Weekend video: Pavement - "Range Life"

Balls in Andrew Dawson's face

All Hall and Oates is "the best of" Hall and Oates

Don't hate.



From BuzzFeed

Weekend video: Can - "Bring Me Coffee or Tea"

Off 1972's Tago Mago

Weekend video: Spacemen 3 - "Revolution"

Bothering: Jessica Rotter

Jessica Rotter (that's her, in the middle) is not only one of the sweetest people I know, but she draws some of my favorite stuff on the planet, and puts some of her designs on t-shirts for her company Rotter and Friends. She was kind enough to answer my questions. You should go to her site, and pester her about making haste on the Gene Clark design she mentions below.

So Ms. Rotter, whats new with you?

Well hello! Ohhh all is well in the land of me, cookie monster-eyed as usual. Been working on a bunch of collaborations, new fun prints for various band merch, and spreading the word about some awesome projects coming out from Kemado and Mexican Summer.

Your t-shirt company is called Rotter and Friends. Who are the friends?

FRIENDS make up the whole company. It’s the vibes we get from the contributors, the customers, the visuals, and of course, the jams. Songs and pictures can hit you like a old bud sometimes-right?

John Philips, Karen Dalton, Bob Seger, Judee Sill, and Roky Erickson have all had the honor of being drawn up by you and put on your t-shirts, who is next?

I am definitely going to do a Jade Stone and Luv shirt because that album has been a big influence for the past year and we love the label that put it out called Subliminal Sounds. I do know for Fall 09 we are also going to throw a little Badfinger action out there and Betty Davis-oh no- I've already said too much!

Every time I wear your Ram shirt somebody asks me where I got it because the ram is their astrology sign, but I wanna say "oh, heh, it's actually a refrence to a Paul McCartney song, he was in this band The Beatles..." but I don't want to be a snob and make you lose a potential sale, how should I handle this?

HA! That's the beauty of visuals-it means something different to everyone. I did a Neil Young tee shirt in '07 that was an homage to the album On The Beach and the text read "Thanks, Neil". I got emails from so many people who bought it solely because someone in their family was named NEIL. Made no difference to me because in the end, it made them smile.

How do you go about picking who gets on your shirts?

I take suggestions from friends and customers a lot and compile a long target list which filters down to about 4 designs per season. I still have targets from back in '06 when we started the line. Gene Clark-you'll be there one day.

What have you been listening to lately?

Mike Harrison's self titled album has not left my player since it was turned on to me in February. It's a heavy whopper and includes a sweet Cats Stevens cover. HIGHLY recommended. Also recently spinning magical fun records by Epitaph, Stonewall, Norman Greenbaum, and Cold Sun. Good time island!

Summer is almost officially here, how do you plan to make this the best summer ever?

I can't WAIT to kick off summer with the Rotter and Friends + Anthology Recordings + Viva Radio event June 25th @ Rose Live Bar. We got psyche folk legend Bobb Trimble to play for the first time in NY, which is crazy because his original LP's go for almost $2k! Starry djs Turquoise Wisdom and Awesome Tapes From Africa Brian Shimkovitz are going to spin some amazing vintage jams. Should be a dreamy evening-we need it! I also plan on buying a bike and a kaleidoscope this summer. Friends reading this, don't laugh.

Quickies (Grizzly Bear dude covers Judee Sill,Dead bodies at Bonnaroo, The Mummies, Jay Reatard does something nice for Chris Knox)

Ever since I heard word of the Judee Sill tribute album, I've been anxiously awaiting any chance to hear any of the tracks from the all star lineup, and now I no longer have to wait to hear Daniel Rosen of Grizzly Bear covering "Waterfall" cause MOKB has it.

• 314 tins of Skoal (159 empty; 155 containing negligible amounts of pot), and one dead body found after the Bonnaroo cleanup

• The Mummies reunited, and played Jersey and Brooklyn

• Speaking of 90's garage, Carrie Brownstein says "Right Music, Wrong Time" for bands like The Gories

• Top Norman Mailer Youtube clips via Vol. 1 Brooklyn

• Like mentioned the other day, Tall Dwarfs founder and Flying Nun Records honcho Chris Knox suffered a stroke, Tripwire reports that he is now in stable condition, and Jay Reatard apparently did something nice and wrote about him on his blog.
  

What do Os Mutantes have in common with Tom Waits and Nick Cave?

According to a press release, the Brazilian psych legends will be releasing their first album in 35 years on the same label as Mr. Tom, and Mr. Nick, Anti- Records. The record will be titled Haih, and I'm pretty sure somewhere in California, Devendra Banhart is weeping with joy.

Summer, pt. 3: WAR, the band not the act of

Sometimes I'll drift off and dream I'm hanging out with some cholos in Los Angeles in the early 1970's, (they don't make fun of me by calling me "Milkweed" like they call that mixed race dude in that movie Blood in Blood Out) and I'm part of the gang. We all sort of chill out in the sun, listen to this song, and live like kings.

Summer, pt. 2: Circa 1976 Brian Wilson going surfing in his bathrobe

No explanation needed on this one.

Summer, pt. 1: Air Waves

The weather in Brooklyn is slowly beginning to remind me of that scene in Groundhog Day where Bill Murray says "it's gonna be cold, it's gonna be grey, and it's gonna last you the rest of your life." Seriously, Weather.com predicts rain until next MONDAY!

Fuck you mother nature, you won't bring me down. I'm just going to post stuff that makes me think of sunshine and happiness and all that good stuff that I am supposed to be embracing right about now; starting with this video of the new ultimate summer band, Air Waves, or at least lead singer Nicole Schneit - jamming on the beach at the Todd P. bbq - with buddy Dustin Wong of Ponytail.

Pains of Being Pure at Heart on the road

Pretty much everybody likes the My Bloody-Pastel-Wedding Present sound of The Pains of Being Pure at Heart, and really, what's not to love? They are pretty much deserving of every bit of hype they get as they sort of the sound equivalent to laying on the grass on a cloudless day, wearing all white, reading Evelyn Wong, sipping gin and tonics without threat of the pigs writing you a ticket, and just doing what God meant you to do.

Experience that sort of bliss in a live setting as the band hit the road again this summer.

You can read the interview I did with the band a few months ago here

Listen: "Young Adult Friction"

Pains of Being Pure at Heart summer tour

Jun 18 2009 Cake Shop New York, New York #
July 10 2009 South Street Seaport New York, New York % (FREE)
July 18 2009 Pitchfork Fest Chicago, Illinois
July 20 2009 The Echo Los Angeles, California *
July 21 2009 The Rickshaw Stop San Fransisco, California *
July 23 2009 Backspace Portland, Oregon *
July 24 2009 Biltmore Cabaret Vancouver, BC *
July 25 2009 Capitol Hill Block Party Seattle, Washington
Sep 05 2009 Middle East Downstairs, Boston, Massachusetts &+
Sep 06 2009 La Sala Rossa Montreal, Quebec &+
Sep 07 2009 Horeshoe Tavern Toronto, Ontario &+
Sep 08 2009 Logan Square Auditorium Chicago, Illinois &+
Sep 09 2009 Stage Door at the Orpheum Madison, Wisconsin &+
Sep 10 2009 The Slowdown Omaha, Nebraska &+
Sep 12 2009 Monolith Festival Morrison, Colorado
Sep 13 2009 Kilby Court Salt Lake City, Utah &+
Sep 14 2009 Neurolux Boise, Idaho &+
Sep 17 2009 MFNW / Doug Fir Portland, Oregon &+
Sep 21 2009 Casbah San Diego, California &+
Sep 22 2009 Club Congress Tucson, Arizona &+
Sep 24 2009 Lola's Fort Worth, Texas &+
Sep 25 2009 The Mohawk Austin, Texas &+
Sep 26 2009 One Eyed Jacks New Orleans, Louisiana &+
Sep 27 2009 Club Downunder Tallahassee, Florida &+
Sep 28 2009 The Earl Atlanta, Georgia &+
Sep 29 2009 Local 506 Chapel Hill, North Carolina &+
Sep 30 2009 Black Cat, Washington DC &+
Oct 01 2009 Ottobar Baltimore, Maryland &+
Oct 05 2009 First Unitarian Church Philadelphia, Pennsylvania &+

% = w/ Zaza
# = w/ Crystal Stilts
* = w/ Girls
& = w/ The Depreciation Guild
+ = w/ Cymbals Eat Guitars

Castanets: New record and on the road

In the next chapter in the ongoing life and times of Raymond Raposa, who goes by the name Castanets, we get Texas Rose, The Thaw, and The Beasts out September 22nd on Asthmatic Kitty. On this album he flexes his strong San Diego connections as he gets pals from Rocket From the Crypt, Gogogo Airheart, and one of the "oh, that makes sense" pairings in Black Heart Processions Pall Jenkins, and one "oh, that really doesn't make sense, but it sort of does" in the form of a very non-San Diego resident (or is he?), David J. from Bauhaus. Plus labelmate DM Stith will make an appearance, making it quite obvious that Mr. Raposa obviously went through his Rolodex for this one.


Castanets' Tour Dates (7/3 - 8/3 w/ M.A. Turner):
Tue. June 30 New York, NY @ Central Park Summerstage w/ Explosions in the Sky, Constantines
Fri. July 3 Chicago, IL @ Schuba's w/ The Horse's Ha
Sat. July 4 Detroit, MI @ Garden Bowl
Sun. July 5 Bloomington, IN @ Russian Recording
Mon.July 6 Cleveland, OH @ Skylab/The Shelf
Tue. July 7 Buffalo, NY @ Soundlab
Wed.July 8 Boston, MA @ Middle East
Fri. July 10 New York, NY @ Cake Shop
Sat. July 11 New York, NY @ Silent Barn
Mon.July 13 Baltimore, MD @ Talking Head
Tue. July 14 Charlottesville, VA @ Twisted Branch Tea Bazaar
Wed. July 15 Chapel Hill, NC @ Nightlight
Thu. July 16 Charlotte, NC @ Mileston
Fri. July 17 Knoxville, TN @ Pilot Light
Sun. July 19 Nashville, TN @ The Basement
Mon. July 20 Birmingham, AL @ The Bottletree
Thu. July 23 Houston, TX @ Rudyards
Fri. July 24 Austin, TX @ The Mohawk
Sat. July 25 Lubbock, TX @ Bash Riprock
Mon. July 27 Phoenix, AZ @ Modified Arts
Wed. July 29 San Diego, CA @ Casbah
Thu. July 30 Los Angeles, CA @ Spaceland
Fri. July 31 San Francisco, CA @ Hemlock Tavern
Sat. Aug. 1 Santa Cruz, CA @ Crepe Place
Mon. Aug. 3 Portland, OR @ Worksound

Muhammad Ali: Fighter of gum disease and rewriter of history.

Muhammad Ali. He knew all about butterflies and bees. He rumbled in the jungle and thrilled in Manila. Apparently he also cared about the dental wellbeing of our nation’s youth and claimed to have set fire to the ship sitting in the Boston Bay circa 1773.

Along with such luminaries as Frank Sinatra, Richie Havens, and Howard Cosell, Ali made it his goal to give tooth decay a knockout punch right smack on it’s fragile glassjaw on the album, “Ali and His Gang vs. Mr. Tooth Decay”. He also took it upon himself to rewrite the American history books. This may seem strange considering Ali was classified 1A in 1966 and refused to fight in ‘Nam on the account that “no Vietcong ever called him a nigger” and was considered an American seditionary for a brief period.

At its most unadorned essence, this track, “Ali’s Historical Theme Song” is extraordinary because it’s a peculiar amalgam of soul music, self-absorption, historical narration, and ludicrousness. Suffice to say, it has a respectable groove and can stand on it’s own musical merits.

Ali’s second album, “The Dope King’s Last Stand” focuses on the perils of cocaine abuse and somehow earned a Grammy in 1977 for “Best Recording For Children.” This will clearly be fodder for a forthcoming post on this blog.

Listen: Muhammad Ali "Ali's Historical Theme Song"

Arsenio and "the African Dream"

I never did watch much Arsenio Hall as a kid, but I did watch a pretty fair amount of WWF (now WWE due to a lawsuit) wrestling, and something of that obsession carried over into my adult years thanks to the Youtube revolution that has gripped humanity over the last few years. Thanks to that site (and other various video sharing sites) I have been able to spendcountless hours watching footage from what is considered the Second Golden Age of Wrestling from the early 1980's to sometime in the mid-1990's. Watching countless clips of Legion of Doom, Junkyard Dog, and of course, The Iron Sheik has been - in my opinion - time wasted quite well.

So where does Arsenio fit into all this? Well, Mr. Hall, in all his zeitgeisty glory had his finger on the pulse of many things (see the video of then presidential candidate Bill Clinton playing the saxophone in sunglasses, and thus making the youth think he was the coolest guy since, well, Arsenio), including Americas obsession with professional wrestling. And on the clip above, from a pre-L.A. Riot time, apparently when I guess a police figure beating a handcuffed black man wasn't such a hot button topic (also pointing at another black man, and calling him "boy" didn't seem to register on the racist meter either), Big Boss Man, and Akeem "the African Dream" (formerly known as One Man Gang), known by their tag team name of "The Twin Towers", make a guest appearance (accompanied by their manager Slick) on Hall's show, and hilarity ensues.

Oh, and if ever you wondered how One Man Gang became "the African Dream" (I know you do), here is the explanation behind that one.

Quickies (Tall Dwarfs, Soviet punks, Dolly Partons patches)

Chris Knox of the New Zealand band Tall Dwarfs had a stroke. This is very sad news and I wish him a speedy recovery.

• This photo of Soviet-era punks is on Boing Boing.

• Yrfriendmatthew shot a video of this dude/band Bosco Delrey at the Pogo in Togo party.

• I was yet to hear Gavin Russom's (formerly (?) of Delia and Gavin) project Black Meteoric Star until I made my weekly journey over to 20jazzfunkgreats, and now I am happy to report that it sounds like the theme to Knight Rider. He deserves to make a million off this.

• Did you know the Girl Scouts named a badge after a Dolly Parton song? I didn't either -- until now!
  

Captain Beefheeart on Letterman

Mount Eerie releasing a Black Metal album?!?!

P4k reports something about former Microphones genius Phil Elverum releasing a "Black Metal" album. I don't really know what to expect, but I know I'll buy it because if I'm a sucker for two things, it's Phil Elevrum and Black Metal

Quickies (Irma Thomas, Stanley Cup, Chris Leo, Nick Cave covering Neil Young, Cat Power and vodka)

I went to go look for game seven of The Stanley Cup news today on the always reliable Slap Shot blog, and what do I find, but an Irma Thomas video for the song "Another Man Done Gone." Soul and Skates, when two of my favorite things collide!

• I asked Chris Leo some questions on Vol. 1 Brooklyn

• Cat Power is directing a vodka commercial? Sounds awesome actually.

• I laughed and cried at the same time when looking at this post on Newyorkshitty

• The drummer from Against Me! quit because he would rather make burrittos.

• We all need to hear Nick Cave covering Neil Young on Chromewaves Radio. I was expecting Cave to tackle "Cortez the Killer", but I'm satisfied with this.
  

From old Hamburg to Bughouse Square

Chicago, El-a-noy…. It’s the place of origin for a vast quantity of essential cultural artifacts: the Union Stockyards, the Wrigley Building, John Wayne Gacy, the Black Sox scandal of 1919, Dick the Bruiser, the eight hour workday, Mrs O’Leary’s cow, Playboy Magazine, Ryne Sandberg, the Haymarket Riots, and it’s debatably the fabled home of the blues.

Continuing in the great tradition of those beatniks from Southern California, the Standells, singing about the grimy shores of the River Charles and John Fogerty romancing the wonders of bayou from his El Cerrito bungalow, we have the Phantom Brothers from Hamburg singing about the great windy city. The Phantom Brothers are indeed ghostly in that little is known about the group. What is known is that the band consisted of several Germany sailors that belonged to some sort of rocker gang, they had a drummer that beat the traps standing up, and that they graced the stage at the celebrated Star Club in Hamburg over 280 times.

Today’s pick consists of a 60s punker called “Chicago” released in 1966. This one goes great with a deep dish pizza!

Listen: The Phantom Brothers, "Chicago"

New Woods video "To Clean"

Woods rule. That's all you need to know.

Listen: The Rural Alberta Advantage

Every year one or two songs come out that re-kindle your love of good, sappy indie pop, and this is that song.

Listen: "Don't Haunt This Place"

The Rural Alberta Advantage summer tour

06/21 Madison, WI High Noon Saloon
06/23 Winnipeg, MB Royal Albert Arms
06/25 Calgary, AB Sled Island Fest
06/26 Calgary, AB Sled Island Fest
07/09 San Francisco, CA Bottom of the Hill
07/25 Guelph, ONT Hillside Festival
07/26 Guelph, ONT Hillside Festival
08/08 Wolfe Island, ONT Wolfe Island Musicfest
08/24 Chicago, IL Downtown Sound / Pritzker Pavillion / Millenium Park

The Warlocks on tour this summer

Something about the L.A. "neo-psych" scene of bands like Brian Jonestown Massacre, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, and others has always sort of cheesed me out a little for some reason. I think it all began when I watched Dig! a few years back. Whatever the case, I like the music for the most part, and when B.J.M. offshoot The Warlocks released their eponymous first EP way back at the start of the century on Bomp! I was pretty blown away. Then for about six years they go and sort of vanish off my map until resurfacing a few years later on the always reliable Tee Pee Records. The band hit the road in support of their most recent album, The Mirror Explodes.

The Warlocks Summer, 2009 tour

July 30 Bottom of the Hill, San Francisco, CA
Aug 1 Chop Suey Seattle, WA
Aug 2 Doug Fir Lounge Portland, OR
Aug 5 7th St Entry Minneapolis, MN
Aug 6 Empty Bottle Chicago, IL
Aug 7 Empty Bottle Chicago, IL
Aug 8 Grog Shop Cleveland, OH
Aug 11 Kung Fu Necktie Philadelphia, PA
Aug 12 Great Scott Allston, MA
Aug 14 Bowery Ballroom, NYC
Aug 15 Maxwell's Hoboken, NJ
Aug 17 Local 506 Carrboro, NC
Aug 18 The Earl Atlanta, GA
Aug 19 The Bottletree Birmingham, AL
Aug 20 One Eyed Jacks New Orleans, LA
Aug 21 The Parish Austin, TX
Aug 22 Walter's on Washington Houston, TX
Aug 26 Club Congress Tucson, AZ
Aug 27 The Casbah San Diego, CA
Aug 28 Venue TBA Los Angeles, CA
Aug 29 Venue TBA Los Angeles, CA

Bothering: Artist Marq Spusta

As mentioned last month, I really like the new cover art on the upcoming Dinosaur Jr. album Farm. So I decided to bother the guy who did it, Marq Spusta.

How did this project come about? Did J Mascis just show up in a cloud of smoke or in a dream telling you what to draw?
I had been in communication with Dinosaur Jr.'s management for awhile, but the album cover gig kind of came out of nowhere. The band and management looked through my website and found a sketch that they thought had potential to be the cover.

That's no fun. Do you give names to any of the characters you draw? What are the names of the tree men?
I often avoid naming the characters, and that's the case with gentle giants on the Farm cover. I enjoy hearing what others call them, or how they're described. A few recent characters I made into art prints got named Antlorius Orkaphylx and Froompa Aguaticus

A lot of your work deals with the outdoors, do you do any of your artwork outside?
I don't work outside much right now, but I spend a lot of time hiking around and stuff. I live in the foothills with their plentiful California flora and fauna.....my surroundings are certainly an inspiration.

What else influences your work? I notice the eyes sort of remind me of those in many "Keane" paintings, anything else?
Everything influences my work. All kinds of artists from Jim Henson to Rick Griffin to Salvador Dali to the renaissance painters.

You have been able to do a pretty fair amount of poster work for a pretty diverse selection of bands (Vetiver, My Morning Jacket, Black Crowes) is this the stuff you listen to when you are working?
Well, my clientèle is no coincidence. I do work for a lot of my favorite bands and listen to a lot of their music while while working on the art. Not the whole time, but a lot during the concept sketches and then here and there throughout the process. I was disappointed that I did not actually have Farm to listen to while working on the cover. So I spent some time with Dino Jr's back catalog.

You got to re-do the Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers logo, did you have a chance to get Tom's reaction to it? I'm guessing it was a stoned chuckle and a "cool."
Yeah, it was a thrill to do some stuff for Petty. He really liked the Mudcrutch Fillmore poster I did, and they used that art for a bunch of things too. Wish I could've gotten of direct reaction from him....but I'll assume it went down a bit like you predicted.

List of likes #1

• Judd Apatow answering the questions to this months advice column for The Believer is pretty amazing. Sometimes I want to buy into the school of thought that his films speak directly to the lowest form of "dudes", but then I realize that I must be one of those "dudes" cause I'm laughing along to all the dick and fart jokes. In the June issue of said magazine, Mr. Apatow seems to either be suffering some sort of existential crisis, or seriously thinks that the whole idea is b.s. and that he really isn't answering reader submitted questions. Is he? I don't know, but saying "I like twenty-page articles on the history of Helvetica font and interviews with Todd Haynes as much as the next guy, but I'd be lying if I didn't admit that I like saying I read The Believer more than I like reading it" makes the fact that I spent 8 bucks on the magazine worth it.

• Deer Tick's upcoming album Born on Flag Day is no masterpiece, because music like this isn't supposed to attain that level - it's supposed to be all beer soaked and rough around the edges. If you haven't gotten the notice, these dudes are gonna be huge.

• Make your summer an Alfred Hitchcock one. I've started mine by watching his first American project, 1940's Rebecca. Every week until the leaves fall I plan to (attempt to) watch one of his films a week.
  

• About Meth Teeth, my pal's at Impose say "Their (inevitably) lo-fi fuzz rock rides rootsy in a way that’s as melodically attuned to Delta blues as to a Wipers song." Ummmm, yes please.

• I've had a good seitan week. At 'Snice in Park Slope they have a BBQ seitan with cole slaw sandwich, and I gotta say, I think it might be the tastiest thing I've had in ages.
  

• SFGate talked to a bookstore employee a few weeks back, and he mentioned Edward Lewis Wallant's The Tenants of Moonbloom, which the bookstore guy mentions; "it reads like a Wes Anderson movie, but without the affectations because it was actually written in the '50's." This quote shocked me a bit, because I had skipped out on reading Wallant a few times in the past, but I had never heard such a comparison, so I decided to go and pick up one of his books, I settled upon The Pawnbroker, as it was suggested to me several times before, and it was (thankfully?) the furthest thing from Royal Tenenbaums territory as I could have imagined. Wallant, who is at times is mentioned in the same breaths as Philip Roth and Saul Bellow tackles the extremely weighty subject of a holocaust survivor in 1950's New York, trying (and failing) to deal with his past by shutting himself down. It is an extremely heavy novel that really felt more to me like a much darker, more gut-wrenching Bernard Malamud book than a work by Roth or Bellow - although I can understand the comparisons.
  

• Nodzzz "New Year's Eve San Francisco" cassette via What's Your Rupture? in anticipation of their upcoming seven inch sorta of makes me think of if Guided by Voices were transported to Hamburg, Germany in the early 60's, and forced to improvise.
  

• Beer of the week totally comes from Two Brothers Brewing Company from just outside of Chicago. Their seasonal Dog Days Summer Lager was a very clean tasting beer that I drank slowly on my roof a few hours before the thunderstorms overtook Brooklyn.
  

These United States touring, putting out new album

I was thoroughly impressed with These United States a few weeks ago at Bell House with Vetiver and Papercuts. Now comes word that they are going to be playing a series of shows with another band I have been excited by this year, Phosphorescent, and then wrapping things up with a Bowery Ballroom show with Deer Tick. Then a couple of months later, their new album Everything Touches Everything will be out -- by years end, everybody will know these guys. That's them on the video above for the song "Honor Amongst Thieves" from their last album, Crimes)

These United States 2009 summer tour

06/19 Chicago, IL Taste of Randolph St. *
06/27 Brooklyn, NY Prospect Park / Celebrate Brooklyn *#
07/01 San Francisco, CA Hemlock Tavern &
07/02 Berkeley, CA The Starry Plough
07/03 Big Sur, CA Mother Hips' Family Hipnic
07/04 Quincy, CA High Sierra Festival
07/05 Quincy, CA High Sierra Festival
07/07 Visalia, CA Cellar Door &
07/09 Los Angeles, CA Echoplex $
07/11 St. Louis, MO The Luminary - Center for the Arts
07/12 Louisville, KY Forecastle Festival
07/23 Bridgeport, CT Gathering of the Vibes Festival
07/24 New York, NY Bowery Ballroom %

* = w/ Dr. Dog
# = w/ Phosphorescent
& = w/ Red Cortez
$ = w/ Dusty Rhodes
% = w/ Deer Tick

Quickies (Titus Andronicus, The Wailing Wall, Craig Yoe, The Low Anthem)

I thought Titus Andronicus put out one of the better albums of last year. The Airing of Grievances was chocked full of Jersey angst and really well-written anthems -- now it's free on Impose.

• The Rumpus has a discussion with Craig Yoe, who just wrote Secret Identity: The Fetish Art of Superman’s Co-Creator Joe Shuster.
• "The Super Bowl Shuffle" is picked as one of the best sports meeting music moments.
• The Wailing Wall are giving away their new album; Hospital Blossom for free over here starting tomorrow
• The Low Anthem are re-releasing the re-mastered version of their wonderful album; Oh My God, Charlie Darwin - tomorrow on Nonesuch Records.
  

He would walk down the street and girls could not resist his stare

I've been wrong about a countless number of things and I freely admit this, but I totally believe that we are nearing this time of universal enlightenment when the entire world (or at least those who care) will come to realization that I have also arrived at and that is in the post-break up Velvet Underground world; it's John Cale who can claim the title of the most relevant member of what is possibly the most relevant band of the 20th Century. Aside from a slew of good solo records in the 70's and early 80's, a great collaboration with old friend/nemesis/bandmate Lou Reed (1990's tribute too Andy Warhol; Songs for Drella), and the greatest cover of a Leonard Cohen song there ever has been. Cale has also produced some of the best records of the later part of the century including the first Stooges record, The Marble Index by Nico, and Horses by Patti Smith. It might be said by some however that his greatest contribution was recording what might honestly be one of the five greatest rock n' roll songs ever; "Roadrunner" by Jonathan Richman and The Modern Lovers. A few years later on his own album; Helen of Troy, Cale would pay homage to another song off that album with his interpretation of "Pablo Picasso."

Listen: John Cale "Pablo Picasso"

John Cage, 1960

This is amazing. Found it @ Impose

Quickies (Dirty Projectors, Josh Weil, Plastic Crimewave, 10-cent beer night)

• Dirty Projectors are officially huge after getting a profile in the NY Times.
• Writer Josh Weil ("The New Valley") likes Bonnie "Prince" Billy and Dirty Three @ Largehearted Boy
• Salon summer reading picks
• 10-cent beer night was a great night in 1974 @ Boing Boing
• Plastic Crimewave news on Arthur
• Dave Hill interviewed on The Rumpus
• Apparently according to the caption in his NY Times write up, Michael Bastian just has a bunch of dudes hanging out in his apartment.
  

Franz Nicolay: Road entries Jan. 2009 Pt. 1

Earlier in the year, Franz Nicolay embarked on a tour in support of his first solo album Major General, and was kind enough to share his experiences with the now defunct Hex Ed. Journal. So here, for the sake of keeping an incredibly well-written set of road stories alive may we present them to you for the second time around.

By Franz Nicolay, winter 2009.

Charlottesville, Virginia, barely registered for me as a place that existed, much less as somewhere one could feasibly play a show, but when Rich offered a free show, somewhat out of the way, the idea of a low-key warm-up event seemed appealing. In fact, the sentiment was not misplaced; the PA only half-worked, I split my pants right before I went onstage, the bar was full of chatty state-college types, and I had a fantastic time.

The day before had not been without drama. I had all day to pick up the rental car, get the pins I was expecting at my PO Box, drive to South Jersey to pick up t-shirts, and then onto Virginia. It was solid twelve-hour day. I will now provide a consumer-service warning, my own Consumer Reports: Punk Rock Edition. Don’t order pins from something called Seatthole. 300 pins, two weeks, “definitely” delivered by the 4th? Absolutely. Small rush charge. The 4th comes around, and no pins. I call them up. “Oh yeah…Franz Nicolay…you don’t have your pins, huh?…yeah, we didn’t get them done…No, we didn’t think to let you know. You really need them today?” They say they can maybe get them to me in three days. The fine folks at Dogwig, by comparison, take the designs and have them FedExed to me overnight. Now that’s service!

It’s a bleak, rainy few days in Charlottesville, but the extraordinary thing about touring is the number of people who are willing to take you in, feed you, and give you a place to sleep. Rich and Polly in Charlottesville are no exception. After the show, full of adrenaline and red wine, they took me to the karaoke bar next door, and I was reminded that karaoke, when it hits the sweet spot, can be absolutely priceless entertainment. A Weird Al lookalike who chooses to sing…”Coat of Many Colors”? A dead-serious, five-foot, mixed-race fellow with crimped hair, slaying Prince’s “7″. I myself have never karaoke-d in my thirty-one otherwise quite full years, and I have now checked off another notch on my Life List thanks to a combination of Patron and the presence of “Fairytale of New York” on their list.

“Bonz? Bonz is up next, is there a Bonz in the house?”

—–

It’s always the small cities that have the surprisingly good shows: the Lancaster, PAs; Duluth, MN; Iowa City, Little Rock. I had, I must say, limited expectations for a Buffalo show on a Monday in January. Buffalo was shut down, dark, awash in slushy, wooly drifts. The Mohawk was still closed when we arrived. There was a glowing, warm locals-only bar on the corner: a place I’ve used for refuge from Hold Steady shows in the past. It’s got everything you’d expect from such a spot: puffy Bills jackets, withered old lady bartender, elderly couples drinking Coors Light.

The opening act at the Mohawk was a low-key acoustic group, seated in a circle and getting slowly soused off bottles of wine (I thought, “oh no, i can’t do the wine bottle bit! they’re way ahead of me!”). Two young World/Inferno fans in flat caps sat shyly at the bar. Bill, the bartender, and I talked about American Music Club. He’d lost $300 on an AMC show last year, but considered it, on balance, a win; he’d gotten his own band on the bill with his favorite band, and who can blame him?

There are several ways in which the success of shows can be measured. One is ledger-based: how much money did we make? One is numerical: how many folks came? And one is subjective: Did we connect? Did they care?

In New York, a hundred and fifty or so people came, and I played pretty well. But the show was late, after a Ronnie Spector early show, on a Sunday, and had an opening act that played soporifically for an hour (after Sxip killed for 30 minutes). The lights were bright and the room was dark, flared with what turned out to be fake, electric candles, and I had the impression of playing to a long cave of reverent fireflies.

Merely sixteen hours later, in a dingy venue in a dark town on the edge of the lake, thirty or so bundled rockers, most of whom didn’t know or care who I was, gathered in front of a small duct-taped, carpeted, ashed-on stage. They laughed, they jeered, they cheered. They sat on the edge of the stage and they yelled requests. Later at the bar they talked about lyrics, writing and love, found a place to stay, and were fed a giant huevos rancheros breakfast. So there you go.

—–

Baltimore was a little rough. Working out the kinks. A phrase which makes me think there might be a great market for a Ray Davies fitness tape.

—–

I’m a fan of Spoonboy as a person. He’s a Benjamin Button-type character with the body and voice of a twelve-year-old boy and a face that reminds me of the effect you get from carving a face into an apple and then letting it dry: ears and nose slightly outsized, like the old men whose features keep growing even as they shrink. It’s a dialectic that carries over into his work: a childlike front, a zine called “Grownups Are Obsolete”, a fondness for cross-legged, impromptu solo performances, and a Peter Pan-like resistance. But his lyrics are multi-layered, nostalgic but not backwards-looking, hopeful, and idealistic without being wide-eyed. We played Washington and Philadelphia together. The First Unitarian Church on Chestnut Street is best known for sweaty punk shows in the basement and reverent indie rock shows in the main chapel, but the nave, the annex, and the side chapel, I’d never been in. A dry venue, for obvious reasons, so the full-house crowd was a bit subdued for my taste, and I sacrificed my wine bottle to pass around and share the communion. The PA was hardly necessary; in fact, Spoonboy dispensed with it altogether and sang nestled in a window, like a small, chirping bird who’d wandered in and been trapped in the chapel.

After the show I was selling merch, still hopped up on adrenaline and anxiety, and a middle-aged man approached me and said, “I have a suggestion for a song. I think you should write a song about typewriters.”

“Why’s that?”

“Your grandfather would appreciate it.”

(Parenthetically, my paternal grandfather and namesake, after training as a radio technician, spent his life as a typewriter and office machine repairman. Elite of Suffolk, Suffolk County, Long Island. House calls available.)

Confused, nonplussed, I blinked blankly.

“I’m your cousin, Paul. My mother was your grandmother’s sister.”

Ah yes! The Scherbners: the Pennsylvania branch. I’d never met them. I knew his mother, my great-aunt Lily, solely through a decades-spanning string of $25 checks come Christmas. He’d seen my picture in one of the local free rags and brought his wife and their rather shy son. The release of “Major General” and attendant publicity has had this effect. Many figures of my high-school and deeper past have begun to float to the surface, bloated faces and unrecognizable corpses from a long-gone crime.

—–

Originally, the plan was to drive with Dustin, who handles guitar technicalities and other on-stage duties for the Hold Steady. Dustin is a hulking and gently unpredictable South Dakotan with oversized, black-rimmed glasses. He’d grown up seeking out hardcore cassettes in small-town South Dakota, an admirably quixotic task for an isolated adolescent mostly engaged in welcoming intoxicated Indians to basement shows.

Anyway, we’d borrow his brother’s car, Dusty would drive from Minneapolis to NYC and from there, the world! Well, best-laid plans and all that: his brother sold the car and Dustin got a studio booking he couldn’t turn down. Well! One of the (relatively few, I must say) drawbacks of exiting my twenties is that I have fewer and fewer friends who are willing or able to drop everything for a three-week road trip across the frozen upper Midwest in January. Even my unemployed friends, in this economy, feel awkward about wandering off aimlessly into the tundra.

So I resigned myself, not unhappily, to a solo jaunt, and for the first week, I enjoyed it: listening to the same playlists repeatedly and with impunity (Dion, how did an Italian kid from the Bronx come to sing like a muezzin on “Born To Cry”?), tolerating endless podcasts (that means you, Scharpling and PRI’s The World), throwing my used coffee cups on the passenger seat floor, and wrestling with self-destructing merch boxes.

And a fine time it was, too, but come the treacherous winds of the upper Midwest and the thought of facing weeks of sober shows, I welcomed the call of the great fixer and operator David Bilmas (another slightly arrested psychology), who decided to play matchmaker. A 20-year-old punk rocker from Philadelphia who I knew slightly but whose face I couldn’t quite bring to memory had just dropped out of film school and was looking for adventure. Come along, fresh-faced young Ryan, still excited about the spare and sparse beauty of a 10-below drive from Buffalo to Lansing. Your reward will come in the next life.

—–

The snow devils are whipping across the northbound road into Michigan, the horizon is a dull blank bowl, and Andy reports that in Minneapolis your spit freezes before it hits the ground. Ryan and I have chosen to counteract the frozen outdoors with tropical tunes such as Toots and Trojan Dub and then segue into “Milo Goes To College.” The sides of the highways are littered with pick-up-sticks configurations of vehicular casualties, their drivers surprisingly calm, even content, to sit in the cabs and await the tow trucks.

Esquire, December of 1967

Via WFMU blog

This Sharon Tate pictorial, shot by photographer William Helburn, appeared in the December 1967 issue of Esquire. Is this the birth of the appalling communist chic movement? Probably not, but I really don't know.

Unenlightened rube that I am, I've never been able to grasp the kitschy appeal of the symbols of a brutally repressive totalitarian movement.

Still Flyin' on the road entries: April 3rd - April 11th, 2009

Until first listen, I was not totally sure I would fall under the spell of Still Flyin', and then I realized what many are saying is totally true (including Will Sheff of Okkervil River); the fifteen-plus member band is really as catchy and fun as everybody has been saying. For their entry on These American Roads between the days of April 3rd and April 11th on the East Coast, a different member took their turn writing of their various experiences that led them to their date with a Daytrotter Session in Rock Island, Il. Read away, and get swept up in the good times.

Listen: Still Flyin', "The Hot Chord is Struck"

STILL FLYIN' EAST COASTER TOUR DIARY

Friday 4/3 - Union Hall - Brooklyn

By: SA RAWLS (VOCALS/GUITAR)


First day of tour! Our flight out of SF is at 7:50am. Holy smokes that is some extreme earliness. I think I wake up at 5:30 or something unearthly and get to the airport only to find out our flight has been delayed. The delay keeps delaying into oblivion. We eventually are allowed onto the plane only to sit there in another delay on the runway. Literally about 75% of the flights we’ve been on recently have been delayed - I wonder if it’s some sort of ironic curse because of our band name or if that’s just the way flights are these days. The best thing that happens on the flight is when Brendude and I are waiting in line for the bathroom. We’re waiting for a while and figure the person in there definitely up to something serious. Finally the toilet flushes and another long wait ensues. At last a middle-aged lady emerges from the bathroom with a rumpled pile of newspapers. She’d been doing the crossword in there. Everyone in line has a good hearty laugh.


Big Lord picks us up at the airport and we rush to the venue. Because of the delay, we have missed sound check and caused the support bands to miss sound check as well. I was also really late for an interview. Everyone has a lot of pals in New York and we are no exception. I hug so many people I don’t see enough, including spiritual band members who will jam with us tonight. The journalist finds me and we go upstairs for an interview. I miss my friends In Interview’s set, because I am literally in interview. I figure that’s the ultimate valid excuse for missing them. Union Hall is really small and the show is packed way beyond capacity. Tonight’s 14-piece version of the band literally can’t fit on stage but we do some sorcery and somehow make the jam happen, trombones hitting people in the backs of heads and everything. Due to the chaos of the day, we don’t play our best, but the crowd is pretty into it. It’s a good feeling to play a place that’s too small for your band to be playing at.


After the show they have midnight karaoke in the room and most of us just hang out in there or at the bar upstairs. It’s great to catch up with old friends. I drink a few shots and a ton of beers and build up a potent hangover for the next day.



Saturday 4/4 - PA’s Lounge - Boston

By: JAIMESY KNIGHT (FLYINETTE)


This is the one day I thought the inevitable tardiness that is a result of having a such a large band wouldn’t really affect me. I flew into Boston from San Francisco today because I had to teach on Friday and couldn’t come to the first of the New York shows. In an amazing show of predictability despite my 9 hours of cross continental travel to their 4 hours of highway trekking, I got to the venue about ½ hour before the rest of the band showed up. The exhaustion of travel quickly left me as I jammed a solo brew groove in the little bar-side of PA’s, chatted with the locals about the trials and tribulations of full inclusion special education and awaited the rest of my crew. The first to show were Yosh, Thrill, Momo and Olsonkroken along with our long time pal Suzi. After some much needed embraces and a quick catch up the rest of us showed, we unloaded and set off for a quick dinner at a Thai place around the corner.

Back at PA’s there were lots of old friends for people to catch up with so we all sort of kept our own mini groove going on, watching our pals and tour-mates The Reports and Folklore jam it out and work up the crowd for us. In another deja-vu moment Frankensax took an (I’m sure much needed) pass out face down on the bar. Luckily our raucous bar maid had been forewarned of the “nap” and allowed Frankie to recharge his groove before our set. Boston’s a pretty tough crowd, almost as stoic as our home town but as we started to play things really started to pick up and there was some serious jamming happening on the dance floor. My personal favorite was when the handsome young skinhead decked out in his fred perry, braces, rolled up levi’s and combats just couldn’t resist any longer and totally busted out with a full on hybrid skank/hippy sway jam. That definitely made my night.

After THAT success we took it to the end and closed it out with a killer Ghost Town, Mooks and I belting it out like our lives depended on it.


The strongest jam of Boston was definitely when the Hound and Frankensax, rather than taking advantage of our killer pricelined Marriott hotel room, opted to stay up until 5 am watching the annual salsa showcase in the hotel ballroom. We woke up in the morning with Frankie (once again) face down on the carpet and the Hound crashed on the (what could have been) fold out couch, chucks and all.


Sunday 4/5 - Cake Shop - New York City

By: MINDY SCHWEITZER-RAWLS (FLYINETTE)


We wake up in Boston by our friend’s toy poodle, get our asses together and pile back into the van for our trek back to New York City. We arrive at the Cake Shop a little earlier than scheduled (for once), so we loaded into the basement of the Cake Shop moments before a scheduled poetry slam was to take place. No, we did not stay around to check out the slam. Instead, we took it to the streets of the city and finally ended up in a bar a couple doors down the way from the Cake Shop for some PBR’s and shots. The perfect way to ease into an evening of intense jamming.

The show begins, we are playing with two of our good friends bands, The Reports and another night with Folklore. Both bands tear through their sets, and create a perfect vibe for the rest of the evening. Around midnight or so, we try to arrange ourselves on the small Cake Shop stage. We end up having to arrange this evening's 4-piece horn section on the floor to the right side of the stage. Even with the horns located off stage, we still end up barely fitting onto the stage.


The first song begins, the jams start flowing, the crowd is beginning to move their hips, beginning good. We shred through a couple songs and build up a full on hammjamm. The band is jamming’ it…the crowd is jamming’ it…At one point during “Aersosmith Take Me To the Other Side”, I get thrown into the crowd by Sean for a more intimate jam.

Then, we pull out the classic- ”Couple of Smokies”. This song is real brass heavy, so the brass section and the Flyinettes take it to the crowd for a mini conga line. This was not enough, so Sean suggests to the crowd the idea of Frankensax wailing his sax solo during a full on crowd surf. Enough said, two friends eyes light up in the crowd and they make their way over to Frank in the brass corner, bring him over to the front of crowd and hoist him up with his sax. Frank is wailing his sax for the first 5 seconds, but then begins having trouble because the sax mouth piece is protruding into his throat and gagging him. The sax solo ends, Frank is gently placed back on the ground, but then proceeds to fall straight back and hitting his head on the concrete floor. Don’t worry, Frank lived.

We did some dancing following the show, hung with some forever dudes and then ate some good NY slices.

Overall jamm percentage for the night: 85%.

Monday 4/6 - Jonny Brenda’s - Philadelphia (Fish Town)

By: BREN MEAD (2ND DRUMS/VOCALS)


This was the most leisurely morning of the tour. We slept scattered in various friends’ houses across Manhattan and Brooklyn. Slowly, everyone crept back to Gary’s house for lobby call. Bagels were consumed, coffee brewed, backs packed up.


The New York weather that morning was miserable and rainy. Both Frank and Gabe got soaked to the bone. The ride was short and sweet. During the trip we learned that the Johnny Brenda’s was in a part of Philly called Fish Town. There was much speculation as to why they named the place Fish Town, the most popular theory being that it smelled like fish. When we pulled up to the club and opened the door a powerful fish odor swept through the van, temporarily proving our theory true. The smell passed, however, and after a quick internet search we discovered that the most obvious theory was correct - the town used to be a huge fishing hub.

Johnny Brenda’s was modeled to appear 100+ years old with lots of old beat up wood paneling and a curvy balcony. The staff there was nice. They stashed the backstage with beer early. Almost a mistake, but we didn’t let it affect the performance. They also hooked us up with a nice hummus platter thing which we devoured while conducting a band meeting. During the meeting we read from our Guru’s Itinerary. Sean rated each members performance from the night before, considering factors such as musical performance, movement, and taking into account magical incidentals such as Frank’s sax solo - crowd surf at the Cake Shop the night before. Then he combined the factors into an individual rating called a Jam Percentage. Unless you pulled some amazing shit, he’s gonna be tough on ya. I had the lowest Jam Percentage for the Cake Shop show. A few songs into that show I asked the sound lady to turn on my vocal mic. It turned on, I could hear it over the PA, but then decided to start mouthing words without speaking to fool everyone into thinking the mic had turned off again. It was actually pretty funny. I heard laughter. But Sean claims that miming vocals earned me a 0% Jam Percentage. Frank scored 250% for doing the crowd surf and cracking his head on the floor after being put down.

We jammed well. A smallish crowd was thoroughly entertained. Success! By the end of the night we were drunk enough not be disheartened by not making money on the show. Some of us were more concerned with chasing our crushes to a house called the Puppy Palace. Some of us were obsessed, actually, chanting “Puppy Palace! Puppy Palace!” but our more level headed bandmates took control and corralled us back to our host’s house for the night. A good decision, for the descriptions of the Puppy Palace were frightening. Spiders crawling up your back while you try to take a shower kind of frightening.



Tuesday 4/7 - The Zodiac - Baltimore

By: FRANK EN SAX (SAX)


I woke up in the van on the way to Baltimore. It was a little weird because I remembered falling asleep at the hotel in Philly...got in the van somehow I guess. I slept the rest of the way. We got to the venue. It was a nice old-timey bar. I ordered a happy hour beer special which turned out to be a shitty hefeweisen. Yuck...finished it anyway though. Ok, so I needed to make a phone and have no cell so I went outside found a payphone made my call, turned down two offers for methamphetamines, and headed back to the club. When I got back I talked to a girl with a sweet, mismatched parts, track bike who was a messenger at a place called Service First in Chicago. That was kinda weird because I knew about that place from reading some book where the main character worked there. Anyway, we talked a little bit then I went back into the bar and ordered a cocktail this time.......I woke up in the van on the way to Ohio the next day. Don't know about nothing in between. Don't wanna. Baltimore's rough!



(Morning after) Wednesday 4/8 - Carabar - Columbus
By: DREW CRAMER (BASS)


BLEACHY FELLIN GOOOOOOOD TONIGHT!!!!!

Just cruised through Cincinnati. Headin down to Lexington. Gonna go to the tracks. Gonna win some goddamn money. Had breakfast at waffle house this morning in Columbus. Band paid for it. Moral is HIGH..Troops are in top shape. Top form. Frank’s fever broke. He’s back to normal. Just jammed the TroGGS greatest hits. Feelin Good. Last night’s show in Columbus was a good time. Bar took good care of us. Free chili dogs. Free booze. Sold a coupla records too. Remember the van ride home listenin to Earles and Jensen. Don’t remember the hotel room though….oh well. Lexington, here we come.


Thursday 4/9 - Al's Bar - Lexington

By: YOSHI NAKAMOTO (DRUMS)



Keeneland Race Track ("I am not your everyday bird that you encounter on the side of the road. I am a special bird”)



My mother and step-father were big into horse racing when I was growing up in Southern California. Many childhood hours were spent rooting for legends like Spectacular Bid, Bill Shoemaker and Laffit Pincay Jr. at Hollywood Park or Santa Anita. This morning the itinerary directed us to stop at Keeneland Race Track in Lexington, one of the most famous and most beautiful race tracks in all of America. We made it just in time for the 5th race, which was OUR race because it featured a horse by the name of Birdbirdistheword. Would the great Bird God bless the band that was Bird Aware? Not on this day, BirdBirdistheword finished tied for 3rd. After hearing our collective sigh at Keeneland, the 50 – 1 longshot and fellow aves nom Mind The Bird decided to win the Kentucky Derby in the name of Still Flyin’ a month later.



Al's Bar (“It’s good to have food in my body”)



A few months ago right before a Still Flyin' show in Perth, Australia I had saved three slices of award winning pizza from Stones Pizzeria by hiding the pizza box underneath a jacket , obscured (hopefully) by my suitcase. Ten minutes or so after we had finished the set I returned to my hiding place to discover that my three slices had vanished. Tonight in Lexington, Kentucky, our guru DJ had his good friends Will & Ross deliver us a gigantically delicious pepperoni pizza from Goodfellas. I took a bite out of a slice (absolutely perfect) but had to place it back in the box as we were right about to play. We finished the show, I finished two glasses of Four Roses Small Batch Bourbon at the bar, made my way back to the box and opened it to the sight of my half-za slice. Bless you Lexington. The moral of this story is take a bite out of your food first before saving it for later or Drew will kidnap it and kill it.

Friday 4/10 - The Abbey Pub - Chicago

By: GABE SAUCEDO (VIBRAPHONE/TROMBONE/VOCALS)


Today we decided to get an early start on driving as we had a healthy 6 hour drive to Chi-Town and hoped to get there with a little extra time to enjoy that windy, windy city. As with most things Still Flyin', it didn't quite work out as originally envisioned, but we all had fun and created memories that will last a lifetime.

Our planned leave time of 10AM was missed, as most of the gang decided to grab some last chance waffle house (who can blame them?). I passed, but then got hungry so I ran over to Arby's and tried their new Roast Burger (not as rad as the commercials made it seem, just stick with the classics) and we started driving soon after. We were gaining an hour on this trip so no one was really stressed as we made our way through a pretty boring highway-scape.

Sean made a set of SF Jeopardy questions, which I always really enjoy, and my team ended up winning. Awesome, though I must admit I had a slight edge since one of the categories was all questions about me. I conquered all that shit except a question that was about my flatulence, which I must say was unfair since it's simply not true. In fact- I rarely ever cut the cheese. One of my many philosophies which Sean is apparently unaware of, is "If you've gotta fart, just hold it til you've gotta take a shit". I wear a lot of polyester slacks, so I run the danger of trapping the smell in the fabric. Who wants farty-pants? Not me. Anyway, I'm awesome and I smoked all those fools at Jeopardy.

Later, the funnest part of the drive hit as we suddenly reached an insane traffic jam about a hundred miles from the city. Seven miles from the next exit, we were suddenly doomed to traveling under ten mph the whole way. After about 5 minutes of barely even moving, I looked at the GPS and saw that the exit a mile behind us would lead to a smaller road that we could then bypass all the traffic with. A few minutes later I saw a clearing that someone had successfully u-turned on the highway with but that involved a little bit of 'froadin'!! I offered to take this route back to the last exit and everyone screamed "NOOOOO, GABE!!!!" What a bunch of pansies. Well, I love those pansies, sir, so I opted to stay the course. About an hour later, we reached the next exit and got off for a little gas and a leg stretch. The GPS found a detour but the woman at the counter said we'd be better off staying the course again as the traffic would end in about a mile. She was right and (after a little speeding) we arrived in Chicago only slightly late for soundcheck.

The show was pretty fun, it was the only one of the tour where we weren't the headliner so we got to play a nice short set. I decided to indulge and wear my favorite sweatshirt (the outer space tournament of roses parade one). How sweaty could I get playing a short opening set? The answer is completely fucking drenched. I've ended up like that after every set we've ever played in the whole existence of this band, I don't know what possessed me to think this would be an exception. Afterwards, I took the sweater off and went outside to get a little air and to pack the van (my favorite part of touring probably, it's a lot like playing tetris).

I then went back to the club where a really pretty, probably really drunk girl asked if I could sell her my sweatshirt, autographed. She confessed that I was super hot and her favorite member of the band. This sort of stuff doesn't happen to me, that's Phil's territory, so I didn't know what to do, but I then remembered that I have a girlfriend who I love very much, and plus she has my privates in a box on her dresser right now so there was nothing I could do anyway. I found out a few of the other dudes in the band were going to the motel to watch "Eastbound and Down" (one of the best shows ever to hit TV), so I got in the van as a single tear dropped from my right eye.

Saturday 4/11 - Daytrotter Session - Rock Island
By: THRILL HORAN (DANCE MOVES)


Rock Island. That's one crazy island. After riding for three or four hours and getting lost from six different sets of numbered streets, we make it to the daytrotter spot and catch up with the gang. Everybody is getting set up in the studio space. Only Mindy and Sean get there early enough to run into Dinosaur, who had jammed it earlier in the morning. Mook's parents and sister were there jammin as well. They kept the engineers on their toes in the control room while we did our thang. During the process of "recording" four songs, we had a lot of thought riffin within the studio. Lots of ideas about doing something special for each song, and picking the right songs to begin with. After wranglin' the sweet intro to "Baker St.", we realized the sesh was a total success.

As this was the last show of the tour, we had a little goodbye ceremony after loading our stuff out. High fives and soul hugs all around. Mook and SA went with the folks. I started driving to New York cuz I needed to return Gary's keyboard. Everyone else headed back to Chicago in the van for some serious rest. While driving through Indiana, I found a rock station that was jammin some Sammy Hagar live for like an hour straight. I was singing really loud and wishin I could've been sippin some mas tequilla with old Sammy. Man, that guy is a party animal. When I got to my destination, I laid in bed thinkin about all of the cities that got jammed over the last week and a half. We did it. We got new fans and new friends. Friends for life.

Quickies (R. Crumb, John Darnielle, Dan Auerbach, Moby Dick)

R. Crumb is tackling the Book of Genesis, and until now, nobody has really seen it. If you wanna see more, go get the New Yorker that comes out today.

• Black Rio 2 comp impressed me on Impose
• John Darnielle likes the Blackout Beach album.
• Some people (Dave Kelly of Paper Cuts blog) thinks Moby Dick is "Way too long, and unduly unreadable."
• This cat rules
• I was pleasantly surprised how much I liked Dan Auerbach's (Black Keys) solo album; Keep it Hid. My Old Kentucky Blog posted a video for the song "In Disrepair."

Woolf and the City

A Virginia Woolf conference is coming up called "Woolf and the City." This doesn't interest me only because I have a strange fascination/crush on the late English writer, but also because Princeton will be playing their tribute EP Bloomsbury with an orchestra at Lincoln Center for the event. I raved all last year about that album, and still think it is one of the best things I have heard in years. That performance is on June 5th, they play Piano's the next night.