| Aw shit.... |
[Oct. 9th, 2008|05:41 pm] |
As excited as I am to go to Grand Rapids and celebrate the Mighty Narwhale's release of their debut album, I am a little sad that it is falling on the same date as this year's Ypsilanti Songwriting Festival. Why should I be so sad? Well friends, the two main guests are Paul Burch and Jon Langford. The last time Paul Burch was in the Ann Arbor/Ypsi area was 1998. He played the Screaming Dog, which was a shitty bar that lasted all of twenty seconds and was located where Live at P.J.'s is now on First Street, and he played there only weeks before I discovered his music at the record store where I was working (though it wouldn't have mattered because I was only 20 at the time and likely wouldn't have been able to get in). That's ten years ago, folks--1/3 of my life ago. I've been following him since and I've been blown away by most everything he's done. I have had the pleasure of seeing him twice, though both were at music festivals (SXSW and CMJ, both in 2001), so I don't imagine the sets he played were particularly usual. While most people are unfamiliar with him, especially here in the north, some of you indie kids might remember him as the vibraphonist for the sprawling Nashville band Lambchop.
Via Paul Burch, I became a big fan of weird-ass songwriter and poet Tom House, as well as author Tony Early, whose book, Jim the Boy, featured a soundtrack by Burch.
And then there's Jon Langford. He's a semi-legendary figure from the '70s and '80s UK punk scene via fronting the Mekons. I've been a Mekons fan for a long time, but I've been even more into Langford's recent solo work and was delighted a few years ago when the Found Magazine 7" I had contributed a track to had come out and also featured a track by Langford. His recent collaboration with Kat Ex from Dutch punk band (and fucking forward thinking motherfuckers) the Ex is worth several spins. Goddamn it. Langford rarely plays outside of Chicago, and when he does play Chicago, he doesn't tell anyone he's playing Chicago, so I've actually never seen him. He's also a great visual artist and you probably recognize his work if you're into some of the Bloodshot releases over the last decade or so.
Apparently the two have been playing a show here and there together over the last couple of years. This is like missing every birthday party ever. |
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| (no subject) |
[Sep. 17th, 2008|02:53 pm] |
There are those bands in the world that I've given up trying to turn people on to for being too brash or experimental or just odd, but that struck a chord in me at one point or another. It happens, of course, and I just take those records, keep them as mine, and not worry about how they are perceived. I was really sad when one of those bands, Granfaloon Bus, broke up back in 2003. I tried to get a few people to listen to them over the years, but, partly because of the vocalist's warble, which is in tune about 2/3 of the time, gave up due to their music being the kind a person has to spend enough time digesting before he can make a decision on whether it's his thing or not, and most people generally won't work that hard to decide if they're into something or not. I certainly don't, most of the time (especially these days). In fact, I didn't think much of Granfaloon Bus the first time I heard them, but I was working in the record store when their fourth album, Shlafwagon, hit the shelves and there weren't many good promos to play on the floor, so I played it more than a few times until I was struck by one of Felix Costanza's lyrics, which went, "Come on down to New Orleans, I'll pour the concrete and name a street after you." I just love the sentiment in that. The more I listened, and the more I got into the band's meandering melodies, the thing that really stood out was how brilliant, compelling, and downright bizarre Costanza's lyrics were. He has no boundaries. A sample:
"I can make Old Faithful late," I lied, right into her ear. "I can finger mother earth's g-spot just by searchin' around for yours."
That's definitely one of his weirder songs, about a teenage kid trying to get lucky on the 4th of July in a campground with the neighbor campers' daughter. I always liked this one too, just because it doesn't seem like it could ever actually fit into a song when you see it written out:
"Look, a full moon."
"I'm sorry son, that's the sun and it's always full so don't stare anymore or you'll have to learn braille."
I started thinking about them again today because Hezekiah Jones is playing the Blind Pig tonight and one of his songs starts with the lyric, "I bake cupcakes for the army," and there's a Granfaloon Bus song that starts, "I'm baking pies for the armed forces." I don't begrudge Raphael of Hezekiah Jones if he lifted the lyric (he probably didn't, but just in case); shit, I've lifted a couple of lyrics from him myself. I even put an apology in the liner notes of the first GLMS record because I, subconsciously, lifted the sentiment of this lyric:
You know, I used to hold hands with girls like you, I'd walk with them in public and spend money on them too.
I had just bought the record that has that song on it (by the way, it's the saddest song ever) when we were recording the GLMS album and lifted the lyric, recorded it, then listened again to the GBus record and realized where I stole it from. At that time, it was too late though, the song I stuffed it into was already mixed.
At any rate, because of Hezekiah Jones's song, I decided to find out what, if anything, Felix Costanza was up to these days and I was happy to find that he's started a new project called Okie Rosette. Their MySpace has a few tracks on it and, so far, the one I'm most struck by is "Sing the Hotel" which has this gem of a lyric in it:
Because in the time it takes a cloud to overtake the sun, like a coyote to the suburbs, on an empty stomach you've come draining pools of their enjoyment, dunking heads to see the frowns. I'll hope the worst, I'll pray the worst, I'll think the worst until you're put down. We first met like side-view mirrors on a narrow street, smashed at infancy.
Also, I found a few videos on YouTube. The sound is compressed to an annoying point, here's "Some Kind of Other Love (World War II)," which has a skronky baritone sax solo by Ralph Carney, the guy who used to play on all of Tom Waits's albums:
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| Little Weekend |
[Jul. 7th, 2008|02:42 pm] |
Since my move to Ypsilanti a week ago, I've resigned myself to staying at the new place, reading books, working on music, and generally staying out of the public eye. Partly this is to save money (no more going out to the bars for a while) and partly because it's been a while since I gave myself the opportunity to just simmer in my own thoughts and adjust my mindset to a place where I'm relaxed. By "a while," I mean "two years." That Kaylan is my apartment-mate is nice because she also plays music, so I don't feel like I need to hide my guitar playing or any such thing when she's around. I saw this morning she'd left me some sheet music for a guitar/cello duet, which I'll take a stab at tonight, provided it's not too difficult (I never really learned to read music).
It's a bit stunning to me that I've not allowed myself any regular down-time in such a long period, and now that I am giving myself that time, I'm finding that I don't ever want to leave the house. I did depart for a short time on Thursday night, when I went to the Elbow Room for a nightcap and ran into a few people I'd not seen in some time. For the 4th, I went out to Ferndale and spent a relaxing afternoon out at Care's for a backyard BBQ and a couple rounds of Bag-O before returning to the place to work on music. Incredibly, I was able to finish four new songs, which is a rarity for me. I always take so long to write songs--and truthfully, all of these songs had been started in one capacity or another for at least six months, but a pair of them were nothing more than brief melodic sketches, one was nothing more than a stunted verse and chorus, and the last was nearly done but needed some editing. It took some time, but I'm really pleased with the results. Though it's too early to be sure, it seems that only one of the four needs some slight tweaking, the rest are good as they stand, at least for now.
We played Cityfest on Saturday, which went much better than I expected. I didn't break my guitar this year, which is nice. It appears I'm not nearly as much of a dumbass as I used to be when it comes to throwing equipment around. In fact, I no longer throw my guitar. The show went very well, people were incredibly responsive, and, afterward, I was able to track Tania's lost phone down by calling it and calling it and calling it until someone answered. I had to run around the city to find the woman who'd picked it up and walked off with it, but it was worth it for the conversation:
PHONE RESCUER: So, what do you look like so I can find you among all these people?
ME: Well, I'm wearing a white dress shirt and a tie.
PR: A tie? Damn, that's raaaare!
ME: I also have a beard.
PR: Is it new or old?
ME: Pardon?
PR: The beard, is it a new beard or an old one?
ME: Uh, it's fairly new, actually.
PR: How's it filling in?
ME: It's filled in quite well, I think.
PR: I'll be the judge of that.
She complimented me on my beard. I had just trimmed it up that day, after all.
James, Tania, and I went back to Ypsilanti where I transferred to my car and drove to Ann Arbor to visit Chris Bathgate, who had come back to town for the previous night, even though I really just wanted to go back to my apartment and work on more music. I'm glad I went to hang out with Chris, though. It had been nearly three months (I think, maybe more...) since I'd seen him and, as per the route of our usual hangouts, the night turned into a scene from the movie Dazed & Confused. There was a bunch of hipsters (and me, somehow) hanging on the roof of Arbor Vitae with, of all people, Drew Barrymore. She's much smaller in person than I imagined. And super-cute too.
"I've got a beard and I shave it really weird. I've got a beard. Yeah, yeah."
~ The Gok |
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| Right, well...finally, eh? |
[Nov. 17th, 2006|06:20 pm] |
I have this thing with online journals; specifically with keeping one. That is that I made the rule for myself when I first started this journal that I'd never post anything "friends only" or "private" or whatever. I find it a bit foolish to turn to the internet and post thoughts and ideas that I wouldn't want the internet to read. But now the problem is that in many ways I turn my thoughts to the internet and to my friends on the internet because I'm locked in this fucked up cubicle culture where no one speaks to each other. Seriously. There are some days here where I don't speak out loud until after 5:00pm, i.e. after I've left the office. Furthermore, the nighttimes of my life are filled less and less with actual human interaction and as a result (albeit a pleasant one), I've read more books in the last month than most of the students I find myself surrounded by in this town.
When I have serious thoughts that I feel I need to bounce off people, I find that I'm becoming more and more comfortable actually submitting these thoughts into the electronic ether than trying to find a real, live human to talk to. Part of this comes from being an admittedly conceited fucker, like I believe everyone to be sometimes, and part of it comes with the understanding that I'm often able to better describe, and therefore entertain, my thoughts when I write them out. Another part comes from the sometimes helpful exchanges that happen when people respond to me and to each other in a way that cannot--or, at least, rarely does--happen in conversation. But there are times like now, where I've some heaviness in my heart and no one I'd feel comfortable talking to about it, but the want for input. I'm still debating as to whether or not I should put it out there, and the reason I've chosen this forum should I decide to, is specifically because I've neglected it so long and I assume that most of the people I know who used to visit this space to check in with whatever was on my mind have likely given up coming here due to inactivity.
Also, I suppose I could change my "rule."
In the grand scheme, my worries aren't so bad, and I know this. It's just trying to come to the decision as to how I could better divide my time when so much of what I've devoted myself over the years still does not fulfill me in the way I want to be fulfilled.
I have to go get ready for a gig I don't want to play, so I guess the fates are telling me that I should leave well enough alone.
Goodbye for (what will likely be) several months. |
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| THIS FRIDAY! |
[Aug. 14th, 2006|03:47 pm] |
"What is this show about anyway? Who's Adado? Who's DJ John Headband and doesn't he know that there's a very similarly named Detroit group who hasn't appeared publicly since April? I know of Brandon Wiard & the Saviors and Great Lakes Myth Society, certainly, but something about this lineup is weirding me out a bit. Especially since I heard, through the grapevine, that Mayor Hieftje might be at the show to hand out keys to the city. What's that all about?" said the one person.
"Go pound a goldfish into your chin," replied the other.
"Help me," said the former.
"Help you," said the latter. |
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| Gigages |
[Apr. 12th, 2006|02:25 pm] |
I just realized, in replying to a friend's message, that I have somehow pulled off the planning to play in five, possibly (and most likely) six, different live musical performances, with as many projects, over this Friday and Saturday. Six? Damn. I'm unsure why it happened, but the offers to play the hired gun has morphed over the years from the occasional recording session or pick-up gig into suddenly having a permanent position playing live shows for a bunch of projects I enjoy so much I'm unable to let any of them go. The fear that I'm spreading myself to thin has yet to be tested as currently none of the projects are gigging heavily, but of the six I am playing with this weekend, three of them are recording and want me involved, one of them wants to record but doesn't have the time or the resources to do so (that project being my own, so obviously I'll always be involved), and one has just recorded an awesome set that may never see the light of day due to contractual b.s. With all of this action I am forced to wonder why I seem to be in demand at all, considering I am a marginal guitar player, reluctant to consider myself even mildly proficient on the banjo, and have never voiced a desire to pick up gigs. The only answer I can come up with is that I am now constantly visible as being a guy who gets hired. If all the recordings that are planned this year actually occur, I stand to be in the studio a lot over the next few months and I'm really excited to take part in all of these projects, which is a very different scenario from many of the previous recordings I've taken part in. Just for fun, I'm gonna look up how many performances I've done so far this year and tally them against what I did last year:
2005: 65
2006: 31
The total for 2006 includes the six performances I will do this weekend. It's not bad, especially for having a mostly dead April. |
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| Tuesday, February 14 |
[Feb. 28th, 2006|02:06 pm] |
I had not yet packed, but I had taken Jeffine: the Ghost of the One Legged Lady in to get an oil change and ended up changing the transmission fluid, the differential oil, and the coolant as well to prepare for our Wednesday morning departure for Hammondsport, NY -- oh and how she purrs now! To make some dough for the trip, Todd Leopold offered his bar up as a place to do a Valentine's Day kick-off and we gladly accepted, tossing together a bill with friends theMoodieVeto, their first public showcase, and the incredibly talented and startlingly under-appreciated Starling Electric. Our friend Jesse had flown in from NYC the night before and came to the show armed with a most pleasant surprise: a first edition copy of E.B. White's Here is New York wrapped in a flier advertising the Ramones with Sonic's Rendezvous opening at some long gone Ann Arbor club. What a cool gift, and a good omen for beginning a week-long vacation to boot; one that would see us meet up again with Jesse back in NYC, so I had to think fast to come up with a suitable gift to give back to her while preparing to be broke. Before that, Amy and I had dinner and she gifted me with an excellent Valentine's Day mix-CD. Another good omen; I felt very loved but dropped the ball in not returning the favor. We warmed up slowly to the growing mass of people streaming into the club and before long, my mind drifted into the sometimes pre-show disposition of losing track of any detail or conversation. Mostly I remember colors, not people, not music, not anything vividly but colors. This is a common thing for me. Oftentimes I'll remember the visualizations I have when I listen to records better than the records themselves; textures and colors make a show in my mind's eye and provide for some interesting conversation with Amy -- one of the few people I've talked to about this that understands how my mind works and has never questioned my peculiarity as the result of too many drugs. It seems to me that many folks are just unused to the idea of trancendent lucidity as a positive. When I was a kid and I'd describe the months of the year in colors, I received many a sideways glance by my teachers and peers. The result was that I learned not to talk about it.
I carried on in this fashion throughout the night and sadly cannot aptly describe either theMoodieVeto's or Starling Electric's sets. I did enjoy them both and SE momentarily broke me out of my colorific reverie with their always incredible dress. John dressed as Bat Boy, Jason as (Burger?) King, Caleb as some vampire-like creature, and Christian as a bloodied mess of a corpse. It was quite a sight, but before long, I was back to my mind's eye. It was song three of our set when I snapped from feeling loved and drenched in waves of gorgeous color by a cutting electric orange, yellowed white streaks, a deep, muted green and finally black. My amplifier completely blew itself out and suddenly, with no preparation or fanfare, my mind was thrust into a nervous wreck -- I had no idea how I was going to find an amp by the next morning that I could take on the road for a week. Jason Electric kindly loaned me his amp for the remainder of the night, but my disposition never recovered and I broke the biggest rule of performing in that I couldn't hide my upset from the audience. Still, folks received us well and at the end of the night, the Crone reminded me that he had an extra amplifier I could use for the next few gigs. The damage to my mood was already done at this point, however, and I just sat alone by myself for a while until friends-in-attendance, Nora and Kevin, came over to cheer me up. It helped, but Amy, who had enough of her own on her mind, had to deal with me for the rest of the night while I sulked. Sorry Amy.
Preparing for bed, I dragged my broken amp up to my apartment and spent 15 minutes trying to figure out what went wrong with it while Amy sat and watched. It occurred to me that we were leaving the next morning, I was tired and a bit drunk, not to mention grouchy, and I hadn't even thought about packing yet. "Fuck it," I thought. We went to bed.
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| (no subject) |
[Jan. 26th, 2006|03:54 pm] |
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Hmmm... I just did an interview with the Associated Press regarding the popularity of MySpace. Funny. I got to plug the band, at the very least. |
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| Back in October |
[Jan. 17th, 2006|06:08 pm] |
When I was accounting the drab stories of our tour last fall (I, of course, never finished my narrative), I believe I mentioned that many photos were taken and that I'd eventually post them. Well, I have yet to see the photos taken with any of the digital cameras along for the ride, but Fido did finally scan the three Polaroids taken. His plan was to take one photo after each performance, but the camera fell off a table, jammed, and took seven pictures of the celing of the Slipper Club in Madison, WI and we never replenished the film.
The neat thing about Fido's camera is that it is thirty years old and each Polaroid he takes with it develops looking like it was taken in 1976. Even cooler, Fido's entire family history has been taken with this camera, so his photo collection has a very nice symmetry to it, in both color and design.
On the left is Mike Waite, a truly great singer who opened the show with speaker stands he fashioned out of birch tree trunks. Next is his sister, and our close friend, Nora who had driven up from Ypsilanti with her then boyfriend, and another of our closest friends, Mike. To the right of Nora is the Crone, the Pope, Peabody, the just mentioned Mike, and Crazy Bear (Not Spider Ace). I took the picture.
In this photo, you see Peabody's aversion to clothing. This is what we see about 86% of the time spent out on the road with him. Directly after this photo was taken, Crazy Bear (Not Spider Ace) put on one hell of a vaudevillian-esque show employing only his hat and a pair of pants.
There are only three girls in Houghton and all of them were at Kevin's (upper right corner) party. I am in the back, drunk, and holding the book I foolishly bought for $20. Had I conserved my money in those first two days on the road, I would have been able to buy the pristine first edition copy of E.B. White's Quo Vadimus, pub. 1939. I had never seen this book before, though I had heard of it being a huge fan, nor have I seen it since. So be it.
Monday, October 10, 2005, Minneapolis, MN
Ladies and gentlemen, that's Peabody and the Pope JC with Hott Boxxx and a bunch of other people. I'll have to describe this show at another point as I should be on my way away from a computer and the debauchery that happened this night shall not be glossed over in a single paragraph.
Stay well. |
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| (no subject) |
[Jan. 3rd, 2006|02:44 pm] |
This morning I got into a car accident. I am okay, the other driver, as far as I know, is okay. My car is likely totaled and my amplifier, which was in my trunk, might also be totaled, but I haven't a place to plug it in and find out -- the casing around the amp itself is splintered and broken. I haven't checked out my guitar, but its case was intact, so I assume it's okay. I had Jamie bring me to work. It's all settling in now. I'm not sure what to do.
Everything I have left is borrowed or broken. |
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| Santas, santas everywhere! Santas in the very air! |
[Dec. 20th, 2005|05:28 pm] |
six-thirty p.m.
Costume intact, I approach the Lager House and nearly topple from the crusty ice caps of the curb back into Michigan Ave. while carrying all my gear. I survive and enter the bar. I look like a pale impression of Casimer, which was the point. I feel like a pale impression of my former self. I am conscious of too much around me, shy, unfamiliar with anyone, even the band I have been practicing with for the last five weeks. They are all good people, but we have yet to creep beyond those shimmery lines of what we assume each other assumes is acceptable behavior -- we are still playing everything too safely. Tonight, I decide, I will allow some of the sudden tangential jumps that are the roots of the eccentricities people apparently see in me to happen freely. No explanations, no keeping myself in check. I let it fly early on by asking Keith, "Did you have a youth?" I meant to question him about his past, but that's what came out instead. Normally, I would have caught myself, reworded the question, whatever. It came out so sincerely Keith just stared at me for a minute. "No," he said.
seven p.m.
The stage is set up. I walk into the next room to get a beer and see two Santas bellied up to the bar. I think nothing of it other than, "I didn't think the place was even open yet." I mount the stage and the band runs through a piece of our set. We are a bit nervous, having never played a show together, but we are all three year--or more--veterans in the scene, so there's really not much to worry about. Still, we worry. I look up and notice three Santas, different from the ones I saw at the bar. I glance through the doorway into the other room and see many, many more Santas. One Santa approaches the stage as more Santas spill into the room; we stop playing. We worry some more. The Santa approaching the stage calls my name. It was Santa Glynn. He plays drums for many people I know.
seven-thirty p.m.
Pas/Cal arrives, then leaves, scared away by the multitude of Santas. It's really bad at this point; one cannot move around the room at all due to all of the Santas. Robbie and I escape and go out walking. None of the sidewalks are shoveled around the Lager House, save the ones right in front of the joint. The Lager parking lot is filled with cars and five school buses are double-parked out front. It becomes obvious that the Lager is the meeting place for "Santarchy" and that all of the Santas are going to leave their cars here for the night as they travel from bar to bar by school bus. One Santa scares me as he is dressed half Santa, half bloody clown. I cannot believe I've never seen a similar getup before as it is obvious to me that this is a successful costume. Many women were dressed as sexy Mrs. Clauses. Close to none women pulled it off. Embarrassing.
eight p.m.
The Santas are aboard their buses, the waiting game begins. Pas/Cal arrives again to hang decorations and I sit with two of my new bandmates, Robbie and Carey, and learn more about them. I accidentally uncover some slight emotional trauma and immediately feel terrible for doing so, though anyone could've made the mistake as the conversation started innocently enough. Still, I plundered on in my irreverence for the common courtesy of being linear in my thinking. The place begins to fill up with hipsters and I, for once, actually somewhat look the part, though I refer to my clothes as "my costume." Johnny Loftus comments on this. I tell him it is "my holiday sweater." This is a stupid joke and we both know it, but Johnny politely laughs.
eleven p.m.
The Brothers Headband take the stage and perform one song. At the drawn-out end of said song, Keith does his interpretive dance as he is dressed by Carey and Robbie. He is dressed full-on as a Christmas Tree, complete with a green felt "dress" covered in felt ornaments and the most ridiculously amazing "hat" I've ever seen--it is the top portion of a fake Christmas tree affixed with a chin-strap and real ornaments. We break into our set with energy. We blew the room off the place in our opening number together and the audience clearly had no idea how to react, so we immediately stepped into the second song without any room for acknowledgment. Perfect. Headbandits unite! We careen through our set and Keith sheds the tree costume. Before long, as is the brothers' custom, Chad and Keith are shirtless. I look to my right and see blood dripping from Keith's mouth onto his chest. A lot of blood. I am worried for his health. We continue playing. During our closing number, my glasses fly off. This has happened the last few times I have played and I curse them and try to find them before a bouncing Keith destroys them. I also try to continue the song. I also cannot see a damned thing. I find the glasses, put them on my amp, and continue, though now I am jumping around like crazy. Crazier than before even. I fuck up the song because my mind has been distracted by the glasses and bleeding Keith incidents. He is still bleeding, though someone has handed him a towel. One last song, Chad decides. Only the brothers know how to play this song so the rest of us jog in place and clap. Like in an exercise video. When we were done, my hands were swollen from clapping so hard.
twelve p.m.
Pas/Cal took the stage and rocked hard. I know what it is like to go on after the Headband brothers and in such a situation, one has to come out of the gate full steam. Pas/Cal did that, thank goodness. I was tired and recovering in the back of the club with many of my new bandmates. Later I tried going up towards the stage, but the place was packed, so I retreated.
one-thirty a.m.
After the show was finished, I began packing up my gear. Five busloads of Santas re-emerged, making progress in loading out extremely trying. The five buses were again double-parked on Michigan Ave. My car was parallel parked on Michigan Ave.
three a.m.
The buses finally left, making it possible for me to drive home.
five-thirty a.m.
Slumber.
tomorrow
I learn how to write in the past tense. |
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| Go Home From Yonder Bus Stop! |
[Nov. 23rd, 2005|10:27 am] |
"It's coming down... All the lanes are waxed with silver and the stores are open for vagabonds."  |
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| A Long Overdue Report (long is both a description of "Overdue" and "Report"), part two. |
[Nov. 15th, 2005|08:21 am] |
Saturday, October 8 (Marquette to Houghton)
I awoke hazy and pissed. Crazy Bear (Not Spider Ace) was sawing logs as he is sometimes wont to do, especially after a marathon of drinking, but on such mornings he is so loud, not even his charm can save him from my ill-directed grumps (though it is hardly his fault he is such a snorer). I laid in bed, still slightly drunk, and thought, "shit, it's gotta be 5:00 AM." I decided to shower and dismounted the top bunk. All were presumably asleep, though I found out later that both the Crone and the Pope were also awakened by Crazy Bear (Not Spider Ace). How Peabody wasn't awakened by the volume, I shall never understand, but over the amount of time I've spent with him in the last five years or so, I've learned not to predict such silly things as instinct and what people are or aren't capable of doing.
( It's dry, but it's the truth (continue). ) |
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| (no subject) |
[Nov. 3rd, 2005|05:39 pm] |
You know those times when everything gets all jumbled up and you try to relate it to yourself via a highly dramatic metaphor because you're feeling pretty stupid and lonely and idiotic and selfish and needy and desperate and callous and crummy and irreverent and chapped and slow and as you're devising this silly metaphor (say life's a boat, a very big boat, and leaks are springing up everywhere and you only have one pail and a very lame leg) you become fully aware of how dramatic you're being even though it's only happening in your head and you haven't even deployed all your frustration to a knowing, or even deaf, ear but you still need to have some sort of outlet and you tap, tap, tap away on your keyboard knowing fully that you're eventually going to hit that button that publishes the damn thing up on the web because it's better than what your over-dramatic, imaginary, metaphorical ass would have done in your weird, retarted fantasy (tie a plastic bag over the head and wait) and you still feel stupid, but at least some of this nervous, strange energy is going somewhere?
No?
Well, after you go through all that silly, public catharsis you just listen to a really great record because it's the one and only thing in your life that your sure you can actually fucking do correctly. |
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| A Long Overdue Report (long is both a description of "Overdue" and "Report"), part one. |
[Oct. 25th, 2005|04:41 pm] |
Friday, October 7 (Ann Arbor to Marquette)
I awoke startled. It was 6:15 AM, an hour or so before my alarm was set even though I had gone to bed after 2:00 AM, but considering my body had written sleep out of its schedule for the few weeks previous, it was unsurprising. I put on a pot of coffee, took a shower, went out for a cigarette, booted up the old computer Amy has kindly let me borrow for an undetermined amount of time, and wrote until the van's 8:00 AM arrival. I boarded its belly for a trip to Marquette. We stopped in Sea Shell City to admire the "Man Eating Clam," took a few photos, as yet unpublished (but I will supply a link when and if they ever are), and practiced our best tourist behavior (band purchases: magnet, postcards, stickers, and a deck of cards specifically to brush up on throwing) before we were even four hours into our trip. We are men distracted by simple pleasures, indeed.
Our arrival at Marquette's Nordic Bay Lodge came around 7:00 PM. We marveled at its pair of bunkbeds, dressed in lilly white, posed in perpendicular relation up snug against the red cinderblock walls. It was almost exactly the EMU dorm room I stayed in during 1996/97, though with an extra bunkbed and the added luxury of not having to share the bathroom with our neighbors. After dropping off our clothes and bedding, we headed into town for a mediocre dinner at Up Front & Co., the only place in town with available seating, which also happened to also be the place that turned us down for a gig. The Crone was peeved that we should have to pay for their food.
After suiting up back at the lodge, we loaded into the Village Pub, a venue with the air of distinction to attract only the best Eagles cover bands, and better yet, only their most loyal fans. Actually, I'm being cruel. We work to set ourselves apart via the black suits; we want people to notice us and be aware of the band before we even take the stage. The trouble is, in Marquette, those who dress in suits are apparently high minded (often accurate, in our case) pricks (...sometimes accurate) with some sort of vendetta for the working class (inaccurate, as "working class" defines us). Within five minutes of being there, I was asked by everyone I encountered, "What's with the suit, man?" to which I replied, "It's my drinkin' suit, man," but only after a couple of failed attempts to convey the real reason for its employ. Regardless, it is a yielding thought to realize the power of one's dress. A cowboy hat, shirt, and boots is a cartoon next to the drama of a black suit and it is funny to find who's afraid of the serious picture show. A first impression, of course, is always filtered through our clunky memories and the memories of those we hold dear, which was certainly the reason my father vetoed my mother's first choice when the time came to name me. "I've never known a Jason that I liked," he said. Probably the reason Marquetteers were weary of us was our southern, city-slicker appearance, which is synonymous with fudgies, a demographic Northerners are happy to be free of by early October. At least we weren't in sweaters and loafers.
Mike Waite, the brother of our good friend Nora (who, incidentally drove up to see the show with another of our dear friends, Mike Madill), opened the show for us. Mr. Waite is a true woodsman who lives in the thick of Marquette's landscape in a house without electricity. His arrival at the pub will forever be cemented in my mind by the towering image of his PA speaker stands, which he constructed out of birch trunks. Mike was fantastic.
We opened the set with as much gusto as we could muster and the crowd reacted accordingly, but the lure of conversation so often overshadows even the loudest, most remarkable unknown band and the rest of our evening on stage was punctuated by recklessness. At one point, while onstage, I was approached and encouraged by a group of college girls to slam my beer so I could slam a shot with them. I obliged in the throws of decadence and remember little of the rest of the night save stupidly spending $20 on Mike Waite's CD (because he didn't have change). I say stupidly because I needed to be saving every dollar on this trip and the truth is I am still recovering monetarily almost a month later.
Back at the Nordic Bay Lodge, the band was joined by Mike, Nora, and Mike, and we all enjoyed a few cowboy sodas--the last thing I needed--as well as some nice performance art by Crazy Bear (Not Spider Ace). I vaguely remember rummaging through my bag to find my journal, then crawling into one of the top bunks, writing, and passing out. Upon inspecting the journal, I found I had written:
Marquette. Dear Bubbles, I am having difficulty. There's nowhere to put my glasses down. Goodnight. |
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| Nursing Home Mixtapes |
[Oct. 1st, 2005|12:22 pm] |
Last night may have been the weirdest gig we've ever played and it oddly came only two days after the previous "weirdest gig" we've ever played, which was for the Great Lakes Commission. Last night was at the Max Fisher Music Center, where Orchestra Hall is located, and we played just across the lobby from where the DSO was warming up for their performance. The average age of our audience was probably 62, were were loud as fuck, surprisingly tight, and, even more surprisingly, everyone seemed to like it. We sold a crapload of merch and Tim was approached by a woman in Orchestra Hall, while the symphony was playing, who said, "When you said the band grew up in Brighton, I thought you meant Brighton, England because you remind me of the Beatles." She was probably in her early 80s. Hopefully I'll be even remotely as cool and open-minded as she when I'm her age.
* * *
I'll spend all my time in the nursing home making mixtapes for all the other residents trying desperately to turn them on to Scott Walker:
As old Joe sat a dying, the baby down the hall was crying; somebody had a party going on. The fat boy you told tales to moved away the other day. To think with no goodbye he could have gone. A postcard from Sun City was found laying by your side, a kind of desert place where old folks dry away. You gazed out through the window at the wonders of the sky as if it were the first time every day.
"There ain't no one left alive to call me Joe," you used to say. "No one left alive to call me Joe."
You've been beyond the boundaries, understood it all and thought of nothing. The ultimate was simple to your eyes. Just watch the world make madness as the youth cried their replies; an old man knows far better than to try.
They say, towards the end, you hardly left your shabby room where once you loved to go walking through the day. Sit back and watch a spider weave your window across the moon, and Meals on Wheels laughed kindly when you'd say, "There ain't no one left alive to call me Joe, to call me Joe. No one left alive to call me Joe."
* * *
I know I will think this song is beautiful, funny, and sad even when I'm very old, but I suppose I should try to turn all o my fellow residents at the home onto something more positive. It is good that I figured this out now. |
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| (no subject) |
[Sep. 30th, 2005|02:13 pm] |
I'm feeling very empty yet somehow cumbersome.
I must now eat.
I do not want to come to work tomorrow, but it is inevitable. |
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| (no subject) |
[Sep. 29th, 2005|08:38 am] |
In a completely bizarre turn of events, I might be making some rock 'n' roll-type musical soundish sounds at the world's largest indoor aquarium. No idea when or if it'll even happen, but we were approached last night by one of the directors about playing there.
Being in a band no one knows how to place has its perks.
Anyway, it's strange that we make more money playing free shows for people who don't want to hear us than we do playing shows for people who pay a cover charge to hang out with us for a night. Based on this realization, James and I decided we were going to open a bar where there's no cover, all the drinks are free, and the bands get paid well. The downside? The presence of all the corporate sponsors who will pay to make it happen.
THURSDAY IS NIKE NIGHT!
[Edit: On an semi-related note, I just realized that this past week has been the band's busiest of the year so far: 7 performances in 9 days (including upcoming performances this afternoon and tomorrow night), while not taking any time off from work and I've been sick for the first five of these, making it hard to sing. My cough was virtually gone this morning, but has recently crept back in its presence, dropping my optimism for today's radio performance a few notches. Someone jokingly asked me yesterday, "Geez, do you have T.B. or something?"] |
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fransmasereel's journal
