Oh, Chan! *Swoon*

OK, then. So the Cat Power/Dirty Three show was awesome. The Dirty Three are an incredible live band, and far louder then i would’ve thought. They can summon up this incredible noise seemingly at will, like on their amazing closing song, “I offered it up to the Stars and Night Sky.” That’s always been one of my favorite album tracks, and it was awesome in person…the violinists was the default frontman, telling silly little stories about what all the songs were about before they started, and he was flailing and dancing and screaming into the soundholes of his electric violin while they played. Superb.

Cat Power was great also…She didn’t do any of the nervous break-down freaking out that I’d heard about and expected. During the solo portion of her set, she just did a sort of goofy nervous thing…started fiddling with her tuning, noodling on two chords for a few minutes, and nervously joking with the audience. She seemed to be in a really playful mood though, which really helped the atmosphere of the set. The full-band portion was nice, with violin, keyboards, drums, and extra guitar and vocals backing up Ms. Marshall’s rudimentary plucking and breathtaking vocals. Then, after a few songs, the band left the stage and she struggled her way through a long-ish solo set, peaking with the chilling piano/voice rendition of “Names.” Then the band joined her again and they kicked into a cover of the White Stripes “Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground,” and a stellar cover of “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door.” I had a good view from the balcony for most of her set, while Joey watched, lovesick, from the floor.

Anyways, in other news….Me and Timm have our Car Stereo Destroys Michael Bolton Tape shows on Friday and Saturday. We’ll be running through our set on Thursday, since we’ve both done a lot of re-working since our first practice. We’ll be recording to minidisc, so hopefully I can post at least part of our set online somewhere. Flyers were finished yesterday and should go up today, so hopefully Josh and Co. have been posting them like mad. I’m really happy with the finished designs, so I’d kind of like to see them in the wild, so to speak. Can’t wait to see From Monument to Masses again, at the Saturday show. The new material they posted online is really good stuff.

Rain Rain, Go Away

Man, it’s really pissing down the rain today. In the past hour, it’s gone from light drizzle, to full-on pounding rain coming down at a 45 degree angle, back to it’s current state of light drizzle. I expect it’ll continue this way all day. I just hope it’s clear enough for my lunch break.

Tomorrow is the Cat Power/Dirty Three show! Shit, yeah! Me and Emily and Joey are going down to the Great American for that. Should be interesting. Nice melancholy music for rainy April nights. I almost wish I hadn’t been overspending so much lately, or I’d cram in a trip to Amoeba while we were there. Maybe soon.

I finished up the flyers for me and Timm’s shows for May 2nd and 3rd. I’ll post them here this weekend sometime, in case any of my hordes of readers are interested in attending. SSU is paying for printing up a bunch of flyers for the show on the 3rd, in 2 color even. Hot damn. I can’t wait to see them.

More later…

AE

That Autechre record just gets better and better. I haven’t even given it the ol’ headphone spin yet. Maybe tonight…I tried to download it at the 24 hour lab, but everyone has the cassette promo rip, not the CD rip. Boo! Hiss! I did get all of LP5 downloaded. I think that’s my favorite Autechre, with Confield a close second, and Draft 7.30 gaining. All my friends seem to like Tri Repetae best, and while I like that album a whole hell of a lot, I like their newest stuff more. It just seems to push more boundaries and play with their formula more.

Hung out at Reed’s place with Emily, Reed, Joey, Autumn, and Aaron on Sunday. We played video games and music, and hung out at Aroma’s for a while. ME and Reed and Joey are gonna start getting together and working on music soon. I jammed with Joey on guitar for a while. He was working on this crazy mixed meter song, and I joined in for a few.

Me and Timm also practiced for our Car Stereo Destroys Michael Bolton Tape shows on Friday. Turns out our show is going to be much more musical and controlled than previously thought. We have the whole set mapped out now, with us fading between the laptops and doing a brief e-bowed-guitar-through-Audiomulch piece. We’ll probably record the set, and I’ll do a write up at EM411.com, hopefully with samples, if I find some hosting for that. Rawk…

More later…

Draft 7.30

The new Autechre record is scrumptious. I really like it after 1 listen so far. I’m going to need to download it or burn a CD from someone, since I bought the vinyl version (which is lovely). And I need to finish downloading Autechre’s LP5 too…another one that I only have on vinyl. Looks like another trip to the 24 hour lab is in order. I haven’t really had a chance to listen to my Dr. Octagon record, except for at Holly’s house on Sunday, and her turntable is hooked up through an AUX input rather than Phono. Hmmm, craptacular. But you gotta work with what you got, y’know?

Hung out with Erin and Timm and Michelle at Aroma’s last night for awhile, which was pretty fun. Me and Michelle burned some CD’s and we all chatted about just about everything. Michelle may now be included in me and Reed and Joey’s plan to hunt down some rehearsal space once Reed and Joey figure out their living situation. Fingers crossed, hmm?

More later…

Comicky BS.

I’m back from Sacramento! Obviously, I didn’t have time to fix up my desktops/design page, but it’s still on my list of things to do. Along with about a billion other things, but hey….

Picked up some of the Hellboy comics I was missing while I was in Sacto, along with one of the Maxx issues I’ve been hunting down forever. And some Milk & Cheese I didn’t have yet. I think I might have all the Milk & Cheese issues now. Also picked up Video Noire, an older black & white book with art by Eduardo Risso (of 100 Bullets fame). Very dark, seedy stuff, which is the type of story Risso is good at. And his work looks so good in black & white. It’s great in color too, since Patricia Mulvihill is a great colorist, but there’s something so stark and graphic about it without color or shading.

Emily picked up an Evangelion action figure also, the Eva Mass Production Series. It’s pretty bad-ass, with it’s immense wings, and super-detailed articulation. I’m not a big fan of action figures in general, but some of the Eva ones are really nice.

We hung out at the True Love Cafe on Friday night. True Love is really nice…it’s tiny and intimate, really well decorated, has an excellent, roomy (though usually full) patio area, and some nice quirky menu items (waffles after midnight, for example). Very fun. And then on Saturday, we had late lunch at Mana Sushi, after an underwhelming trip to Dimple Records. Mana is great, because the rolls are huge, unique, delicious, and reasonably priced. I wish every sushi place was like Mana.

Anyways….phew. Gotta let Emily check her mail now, and finish chatting with Joey.

more later…

Kimo’s

I went to Kimo’s in San Francisco lat night, with Erin, Timm and Fonda, to see Oma Yang, From Monument to Masses, and the Rum Diary. It was an awesome show, despite how small, hot, and loud that room was. It was great to see FMTM again, and they were playing mostly new material (with the exception of “the Sharpshooter”, which I think they’ve only recorded live so far). Looks like they’re going to be playing the alternative to Day in the Sun show that Timm and Josh are setting up on May 3rd. Oma Yang opened the show, and they had just started before we got there. They’re a pretty cool band, but I didn’t really pay close attention. We were too busy hob-nobbing at first. FMTM played second, and rocked the house. Then the Rum Diary played, and they rocked as well. I haven’t seen them in forever either, and it was great to say hi to those guys too. While they were setting up, they were showing the Wedding Singer on their projector, while the soundman played Mr. Bungle’s Disco Volante, which I haven’t listened to in quite a while. It was an interesting combination. Then the Rum Diary played an excellent set, backed by a varied and awesome set of projected video, from retro vacation films to science program footage and other material.

I’ve been listening to Radiohead’s new album almost non-stop lately, and I’m planning on writing an entry with a track-by-track commentary, but that’ll have to be some other time.

More later…

The River

The local oldies station just switched formats. They used to be a ’50s-’60s station, focusing on soul and Motown and pop, with a lot of Beatles, Supremes, Simon & Garfunkel, the Kinks, Aretha, and lots of Soul and British Invasion type stuff. It was usually on at work, and there were a lot of good songs on that station on a regular basis, along with a lot of clunkers. Now they’ve shifted their focus to ’60s-’70s classic rock, with more of the later, harder classic rock sound (ie Queen, Led Zeppelin, ZZ Top) as well as the older pop-oriented stuff (Credence, Doors, Boston, etc). The problem is, they started yesterday with a very, very small playlist, promising to double it every day for the next week. But yesterday, I heard Stairway to Heaven three times in less than two hours. And Sweet Home Alabama and others. Scary stuff, man. Why not just wait a week to launch with a full playlist instead of playing the same 20 songs to death for the first week? That makes no sense to me.

More later…

No Brains For Oil

Moral Dilemma alert!

OK, not really. But I had an unsettling moment at work today. I work for a sign company, as a customer service rep. We get a lot of people in here asking about short-run and unique stickers, which we can do. Which means we get people in here lately looking to make Pro- and Anti- war statements on their bumpers/windows/etc. I don’t really have a problem with either one, despite the fact that I’m a strongly Anti- guy myself.

Now this guy comes in today, and asks about bumper stickers, and we talk prices and he decides to place an order. When I ask him what he wants the stickers to say, he replies, without a trace of irony “Kick their ass and take their gas!”

I only paused for about a second, and in that second I considered A) telling him we have a no-profanity rule (which we don’t) and sending him on his way; B) handing him off to another CSR; and C) telling him he’s a discredit to the human race and to get the fuck out of here, and take his blood money with him. I took the order without protest or comment and sent him off though.

I felt guilty at first, but then I thought about it. He has every right to say what he wants to say, and we have the right, as a private business, to turn away his business for whatever reason. We have made political signs in the past, and will continue to do so, and in all the time that I’ve been here, the only times we’ve turned someone away for reason of content have had to do with copyright/trademark issues. I eventually decided that it’s not really my place, as an employee, to limit people’s expression, no matter how asinine, uninformed, or offensive. Besides, he’s the one who’s going to look like a jackass driving down the street with that nonsense on his bumper.

And then I cheered myself up by finding a shitload of good records on my lunch break. I got the Beatles White Album, Jesus & Mary Chain, the Sex Pistols, and the new White Stripes. I also special ordered the new Cex and Autechre records. So that took my mind off things.

More later…