.

xerrox vol.1 is the first release in a series of five.

VI. THE FIELD - From Here We Go Sublime

Reading Pitchfork's year-end best-of lists always conjures images of the writers spending approximately 340 days out of the year together in a room littered with Chinese takeout containers listening to the same eight fucking records over and over. If M.I.A. had a nickel for every time her name got mentioned on that site, MAYBE SHE COULD MAKE BETTER ALBUMS. Ahem. (I'm linking Bent Burton's City Paper review of Kala here because I think he dishes a healthy dose of awkward truth.) Leaving aside for the moment all the Pitchfork faves that passed me by last year (I've never heard the Panda Bear and Battles records that everybody loves so much, for instance), The Field is a place where we can agree. Sublime came out on Kompakt, which immediately put it in the orbit of music-I-might-very-well-enjoy, but I had also read that it was more in the propulsive, rhythmic vein than a lot of the more ambient Kompakt releases, to which I tend to gravitate. On first listen it didn't do much for me, though I can't tell you how many of my favorite records required second listens to impress me. But it's repetitive, and it's catchy, and it's got the slightest dark tinge to it, and I really love it. And it's got samples from the sweet old Atari game Missle Command. It's his first full-length, and I look forward to listening to his next one . . . a second time.

V. VOMIT ORCHESTRA - Antecrux

[NOTE: In doing some research for the V.O. write-up, I discovered that this album was actually released in December '06. Oops.] This is the record on the list whose existence would have completely eluded my consciousness if not for the good - no, great - folks at Aquarius Records. I purchased my number III and VII records from them as well, but I would have probably checked those out anyway. Vomit Orchestra has been active since at least 2001, churning out a bunch of demos that probably like eight people ever heard until they were collected as the Macabre Paradigm double CD in 2005 (of which I am in need of a copy). Antecrux is the first and as yet only proper full-length album, and it's a doozy. Re-listening to this recently the term "slow-core" came to mind. Sure enough, a peek back at the aQ review (which I had read a year ago but had forgotten) revealed that they had applied that word as well. So let's start there. Slow-core, but with just guitars (no drums, no singing, minimal vocalizations) and electronic ambience. And also very paranoid and on a lot of drugs. Throw in some samples of radio broadcasts and book readings, and one track of buzzing, pulsing noise ("Dance Ov The Sugardrugged Feary"), and you have an engaging and unsettling yet occasionally calming listening experience. Hang tight for at least a handful of V.O. releases in '08, including the imminently forthcoming full-length Tocharaeon from Autumn Wind Productions.

IV. RICHARD CRANDELL - Spring Steel

See Mom, not all my favorite music is made by heavy drug users and Satan worshipers! On second thought, I guess I can't really be sure that Mr. Crandell doesn't liberally lubricate his muse with controlled substances, or that he doesn't sit at the left hand of his dark Father throwing spears at the bastard son of God (thanks Denman or Anton, whichever of you said that first). I digress. Spring Steel picks up where his last thumb piano recording Mbira Magic left off. (He also released a couple of acoustic guitar CD's last year that I will eventually get around to checking out.) Both are great chill-out albums, each featuring percussion accompaniment by a man named Cyro Baptista. This music sits at the opposite end of the thumb piano spectrum from the raucous amplified likembes employed by the likes of Konono No.1. Minimal, relaxing, and beautiful.

III. THE DEAD C - Future Artists

If you think you've heard this band on a Dischord comp, you're barking up the wrong tree in the wrong hemisphere. These guys are from New Zealand and long ago jammed their way into the noise rock pantheon. I'm a latecomer; aside from this newest offering, I own only their split with Konono that Fat Cat put out a few years back and a couple solo releases by member Bruce Russell. Despite their reputation for six-stringed avant-fireworks, Future Artists is more meandering than aggro or blown-out. It consists primarily of long, simmering pieces with more fidgeting than strumming on the strings and with tom work replacing snare backbeats. Not that there aren't crescendos and sizzling magnesium-tape passages, there are; but the overall vibe of this album is sit down, this is going to take a little while. The opening track sets the tone. It's a 13-minute directionless ditty that has no business at the front end of a record. But it works perfectly. No intro, no catchy riffs, just immediate submergence in their primordial C. Take with two tanks of oxygen and other elements as needed. I expect most of you won't like this at all.

II. OBSCURUS ADVOCAM - Verbia Daemonicus

I haven't been digging black metal quite as hard recently, and it's been a while since I've listened to this album. If I ranked my "SOTY" like Andrew, it would be a toss-up between "Starlight to Twilight," which has a great, hummable guitar line that gets repeated over and over and over, and the opening track off my number I album. OA are French, but they don't sound anything like Deathspell or Antaeus or Mutiilation or any of the other big names from that scene. They've got an underlying rockin', even bluesy feel with a good mix of tempos and slick, well-balanced production. There's really nothing groundbreaking about them at all, but this album is so good from start to finish. Dude from Nachtmystium put this out on his Battle Kommand label, but I just read some message board shizz about his basement getting flooded and his distro being damaged, which could seriously impede the vinyl version of this as well as that of Blut Aus Nord's fucked-up alien cough syrup black metal masterpiece The Work Which Transforms God. Christians are surely to blame.

I. DRAGONFORCE - Inhuman Rampage

Dude, seriously. I can't believe I picked this either. I was having a hard time narrowing down my list, and when I stopped to ask myself what album I enjoyed the most this year, the answer was clear. The answer would also have been clear if the question had been which album inspired the most air drumming. This band has been tagged "extreme power metal," and that's on the nose. Showoff guitar parts at consistently fast tempos and the whole thing catchy as all get-out. I highly recommend this to lovers of pop punk. Take away the shredding solos, the pinch harmonics, the keyboards, and the lyrics that appear to be about absolutely nothing (the weakest aspect of this band, completely numbing inanity) this album could have come out on Fat. If you love long hair and pre-choruses; if you can forgive musical cheese when it's served up by musicians who can play their asses off; if you love to "ground and pound" (their words, not mine); and if you love no-budget music videos that are redeemed by a bit of brilliant cinematography during the guitar solos (below), then this album is for you.

LOL @ Protestants who think Scientology and Mormonism are weird

2008-01-28T17:32:00.000-05:00

LOL

2007 Honorable Mentions, part deux

2008-01-17T21:41:00.000-05:00

Lifelover - Erotik

Oddly, of the two albums this band has done, the one called Erotik is the one without the naked woman covered in red paint on the front. Lifelover is Swedish black metal dudes gone gothy. If you can get past the occasional rough patches of bad vocal crooning (which do not dominate the record), you will be treated to one of the better recent twists on black metal. Not that this is a black metal record--it isn't--but that's one of the primary wells it's sprung from. It's jangly and dark at the same time, and there is some b.m.-style howling here and there. I keep hearing people say Joy Division as a comparison, but Erotik is much more upbeat musically. Double LP, Euro press, 500 copies, no US distribution, and I got mine in trade for...an Aghast LP? WTF!

Wold - Screech Owl

Black metal meets Whitehouse. Crumbling, noisy, buzzing, repetitive riffs. Guitar in there somewhere. Not drums, a pulse. No one else is doing anything like this that I've heard. I actually prefer their first album, L.O.T.M.P., for it's inclusion of melodic ambience, a quality you will not find on the thoroughly abrasive Screech Owl. I feel stupid for having not listened to either album on anything but my crappy computer speakers. I'm sure I'm missing a lot. Both are CD-only releases for now, and I've been, perhaps wrongheadedly, holding out for vinyl.

Blood of the Black Owl - Svart Ugle

Yeah, another owl record. Thought this was an eponymous recording, but it loaded into my iTunes as Svart Ugle, so there you have it. Muddy and dirgey minimalist plodding from the guy who brought you the pagan/ambient/whatever project Ruhr Hunter, which I've heard and was honestly not impressed by. But this album is good stuff. Very repetitive but with lots of little changes that keep you interested. I haven't listened to this in months, it's due for another spin. But not just now, because I am listening toooo.....

The Austrasian Goat - s/t

Somehow the Aghast email account started getting updates from a French label called Solitude Records that I had never heard of. I played a clip of this recored contained in one of said updates and was impressed. I wrote and asked whether any US distros would be getting copies and was told no. I forgot about it for a while and then stumbled across it in a distro at Yellow Dog Fest. Totally worth it. Black doom very reminiscent of the non-ambient parts of Nortt but with a healthy sludge metal influence (they cover Grief). If I hadn't forgotten about this record until today, it may very well have worked its way into my top 10. Highly recommended.

A COUPLE KILLER HARDCORE REISSUES

Mob 47 - Karnvapen Attack EP
Larm - Straight on View/Campaign for Musical Destruction LP

Both bands helped nudge 80s hardcore in a faster direction - Larm with straight-ahead thrash and Mob 47 with raw d-beat. I wish these bands had been staples in my younger days, but I didn't get around to checking them out until fairly recently. My loss.

COOLEST OLDER RECORDING I DISCOVERED THIS YEAR

Henning Christiansen - Symphony Natura op.170 (1985)

Manipulated field recordings from the zoo in Rome. Animal calls are slowed down imperceptibly at first, and then suddenly you realize you're not in Kansas any more (uh, cause you're in Rome). There are also some identifiable instruments mixed in at the beginning and end of the recording (bells, saxophone). This was released in a super-limited vinyl pressing a year or two ago by the Dutch label Slowscan. I got my copy from the Hanson Records distro. Frigging expensive, but totally worth it. If you have time to listen to most or all of it in one sitting, you may do so for free here.

To hold you over: 2007 Honorable Mentions, part 1

2008-01-15T21:23:00.000-05:00

The Top 10 has finally been whittled down (I think), but I still need to write about all the albums and download a few of them so I can upload them for you all. But in the meantime, here are some pretty darn good albums from the last year that I would encourage you to check out if you have not already done so. You're gonna have to track them down yourself or borrow them from me though, no downloads in this batch.

Clipse - Hell Hath No Fury

I am well aware that this album came out in 2006, but the fact of the matter is I slept on it then and ended up spending the first half of 2007 listening to it over and over and over. So incredibly good. If I had been on top of it a year ago, it would have been #3 or 4 on my last top 10.

Burial - Untrue

When I heard there was a new Burial album coming out, I assumed it would end up nestled somewhere in my top 5. Not so, as you can see. Untrue is a little too dance-oriented for me. It lacks the creepiness of its predecessor (#3 on last year's list), and I'm not too into all the vocals this time around. Nonetheless, it's good, and it will get more listens around these parts. I would like to take this opportunity to vent about Hyperdub's decision to alter the vinyl editions of the Burial albums from the CD versions. The LP's are targeted at dj's, so the tracks are resequenced and the more ambient/beatless tracks are cut out. That sucks for those of us who would rather listen to Burial in our bedrooms than in some club, and it's kept me from (so far) purchasing Untrue.

El-P - I'll Sleep When You're Dead

Fantastic Damage was for hip-hop fans with double-jointed brains. I'll Sleep When You're Dead is more accessible, but I think critics who said that makes it a more "mature" record are privileging cohesiveness of sound over ambition of lyrical and musical ideas. I'll Sleep... has three or four excellent songs, but most of my favorite El-P tracks and lyrics come from FanDam.

Iron Lung - Sexless//No Sex

This is as close as any punk/hardcore record is getting to my top 10 this year. (Last year Kylesa was the lone representative unless you still consider Isis primarily a hardcore band, which is a stretch at this point.) These guys are head and shoulders above most contemporary fastcore/powerviolence. More heaviness and less goofiness is the key here. Completely in the vein of all their previous output (they're accreting an intimidating discography), but a notch above. Nice dudes as well. Check out guitarist Jon's noise/drone project Pig Heart Transplant if you're into that sort of thing.

Venetian Snares - My Downfall (Original Soundtrack)
Just spinning this for the second time right now. It's a return to the form of 2005's brilliant Rossz Csillag Alatt Szuletett: dark orchestral parts peppered with signature drill-n-bass. I can't imagine any of his work topping that album, but I do love the vibe he created there and it's present again here. Recommended.

A Blast From the Past

2008-01-04T16:09:00.000-05:00

Slower than a baby with no legs and no driver's license

2008-01-01T17:17:00.000-05:00

Being busy as hell the past couple weeks, coupled with a year of musical releases that aren't exactly jostling for the top spots on my 10-best list, has kept me from creating said list. Sorry. It's coming. There's a lot I liked this year, but more in kind of an honorable-mention sort of way. Stay down-tuned...

In Battle There Is No Law Of Gravity

2007-12-04T19:47:00.000-05:00

One is silver and the other's gold. Which suggests one is more valuable, which I think is not the intended moral of the stupid song.

2007-12-02T20:18:00.000-05:00

I'm going to try to get in the habit of doing short reviews of the new music I accumlate in an attempt to make this page worth something (again?). But today I reached past the new slabs of wax and plastic in my room for some older tunes. "Old" is relative here, but since I so love discovering new music (as well as old music that's new to me), it's not often I spend an afternoon alone with the dustier pieces in my collection.

Windy and Carl - Depths

Windy and Carl are a couple/duo from Michigan who have been putting out records for a dozen years or so. They played at my college back when I was listening almost exclusively to punk, hardcore, and (ahem) ska. Their music has a lot more movement than most other "ambient" composers, but that's definitely the best label for what they do - guitar and bass with tons of loops and effects, occasionally supplemented by vocals. I guess I decided at the show that it wouldn't hurt to have some light background music within reach, so I bought Portal, their first full-length, which maintains pride of place as the first disc of ambient music I ever owned. Since it was pretty much the only CD I could listen to and still focus on homework, it got a ton of play at the time. (I remember asking a friend at the merch table who was familiar with their recorded output which record was the most rhythmic, since I definitely didn't want any of that boring beatless shit. Ha ha. Of course I love beatless music now, and I wonder why I didn't pursue more of it at the time. There is a pattern of this in my life: dubbing myself a copy of my cousin's ...And Justice For All tape in junior high, which to this day is one of my favorite albums of all time, but not really pursuing more metal back then; taking notice of a Nausea song on college radio when I was probably 15 or something but not pursuing hardcore punk and crust; hearing a Weakling song on the same college radio station maybe half a dozen years later, being floored, ordering the masterful Dead As Dreams CD from the label, tUMULt, but not pursuing black metal, a genre currently quite close to the cavity where my heart ought to be. AND, the guy who runs tUMULt is one of the owners of Aquarius Records, which I would not come across for another four or five years.)

Depths is a double LP, and I actually listened to just the second half today; the first half helped lull me to sleep last night on the heels of W+C's long Antarctica EP, which is totally blissed out and undaunting and is my favorite of the three W+C releases I own. So, really, this is as much about the musicians as it is about any particular record in their discography. Antarctica is dreamy, Depths is more aggressive but still ambient, and Portal has the most song-like tracks. Windy and Carl are probably my favorite band to go to bed to, and I mean that in the least dirty way possible.

Piano Overlord - The Singles Collection '03-'05

Why I own this but have never listened to an entire Prefuse 73 album I have no idea. Piano Overlord is Mr. Prefuse, Guillermo Scott Herren, cobbling together a jazzy trip-hop record featuring a healthy dose of that heartbreaker the Rhodes piano ("no synths, guitars, basses, just drums and pianos here"). I saw Prefuse a year or two ago, and it was ok but not great. Still, I'm surprised I've never gotten around to at least downloading a full album. But I can't imagine I'd dig any of the P73 output as much as I like this collection. Super mellow and really funky with that not-so-fast-hon trip-hop vibe. I need to listen to this more often. It seems that all tracks were pulled from two limited edition EP releases.

Growing - The Sky's Run Into the Sea

I can't remember whether it was the 2005 live CD on Archive that made me take notice of this band or if it was something I heard before that. Regardless, in the past two years I've accumulated one CD (the live one, still their best imho), five cassettes, and six slabs of vinyl with a seventh in the mail as of today. I really like Growing, but I don't listen to them all that often (I'm like this with a lot of bands). The Sky's Run is their first full-length and probably their first widely available release. I think today was only the second time I've thrown this on, but that's partly because I bought it new and the first time I listened to it there was a nasty skip or some other imperfection that annoyed the hell out of me. I'm happy to report that nothing of the sort marred my listening experience today. Most of this album is super restrained and minimal, unlike much of their more recent output. I can't give a firsthand account of a Growing performance because they always seem to elude me when they come through Baltimore and DC. I have heard that when they were in full-on power-drone guitar mode, their live shows could warp innards. They've become much more blippy and bloopy, and (with the possible exception of their second full-length, The Soul of the Rainbow and the Harmony of Light, which I don't own and have never heard for no good reason), there's not much of the Earth/SunnO))) thing on their records. I would describe their current sound as "fluttery." The Sky's Run is chill, but it's kind of a downer until near the end.

Icebreaker - Distant Early Warning

I don't know anything about this band, but that's one of the cool things about blogging about music: in order to inform you about bands, I usually have to do some investigating myself. This album came out in 1998 and is in my possession only because the cover image of what looks like a scientific and/or defense facility in the Arctic or Antarctic grabbed my attention in the used section at Som a while back. The back of the jacket illuminates: "The distant early warning system is a series of radar stations which stretch along the northern periphery of Canada and Alaska. Constructed during the height of the cold war, these stations were intended to alert North Atlantic Treaty Organization member states in the event of a Soviet nuclear strike over the pole. Although now mostly unmanned, the distant early warning system continues to operate."

This is not a musically abstract record. It starts off with a trip-hop feel, gets a little spacey, passes through some Philip Glass-style arpeggios. It's not heavy listening, but I like it quite a bit. It was co-released by some label called Aesthetics and the NATOarts project, which aims to "promote security and stability through the exhibition of works of conceptual art." There's a quote from the NYT that calls the record "an electro-acoustic polar landscape that is anything but frigid." Hardy har. Good music, regardless.

(not quite yet the) best music of '07

2007-11-23T16:14:00.000-05:00

For anyone who actually cares, sorry this page has been so lifeless of late. I shall move toward making it less undead, probably by writing more about music, which I always intend to do. Anyway, this post is for you to alert me to any records that came out this year that you think are tops that I should consider before year's end. My list has not yet coalesced, but here's a sneak peak of who's in the running:

Names you'll likely see in the top 10:
The Dead C
Obscurus Advocam
Alva Noto
Vomit Orchestra
Deathspell Omega

Albums I need to check out for sure:
Portal "Outre" - murky atonal death metal from Australia
Yellow Swans - the new one on Load
Cobalt "Eater of Birds" - "blackened war metal meets noise rock" is what someone wrote
Burial "Untrue" - I'm not particularly stoked that this one's got more vocals than the s/t, but I'll be kinda shocked if it doesn't make the cut
Iron Lung "Sexless//No Sex" - will pick this up in exactly six days at the DC show

Waiting for release:
Religious Knives LP on Troubleman - love this band, even if they've moved from druggy psych/drone toward no-wave
Leviathan/Lurker of Chalice - whatever Wrest ends up putting out this year...sure to be killer

That's just off the top of my head right now, I'm sure I'm forgetting stuff. But yeah, what new gems are you all excited about?

Mommy, what does the Aghast LP sound like?

2007-10-29T11:11:00.000-04:00

Long-awaited 1st 12 of the American Washington DC product noise core Japanese crust マニアックス band "! ! It starts in COUFUSE and now presently most it probably has reproduced the sound which hybridizes the violence characteristic of the Japanese HC flat tire and the overseas noise core which GLOOM blooms, most purely, this Japanese style noise core クラストォォォーーー! ! ! ! ! Whether ATROCIOUS MADNESS there is no AGHAST now, true succession of the Japanese crust core! ! ! With just a little you think! ! ! Sometimes, however there is also a tune of Dis flat tire pattern, rather than calling D-Beat, EU'S ARSE we would like to see every DISCHARGE departure eighties イタリー HC flat tire chaos attack it comes and is dirty the noise っぷり. As for this already there is no release from of Crust War, if is, release it should you do from the Italian label which bears MCR or WRETCHED and EU'S ARSE! As with thought, as for release as for the Japanese circulation of course from with Italian Agipunk the MCR company! ! ! Refreshing deafening roar noise shower crust work! ! !

S27 + 5 =

2007-09-27T00:40:00.001-04:00

Where's my fuckin money?

Up the Monks

2007-09-26T17:58:00.001-04:00

You know you want to come*

2007-09-24T16:35:00.001-04:00

*Eh?

"an idea at once so depraved and fantastical that it is hard to know where to begin to criticize it"

2007-09-02T11:51:00.000-04:00

The precise subject of the piece hardly matters; it's just great to see such an uninhibited attack on Christi[ns]anity hosted on no less a site than washingtonpost.com.

New Cousin !

2007-08-29T00:02:00.000-04:00

SAIS Library Position Open

2007-08-27T17:12:00.000-04:00

Warning: it's nowhere near as much fun as this asshole appears to be having.

Euro audio loot

2007-08-18T17:08:00.000-04:00

Not that you care, but here's a list of the records I came back with. I didn't really hit any goldmines, but I did find a few specific records I was looking for. So, instead of focusing on the fact that I didn't score any sweet black metal wax or Gas LP's, I'll revel in what I did find. I still haven't listened to about a third of these. Went through them yesterday, so I'm actually typing this mostly from memory. Oh, and a handful are from my day in New York.

The Assassinators - Demo 2006 7"
The Assassinators - s/t 7"
Framtid/Seein Red - split 7"
Guns 'n Wankers - Pop 7" (one of the ones compiled onto the LP, which I already have on vinyl and CD, but this stuff is so good!)
Guns 'n Wankers - Metal 7" (the one not on the LP...my second copy for trading purposes)
Selfish - s/t 7" (from 1992!)
V/A - Pasta Power Violence 7"
Cyness/Skitsystem - split 7"
Vae Victis - Euro tour 7"
Tangerine Dream - Zeit 2xLP (repress)
Tangerine Dream - Poland 2xLP
Larm - Campaign For Musical Destruction/Straight On View LP reissue
Sepultura - Schizophrenia LP
Sepultura - Arise LP
Ordenekt/Victimised - split LP (this is really good, and it was easy to find)
Catharsis/Gehenna - split LP
Gehenna - Negotium... LP
The Austrasian Goat - s/t LP (blackened doom like Nortt, really good!)
V/A - Underground Tajikistan LP (remember that post I made a while back about the French label Tian An Men Records that releases punk and rock music from far-flung places? This is one of those records.)
Faith No More - Live at the Brixton Academy LP
Goo Goo Dolls - s/t LP (for ebay...unless I like it, ha)
Burial - Ghost Hardware 12"
Erik Satie - Piano Music Vol. 6 LP
V/A - 20th Century Music for Voice & Guitar LP
Confuse - New God Old God LP
M. Behrens - Lecture Feedback LP
Post Regiment - s/t (original! not cheap, but probably the best score of tour)
Cyness - Our Funeral Oration For the Human Race LP
Filthy Chrisitians - Mean LP
Unseen Terror - Human Error LP
Giuda - s/t LP (the Agipunk dudes, great fast, thick hc. US tour summer 2008!)
Markus Guentner - In Moll 2xLP
Phonem - Ilisu LP

Looking back on the finish line

2007-08-18T15:07:00.000-04:00

Been back for a week now. Good thing I did a lot of walking in Europe--made it easier for bikeless work days this week. I'm not sure I fully appreciated my separation from cellular technology over the summer; being back to work demands an indentured relationship. Oh well. First world problems...

I can give any and all of you full versions of various tour anecdotes in person, so I'll keep this last bit brief in the interest of, well, my own interest. But I did want to recap the last two weeks here so I can move on to posting other stuff.

I left you in Potsdam after our show at Archiv on July 10th. We had a few days left in Germany starting in Mainz, which is outside Frankfurt (of which we saw nothing). The show was at a house that was on a university campus, though I think none of the residents are students. It had started as a squat at some point and evolved into a more official relationship with the school. The bathrooms were in a trailer on the same plot of land, and we played in a garage that was also part of the complex. This was the second of three shows on the tour featuring us as the only band. But the people were great, the acoustics in the garage were surprisingly good, we played well, and everyone had a good time. I asked about bathing facilities after the show, since at that point it had been a week since I last got under a shower head. The next morning we were taken to a campus building to shower, and for anyone planning to send me and my chops anniversary cards, that was the beginning of our relationship.

Next was Nuremberg, where we played with The Assassinators, whom we had met in Gdansk. They're a fun band, and I think they could get pretty big. Both of their 7"s are worth picking up. That show was ok, the sound guy kinda sucked, but whatever. We slept at the venue--or rather I should say other people slept. For some reason I couldn't fall asleep all night. Could have been the mate soda I drank that night, but I've never had caffeine affect me like that.

The next two days and nights were spent at the Yellow Dog fest in Packebusch out in the country. Best of times and worst of times, I guess. We had all been looking forward to it as the biggest show we would play on tour, and there were a number of other bands playing that we all liked. We knew that we were slotted to play the first night, but we didn't find out till after we got there that we would be playing last. Some of our set was really good, and some of it was terrible. There were a number of contributing factors to this. We went on really late and were all tired and/or drunker than we should have been. We played after To What End?, whose set was interrupted by multiple power failures. This happened to us once as well. The acoustics in the crowd were actually good for an open-air show, but up on stage it was a different story. The drums were set up way behind everything else, and so we all had trouble hearing each other. The first two songs went fine (and are posted as a video on our myspace page in the comments section; the sound is good, but there's a really annoying disjoint between the audio and visual aspects. Oh, and a wasted Justin will flip you off after the second song). But then on the third song I totally spaced out and created a train wreck. I can think of only one other song I've fucked up so badly live. The rest of the set was a mixed bag--no disasters, but we were a little off on a few songs. Thank god everyone watching was drunk by that point in the night.

I was furious with myself afterward and went straight to bed. None of us was happy with the performance, though we got some unexpected positive feedback the next day. A lot of the other bands on the bill both days played pretty straight d-beat, so at least we stood out stylistically. We were counting on selling a lot of merch at the fest, but that didn't happen (though I think that actually had nothing to do with our lackluster performance; we didn't sell much anywhere on tour). Standout bands were the big names, Wolfbrigade and Guided Cradle, and I was impressed by a German USHC-styled band called Solid Decline and by Vae Victis from Australia (whose tour ep I just threw on the stereo). They're friends with an Aussie friend of mine, and the singer was in a band called World On Welfare who did a split 7" with AOS that Shravan put out.

The effect that various substances had on various bandmates the second night of the fest is better relayed in person, but suffice it to say it was a quiet van ride to the Czech Republic. We didn't have border issues anywhere, and crossing into the CZ was no exception. I'm really amused that I left the US with zero Czech Republic stamps in my passport and came back with four--two with lil' cars, one with a lil' train, and one with a lil' plane. Our first show was there was in Kladno, right outside of Prague. We were warned that there was a high concentration of Nazis in the area, so we didn't do any wandering. Turned out that Justin had wrecked himself so badly the night before that he couldn't perform. Frustrating as that was, Shravan did an admirable job of faking his way through the songs Justin normally sings, and we actually played a good set. We stayed a house a block away from the pub that was some kid's family's house with the parents out of town. It was one of the coziest spots we slept in on tour. The next day we got a brief tour of Prague courtesy of Brian, the singer of the band we had played with the night before. Brian's an American who's lived in Prague for eight years, teaching school most of that time. He and his girlfriend served as hosts and tour guides for me and Julie when we visited after tour.

We walked around for an hour or so and ate a vegan restaurant called country life in the old downtown and then hit the rode for Liberec, which is north of Prague. Liberec was the first of three consecutive show played in band practice spaces. This one was on a university campus, and the turnout was ok. The weather in the Czech Republic was standard summer fare, but we had experienced hardly any heat since we left Italy. I think I favored pants over shorts for the middle two weeks of tour. So, as practice rooms can tend be, it was pretty hot in there. But it was like a walk-in freezer compared to our show the next day in Brno. It was oh-let's-see-if-I-can-make-it-through-the-set-without-passing-out hot. The only other time I've felt like that playing a show was in a basement in Philly last summer. Great show though! We played with a Mexican band called What If Gods Lie, who we had met in Gdansk. They're all good people. And Marek from Gasmask Records was there with the completed Aghast discography cassettes he had been working on. AND, those fucking kids lifted Justin off the ground during our set. That's a first. Someone must have pictures of it, and I can't wait to see them. A bunch of us went to a bar after the show, and I actually had a good time hanging out. I spent a lot of time talking with the guitar player from What If Gods Lie. He tried speaking to me in his limited English, and I tried speaking to him in my limited Spanish. After spending a month surrounded by a half dozen alien languages, it felt good to have the opportunity to actually get to speak something other than English. The Mexicans want to set up a short tour for us down there next summer. Nothing's definite, but we would love to play down there.

We got to the show in Otrokovice early the next day, and the self-storage shed/practice room we played in happened to be adjacent to a lake. It was a beautiful day, so I sat by the water and read for an hour. We played with WIGL again, and I think it was the last show of their tour. Not a bad show, but like in Brno, I was tormented by playing on cymbal stands that kept moving all over the place, which makes for a frustrating drumming experience. And I remember being eaten up by mosquitos after the show. That ridiculous Malignant Tumour video I posted was from that night, when they were hosting an MTV metal show.

Our show in Vienna was the last one be set up; I think it had been booked only days before we left. There punk scene there is negligible, and the one squat that often hosts shows is closed during the summer. So we played a new spot that had opened recently. Aside from the thick cloud of cigarette smoke that polluted the evening, we had a surprisingly good time. We were the only band, but the turnout was excellent, and we got 80 euros strictly in donations from the door. (The picture at the top of this post is of our merch setup there.) I walked around for about an hour before the show, but I didn't really get to see any of Vienna. Though I did walk past a clothing store called Urban Tool that I would like to franchise.

We had gotten word that Italian border agents were weighing large vehicles, which would have been bad news for us since with all of our persons and our merch and our equipment, we were surely over the legal weight limit for our van. So we took back roads into Italy and passed through a tiny border crossing, and it paid off. No weighing, no fines, no unhappiness. We were driving to Pannone, a mountain town near Bolzano where local kids set up a two-day fest in the woods. We got there early, so I had time to take in a view of Italy's largest lake, which you could look down on from a point only 50 yards or so from the stage. I regret not taking a picture, though I'm sure it wouldn't have done the view any justice. You'll just have to picture me sitting on a bench watching the sun go down and reading Another Country. As cool as it was to be playing another show in the Alps, we were all ready for tour to be over and just wanted to play and get it over with. We played second-to-last on that first night and took off for Bologna the next morning instead of sticking around for another set of bands. Which was wise.

We had built five days into our travel plans for post-tour hanging out in Bologna, but it was mainly recovery time. I slept and read a lot, which meant I didn't get to see as much of the city as I would have liked to. My bandmates flew home on the 25th, and Julie arrived on the 26th. We left for Venice the next morning, and I'll share a little about that trip in another post. We're going to compile an online photo album for y'all that will have some great shots, so stay tuned.

Done

2007-07-23T18:53:00.000-04:00

We're in Bologna now, just chillin' with the Agipunk crew. Our last show was Friday in the mountains. More on that and a roundup of the all the shows I haven't written about yet is forthcoming. Whenever I feel like it. I finally dumped the contents of my camera onto the interweb, so there will be pics too. We've spent the last few days doing a lot of nothing: reading, listening to music, eating pasta and ice cream. My bandmates are catching a train to Milano late tomorrow night so they can be at the airport in plenty of time for their flight home on Wednesday morning. Julie joins me here on Thursday, and it looks like our tour will take us to Venice, Berlin, and Prague before coming back to Bologna to pick up luggage and then flying out of Milano on the 7th. No promises either way, but those of you who requested German breakfast spreads are more likely to get the goods than those of you who requested absinthe. But we'll see.

Saddam Hussein is Rock 'n Roll

2007-07-19T11:44:00.000-04:00

So there's this Czech band called Malignant Tumour who played the Yellow Dog fest with us. They've been around for a while; I think they used to be kinda grindy but now they're like a metal Motorhead. They're older dudes, and they wear wigs and faux facial hair on stage. Last night we watched a metal show on Czech MTV that they guest hosted, and we were treated to the following video. It is a multimedia tour de force. Check it.

Czeching in, part deux

2007-07-18T07:46:00.000-04:00

(A note - there are all sorts of important characters on this godforsaken keyboard that I can't access, so bear that in mind.) Ok, so, Poland. The fest in Gdansk was fun, though we spent the whole weekend surrounded by a coterie of drunken Poles. Before we left for Olsztyn, we took about an hour to walk around the old city. I'm glad we did, because it was fantastic--the coolest looking city we've seen so far. I have pictures that, obviously, I can't share with you right now. Gdansk is on the northern coast of Poland on the Baltic Sea. We didn't get a view of open water, but we did walk along a harbor. Used to be a German city called Danzig, and there's an obviously Germanic slant to the architecture. Walked around a cool church, snapped a pic of the oldest house in Gdansk (1541), got briefly separated from my crew in a crowded area. Good times.

Olsztyn was not the type of place I would have thought we would play in a punk bar called the Molotov Cafe. Like, not just the kind of place where people with leather clothing hang out, but actually run by punks. We played with The Assassinators, a Copenhagen band we had played with the day before (melodic d-beat punk with harmonized female vocals, good stuff), a really good local band called Utopie, and a French ska band who played foreeeeever. The bar is in the old town part of the city which was quaint and scenic. It didn't lend itself to any one or two particular camera shots, so just take my word about quaint and scenic.

The drives from Gdansk to Olsztyn and then from Olsztyn to Berlin provided a much different veiw of the Polish landscape than what we had encountered on our drive into the country. We passed through beautiful rustic countryside, which was complemented by some of the best weather we'd seen to that point. The drive to Berlin was something like 12 hours. We thought we were going to be there really late, but we rolled into the Kopi around 10pm and were told we were the first band to arrive. The Kopi is a huge, long-running Berlin squat named after its place on Kopinicker Strasse. It features five or six stories of living quarters plus two show spaces--one with a big stage and a capacity of multiple hundreds, and a more intimate space called Koma F where we played. The building was recently bought and there has been talk of eviction, so punks all over the continent have been preparing for a battle a la Ungdomshuset in Copenhagen. I did hear though that the residents of the Kopi had been in talks with the new owner and were likely going to avoid confrontation by paying some nominal rent.

Inside, I immediately felt the effects of the mold and mildew that saturate the building, and the back of the stage (where I got to play) was incredibly dank. Can't imagine living there. That being said, the people were great, and our dinner that night and our breakfast the next morning were two of the best meals of tour. As it turned out, neither of the other bands who were scheduled to play showed up. At the request of the booker, since people had showed up and payed to see three bands, we played our set a second time after a 20 minute break. It felt a little silly, but it was fun, and the crowd was even more into it the second time around. We sold more merch at that show than at any other, including the fests. (Which is not to say a lot--we will be bringing many shirts and records back with us.)

We hit a couple of record stores in the eastern part of the city the next day before heading to Potsdam. The public transportation in Berlin operates on the honor system: you're supposed to buy a ticket, but you can get on without one. Forrest was travelling around the city separately with a couple friends and got busted on a bus without a ticket. He got fined a cool 40 euros in an incident he insists on referring to as a "Stasi attack." Potsdam is just outside Berlin, so we had a short drive. We played in a illegal-turned-legal squat called Archiv which has been around since 1994, two years fewer than the Kopi. We played with just one other band, and not many people showed up, but the guy who booked the showed was really great. He told us about the bike tour he had taken last year, which involved cycling around Europe for a few months and then heading down to Africa. He started to do Africa with his cousin, but after his cousin's bike lost a game of chicken with a brakeless truck (cousin had jumped off in time), he decided to go on himself. He spent four months biking down to Gabon by himself. Which is insane. He got malaria four times, once nearly fatally. He talked about having to travel only at night in the hottest parts, and how it would sometimes be too hot to mend a flat because the patch glue wouldn't set. One day he covered only about 10 miles because he had to carry his bike over sand the whole way. Super impressive.

We're about to leave Brno for Ostravice, so I have to leave it at that for now. More later. Hope you're all well.

Czeching in

2007-07-15T22:19:00.000-04:00

It is really late here (Kladno, just outside of Prague) and I need to get some sleep, but since I have unlimited computer time at the moment, I wanted to post an update here. Feels like forever since the last one. Hopefully my memory holds up well enough to make this interesting...

Flensberg was a fun show. The Italians keep warning us about how serious Germans are and how we shouldn't risk joking around with them (a la Fawlty Towers, etc.) lest we cause an international incident. But the folks in Flensberg were all laughs and smiles, so it was smooth sailing. Like sailing a Panzer into Poland in early September, for example. In fact, Poland was next on our itinerary. The drive sucked, it was something like 14 hours. The German countryside, like its Swedish counterpart, is uniformly boring as shit.

Though my feelings about Poland changed in the following two days, my initial reaction was that it was one of the dreariest places I've ever seen. It just looks positively beat down. And it seems like they thought that no one would notice if they just painted every twelfth building orange or something. The going is slow in Poland; there are almost no highways. Practically every road is two lanes with paved shoulders that make it wide enough for three cars abreast, and everyone passes in the middle (ie, into opposing traffic). It took a long time from the border to Gdansk; I don't even remember how long at this point. We were playing there the following day, which was day two of a two-day fest, but we were trying to arrive in time the night before to catch a Polish band called Filth of Mankind who we all like. At a certain point we got a text message with an estimated time of when they would play, and there was no way we were going to make it. So there was to be no reward for the long-ass drive. Once we got to Gdansk, it took another hour to find the venue. Thank god for international punk rock time, because we got there right before Filth of Mankind went on. They were good but not great in my opinion.

We played the following day. Attendance was good, and we played ok.

Ugh... the sun is coming up, so I will return to relate the past week - possibly even tomorrow. G'night.

Jealous of those of you who sleep on stationary objects

2007-07-03T12:33:00.000-04:00

Bonjour from Flensberg, a scenic little German city near the Danish border. I'm in a reasonably priced internet cafe, so I can let my fingers do the talking for a little while. I either haven't had time to write or haven't been willing to pay exorbitant price to write in about a week. (Internet on the ferry cost €2 for 14 minutes. While expressing nostalgia last night for American Taco Bells' comfort food and comfort prices, Justin speculated that the same food here would cost "six euros and a kick in the dick.")

So let's get caught up through the past week or so. We spent two and a half days in Copenhagen. Day one involved driving 11 hours from Mannheim to play with Framtid. Great show. The next day it poured all day, so we just sat inside watching tv and doing nothing, which was frustrating. We stayed with a dude named Lasse, a super hospitable and, shall we say, resourceful punk (the kind who offers to get you anything you want and you know he can follow through with it). Our show that night was at a proper club with a "garage metal" band and a psychobilly band (the latter was actually really good). We got shit pay that night, but I swear we had a truckload of beverages at our disposal. Even I drank three bottled sodas. It's amusing to play at clubs with backstage/dressing room setups. It's nice to be treated like a "real" musician, but at the same time I catch myself thinking, "um, we can just piss against the wall outside and drink tap water and that'd be cool." Which is not to say that we aren't availing ourselves of the great outdoors with some frequency.

Day three in K-town allowed for some exploration. We didn't start our wanderings until late afternoon, but with sun in a barely flirtatious relationship with the horizon, late nights offer up the local sights just as well as afternoons. Mila, Shravan, Forrest and I walked through the downtown on our way over to Christiania. Copenhagen is pleasant enough to walk through (and almost everyone here appears to be in very good shape), but there's nothing breath-taking about the city center. The most unusual sight, to my Yank eyes, were all the bikes. They are everywhere here. I have never seen half so many in one place in my life. Apparently Copenhagen is as renowned as Amsterdam for its pedal power. Bike lanes are ubiquitous, located at a special elevation between street and sidewalk. Among bikers and pedestrians alike, there is a stupefying respect for traffic laws. It's understandable that everyone has to be more careful because of the cyclist factor, but man, if you jaywalk you are out there on your own.

Christiania is a part of Christianshavn, an island with bridge access from the downtown. I don't know all the details (I'm sure some of you know more than I), but Christiania was given to artsy squatter types by the city some decades ago. Now it's better known for its drug transactions than for anything else, I think. We were led the last few blocks there by some dude who was paying a visit to his dealer. He said that years ago Christiania featured open-air hash markets with 20 or 30 varieties. Things are more discreet now, but hardly underground. Across the street from where we stopped to sit and drink something, there were multiple people selling joints openly. Who knew you could cop a smoke outside the Woodstock Cafe on Pusherstreet? Apparently the cops roll in every few days just to harass the dealers, but they weren't around while we were there. I regret that we didn't walk around the lake and see all the makeshift dwellings that have been erected by squatters over the years. I'm not sure how the place is organized politically either. I need to read up. Anyway, it's largely a haven for burnouts, though there was something vaguely inspiring about walking under a sign as we left that read: "You are now entering the EU."

On our walk toward Christiania, I had seen someone handing out flyers for the Erotica Museum, which I had remembered reading about a year or two ago. We found it easily on our way back to Lasse's place, and we decided to drop €15 each to check it out. It was disappointing. The first displays you encounter are ancient representations of sexuality, but you very quickly find yourself surrounded by Playboy-era Western pornography. Forrest and Shravan, who had wandered ahead of me, were scarred by big-screen bestiality. By the time I got to that room, the screen was showing some tame 70s striptease video. Two rooms down (the last room in the museum) featured a wall of tv screens, simultaneously showing bad recent hardcore porn. One even had the Paris video. But...above those were a row of screens showing a skate video. And there was dance music playing. I believe the appropriate phrase is WTF? At any rate, with my understanding that the museum is unique, I wasn't expecting it to be so superficial. Eh, whatever, we saw naked people.

Our date in Malmö had always been tentative and didn't end up panning out (hence the extra day in K-town), so we drove to Gothenberg the next day. The bridge from Copenhagen to Malmö is hella expensive, like €70. Especially considering the ferry tickets to Finland and back, we got hammered money-wise in Scandanavia. If we ever tour Europe again, the northern countries might get the shaft. They're not remunerative enough to cover the exorbitant travel expenses involved. Our Gothenberg show was fun. We played with a Finnish band called Confusa (mid-tempo melodic punk with dual female vox, check 'em out if that's your thing) who played Stockholm with us the next night as well.

Stockholm was a big disappointment. Our show was in a basement in a house about 20 minutes outside the city. Three of our friends from Imperial Leather came to the show, and it was great to see them (Amyl and Kenko are pregnant with a future punk). We played with Confusa and a Russian band called Distress. The attendance was pretty low for a Saturday. We caught some dumb drunk teenage girls trying to steal shirts from us. I didn't have time to see any of my other Swedish friends, and we had to be at the ferry early the next morning, so we didn't have time to walk around the city. Total bummer.

The ferry from Stockholm to Turku takes about 11 hours, including a quick stop on the way at some place called Marie Hamina. I (ignorantly) expected most of the trip to be through open water, but we spent a lot of time passing through Swedish and Finnish archipelagos. We had picked up Borys, the last 1/3 of the Agipunk crew, in Stockholm, so we were rolling seven deep at this point. We got a pair of rooms down below (€16 for a room that sleeps four; not bad) to catch some shut-eye and shower. (Current shower count two weeks in: me, 4; Justin, 4; Shravan, 5; Forrest, 5.) I slept a few hours, showered, went upstairs (the ship has like 10 floors) and read for a while, rested some more. I had finally picked up a Cormac McCarthy book while in JFK when I realized the book I brought with me was in my checked bag. I'll pretend I chose it because people have been telling me I should check him out, but really it was the Oprah sticker on the cover that sealed the deal. If you're ever feeling a little too good about life, I suggest cracking open The Road.

Once we disembarked, we had a short drive up the coast to Pori. Our show was at a nice little bar with a good sound system, but very few people showed up. There had a been a fest in town that weekend, so playing on Sunday night was catch-as-catch-can. We stayed at an apartment less than a block from the venue. The guy who set up the show lived there, and he said he was going to go sleep at his girlfriend's once we got settled in. Instead he stayed up talking loudly and listening to music with a couple of his drunk friends. Our group had started out spread out between two rooms, but almost everyone quickly migrated to the bedroom when it became apparent that the late-night bullshit session wasn't ending any time soon. For some reason, Borys stayed in the living room, and the rest of us all had a good laugh when one of the drunk locals told him to "feel free to get naked" (to which he responded with genuine geniality that he'd "rather be sleeping"). I finally went out to ask them to take pity on our tired asses and shut up, and the dude who lived there was sitting on the floor naked puffing weed. I would have been moved to salute and sing the Finnish national anthem if only I knew the tune.

The next morning I popped into a record store next to the venue. It was full of rockabilly and other stuff I don't care about. If I had gone the other way up the street from the apartment where we stayed, I would have encountered a much better store and possibly gotten the jump on the Heresy/Concrete Sox LP that Shravan scooped up for a measly €15. We got to Tampere early, so I had time to walk around. Decent town, but the most interesting things I saw were a museum devoted to Lenin and an "erotic restaurant" discreetly named Big Tits. Tamepere actually has a long punk history, and we played at what I was told was a legendary club called Vastavilde (or something like that). We played with Selfish, one of the bigger Scandinavian punk bands going. We played one of our best sets of tour - and sold nothing save one record that was purchased before we played. There appears to be no logical relationship between how well we play and how much merch we sell. The punks have been very stingy to this point.

Oh, for the one or two of you who know Nahmi, we saw her in Tampere. She's living near there with Perttu. She's still totally fucked up, Perttu is still a drunken wreck...and they're having a baby! Hooray!

We had to drive all the Selfish dudes to the gig in Helsinki and make a couple stops along the way, so we didn't get there till about 8:30. That left essentially no time for me to explore, which was really frustrating. I had been looking forward to seeing the city. And the little bit of walking I did caused me to miss Kuolema's set, which was further frustrating. Otto, the drummer for Kuolema and Selfish, set up all three Finland shows and is a really good guy. And a really good drummer. Kuolema US tour in spring '08. Allegedly.

We went to a bar to kill time after the show before driving back to catch the ferry in Turku back to Stockholm. On the ferry, we immediately got a room and hit the sack. I must have slept at least 7 hours, though it didn't feel like it. I took a shower and got some food, and before I knew it we were driving off the ferry toward Malmö. We were hoping to have a place to crash in there or possibly with Lasse in Copenhagen on our way here in Flensberg. Neither panned out, so we drove all night. I caught some sleep on the floor of the van.

So here I am. The memory card on my camera is full, so I'm going to have to upload pictures for y'all sometime soon. Till then...

I wear my sunglasses at night

2007-07-02T10:28:00.000-04:00

No time for a proper update. I'm in a public library in Tampere, and there's a bar in here. Really. We've had a long few days, a lot more travelling than sight-seeing. Shows have been ok, but not great. I hope I'll have time to write more soon, but internet access has been spotty.

Italian wrap-up and beyond

2007-06-27T16:28:00.000-04:00

Hey everyone. This will again be a shorter update than I'd like, but I figured I'd write something while I have access to a qwerty keyboard, which feels like a luxury at the moment. Still no pictures, but maybe I'll be able to upload them tomorrow.

So Italy was great. The first three shows all went well. We rolled back to Bologna from Cesena as the sun was starting to come up to catch some sleep and switch vans. Our last Italian show (till Pannone) was in Bolzano (also called Bozen cause it's near the German border and is a very German area). We drove up a curvy mountain road to get to the show, which was in an abandoned tunnel. The show was powered by a generator, and we were surrounded by wooded mountains with a river running below us. The pictures I took don't do it justice. We slept in the van after the show and then made for Mannheim. Mila and Koppa were warning us that the cops in Bavaria pull foreign vehicles all the time looking for drugs, so we were prepared to be stopped and bothered without cause. Apparently we looked harmless enough in our brand new €30,000 Mercedes Benz tour machine and escaped harassment. We didn't know until we got there, but the show ended up being with World/Inferno Friendship Society from NYC. More people were there to see them, but we played well and got fed well and had a good time.

We had been planning to make the marathon drive to Copenhagen the next day to see the killer Japanese band Framtid on our day off, and then we got word that if we got there in time we could play the show. We slept in the youth center in Mannheim and planned to take off really early, expecting a 12 or 13-hour drive. There was a delay in the morning, as none of us knew where Justin had slept the night before (the youth center was two floors with lots of potential sleeping nooks). We spent at least a half hour looking for him before discovering he had been sleeping in the same room Mila, Koppa, and I had but was completely obscured by a blanket. We hustled his confused ass into the van and hit the road around 7:30. Koppa's the only one driving, and he did a superlative job navigating through rain most of the day. We arrived in Copenhagen 11 hours later in beautiful weather, plenty of time to play the show.

We played well and for the first time scored non-negligible merch sales. Framtid killed it as expected. I have pictures.

Tonight is the show we were scheduled to play here. I'm actually writing from the venue. It poured all day today, so we didn't have a chance to see anything; but we have another free day here (no show over the bridge in Malmo as planned). Hopefully things will clear up.

I'm sure I'm leaving out plenty of amusing details, but I'll try to fill in the gaps as I go.

Later.

My insides have turned into pasta

2007-06-24T06:52:00.000-04:00

I have to keep this brief, but I wanted to write something of substance before we hit the road today since I'm not sure when I'll next have the opportunity. Other than missing our connecting flight from London to Milano, travelling was low drama. No passport or customs issues at all. Alitalia has more leg room than Virgin, fyi. We landed in Milano mid-afternoon on the 20th, where Mila and Koppa picked us up in what will surely be the biggest tour van I ever tour in. I can't do pics in this post, but I'll put some up later. It can seat nine and still have room for a full set of equipment for two bands. And chandeliers or mobiles or something. We took a smaller van around Italy for our first few shows, but we're loading up the green monster today.

All three shows so far have been great. We even played well for two of them. They've all been in well-run squats, which is such a radically different experience from anywhere I've played in the states, save the Long Beach Warehouse (which is currently in limbo, I believe). The one in Bologna, the Atlantide, is prime real estate right on a main drag. Wouldn't last two minutes in the US. The Pirateria in Rome is much bigger, it's more of a warehouse space. Most impressive is the squat we played last night, Al Confino, which is in the countryside in Cesena. Seriously, there are fields all around it...it's beautiful. Can't imagine ever playing in a place like that anywhere else. Plus it was a great show, preceded by great food and followed by a goth dance party. Trust me, pictures of all this will follow when I have the time.

Some of you will be pleased to know that the porco dios are flowing freely.

Aghast Old World excursion 2007

2007-06-21T05:42:00.000-04:00

We're in Bologna. First show is here tonight. I'm hungry. Will write more later.

Don't let the door hit you on the way out

2007-05-28T18:41:00.000-04:00

Aram Sinnreich, a media industry consultant at Radar Research in Los Angeles, said the CD format, introduced in the United States 24 years ago, is in its death throes. “Everyone in the industry thinks of this Christmas as the last big holiday season for CD sales,” Mr. Sinnreich said, “and then everything goes kaput.”

Buh-bye.

I have no particular animus toward the compact disc--quite the contrary. But my feelings are quite different re the industry that lives off them. Music's gonna be just fine. Indie artists gonna be just fine. The death of the "music industry" (which ought to be considered an oxymoron if it isn't already) can't come soon enough.

Or, don't take it down so some truly decent person can burn two birds with one stone

2007-05-19T19:09:00.000-04:00

Oil addicts all around

Acknowledgments

2007-04-23T19:37:00.000-04:00

An overdue tip of the cap to Kurt Vonnegut, whose work I haven't visited often enough. I've only ever read Goodbye, Mr. Rosewater, Slaughterhouse Five, and Cat's Cradle; and like most artistic works that I've experienced only once, I don't remember a whole lot about them. At least I can say I was lab partners with his grandson in a geology course.

“No wonder kids grow up crazy. A cat’s cradle is nothing but a bunch of X’s between somebody’s hands, and little kids look and look and… No damn cat. No damn cradle.”

Also, happy birthday William Shakespeare. A dead white guy who deserves every bit of praise he gets. Legitimate canon fodder, if you will. Below is one fictional man-boy's experience of King Lear...among wizards.

"For sale along with 500 autonome, stonethrowing, violent psychopaths from hell"

2007-03-25T11:46:00.000-04:00

Ungdomshuset, a squat and punk venue in Copenhagen, was evicted and torn down earlier this month. It had existed in its current incarnation for 25 years and had a 100+ year history as a radical labor center. There's a good chance Aghast would have played there this summer if it were still standing. Just yesterday I ran into a friend who had played there, and I'm sure there are other DCers who have had the privilege. As far as punk houses go, it seems that Ungdomshuset was a really big deal in the European scene. The eviction was met with large, chaotic demonstrations that resulted in over 700 arrests and accompanying destruction.

The Reactable

2007-03-10T19:59:00.000-05:00

Way cooool. Check it out here and be sure to scope the videos.

To cut or not to cut

2007-02-23T15:51:00.000-05:00

As an opponent of circumcision, I've been experiencing some cognitive dissonance reading the series of stories about how the procedure appears to drastically reduce men's susceptibility to HIV. Without necessarily drawing an equivalence with clitoridectomies, one ought to consider circumcision genital mutilation - if for no other reason than, well, that's what it is. And, for me anyway, its lunatic religious provenance makes it that much more offensive. (Q: What does Jesus do with all that foreskin anyway? Best guess so far among my friends is that he made a sweet hang glider, though we have no hard evidence as such.)

Saving lives in a disease-ravaged population would seem to allow for some ethical shortcuts (ahem) - but even so, one is led to further complicated questions: how far is too far in the realm of preventive health care? how at-risk does a child need to be for us to condone cutting up his penis? Et cetera. Anyway, I happened to find this particular conundrum compelling and would be interested to hear what others think.

Fortunately, it appears the WHO has the right man on the job. Read for yourself:

LONDON (AP) - Scientists say conclusive data shows there is no question circumcision reduces men's chances of catching HIV by up to 60 percent - a finding experts are hailing as a major breakthrough in the fight against AIDS. Now, the question is how to put that fact to work to combat AIDS across Africa.

The findings first were announced in December, when initial results from two major trials - in Kenya and Uganda - showed promising links between circumcision and HIV transmission. However, those trials were deemed so definitive that the tests were halted early.

The full data from the trials, carried out by the United States' National Institutes of Health, were published Friday in The Lancet.

"This is an extraordinary development," said Dr. Kevin de Cock, director of the World Health Organization's AIDS department. "Circumcision is the most potent intervention in HIV prevention that has been described."

One big happy family

2007-02-07T20:32:00.000-05:00

Those of us who take music-sharing (through any and all formats) seriously constitute a special group. A special group featuring certain standout members. Last night when I reminded Erik G. of his previous offer to reunite my ears with teenage favorite record Incesticide, he didn't so much as flinch before writing "Incest" on his hand in sharpie to help him keep his word. Erik, this blog salutes you.

The Black Pack

2007-01-31T14:59:00.000-05:00

Interviews with M.A.-supported acts Antaeus and Wold on Pfork today. As interviews go, they're not stellar, but worth linking anyway. Props to that Brandon Stosuy dude for his coverage of all things heavy.

\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\Metal Scrabble////////////////

2007-01-29T15:51:00.000-05:00

\m/ trve \m/

Playlist:
Toadliquor - The Hortator's Lament
Toxic Holocaust - Hell On Earth
Nortt - Ligfaerd
Grip Inc. - The Power of Inner Strength

Can you spot the three actual band names in the picture?

I just missed an Eagles touchdown because I was watching this

2007-01-13T21:00:00.000-05:00

No Justice

2007-01-12T17:23:00.000-05:00

I'd say the administration ought to be the ones covering their butts.

Pretty standard, really

2007-01-03T18:26:00.000-05:00

FBI Reports Duct-Taping, 'Baptizing' at Guantanamo

In a previously unreported allegation, one interrogator bragged to an FBI agent that he had forced a prisoner to listen to "Satanic black metal music for hours," then dressed as a Catholic priest before "baptizing" him.

I mean, who doesn't listen to a little B.M. before getting baptized?

Ok, just ONE more

2006-12-31T18:13:00.000-05:00

The post below was intended to be my last of the year, but I have to share the following with you. I was just reading the Post's coverage of people viewing Ford's body in the Capitol and stumbled across these golden nuggets:

Calvin Brown, 37, of Rutherglen, Va., cut his vacation in Virginia Beach short to come to the Capitol. He awoke at 3:30 a.m., dragged his 7-year-old daughter, Alexandra, out of bed, and drove to Washington while she slept in the car.

"Majestic is the best description for me," he said. "This is a man who stood for matters of courage, regardless of political causes."

Try parsing that quote. It certainly does read like it was uttered by someone who woke up in Virginia Beach at 3:30 in the morning. Sorry, Calvin, "majestic" is not the best description for you. "Incoherent" is. PS your daughter hates you.

The crowds appeared smaller, however, than those who came out to honor former president Ronald Reagan when he was lying in state at the Capitol in June, 2004. People stood in line at points during that time for more than eight hours.

"Everything has been running rather smoothly," said Capitol Police spokeswoman Sgt. Kimberly Schneider. She noted the moderate turnout, saying, "It might be the holidays or people being out of town."

Right. Or it could be that it's PRESIDENT FORD.

James Dozier, 25, who works for a non-profit organization in Denver didn't expect to stay in Washington for New Year's. But he extended his vacation after Ford's death. He had been here too when Reagan died and stood in line for more than eight hours to go through the Rotunda then. But Ford's memorial carried more significance, he said.

"Although I wasn't alive" during his presidency, "I've always admired and respected President Ford," he said. "When you look at politicians today there's so much cynicism. He wasn't elected. He did what he thought was right. I'd probably say he was my favorite president."

THESE PEOPLE ARE TALKING CRAZY TALK!! That quote is even funnier if you imagine exclamation points at the end of each sentence.

Ford was the commencement speaker at Barbara Stull's graduation ceremony at T.C. Williams High School in Alexandria. His son, Steve, was in her class, which graduated in 1974, when Ford was vice president. Stull, who was among the hundreds waiting to pay respects to Ford at the Capitol today, said she didn't quite remember what he said that graduation day. But she will never forget his voice and demeanor.

Year-end self-promotion!

2006-12-31T16:56:00.000-05:00

This space is vastly under-utilized in terms of marketing and networking, don't you think? There's a recent copy of The Economist sitting on a coffee table at the house where I'm dog-sitting that trumpets "Happiness and how to measure it." Well, since every rationalist worth his or her salt knows that any bowl of good qualitative pudding ought to be frozen, cubed, and served quantitative if it's to have any meaning, here are a couple concrete things you can do to help me push my happiness to eleven (11):

Number One (1): You may proceed to the Aghast site, where I have recently posted two (2) mp3's from our next record. Listen to them, enjoy them, share them with friends. (When the record comes out, if you could each please purchase eight [8] copies, that would allow us to continue to invest new capital into our venture.) Don't assume that just because someone's not a "punk" that she won't enjoy our music. It's important for us as a commercio-artistic enterprise to penetrate as many market spheres as possible. For instance, I think a good example of a non-traditional niche for our music is the hearing impaired community.

Number Two (2): My other entrepreneurial exercise at the moment is a dog-walking business. I try hard to keep these two money-making schemes separate, because in one of them I hit things and in the other I really shouldn't. Now that the dog scheme has finely honed virtual representation (a nice website), you should visit it and share it with your co-workers, co-investors, co-friends, and co-family. We would love for them and their animal companions to join this partnership in which we make money. We currently cover numerous neighborhoods in DC and accept payment in US dollars, but for obvious reasons we may soon be switching to the euro and outsourcing the walks to Poles and Bangladeshis. Or... wait... I'm just reading Business Week... It seems that due to market fluctuations in the developing world that we will be having Poles and Guatemalans doing our walking. Sorry Bangladesh! We were able to look the other way when your Transparency International ranking came out, but these rumblings about collective bargaining are a little sticky for small businesspersons like ourselves. (Note to investors: this same issue of Business Week suggests that we should think seriously about adding Raytheon to our portfolios based on the expected earnings from their new lines of cluster munitions--"Cute Puppy" and "Ice Cream Cone." I'm sold!)

Business is a two-way street, so if you're working any angles that you want to promote, feel free to do so in the comments section. Cross-pollination, synergo-fertilization, and cynical market expandancy are the names of the game. May 2007 bring great prosperity to us all!

End of an era

2006-12-27T13:13:00.000-05:00

Wow. James Brown on Christmas Day and now Gerald Ford. I can't imagine anyone was prepared to lose the King of Soul and James Brown in the same week.

Houston, you have a problem

2006-12-26T23:23:00.000-05:00

For those of you with whom I haven't already shared this. Score one for the haterz. Thanks to sibling Katy for stumbling across this while googling my blog.

Top 10 (deluxe multimedia edition)

2006-12-16T22:09:00.000-05:00

"Top 10 Albums of 2006 You Won't Agree With" would probably be a better title, but when it's 70+ degrees in mid-December, it's hard to be pessimistic. Oh wait--yes it is, the earth's going to explode. Anyway, here's my top 10, and because I love you all so much, I've made downloadable zip files of all the albums. Clicking on any of the titles will take you to a link on sendspace, where I don't think you have to sign up for anything, but if you do, it's free. As always, I encourage all of you give as much financial support to independent artists as possible. But sharing's still an unimpeachable virtue.

My major musical interests these days are metal on the one hand and ambient/drone/experimental/weird stuff on the other. Once you scroll down, it will become immediately apparent which one of these tendencies took the cake this year. At least in terms of new albums I heard in '06, the heavier ones were definitely the more memorable. And the likes of Sonic Youth, the Melvins, Cursive, Tim Hecker, and others who are popping up on numerous year-end lists will have to deal with the fact that I didn't hear their new works in time for them to make the list. Here we go...

#10#10#10

Antaeus - Blood Libels

In affairs of state, France has become notorious for being, well, a leetle Vichy-vashy. Its metal scene, however, is a much different story, especially if we're talking black metal. Antaeus is among a crop of bands that comprises one of the strongest national b.m. scenes in the world. Blood Libels represents a slightly new approach for a band who built its reputation by creating some of the most jagged, raw, violent black metal ever (see 2000's kid-tested-mother-approved Cut Your Flesh and Worship Satan and 2001's De Principii Evangelikum. Uh, did I mention they're Satanic? Yeah.). Listening to snippets of all three albums, perhaps Blood Libels doesn't stray as much from previous works as my initial impression of it suggested (especially in the production department). But the most chaotic aspects have been shaved down to favor a sound that's more torpedo than cluster bomb. Sheer speed is the name of the game here; Antaeus is right up there with the likes of Immortal and 1349 in the hyper-blast elite. If there's one album you run screaming from this year, make it this one.

#9#9#9#9

The Decemberists - The Crane Wife

Ok, so it wasn't the follow-up I hoped for, but The Crane Wife is still a good album. I got into this motley crew last year with everyone else when Picaresque came out, which I picked as my second-favorite record of 2005. Most of what everyone loves about The Decemberists musically is present on this album, but it's somehow muted. As someone to whom lyrics have come to matter less and less (perhaps simply as a natural result of my increased interest in lyric-less music, and it may be just a phase...), I was really taken by the stories in Picaresque; there was something captivating about the characters Colin Meloy created. And the fact that said characters were usually cast in absurd and/or doomed scenarios probably played into my warped sensibilities. That's a big part of what's missing from The Crane Wife (the compelling protagonists, not my warped sensibilities, which thankfully remain intact). With the exception of the wonderful little "Shankill Butchers" (which echoes an earlier Decemberists ditty "A Cautionary Song" that would be a candidate for a spot on a favorite-songs-ever list if I were to assemble one), I just don't care about these characters. My response to the titular song-cycle doesn't go much beyond, "Dude finds a bird, marries her. Yawn." I much preferred the government paper-pusher who fell for a Russian spy in "We Both Go Down Together" or that dead baby in "Leslie Anne Levine." I know this is sounding like a pretty negative record review, but it's in the context of one of the best mainstream bands out there and up against a seriously amazing predecessor. You will have these songs caught in your head for days, and that will be a good thing. (Apologies to Erik G. and Cursive: I still haven't heard Happy Hollow, and I'm well aware of the possibility of a number of you chasing me through the streets with torches demanding that it be awarded the #9 spot. I and my special flame retardant bathrobe say, so be it.)

#8#8#8#8

Xasthur - Subliminal Genocide

With its roots in the forests of Scandinavia (ok, and in the actual cities too), black metal has taken a circuitous route to the point where a faction of its current ruling class hails from sunny California. Xasthur and Leviathan, one-man projects of take-this-Christian-name-and-shove-it dudes Malefic and Wrest, respectively, are widely recognized as top brass in the genre--Malefic for his perfection of the suicidally bleak approach and Wrest for his unorthodox creativity and copious output. Anyway, we're talking about Malefic here, though there's not much to expound on. It's vintage Xasthur: long, slow-to-mid-tempo songs featuring the most minor of minor-key guitar work topped with supremely tortured howling vocals soaked in reverb and distortion. Comparisons are being made to an early full-length of his that I've never heard (I just have a couple of more recent splits), but there's very little straying from the path of general despair ubiquitous in his releases. Contender for bleakest album of the year.

#7#7#7#7

Kylesa - Time Will Fuse Its Worth

Another rocker from this Savannah quintet, who now feature two drummers! I'm not sure what the consensus in the DC scene is about these guys, but a lot of the Richmond punks I know through Aghast seem to think they got boring after their first record. I strongly disagree. I didn't actually hear them on record until after I witnessed their mesmerising performance at Pointless Fest in '04. I've seen them at least three times since (they're coming through again in February), and their live performance always ranks somewhere between solid and fantastic. With hybridization more and more common in the punk scene and throughout music in general, a band can't stand out simply by claiming a crust/hardcore/metal/punk/southern rock pedigree. But Kylesa infuses that brutal stew with too many hooks not to stand out. You really have to see them live to fully experience the whole package, but this album is a great place to start if you want to check out their studio work. I'm listening to it again as I type: so. fucking. good. I had to take a quick break from typing to play some air guitar a minute ago. Oh, and the last track on the record is a double drum solo!

#6#6#6#6

Milanese - Extend

Look at me! I'm on a bandwagon! Weeee! Seriously though, as Pitchfork noted recently, dubstep finally seeped out of its UK underground and into the margins of the wider Western (if not global) indie world. Which means that people like myself who don't keep an ear to the dance floor can be in on the goodness. And so Milanese and Burial (see below!) in particular are getting regular airplay in my vicinity. Milanese represents the more bangin' end of the dubstep spectrum--Extend is populated with huuuuge beats throughout. Lots of vocals too, which work better in some songs than in others. "Mr. Bad News" is one of my favorite tracks of the year. If you saw me on the street rocking earphones in the past couple months looking like I was trying hard to suppress overt dance moves, there's a good chance I was listening to Milanese.

#5#5#5#5

Isis - In the Absence of Truth

Isis is an evolving band, and I like everything they've ever done. But allow me to reminisce for a moment. Oh, how I miss the buzzsaw riffing of "Hive Destruction;" the escalating suffocation of "Collapse and Crush" recalls an earlier moment in New England history when one Giles Corry demanded more weight and was obliged. And each of the two full-lengths that preceded Absence feature riffs that belong in the band's Heavy Hall of Fame. But Absence is a different animal. When I saw Isis perform a few of these songs before the album's release, I was truly disappointed by the lack of heaviness. I know that Isis can do other things well too, and I appreciate that. They've been one of the most impressive bands of the last ten years in my humble 0., and they didn't build that legacy on amped E-chords alone. The new album is more thoroughly melodic than previous works, but it's still damn good. Special props to Aaron Harris for being a perennially underrated drummer. He's had an immediately recognizable style since the first ep, and he stepped it up here. I'm lamenting my decision not go see these guys with Tool in October.

#4#4#4#4

Krisiun - AssassiNation

Ok, so I said this list was skewed heavy, and this here's the anchor. If the phrase "Brazilian death metal" sends you scampering, well then scamper. I'll just stay here with my nose turned up. At YOU. Anyway, this is one of the best death metal records I've heard. Three aspects stand out: the songwriting (if there were a metal Olympics, Krisiun wouldn't walk away with gold in the speed or tech categories, but they manage to write songs that are interesting throughout and don't rely on d.m. cliches); the great mix of tempos (plenty of blasting, but they never get stuck in a boring rut); and the production (full and smooth but also lively and not over-processed--such a *huge* factor, especially in the drum sound). And no unintelligible gurgling (though I'll concede that has its place): classic gruff Brazilian vocals round out the mix. A soundtrack to hostilities.

#3#3#3#3

Burial - s/t

Burial's debut album (released on Hyperdub, a label run by another notable dubstep head, Kode9) is drawing praise from all quarters, and deservedly so. Skittery, cavernous, dark--this record is for people who wince at the lack of subtlety in most Euro dance music but who also find IDM lacking in soul. Don't take my word for it, as I know jackshit about club music, but Burial is much more of a clear descendant of the UK garage genre proper than is, say, Milanese. The beats are heavy on clicks and clacks, and the songs are controlled and concise but still invested with emotional vibes, though not particularly uplifting ones. I don't like dub, and I tend not to like music associated with club culture (major exception: drum'n'bass), but I love this record.

#2#2#2#2

Tool - 10,000 Days

"Vicarious" and "Jambi," the first two tracks off this album, are by far my most-listened-to songs of the year. Like, by far. And if I were able to play my drumset regularly, I'd be playing along with them (or trying) regularly. Tool is a band I've heard bits and pieces of over the years, but I've never owned any of their records, and I'm not sure I'd ever heard one in its entirety until 10,000 Days. (I'm trying to remedy that now.) I should say that 10,000 Days is too long, contains too many drumless passages (for my liking), and is front-loaded. Maybe those factors should hamper it in a record of the year contest, but the things about it that I like I love so much, and it's been the go-to album on my iPod for as long as I've had it (or, "had" it . . . thnx ssx!). Everybody knows that Tool is mathy and proggy, but what's exceptional about them is that they use their mathiness in the service of great song-writing, and beyond the 5/4 or 9/8 time signatures (see "Vicarious" and "Jambi," respectively), they involve interesting (but never forced) polyrhythms within odd-time phrases. All of the instruments, including the vocals, are noteworthy on 10,000 Days. Listeners interested in the art of drumming especially need to pay attention to Danny Carey. Anyway, do yourself a favor and check out a couple songs. At the very least, you'll get a taste of what's been bouncing around between my ears on a regular basis.

#1#1#1#1

Agalloch - Ashes Against the Grain

Heaviness, mathiness, suicidal bleakness--move over, cuz killer riffs win the day. From my first listen to this album, I doubted it would be surpassed as my #1 pick, and--surprise, surprise--it wasn't. I reviewed it here earlier, but to briefly recap... soaring rock/post-rock/metal riffs assembled in a "dark metal" context with impeccable songcraft. Agalloch doesn't believe in handling catchy melodies and chord progressions with kid gloves: you will hear that guitar line again, and you will love it even more the second time. The vocals on A.A.t.G. will probably discourage many potential listeners, but hopefully those people are also generally discouraged by their own lameness, so that will tend to balance things out. HIGHEST RECOMMENDATION.

See you next year, same time same place.

America in a nutshell

2006-12-15T10:55:00.000-05:00

Border Fence Firm Snared for Hiring Illegal Workers

December 14, 2006 · A fence-building company in Southern California agrees to pay nearly $5 million in fines for hiring illegal immigrants. Two executives from the company may also serve jail time. The Golden State Fence Company's work includes some of the border fence between San Diego and Mexico.

Sound round-up

2006-12-07T15:14:00.000-05:00

Ok, it's that time of year. Time to pick the best musicks. At least half of my top 10 is still up for grabs, so point me toward stuff that I need to check out before making my final list. Go!

You have one week to steal a suit

2006-12-01T12:56:00.000-05:00

SANTARCHY

Pop quiz

2006-11-30T15:32:00.000-05:00

Q: Should Washington, DC

a) welcome the Clear Channel-owned House of Blues to the Mt. Vernon neighborhood, or

b) help other well-meaning Americans hunt down Clear Channel executives like so many rabid badgers?

This will be 25% of your grade.

Pitchfork interviews Steve Reich

2006-11-27T18:41:00.000-05:00

Say what you want about the 'fork, but in between the excessive praise they heap on Clap Your Hands in Helsinki or whoever, they're interviewing the likes of Prurient, Asunder, and Mr. Reich. The last of those may be read here. I gotta find the Hungarian recording of "Music For 18 Musicians" he mentions...

Death to false Idols

2006-11-27T18:39:00.000-05:00

Elsewhere on CNN...

2006-11-08T01:08:00.000-05:00

Blah blah, elections, yadda yadda... The really juicy stuff is nestled in the nether regions of the CNN website:

It [an Us Weekly magazine story] claimed Spears and Federline, feared the release of a secret sex tape, which they had viewed with their estate planning lawyers.

S-O-V at the nine-thir-dee

2006-10-30T15:17:00.000-05:00

Post coverage. I was there. I approve. This is one rising pop star I can get behind.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2006-10-27T19:53:00.000-04:00

DC Music Lovers - Get Bummed!

2006-10-13T13:41:00.000-04:00

Below is an email from the owner of the Warehouse (sent to someone else who works there, not to me) laying out in concise, detailed terms what's going to be happening with the music situation there.

Sucks.

Warehouse Next Door is moving – to another space within the Warehouse Arts buildings.

We are combining WND and the Warehouse Second Stage in the Second Stage space and creating a hole through the wall to enter through the Warehouse Café.

This new space will be a multi-use space, hosting both performance and live music. A typical night would have 2 slots – a 730pm slot for performance and a 10pm slot for music. Load-in for the late slot will be either before 7pm or at 9pm.

We will be tinkering with the mix of music, probably limiting the number of punk, hardcore, metal, etc. shows that we currently host. WND will continue to be an all-ages club.

For the moment, I am going to take over the calendar and ask everyone to request specific dates from me. I will need date, bands, and type of music. It is unlikely that we will host many 4-band bills and I’d like to experiment with 2-band bills.

The new WND will be slightly smaller. New stage will be slightly bigger.

Old WND – Room is 18’ x 46 (includes bar)
Stage – 10’ x 12’
91/2’ ceilings

New WND Room – 18’ x 32” (with overflow space available through a wide doorway)
Stage – 9’ x 18’
91/2’ ceilings

New WND will have 2 small dressing rooms – one for early performers and one for later bands. Dressing rooms will be behind the stage.

Many of the details remain to be worked out, but we will probably start in there on the weekend of November 2nd.

70-Year Reich (it's ok, he's a Jew)

2006-10-06T19:50:00.000-04:00

Steve Reich, the ground-breaking minimalist composer (and personal favorite of mine) turned 70 this week. Pretty important milestone I guess, so worth noting here. I can't think of another composer with whose body of work I'm so thoroughly taken. He's produced so much great stuff, it's hard to know where to begin. If you're wildly inquisitive and have some money to burn, the Works: 1965-1995 box set covers a lot of it (note: link to corporate retailer for convenience only; no endorsement intended). For the merely curious, I would be thrilled out of my pants to copy discs from the box set for you. Just ask.

Heartwarming or Creepy, You Decide (note: there's only one right answer)

2006-09-29T23:06:00.000-04:00

And here I thought you had to drive your Humvee over something unpleasant to end up a "flat soldier." Guess I was wrong.

"Where's Flat Daddy?"

[shiver] Hopefully nowhere the fuck near me. This is giving me flashbacks to when, as a kid too young to even know who KISS were, I inherited a huge cardboard cutout of the band. I don't know how many consecutive nights it took of these rock 'n roll heroes scaring the living piss out of me before they were ejected from my room, but I'll tell you it wasn't many. Easily countable on one hand. Or perhaps even on one torso (for the more corrugated among us).

Faggots of the world, unite

2006-09-29T20:02:00.000-04:00

Reading the City Paper cover story ("Shell of a Town," about College Park) last night, I was overwhelmed with pride by the following passage (please note the context in which the f-word is used if it makes you uncomfortable):

There was a faggot sighting just the night before. Shortly after the bars’ closing time, a student was walking along nearby Princeton Avenue when a car drove by. According to Prince George’s County police, the driver called the student a faggot. The student kicked the car. The driver stopped the car, grabbed a crowbar, and attacked the student. They both ended up at the hospital. The faggot apparently put up a good fight.

Bless him. Any reaction that might make a casual verbal abuser think twice before shooting his mouth off in the future is a noble endeavor. Awarding him with a trip to the hospital and/or the body shop is just icing on the cake. But faggots, please: let's not get ourselves attacked with lethal weapons if we can avoid it. We're all worth more intact.

Joy of Toy redux

2006-09-29T19:48:00.000-04:00

Fellow toy piano concert attendee David found this brief video clip of Isabel Ettanauer's performance. You'll notice that also on the page is a link that says, "Next Video: Sex Musem." Go ahead and click on that.

Overheard on the Pennsylvania Turnpike

2006-09-25T20:00:00.000-04:00

So a friend and I are driving from my parents' house to Philly last night, and there's construction on the turnpike. Two lanes of traffic are crawling along equally at a negligent speed. Fortunately, we were paired with, if not the most amusing driver in the whole state at the time, at least the most colorful on the pike. For sure. Mid-late 30s man with what appeared to be a couple of daughters (tween or younger). This man was very upset about the construction, and was very vocal about it for at least a half hour. So while tailgating the car in front of him (we're all moving at 3-5mph) and once even flashing his high beams when it didn't move up fast enough, he spouted the following quotes with his windows wide open:

"IDIOTS!!!" (multiple times. many times. in various permutations, often audible from two or three car-lengths away. he's referring here, apparently to the entire crew of PennDoT for not posting a sign about the construction on the on-ramp.)

"I didn't pay to be inconvenienced!"

(and the kicker, again directed at everyone involved in any way, shape, or form with the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation) "Bunch of white-trash negroes!"

No, I didn't make that up or mistype it. My fingers are too adept for the latter, and my mind is not amazingly awesome enough for the former. I must say that, without making any assumptions based on skin color, dress, hairstyle, or type of car, there might be a wee bit of irony in there somewhere.

It was pretty black and white in person, too

2006-09-25T16:18:00.000-04:00

Pics from our Long Beach show recently posted on the Razorcake online zine...

The Joy of Toy

2006-09-21T01:17:00.000-04:00

I spent my Tuesday evening at the Austrian embassy taking in a performance of Austrian pianist Isabel Ettenauer. In the past five year's, she's positioned herself as the world's premiere toy pianist, and her performance included four toy pianos, a grand piano, and "tape" (it's 2006, so actually compact discs). Good fun was had by all. She played John Cage's "Suite For Toy Piano," which is the earliest piece written for the instrument (1948) as well as a number of contemporary works written specifically for her. I picked up her cd The Joy of Toy, which is worth checking out - either through her website or through, um, a friend who might own it.

A saint he ain't

2006-09-21T00:35:00.000-04:00

Actually, the latter 2/3 of Chavez's UN speech is pretty good. He highlighted the fact that the US (and others) sat conspicuously on their hands while Israel destroyed a neighboring country for absolutely no reason, and that the UN too often serves as a venue for an American dog-and-pony show whenever a thin veneer of pseudo-legitimacy for the crime du jour becomes politically unavoidable. And I think he is, in a way, serious about internationalism. But until he stops cozying up to every anti-American autocrat he stumbles across on his self-promoting trots across the globe and jettisons his own authoritarian tendencies, I won't consider him much more than a vessel for my skepticism.

I could mention that Chavez has actually done some good for the average Venezuelan, and that calling Bush a devil on his home turf is at least as amusing as it is goofy... but if I start to get too even-handed, the above pictorial editorial (which I conceived in an intense five-second brainstorm) will begin to...

lose air?

All week. I'll be here all week.

selected sounds vol. i

2006-09-18T22:52:00.000-04:00

As promised, I'm going to try to start doing some record reviews here, and this is the inaugural installment. I'll probably stick to new-ish stuff, but who knows.

AGALLOCH Ashes Against the Grain

It's fitting to start off the review series with this release; it's my front-runner for album of the year. This is a metal record, but it's proabably not what you think. The band name and the overall aesthetic are suggestive of black metal, but, aside from the vocals (most of which are in the classic raspy BM vein), these guys can't be pigeonholed that way. The term they use on their website is "dark metal," which does the trick well, though I can't rattle off any other bands in that particular subgenre. The best description I can give is that large chunks of this record sound like Mono covering Cult of Luna with black metal vocals on top. Other bits sound like power metal on cough syrup. And there is one with a traditional 6/8 black metal feel. Anyway, the songs are long and generally slow (not doom-y slow, but slow) and effortlessly epic. It's just one great riff after another without any of that self-conscious "here's six minutes of a quiet part leading to three minutes of a REALLY LOUD part" stuff. If the first guitar riff in the first 30 seconds of the first track doesn't hook you, don't waste your time with the rest of the album. What makes this such a great record is that multiple songs have multiple memorable riffs, and the band understands that there's no such thing as playing a great riff too many times.

And did I mention that this is catchy as hell? Major indie-rocker crossover potential (in fact, it already got a glimmering review on Pitchfork). Along with a handful of ep's, this is actually the band's third full-length, though I haven't heard any of their earlier stuff (and I don't yet own a hard copy of this one, yikes! I'm trying to avoid that with these reviews). I would particularly like to encourage those of you (uh, all of you?) who aren't big metal fans to give this a chance. You won't like the vocals, but they're pretty sparse anyway. If you can't get into this record at all, then there's probably no hope for you.

Oh yeah - these guys are from Portland, OR, and really like mountains and trees and stuff like that.

Sonic Circuits DC

2006-09-17T23:01:00.000-04:00

DC's annual experimental music fest is comin' up. I saw only one show last year; I intend to hit all of them this year. The SCDC website is almost entirely devoid of information, but the Warehouse, which will serve as this year's venue, features a current schedule of performances on its site.

Let them eat asphalt

2006-09-14T20:24:00.000-04:00

Seriously . . . the Segway is the dumbest invention of the last decade. Maybe that's not fair: able-bodied people who have bought Segways are the dumbest people of the last decade. Seems now the machine can suddenly shift into reverse, causing serious injury to the rider and, additionally, dampness in the drawers of those fortunate enough to witness it. I now regret even more never having been chased by one of those chump Segway-mounted MPD officers. I saw another one today in Union Station. Definitely a great tool in high-foot-traffic areas. Well done, Chief "Dude, Where's My Car?" Ramsey. I bet the Segway cops are able to catch up to 50% of criminals too stupid to, I don't know, run up or down a step.

Remember how I said you can't fool the market?

2006-09-14T08:43:00.000-04:00

Here's some "logic" you might want to sit down before contemplating.

No rest for the clever

2006-09-12T09:27:00.000-04:00

After purchasing Banksy's newest compendium for my young (and hopefully impressionable) cousin a few weeks ago, my appreciation of his work deepened significantly. Since then, he's punk'd Paris and now Disneyland. More power to him.

In a bit of irony one should have seen coming a mile away, the alternative Paris CD's he distributed, in a hip ltd. ed. run of 500, started hitting eBay almost immediately. There's currently one going for $400 with four days left. I saw another one last week listed for a flat price of $2,200. You can fool some of the people all of the time, but you can't fool the market!

Danger: helmets!

2006-09-12T09:05:00.000-04:00

The double-edged sword of head protection.

Music for people

2006-09-11T08:52:00.000-04:00

I don't think I've linked them here before, so I thought I'd turn your attention to an mp3 blog called Music For Robots. Some college friends of mine have been at it for a couple years now and have established themselves as a significant site in the genre. The postings are daily and come with varying degrees of written description. A lot of the music they cover falls into two camps, neither of which does much for me, to be honest: dance-oriented electronic music and what I would call upwardly-mobile indie rock. I have heard some good stuff there though.

downunder rapwonder

2006-09-06T02:08:00.000-04:00

Macromantics is easily my favorite female Australian rapper. Ok, ok, that doesn't do her justice; she can easily hold her own outside of Kangarooland. Her vocal approach can be roughly described as a more mature Lady Sovereign if Lady Sovereign actually had anything to say (though the fact that she doesn't does not keep this blogger from being a fan of her pablum). I have her self-released cd Hyperbolic Logic and a remix 7" thanks to the good folks at aQ. I just learned that she's dropping her first proper album in a couple weeks and it will be brought to the North American masses via Kill Rock Stars, though this doesn't appear to have been officially announced on the KRS site.

You can head over to her myspace page to listen to the first single from the record plus another song that I'm guessing is on it as well, as it's not on the cd I have. Apparently there will be one track that features none other than Sage Francis. The new stuff is more produced than her self-released jam and may consequently lack some of the endearing quirkiness of her early stuff. Regardless, I'm a fan and am happy to help spread the word. And hey: she's vegan, at least somewhat political, and, according to her myspace, a huge black metal fan. \m/

Black and White and Red all over

2006-09-05T23:55:00.000-04:00

The following is cribbed directly from the homepage of Stephen O'Malley (SunnO))) et al.). Amazing. I wonder how microscopically small my chances are of ever seeing one of these in person. Pictures follow the text.

In the USSR and Eastern Europe in the 1950s underground night spots would play music pirated from the west. The only media they had were recorders etched into discarded X-ray film. I've long sought some images. Researcher Camille Cloutier pointed me to these, collected and posted by József Hajdú. Here's what he says about them:

During the late 1930s and early 1940s the prevalent sound recording apparatus was the wax disk cutter. As a consequence of the lack of materials in the war-time economy, some inventive sound hunters made their own experiments with new materials within their reach.

I do not know the name of the inventor who first utilized discarded medical X-ray film as the base material for new record discs; however, the method became so widespread in Hungary that not only amateurs, but the Hungarian Radio made sound recordings on such recycled X-ray films.

I felt that those X-ray record albums relate to our contemporary lives in many ways, especially when considering such terms as 'multimedia' or 'recycling'. I copied the X-ray films with their engraved sound-grooves on photosensitive paper and made enlargements of certain details.

I was quite lucky to find a considerable amount of similar sound records in private collections. These are also interesting from the visual aspect. By utilizing different photographic processes, I created from them pictures meant to be exhibited in galleries.

In an online paper called The Historical Political Development of Soviet Rock Music, Trey Drake, at the University of California, Santa Cruz offers further historical perspective on this street use of technology:

Owing to the lack of recordings of Western music available in the USSR, people had to rely on records coming through Eastern Europe, where controls on records were less strict, or on the tiny influx of records from beyond the iron curtain. Such restrictions meant the number of recordings would remain small and precious. But enterprising young people with technical skills learned to duplicate records with a converted phonograph that would "press" a record using a very unusual material for the purpose; discarded x-ray plates. This material was both plentiful and cheap, and millions of duplications of Western and Soviet groups were made and distributed by an underground roentgenizdat, or x-ray press, which is akin to the samizdat that was the notorious tradition of self-publication among banned writers in the USSR. According to rock historian Troitsky, the one-sided x-ray disks costed about one to one and a half rubles each on the black market, and lasted only a few months, as opposed to around five rubles for a two-sided vinyl disk. By the late 50's, the officials knew about the roentgenizdat, and made it illegal in 1958. Officials took action to break up the largest ring in 1959, sending the leaders to prison, beginning an orginization by the Komsomol of "music patrols" that later undertook to curtail illegal music activity all over the country.

Music Vs. The Volcano

2006-09-04T23:24:00.000-04:00

Or maybe you already knew about data sonification?

From the "not that you care" dept.

2006-09-04T18:57:00.000-04:00

According to the Sub Pop site, Wolf Eyes (who's, like, the biggest underground band in the world at the moment) has been covering a No Fucker song live. "So what!" you exclaim. "I come here to be amused, not confused!" Fair enough. I mention this only because No Fucker is one of only three established US bands that I know of doing the blown-out Japanese punk thing - the other two being Aghast and Lebenden Toten from Portland. (We did play with a band in Long Beach who was doing this style as well, but I think they're new and I forget their name anyway.) No Fucker is from Utica, NY, and take their name from the thanks list in some Discharge record where it just says "thanks to no fucker" (get it?). They're an odd combo: one dude who's 35-40 and three kids in the 17-22 neighborhood. (The older guy recently lost a battle with a power saw and, sadly, can't play guitar any more, though he still sings.) We've played shows with them in Utica, Albany, and Richmond. They ape the long-running Japanese band Disclose, who in turn is Discharge worship with the distortion upped by a factor of 10. I like both bands a lot. Anyway, it's just odd to see such a small degree of separation between the world of Wolf Eyes/Sub Pop and our little uber-niche corner of the punk world.

Now, in fairness to you, the reader, I'll use this space to mention a couple of serial installments I've been thinking of laying down here that you might actually find enjoyable. One will be for reviews of new music I pick up. The other, which will be more labor-intensive (and hence, less likely to appear regularly, ha) would be a "my life in music" kind of thing, tracing what has been far and away the most important thread in my life from the age of four or five to the present. This may give you reason to stay tuned, even if you don't care about the likes of Wolf Eyes or No Fucker (your loss)...

Minimum Wage Studios, RVA

2006-09-03T21:07:00.000-04:00

I took my camera with me to the studio when Aghast recorded in July. I didn't capture any moments from the actual recording process, but the studio itself (and a few objects just outside the door) proved to be excellent photo-fodder. I didn't mess with exposure times or alter any of these photos after the fact (photoshop, etc.) All blurred images are the result of my physically moving the camera as I was shooting. As usual, click on any pic for a larger version.

DRUM FORTRESS

SHRAVAN'S CORNER

HEADPHONES

ASSISTANT ENGINEERS

BLOODLESS SURGERY

HEADLESS SANTA WITH STUFFED DOBERMAN

MANNEQUIN

RIP in RVA

2006-09-01T01:52:00.000-04:00

The Nanci Raygun is done. For now, at least. Aghast played our first show with our current lineup (second show ever) there in the summer of 2004 (first show ever was August 10, 2003 in Baltimore as a three-piece with our old bass player). We've since shared that stage with many good friends/bands.

Driving the point home

2006-08-28T16:20:00.000-04:00

I got called a jerk today for crossing in a crosswalk at a four-way stop. Somebody needs to make a shirt (or bumper sticker) that says, "STAB ME - I can't responsibly exercise my right to exist"

Proud heritage

2006-08-24T11:15:00.000-04:00

The Word of the Day for August 24 is:

pariah \puh-RYE-uh\ noun
1 : a member of a low caste of southern India
*2 : one that is despised or rejected : outcast

Example sentence:
Sasha became a pariah among the experts in her field after publishing a highly inflammatory article.

Did you know?
"Pariah" comes from Tamil, the language spoken in Tamil Nadu, a state of India, and in parts of Sri Lanka. The predecessor of "pariah" is the Tamil word "paraiyan," which literally means "drummer." "Paraiyan" is also the name of an ancient tribal group whose members are included in the Untouchables, or Harijans, the lowest caste in India. Consisting mostly of servants and laborers, members of this tribal group traditionally beat their drums at festivals but were excluded from religion processions. "Pariah" was originally the English rendering of the name of that specific group. It was eventually extended to denote any member of the lowest Hindu caste, and finally used more broadly as a synonym of "outcast."

Two-thousand ninety-eight dollar baby

2006-08-20T20:39:00.000-04:00

I finally joined the world of laptopery. Hooray. (To the left is Sonna, a horny kitten I have to tell to shut up and get away from me while I'm eating.) The aspect I'm most excited about is not having to deal with my shitty old PC any more. And, of course, I hear great things about Macs' media capabilities, so... if you all want to start mailing me things like a minidisc recorder, marimba, vibraphone, etc., I'll get cracking on that solo project that's been kicking around my brain. At any rate, I should be more available over the old interweb now that I have a home connection again.

Um, I had lots of pictures of cats on my camera for some reason. Here are a few. I actually like cats a lot. I just don't like it when they beg me for sex when I'm eating waffles.

Today's listening: The Goslings Grandeur of Hair, Isis Live IV, Isis Panopticon, playing music with Erik aka The April Decca

Movies (holy crap, I've been renting movies; very unusual for me, but I'm trying to get in the habit since I know there's so much good stuff out there): Audition, Thumbsucker, Monster, Repulsion

Current (re)reading: A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

London calling (long distance)

2006-08-09T20:07:00.000-04:00

Story in the Post today about Chinese punks. Not particularly deep, but pretty cool that it was on the front page.

In other news, I was checking out the scene reports in the current issue of MRR and, in reading about punk bands in Uzbekistan(!) and Tajikistan(!!), I came across the website for Tian An Men Records, run by a dude in France who puts out bands from places you wouldn't believe punk has taken root. Upcoming projects include comp LP's from Uzbekistan and Tajikistan and yet-to-be-announced releases from Kenya, Sri Lanka, and Iraq. Plus a 13-year back catalogue that includes bands from Kyrgyzstan, Madagascar, Cuba, Nepal, Myanmar/Burma, and Brunei. Granted, the quality of the featured bands may not live up to the concept of punk rock generated in exotic corners of the world, but still...friggin' awesome. I'm going to try to put an order together and will report back if and when the records land on my doorstep.

No one understands my art

2006-08-02T18:48:00.000-04:00

Review of the Aghast Desolate Legacy 7" from Punknews.com:

So, today I was downtown at a local indie record store, so I could buy the first Jawbox album. I had some money left over, but not enough for a CD, so I browsed through the 7” bin to find something that looked cool. I found Aghast's Desolate Legacy in the “Local Bands” section, and figured that if listening to it might give me a chance to actually go to a show for once, it might be worth spending the $3 for it.

Anyway, I take it home, open up the record sleeve, and read the lyric sheet first. I immediately knew it was a d-beat band, because of the first song:

Continual cycles of repression
Chaos never ending
Regional stability erodes
Chaos never ending
The arms have been proliferated

So, yeah, my expectations dropped a little, but they were still up there. I take it downstairs, put it on the automatic (so not punx) turntable, and listen. It was the most unbearable noise I have ever heard. Incredibly fast, poorly recorded, with feedback that actually hurt my ears, and the screechiest female vocalist I’d ever heard.

Then I put it on at 33 RPM.

Now it was listenable, but still really badly recorded. Even with the lyrics sheet, I still had trouble telling what the lyrics were. This wasn’t helped by the fact that the songs pretty much blended together. Basically, this is better than, say, that high school grind band that the principal won’t let play at the talent show, but it’s significantly worse than anything released by a “major” crust label, like Profane Existence.

All in all, I don’t think I would miss not having this. Still, I have to support local music, and I know I couldn’t play this well, so I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt. If this is Aghast’s first release, then hopefully they’ll be able to get better recording equipment next time. If this isn’t their first release…let’s just say I won’t be getting their other records.

Oh, and the singer’s a guy.

Back in the colony

2006-07-19T22:42:00.000-04:00

Was it a long six weeks or a short six weeks? I'm not sure. Anyway, despite the weather, it's good to be back. Tomorrow I head down to Richmond to spend a couple days recording the Aghast mini-lp, which will contain such hits as "Deformed Frogs," "Chaotic City," and songs I've been playing for over a year but still know only as #1, #3, etc. We're doing it analog, which means we can push the guitar tracks into the red; and with the record mastered at 45... NOIZE ATTACK.

See y'all next week.

Close to home

2006-07-15T02:43:00.000-04:00

I should be going to bed right now, but I thought it worthwhile to first mention that one of the women who lives in the house I'm staying at tonight (one of our roadie's friends) just informed me that she's Lebanese, that she's supposed to go to Lebananon for her brother's wedding in three weeks, and that she had a grandmother who was killed by an Israeli bomb in the 90s. And here I was all white and upset about things...

IED's along the road(map)

2006-07-15T01:05:00.000-04:00

Well, it's that time of the month in Israel, I guess. Maybe you've followed the news closer than I have, but apparently the capture of a lone soldier DURING A FUCKING WAR has caused the Israeli government to escalate its standard practice of killing and terrorizing civilians in the Occupied Territories. There will be a rally against these actions on Tuesday in DC (details below, copied from an email I just received). And as to the attack on Lebanon, it's worth noting that Lebanon in the 80s and 90s was Israel's Vietnam. Guess they didn't learn. All goofy hyperbole aside, who does THAT remind you of? (And by the way, by Israel's logic, if registered Independents in Minnesota started launching rockets at Canada, the Canucks could use the presence of Jim Jeffords in the Senate to justify the bombing of O'Hare.)

The American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) will be holding a rally for peace to protest Israeli military action in Lebanon and Gaza on Tuesday, July 18, from 5-7pm in front of the White House.

We invite you to join ADC and other organizations as we call for an immediate ceasefire and for peace in the region. This rally is open to all peace loving persons and organizations. Contact ADC to add your organization to the list of participants.

WHAT: Peaceful Rally to Protest Ongoing Israeli Violence in Gaza and Lebanon

WHEN: July 18, 2006 from 5-7pm

WHERE: 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., NW --in front of the White House
Take Metro to McPherson Square

Boston redux

2006-07-14T23:54:00.000-04:00

Back in Beantown. I took the bus up here from Hartford this morning and then trained it out to Rockport, a town next to Gloucester about an hour away from Boston. Due to relatives in the area, I've spent a good bit of time there over the years and really enjoy it. It's not a particularly remarkable town; touristy in the summer, but never offensively so. Small beaches, small shops, historical markers (I noticed one today that identifies the first honkey settler in what was then called Sandy Beach in 1690). The best part of going there as a kid was staying at my grandmother's house, which is located on a narrow, dead-end lane within view of the ocean. What the house lacked in cleanliness it made up for in size and character. My grandmother died on February 15, 2004, while I was in New York City marching against the impending slaughter in Iraq. Not knowing what else to do with it, my family sold the house, so it's no longer part of the Seager Empire. I walked by it today just to take a peek, and it seems to be under good management. I spent some time with an aunt I rarely see and got treated to Thai food and was whisked back to the train station just in time to catch my ride inland.

Our New London show was a bust. Big stage, good sound, and we played well, but only about 10 people besides ourselves will ever know that. Apparently Municipal Waste, a popular thrash band from RVA was playing across town, and three of the five bands on our bill cancelled. A redeeming aspect was that the friend who set up the show bothered to show up at all - his co-homeowner and partner of eight years had left him the day before. But he was there, and took us back to his place in Hartford for food, drink, and music. AND drove me to the bus station this morning (after a nauseating 15 minutes during which I couldn't find my wallet and thought I had left it at the venue an hour away). I slept in an air-conditioned room on a comfortable makeshift bed that I believe is generally referred to in tender fraternity parlance as a flip-n-fuck, but I shared my sleeping quarters with an overpowering brand of cat litter that continued to cling to my clothes for part of the morning. Sorry Boston!

NYC was a lot of fun. Good show and good times hanging out with friends afterward. Ran into a college acquaintance the next day on the Lower East Side but had little to talk about. Speaking of college acquaintances, I'll be spending my day tomorrow at a wedding up here for a good friend from Bates. I'll pocket the part of me that would prefer to call weddings 50/50 parties and just enjoy myself with friends I don't see often. Special thanks to pal Rene for flying my suit up from Virginia so it didn't have to spend six weeks in a tour van. Pics of me in said suit on Mundane Arcana? I could be bribed with bottles of Honest Tea. Until then...

POSTSCRIPT: I realized I haven't written about a significant tour experience involving a small Canadian town, our van, a ditch, and a tow truck. So here goes. While slowly making our way down to the Vermont border from Quebec, our roadie Matt started to puke (in a bag this time). Matt had spent the better part of our three days up north getting wrecked, aided and abetted by a special Canadian beverage called the Big 10: a 20 proof 40. So I'm driving the van, taking us through a small town called Granby, and am urged by my fellow travellers to pull over hastily so that Matt could empty his stomach in a more natural setting. I pulled off a narrow two-lane road onto a narrow shoulder with high grass that hid a deceptively steep ditch. We didn't tip over, but we got stuck at a disturbingly acute angle. Exhibit A:

Now, at this point, there are seven of us in the van--the band, Matt the puking roadie, other Matt from upstate NY, and a guy named Tom from Baltimore my bandmates knew who we picked up in Montreal. Part of the fun for you at home is picturing us all milling around the van in the Canadian countryside with cars driving by. Included in the group were a six-inch mohawk, multiple dread mullets, and a dude who looks like the Crow. A cop showed up presently, called us a tow truck, and 15 minutes and $57 Canadian later, we were back on our way. (The cop took a picture of us all with the Leaning Van of Granby, but it's on someone else's camera.) Apparently Granby is known for it's zoo; I'll always remember it for it's shitty shoulders.

POST-POSTSCRIPT: While I'm remembering anecdotes I left out, I know a few of you will get a kick out of the fact that I *unconsciously* began humming the opening rhythm of "Firestorm" while driving through Weed, California. I swear.

POST-POST-POSTSCRIPT: The venue for our DC show fell through, and one of my bandmates has to attend a funeral that night anyway, so your only chance to see us will be at the Sidebar in Baltimore on Monday. It would be cool to see folks there, but I'll see you all in the D of C soon enough.

Last leg

2006-07-11T17:34:00.000-04:00

Greetings from Boston--specifically from the public terminal at the Lucy Parsons Center, the local anarchist bookstore/infoshop. If you're not familiar, it's worth a trip if you're ever up this way.

We're almost done. Providence tonight, then NYC and Connecticut, then a couple days off, then Philly, Baltimore, and DC (currently in limbo...if you know of a show we can be added to, let me know). Burlington and Boston shows were really cool (Boston in particular, much better than I would have expected) with a worthless show in Albany thrown in between. After Connecticut, I'll be coming back up to Mass for a friend's wedding and then rejoining the crew in Philly. Meanwhile, they'll be returning the van, which is in pretty excellent shape, all things considered. We'll be doing the last couple days in a car, which is no big deal. On the 21st and 22nd, we'll be recording for a short LP in Richmond, and then I'll be back in the District for good.

Stateside

2006-07-08T01:43:00.000-04:00

We're back. Another fast, uneventful crossing. I think we're all still stunned. We played Burlington tonight and are currently hanging out with folks from a sweet band called Man the Conveyors. More later.

O Canada

2006-07-05T11:38:00.000-04:00

We're in. It was ridiculously easy. A friend of a friend in upstate New York pointed us to a small border crossing on a Mohawk reservation near Massena, south of Montreal. We were asked how many of us there were, where we were from, where we were going and for how long (recording in Montreal, ahem), what we had in the van, whether we had any alcohol, tobacco or fireworks... and then, without asking for any ID or leaving her little border officer hut, the perty young lady waved us through. Such was the culmination of hours of worrying and scheming over Justin's questionable legal status and Forrest's lack of photo identification. We made it to Ottawa in plenty of time for the show, which was at a house. I spent about an hour and a half wandering around downtown beforehand. Parliament was closed (I might try to go in again before we leave today), but I walked around the outside. It's perched above the Ottawa River, on the other side of which is Quebec, and specifically the city of Hull. I'm going to see if I can snap some photos before we hit the road for Montreal, which is only two hours away. I also need, for obvious reasons, to get a picture of the periodical purveyor I passed yesterday called Mags and Fags.

[Outro: 12XU . . . ]

A few more pics

2006-07-03T02:17:00.000-04:00

LONG BEACH (photos courtesy of oldhcdude.com; you can view all of them here, pics of us start on page 7)

IDAHO FALLS (courtesy of Beert)

So close and yet so far away

2006-07-03T01:23:00.000-04:00

Man, it is weird to be in Pennsylvania. Weird because I was on the west coast a week ago, and weird because I'm five hours from DC with two weeks left of tour. Very disorienting.

We're having a blast on the road. This trip has been head and shoulders over last summer's tour, and some of the best shows were in the past few days. We're already talking about doing a 10-day jaunt out to Minneapolis and back in January; the upper midwest seems to like us. Fuck Japan, we're big in Detroit!

Chicago: Laziness got the best of us, and we spent no time checking out the city, which none of us has spent any significant time in. We ended up lounging around Zack's place in Milwaukee till late afternoon, and driving into Chicago just in time for the show. Good turnout with a vibe very comparable to the Madison gig but in a (packed) living room. We had planned to stop by the Waldheim Cemetary the next morning to say whassup to Emma and all the other good folks buried there, but we slept late and lost the directions our hosts had given us the night before, so we just hit the road for Cincinnati.

Cincy: Stayed with and played with Envenomed, whom we had shared a bill with in Kentucky last year. We played in a room in a massive warehouse that's being illegally rented to tenants, including the girlfriend of one of the Envenomed dudes. There wasn't a huge turnout, but everyone had a good time, and most people came back to the house where we were staying to party.

Detroit: We'd been looking forward to this show. Kids went off for us there last year, and the venue was the same as last year, a big anarchist house/performance space/etc. called the Trumbullplex. Envenomed was playing too, so we all drove up together. Local bands Reaper and Shitfucker filled out the bill. Lots of kids showed up and rocked out for every band. Unfortunately our singer, Justin, who's a big dude, did a "combat roll" early in our set and landed wrong and probably cracked a rib. So he's in some pain. Other than that, good times.

Pittsburg: Here we are. We played the Roboto Project with our friends F.L.A.K., who play a similar style of music. It was an early show that moved pretty quickly. We missed the first couple bands, and then all of a sudden we were on and then done, and then it was 9pm, and now it's 1:30 in the morning. Kind of a strange day, what with the rather abrupt return to the East. I took a much needed shower and washed a pile of my reeking clothes.

And now: the Canada problem. Just as we had sorted out how we could most easily get ourselves across the border (Justin, who may have legal issues, walking across with a friend as a day tourist and the rest of us ditching all of our merch at a friend's place in upstate NY and driving across with just our equipment, looking positively angelic and non-terroristic). We were actually starting to feel optimistic. And then Forrest lost his wallet, which contains his only piece of photo ID. So we're in limbo, big time. We're supposed to play our first show up there on the 4th. I have no idea how things are going go, but I daresay our prospects are quite a bit darker than they were only a day ago.

I don't want to end on such a negative note. But I'm going to.

Half-way and still truckin'

2006-06-29T14:21:00.000-04:00

If I can keep myself from getting distracted by the Ali G dvd playing behind me, I'll try to give a rundown of the past week. Portland, Seattle, Idaho Falls, and Madison shows were really good. Minneapolis and Rapid City weren't as well attended, but still fun. PDX and Seattle were our last two shows with Imperial Leather. We were all sad to see them go: Cap'n Dan and the Profane Existence mini-mall, Matte the drummer, whose bandmates say he looks like the little wooden boy on a Swedish tv show, Kristofer the bassist who memorably drew a "new" Swedish flag on a small piece of paper (crude, thick male genitals with "Sweden" written underneath), Kanko (guitar/vocals) who told me I could borrow their drumset at the Gilman show only if I took off my clothes and played with the Imperial Leather banner wrapped around me like a cape... I could go on. Hopefully we'll get the chance to rendezvous with them in Stockholm if we make it over to Europe next summer.

Quick rundown of the shows...

PDX: Good show, good turnout. Matt got loaded and puked on himself. In the van. I whacked my knuckle on a cymbal, and it swelled up pretty good.

Seattle: The show was at a house on the outskirts of the city, and we didn't have time to wander around downtown. Which bummed me out...I like Seattle, and who knows when's the next time I'll be out there. Good show, great vibe. The first actual basement show of tour, and it was a true punk basement. Lots of people hanging out in the backyard, which featured a makeshift bar, the massive PE distro (of course), and a barn that houses a bike shop and a metal shop. The show ended late, we got to bed around 4 and planned to get up at 7 to make the haul to Idaho Falls. We woke up at 9.

Idaho Falls: We knew we were looking at 10-12 hours at least but we weren't exactly sure. Three hours into our drive we called our contact in Idaho Falls, and he all but told us we wouldn't make it on time. We checked in again in Boise at 6pm. We were told we were still four hours away, and that probably wouldn't cut it. I had been driving all day and moving at a pretty good clip, but we positively burned it from Boise to Idaho Falls. We got there in three and half hours, right on time. We set up really fast and played to a good crowd. We were all operating on just a few hours sleep, but we decided that it would be best to leave for Rapid City as soon as possible. We hung out in Idaho Falls for a few hours (at a farmhouse that some kids rent for ridiculously cheap) and then hit the road.

Rapid City: We were going to drive through Yellowstone Park, which is the most direct route between those towns, but when we got to the entrance, we learned that a) it costs $25 to drive through the park, and b) we were there at 6 or 7 in the morning, and parts of the road weren't even open yet. So we detoured north into Montana to pick up I-90 there. We got into Rapid City with time to spare. Got an oil change, and made use of the free car wash coupon we received. We were supposed to play a bar (oh man...wait till you all see the posters that the bar owner made for the show...wow). It looked like turnout was going to be far too low for the promoter to cover the cost of renting the bar, so the show was moved to Storybook Island. Cute, huh? There's a park in town, part of which is specially tailored for kids with things like an old-woman-who-lived-in-a-shoe shoe to climb in, etc. We squatted a park pavilion a played to 15 people with no vocals.

Minneapolis: In retrospect, we may have made a bad decision by choosing not to pay the $15 to take the scenic loop through the Badlands on the way from Rapid City. I would have liked to see all those craters where the aliens landed and gave birth to L. Ron Hubbard. Oh well. We played a basement show that had been set up late in the game at a house that doesn't normally do punk shows. Low turnout, but a good time. We stayed with Skell, who's an uber-punk-looking dude who put out our second 7". After the show I hung out with Michelle Lee, a former District resident whom some of you know (she's doing very well, busy with four or five different jobs plus activist stuff). She gave me a midnight driving tour of the city, which I had previously seen almost nothing of. She explained that activism there tends to focus on long-term projects rather than protest-y stuff. While not without drawbacks (a radical/punk community that tends to segregate pretty seriously along project lines), this approach has produced and sustained an amazing number of collectively run institutions. I need to spend more time in this city at some point.

Madison: Great show. We played in a frathouse that wasn't a frathouse (not sure exactly what its deal was) somewhere on the UW campus right on a lake. Pretty scenic. It was a diverse show (metal, thrash/powerviolence, and us) with a diverse crowd, and everyone was pretty into everyone else. So to speak. Oh yeah, and Iron Lung played and they rule! After the show we drove to Milwaukee to stay with our friend Zack (which is where I was when I started writing this thing, though I'm far away now).