Day One

Left Santa Rosa slightly later than planned this morning, due to an unplugged clock, and me and Reed took our sweet, posh little rental car and tore through California. The car was so easy to drive I caught myself easing over to 100 MPH once or twice.

Contrary to some assertions, we did hit Seattle in about 13 hours, including a leisurely one-hour lunch stop in Talent, Oregon, and a 15-minute wait outside a gas station bathroom, due to some ass taking his time shaving with a 3-person line waiting outside.

But, we are here. We are ready to take Seattle by storm.

And oh yes, I’m sporting a mohawk for the occasion. Pics soon, promise.

More later….

**UPDATE:**

As promised:

Playing Palace and Greed to while away the evening until the first actual day of adventure in Seattle. Talk to y’all tomorrow. Hugs and kisses.

Parentheses on Parade

I’m finally settling into the new place, which is quickly become a swanky, if somewhat dorky, little bachelor pad. I got the bed situation figured out, with a rather awesome new futon (thanks, Mom!). I also got the fridge/freezer situation mostly sorted. The freezer is probably a little lower than it should be, ideally, but at least my milk doesn’t turn into dairy snow now. Mmmmmmm.

Phone and DSL service are back up (third time’s the charm, hmm SBC?), so now I’m free to waste hours on the internet again. I’ve already fallen back into that habit, alas. Still, being so close to everything, and being without the distraction of television (excepting my Arrested Development Season One DVD), I find that I have more time lately, a lot of which I’ve spent reading (currently: Revolting Youth, thanks Serene!) or taking short bike trips to the grocery and/or record store.

I’m putting the finishing touches on my remix project, with some direct feedback from a member of the band, which is a nice way to work. I’m feeling pretty good about how it ended up, and it’s nice to have someone giving me feedback on little technical fixes and arrangement ideas. Makes the project feel a little more collaborative.

As for remixes of my own stuff: I’ve got one remix back so far. Joey finished up a remix of an Apparel track (which I don’t have a final file for yet), and even sent a bonus remix of my old track “Pushpin Revolution”, which kicks so incredibly much ass. I’m gonna have to really beef up the original in order to not be shown up by him. Bastard! I’m not sure when I’ll release that, but the plan is to put out a remastered “Pushpin Revolution”, with a new B-side and Joey’s remix, as sort of a stopgap release while I’m working on my new project.

I’m kicking around ideas for another musical project, but I need to talk to the people I’d like to involve before saying anything about it…

Oh yes, and I’m trying not to panic about the apparently dead hard drive with all of my MP3s and digital photos. Grrr.

Anyhow. More later….

Unseen Shows

Last night was the best debut show of an all-female punk band that I’ve never attended. No that wasn’t a typo. Siiiiigh. It was supposed to happen, but it looks like it wasn’t in the cards. Oh well. I guess I’ll have to catch the Laurie L’s (name change pending, perhaps?) at their next show, hopefully one that involves significantly less last minute schedule changing and general dramarama. Oh yeah, and maybe a little less not-actually-happening-after-all, too.

But still. It was the best show I didn’t see all year.

So a bunch of us ended up back at my place, strangely enough, with too much coke (of the cola variety, of course) and not enough Southern Comfort. my bottle’s almost empty, so it looks like it’s about time to change my newest sidebar section again. (Oh yes, there’s a new sidebar section devoted to my drinking habits. As if this site wasn’t insular and narcissistic enough as it is. Yeah, well fuck you, get your own blog).

So, I could be in San Francisco seeing my current musical obsession as I sit here typing, but I didn’t know about Joanna Newsom, her music, or her two sold out sets at Noise Pop until too late. But that’s not going to stop me from listening to her fucking brilliant, beautiful album, The Milk-Eyed Mender, and gazing longingly at the photo of her torn from the cover of the Bay Guardian currently hanging on my wall. I know, I know. Sad. But that should come as no surprise.

But seriously, when I say obsession, I’m not kidding. I listen to her every night when going to sleep now. And most mornings on my way to work. And most lunch breaks. And on random walks around Cotati at odd hours. And while blogging. Considering that I almost canceled the download of her album as soon I heard her voice for the first time, this is pretty amazing. At this point, there is exactly one song on her album that I don’t absolutely adore. I can’t remember an album that has captured my attention like this since maybe OK Computer, or one that has so perfectly filled an emotional niche in my life since Low’s Things We Lost in the Fire. Fucking amazing. Fuck. And once more for good measure. Fuck.

My EP has been mastered now, and it sounds phenomenal, if I do say so myself. Mad props to John at panicStudios for working his magic on my little tracks. Now It’s all down to me deciding on my website/packaging design, and it’ll be available and out of my life. In a way, the songs already feel like they’re behind me now, part of the past, and I can start working on something new. I even have a rough conceptual idea and a handful of partial/completed tracks for my next project, which may be another EP, or maybe a full length. I even have a working title that I’m enamored with at the moment, but we’ll see if it sticks. I’m not going to reveal the title right now, because I don’t want people to worry about me. Hehe…

Jesus, I always write more than I intend to here. I should try writing less, but more often. Or not. It’s not like there’s an audience out there slavering for my tender witticisms to fall from their bloggy branches like overripe pears. And that sentence alone should tell you why.

More later. We should shine a light on.

Bloated and Bored

I can’t remember the last time I was this full. I think this feeling is going to last for a few days, from the looks of it. Well, I’ll just have to make some room for veggie thanksgiving tomorrow night though….eh, holiday blogging is boring, so I’ll spare you.

Open Mic was fun the other night. I did Wilco’s “Pot Kettle Black” (which I’ve been listening to a lot lately) and re-attempted Elliott Smith’s “Happiness”, which I drunkenly butchered the week before (I already blogged about that elsewhere). But this week made up for that disaster, I think. It was kind of slow, due to the holidays, but it was a nice crowd nonetheless.

I finished re-reading The Crying of Lot 49 recently also. I enjoyed it immensely the first time, but I feel like I sppreciated it more the second, especially having more familiarity with Pynchon’s other works. It’s interesting to see some of his obsessions carry over to other books. I’m planning on re-reading Gravity’s Rainbow again sometime too, but that’s a pretty hefty time investment, I don’t get to read much anymore these days.

Oh! Almost forgot. I won Green Day tickets and Meet and Greet passes last weekend, which is funny because I don’t like Green Day. I owned a copy of Dookie for about a month when it came out, but it wore off on me pretty quickly. Anyways, I only won the tickets because Emily took me along when she was trying to win them, so the tickets found a good home with Green Day uber-fans Emily and Marisa. Unfortunately, the Meet and Greet passes were not transferable for contractual reasons. We were thinking of giving Emily my old ID (in which I have long hair and look rather less masculine than currently) and trying to pass her off as a transsexual, but decided it wasn’t worth the hassle.

Made a stop at Amoeba Records while in the city also, and got a pretty good haul for right around $50. I got Hood’s Singles Compiled and Compilations 1995-2002 pretty cheap, Fog’s self-titled (which I haven’t been able to rip…grrr!), M?m’s Summer Make Good, Son Volt’s Straightaways, the Freakbitchlickfly compilation on Violent Turd (featuring copyright abusing remixes and mashups by Kid 606 and friends), and Mates of State’s All Day EP. Good times.

Not a lot of music happening. “Sweater” is kind of stalled, due to my being somewhat disenchanted with it at the moment. It may be abandoned. I’ll listen to it again in a week or two and see how I feel about it. I’m trying to work on a collaboration track with Celibacy Club, but I need to give myself a crash course in Fruity Loops again to make that happen. That’s the problem with electronic music….there can be more barriers to collaboration due to software/hardware issues. Of course, in acoustic-based music, you can’t really collaborate with someone 2 states away anyways, so that’s a moot point. I did find some people locally who are looking to get a music project going, so that might open up some new musical vistas for the moment…

More Later….

All Hat, No Cattle

Halloween was more sedate than I expected. I think it being on a Sunday had a lot to do with that. Everybody must have got the partying out of their systems on Friday and Saturday. But it was a fun Halloween nonetheless. Early in the day, I went to see Primer with Joey and Reed and Nicole (more on that later…go see it for yourself now!). Then I went back home to suit up in my cowboy gear (leather chaps, leather jacket with fringe, etc), picked up Michelle in her lovely geisha outfit, and we headed back up to Reed’s place, where we all hung out for a while. Reed and Joey and Nicole were playing this pirate themed card game that looked pretty interesting, while Michelle, Kelly, and I decorated Nicole’s sugar-skulls with icing.

Michelle and I headed out to Guerneville for a cool benefit Haunted House, We were originally planning on hitting the Guerneville downtown (Reed advised me to not get raped…so helpful), but things were pretty dead down there, so we headed back into civilization, and ended up at the Tradewinds due to lack of better options. There were some great costumes there, and a pretty tight little funk band was playing, so it was an alright time. I haven’t actually dressed up for Halloween in a while, so that was cool, but I don’t know what I’m going to do with these chaps now….

Well, the subject of cowboys has been raised, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to make an election segue (or does it?). Better, more thoughtful writers have expressed anything I would want to say elsewhere anyways. So I’ll just say this:

FUCK.

Right. So then. I traded Emily my extra wireless card for a home cooked meal the other night (and another meal again this evening), which is a pretty good deal for me. Most of the home cooking I consume involves the microwave or comes out of boxes in foil packets. I have no patience for prearing food. I demand instant gratification. But I’ve certainly got nothing against letting other people make me food. And Emily’s generally good to hang out with anyways.

What else is happening in my life? Not a lot. I’ve got two Airliner tracks in progress that are pretty far along, but I’m feeling somewhat stalled on them. It doesn’t help that I still don’t have Buzz up and running perfectly on my new laptop. Such a fickle little program…it has so many quirks and workarounds. It’s the program I dread installing most on new computers, because there are so many little details that can cause it to crash. I think I’ve got it figured out now though. Which means as soon as I find my inspiration again, I can finish up “Sweater” and “Skirt”. I think that’ll be it for my clothing EP, except that I’m toying with the idea of a remix or two also. Either by me, or others. I guess that’ll depend on if anyone else is interested in remixing one of my songs. I’d like to do a really hip-hop remix of “Panties”, but I haven’t actually started working on that yet.

I’m also re-reading The Crying of Lot 49. I’d like to re-read Gravity’s Rainbow at some point also, but that’s such a time and energy investment. Worthwhile, though. I’m on such a Pynchon kick lately….I’ve been reading what little biographical and critical information I’ve come across on the web, and becoming further and further fascinated by him.

Blah blah. More later, kids….

Death by Cable Car

I was supposed to go out to lunch with my family, since my sister is in town from Eugene this weekend with her new boyfriend. And I did, but it turned out to be more of an ordeal than I’d been led to believe. I was thinking, great, drive down to P-town, have some lunch, see the sis, hang for a few hours, sounds fun. But then I got there, and Lindsay and Kit had gone to In n’ Out. Um….OK. I thought we were going for lunch? Oh, we are….in San Francisco. Where we will proceed to spend 6+ hours riding the cable car in the frigid drizzle and browsing the tourist traps at Pier 39. That was more than I was expecting to deal with. Especially considering the lack of sleep and degree of hungoverness I was experiencing at the time. See, I had been up drinking too much beer and having my ass handed to me, repeatedly, in a friendly little game of pool at Michelle’s. Until roughly 2am. I was actually planning to go to a couple of parties that night, but apparently, nothing was destined to work out according to plan this weekend. Not that that’s a bad thing. I’d much rather write songs and drunkenly harmonize to the Smiths than party with a bunch of people I barely know. IT would’ve been fun, but I think things worked out for the better.

I tore through Stephen Chbosky’s The Perks of Being a Wallflower this week, after Erin insisted I borrow Morgan’s copy. I highly enjoyed it. It’s one of those fast, easy, and involving reads that sucks you right in, and you find yourself reading a little bit every chance you get. Waiting for the kettle to boil in the morning? Read a few pages. Commercial break during the Daily Show? Read a few pages. Etc. etc., ad infinitum.

Speaking of the Daily Show, Jon Stewart’s recent Crossfire appearance (which is available in text and video forms all over the internets) is the most inspiring and astounding pieces of television I’ve seen in recent memory. More powerful than a locomotive, and more unexpected than an uncontested Florida election result. My hero.

Favorite new website: Girls Are Pretty. It’s genius, I swear it.

This site is such a Livejournal. Did I actually used to write about anything with any substance? Probably not. But it seems like I did at some point. But substance requires effort, and that’s not something I have a good relationship with.

Hmm. A bunch of other stuff happened, but I don’t remember most of it. There’s probably a reason for that. I’ll remember it later. And promptly forget to write about it. Which is probably no huge loss.

And So Forth…

Thursday’s Rum Diary/Two Gallants/Faux Pseudo Fake Fake show at the Tradewinds was one of the funnest things I’ve done in a while. I had dinner at Rafa’s with Michelle first, then we strolled over to the Tradewinds, met up with Erin and Emily (and Morgan, later on) and hung out with for a bit before the show started.

(Side note: my new favorite summer drink is the Mojito. A refreshing Cuban concoction, as follows: stir some sugar and rum over low heat until the sugar is liquefied. Mix sugar with squeezed fresh lime juice. Add some fresh mint sprigs, bash them a little with a wooden implement. Add lots of white rum. Add mineral water/soda water. Add ice cubes. Stir. Drop in some lime husks. Enjoy.)

Faux Pseudo Fake Fake got things started int heir own inimitable way. The less said the better. Two Gallants, however, pretty much stole the evening. They’re a guitar/drums duo (an increasingly popular format), and they played bluegrass-inspired music filtered through an indie rock mindset. Very loud, very creative style that blended down-home picking styles with very versatile drumming, and volume volume volume. The Rum Diary came on last and did their thing, as per usual. They’re such a focused, comfortable band at this point that it’s pretty inspiring to watch. They make music look effortless and sound thick and textured.

Saturday’s show at the Last Record Store however, was a little disappointing. It was the last Left of the Dial festival show, featuring Archeopteryx, Esperanto, Ashtray, and Polar Bears. The only band that I was really excited about was Polar Bears…Archeopteryx is usually fun, but more for the sheer spectacle then for the musical content. Although I will admit to having their split CD with Get Get Go on my iPod. Anyways….Archeopteryx did play a pretty creative set this time, even though this wasn’t the ideal sounding venue for them. But Esperanto was pretty bland. They’re really just a (usually) competent garage-rock band, with somewhat catchy material, but nothing performance-wise to back it up, and a few shortcomings in the skill department that were occasionally grating. I didn’t stay for most of their set, but came back just to stand outside during Ashtray’s set. I’d seen Ashtray before, so I knew what to expect (not much).

Polar Bears saved the evening though, despite shitty sound. They were very bassy and one of the singers was almost inaudible. Ah well, they still brought the rock, and the clapping, and the dancing, and the singing along that I’ve come to expect from their shows. It’s nice to see a band that can get people to remember which parts to clap at from show to show, especially since the clapping isn’t tied to some pop-based catchiness or gimmick. It feels very natural somehow, that the audience has almost become part of their performance.

More later…

My Exciting Life, mk. 182

I’ve been a bad boy and downloaded more music than I can listen to for a while. I think I’m pretty set for tunes, as I’ve been grabbing a wide variety of stuff off of slsk. Highlights: Make Believe, Explosions in the Sky, Do Make Say Think (playing at Bottom of the Hill soon…hmmmm), the Minus 5, the new Venetian Snares album, Giant Sand, This Bike is a Pipe Bomb, and tons more. I’ve also been trying out Tag & Rename, which has quickly become an indispensable program. I love it.

Been reading a lot of Daniel Clowes comics too. I found a copy of Like a Velvet Glove Cast in Iron at Tree Horn a while ago, and I downloaded Eightball #22 (the Ice Haven issue, which I haven’t been able to find a physical copy of), and picked up Twentieth Century Eightball at Clark’s. Since I’ve read so much of his stuff lately, I’m pondering a big ol’ post with thoughts/interpretations/impressions of all of it. But of course, that woudl require time and motivation. So chances may be slim.

Went to another Left of the Dial show at the Last Record Store, this time with Life in Braille, Hanalei, Santiago, and the New Trust. I’m shocked that Life in Braille is still around, although somewhat changed, but they sounded pretty good tonight. Still living up to their glammed-out math rock heritage. Santiago was great also; it was my first time seeing them, and apparently, their last time playing. Nothing like being the last one to the party, hmm? The New Trust was the New Trust. They’re good. I skipped out on their set last weekend, to spend some quality time at Volpi’s, since I knew I’d get to see them again soon anyways. And tonight I did. Yay me.

I’m supposed to fix my parents’ computer tomorrow. I think I’m going to have to quarantine them from using Internet Explorer from now on. I already removed tons of viruses and spyware a few months ago, and apparently it’s already in bad shape again. Thinking about going to see Donnie Darko in the evening too…we’ll see how that works out.

More blah de blah coming soon kids….

Bring on the Cheap Beer

Ironically, the times when I’m actually living my life are the times I’m least inclined to write about it.

So I checked out the first day of the Last Record Store and KCRB’s Left of the Dial Festival, as it sure beat the hell out of checking out the other festival that’s happening this weekend. The one involving drunken accordion players and polka dancing…The show was fun. I have no idea who the first few bands were, other than not being all that great. Passable, but none too interesting. But it’s always nice to get a chance to see Little Cat play live. I was planning on picking up another of his CDs, but realized I only had $4 left, after the $5 admission fee/2 drink ticket charge. Drinking in a record store is a fun, yet dangerous thing. I can see it easily ending in financial disaster for yours truly. Fortunately, I’d already made two trips to the Last Record Store this week (more about that in a second), so I was able to keep, my urges in check.

I took Erin home after Little Cat, and we played the highly addictive Flash game Fuck It, a cross between Scrabble, Tetris, and Tourette’s Syndrome, for a while. I’m completely addicted to that game, but my high score is pathetic. Still well below 1000. Afterwards, I went back to catch the end of John Courage’s set, and was pleasantly surprised to see that their set up consisted of acoustic guitar/vocals, and double-strung folk harp. Nice to see something out of the ordinary….

I picked up a few CDs: on my first trip, I meant to pick up the Joan of Arc album, but it was late arriving, and I had to leave with Owen’s EP, Minus the Bear’s They Make Beer Commercials Like This, and Polar Bear’s Shorts Are For Warm. All excellent investments, I might add. I especially like the Polar Bears EP; it really captures a lot of the things I like about their live show, but with a greater clarity than I’ve heard either time I’ve seen them. I went back later in the week to pick up Joan of Arc, Dick Cheney, Mark Twain…; the jury’s still out on that one. When it’s good, it’s great, but there’s a lot of it that’s gonna need some time to digest. On the third listen, I was catching a lot of stuff I’d missed initially, and while this is definitely no Live in Chicago, 1999, it looks like it’s really going to reward close listening.

Oh yeah, and I’ve decided to kidnap Morgan’s cat.

More later. Lots of good comics came out that I might talk about. But I promise that a lot and don’t deliver. As if any of you care about my comic reading habits.

Yet Another Show

New music up at Em411.com. Another song in the clothing series, “Sneakers & Socks”. Check it out.

Last night was the Velvet Teen show, the release party for their new album, Elysium. I showed up midway through the set of the opening band, the Americas, and wished that I had shown up early. They were awesome…just a guitarist and a drummer, and they did these incredibly dynamic build-ups, from almost nothing to Lightning-Bolt-esque explosions. Their Statuette EP is pretty damn good too.

Then, Little Cat took over the lobby for a rare-in-these-parts live electronic music set. He had a few racks of gear (all hardware) stacked up behind two stacks of speakers, and was blasting out some great blippy IDM/drill n bass type sounds, and he even had a few kids dancing. He played several sets, between each of the main stage acts, and packed the lobby area for each of them.

I skipped over to Volpi’s for a couple of drinks during Inventing Edward’s set. And I also stayed outside talking to Fonda and Laura during most of the Desert City Soundtrack. But then the Velvet Teen took the stage, and of course everyone had to crowd right in. They played a lot of new material, including a song that seemed to go on forever, or at least 15 minutes. They had a lot of pre-recorded string and synth parts that they played along with, and new drummer Casey Dietz (also from the Americas) played along with headphones on for about half the songs. The set was dedicated to former drummer Logan Whitehurst, which drew an incredible amount of applause from the audience.

The set was OK…it was impossible to hear the actual lyrics because of how loud and overbearing the house mix was though. Of course, “Naked Girl” and “Counting Backwards” were played as encores. Not to be too obvious or anything…The new songs, while impressive, didn’t exactly grab me the way the best of their earlier stuff did. Maybe it’ll grow on me? I didn’t pick up a copy of the album though, so who knows.

More later….