beautiful ugly in the trading card section of norman saunders’ site. actually, the best of the ugly stuff (the “make your own name” cards) is, i think, designed by basil wolverton (my favorite ugly artist), and only painted by saunders, the rest is less ugly than pulpy. but it’s still gorgeous. who is going to make the definitive ugly art coffee table book already?
also, new terribles art on the fan art page.
holy shit! every wednesday from now until august there’s a frankenstein movie at the worcester public library! today at 7 it’s gods and monsters, in the saxe room. there’s also lectures, including one by lance schacterle, aka will’s dad! this rules!!! here’s the full schedule (select “frankenstein” from the programs menu).
last night gal and lad played my house and it was fun, there was a song where they passed a microphone around and everyone shouted out what they were “all about”. i came to terms with being “all about” spaghetti, which is the food i like to eat. earlier in the day i went on some prety good errands with meredith and matty, we went to the comic book store and for some reason there was a “$1 independant” box and i got anders nilsen’s beautiful “dogs and water” book, and black hole #12. the first book rang up as $9.95, and i told the guy it was actually a dollar and he didn’t question this at all, which i attribute to the fact that i’m in the store a lot, but mostly because he was stuck in a conversation with a horrible loudmouth to which i was a vacation, however slight. tonight marge madigan is making a spaghetti supper so that’s where i’ll be.
i should be cleaning up my room and packing up all of my belongings and working out storage options for my move *next week* into *a closet* but the task is so large i can only stare at it and mope around inside of it. i’ve been listening to the second side of that albert ayler record i just bought because it’s beautiful but also because it’s not really super great and sometimes it’s nice to hear someone you really admire not entirely connect and also because music is the healing force of the universe and i could sure use that with my buttons being lately quite pushed and then buttons that could be pushed to great effect remain criminally un- or under-pushed.
i’m not bringing all my records to the new place but i am everything in the noise – early electronic – [whatever people call jazz after the jazz people said "this isn't jazz anymore"] – jazz – ragtime – misc piano continuum, plus selections from the exotica and listenable weird sections, and all black sabbath, and fat day “cats of the world”. i’m not bringing any bob dylan because i anticipate being a little bummed out and for some reason listening to bob dylan is a real icing on that particular cake for me.
ian’s back in worcester for a spell, as i’ve reported, and driving down chandler he saw with fresh eyes something i had overlooked– that a new dunkin donuts opened up next to earn-a-bike, that the old dunkin’ donuts down the street turned into a “gourmet donuts” that totally rips off the dunkin’ donuts sign color and font, and that the old gourmet donuts down the street from that has turned into a “go nuts for donuts” that does the same thing. it’s the great worcester donut rip-off shift!
in other news i’m in boing boing today, so hi boing boingers! i should have all the stuffed animals from when i was on tour and immediately before that posted tonight. this comes at about the perfect time, as this project is turning into a sort of hell for me. and while i have the attention of the blogosphere i should state that my album just came out on corleone records, and it’s all songs about the various things that people search for that result in them finding this webpage. but the songs are still sad and desperate and not goofy.
got back from tour last night to find nicky revs asleep in my bed and he is not the sort one kicks out of bed so i just laid down my sleeping bag next to the bedroll and we gossiped for awhile. last night’s show in boston was fun, all the bands were awesome- dan shea’s songs are sweet and funny and sung in the most wonderful and exotic heavy boston accent ever. yoni really rocked it out on the hollow body, and it gave me especial pleasure that he played both our first and last tour shows. the well-dressed pebble theatre ensemble did a three act play about the flatness of the earth that was really good, and bread and roses of course set all aglow with singalong goodness. cool breeze and i both had fun being a little uncomfortable playing for people that were there more to party and drink and socialize than listen to music, and we were yelling and cursing a lot. during cool breeze’s pretty quiet set many people in the back of the room were carrying on rather loud and matt smith yelled “STFU, newbs!”. maybe you have to know matt smith, but i loved it.
the night previous we played in hadley at the schoolhouse, and let me say that having gone to a lot of great shows there, it was a pleasure to play. anthrophagous rex opened and it was fucking great and i won’t describe it but it was perfect. me and cool breeze played nice and sweet and it was great to look out into the crowd and see people saying “oh no he didn’t”. cool breeze gets a lot of dumb comments about his name so it was great to see him bro down with yeay cassette’s neil young, who suffers a similar if not self-inflicted fate. the only bummer of the night was this other band that played, that had a total bad sketch comedy vibe, and had a really insulting song that i came really close to stopping. but then afterwards i didn’t say anything and even sold the lady a t-shirt. lady, if you read this and want to give the shirt away to salvation army i’ll send you back the money, seriously. also, “retard” is as bad as any other derogatory epithet i could name. i even saw the guy from the band the next day and still didn’t say anything, which i sure don’t feel right about.
on the whole, tour was totally awesome and every show ruled and i met a lot of really great people and saw some really great places. of course, home again home again jiggedy jig and nothing ever changes still fussing and puttering moving in ten days out of a simmering saucepan into a novel sort of fire.
asheville was fun- our show was in a juice bar and the town is populated it seems by large herds of teenaged future burnouts telling us to “keep jamming” and otherwise trying halfheartedly to “blow our minds”, and also the comic book store didn’t have any back issues. we spent our days hanging out with our friends from auburn high, all of whom moved or are moving to the same neighborhood. we also hung out in some totally awesome shacks in the woods with our straight edge trainhopping fiddler friend matty– on their land they have goats but not to milk- mostly just to eat the poison ivy. the other thing is that i found a sexual handcuff outside the co-op grocery store and it’s funny because punks wearing bondage gear is an established fact, but this thing is velcro with fuzzy leopard print on it, definitely declass¨¦.
drove from there to carrboro nc, stopping to see my dad on the way. carrboro has a totally sweet house with a bike shop/bar that we played in, our second DIY bar show of the tour! george was a bit misinformed about what our sets would be like, so he told people “noise”. but i maintain that if the subtext of noise is that everything is potentially music, then it’s only a hop skip and a jump to de- and re-musicing our tender warbles, and anyway no one was too disappointed or so it seemed to me. drove from there to philadelphia where we stayed over on a night off to hang with timbro and wendy jane and get vietnamese hoagies. in the morning we drove in to brooklyn again for our second brooklyn show and that was great too. chris terry was there, a friend i hadn’t seen or talked to SINCE WE WERE IN PRESCHOOL TOGETHER! pretty awesome. tonight we drive to hadley mass, to play a show at the schoolhouse with anthro rex and others. tomorrow we play in boston as listed earlier, then home.
tapes we listen to a lot-
our philadelphia show at the crystal barbeque was pretty good despite the naomi revillelessness of it all. jay purdy played for us all some of his new album, a full narrative about star-crossed luvvers. after our sets us worcesters felt awkward and went outside, where cool breeze and mike put on a whole second show of skateboard tricks that wowed the crowd for sure. stayed with timbro and martha, where we chatted into the night and i read that “wire” magazine that i like in small doses. in the morning we met up with jay purdy at fdr skatepark and they tore it up while i sat and watched, then we ate some “vegan” cheesesteaks that totally had real cheese on them and i got a little sickly. drove drove drove all day to pittsburgh and had another barbeque at deanna hitchcock’s nice house, played some jams living room-style, then watched devo videos and went to bed. also deanna had these “moron movies” that were like 5 second video versions of one-panel comic strips made by this science teacher-type from her hometown, and the titles looked like ed ruscha paintings much to my delight. deanna, i left my nice red shirt at your house, please don’t donate it away, i will make arrangements to have it got. next day we hauled more ass to north carolina and wound up in asheville around 9, where we am now. ok, more on asheville later, i have to, uh, i have to go!
papa, email me your number, i can’t find it and we’re driving through greensboro tomorrow!
also, our show in new york is at lucy’s house on 141 south 5th street, at 7 o’clock on sunday the 19th. beeeeee there!
dan shea set us up the bomb in boston, on the 21st. he says:
@ the Granite State Hotel(formerly the vortex house) 229 amory st. in jamaica plain jacob berendez (sic) cool breeze bread and roses yoni gordon the finely dressed pebble performance troupe ballon fight also BBQ food @ 7 music @ 8 !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
meanwhile we’re in asheville and i got no time to talk. maybe a nice update later, blanket dog.
last night’s show at the park by the water was really fun, sorry i was such a sourpuss about it earlier, merideth! the curtins, ben schecter, mike t (in town for a comic book convention), bigfoot paul, jj bucks, jon strange, arwen from mrr, and even the coughs were there, showing up just in time for my big finale, which if you can believe it was accompanied by fireworks (that also celebrated puerto rico day)! before the show merideth made us peanut butter kale and we hung out in the summer rain. after the show sarah sajdak made us cheesy louisey and then we went on a walk to get vegan ice cream cones in the hasidic neighborhood at one AM with people crossing the street singing “puttin’ on the ritz”. what can i say, it was a dream! as for actual dreams i’m still having the bad ones that are bad in that they’re good and then you wake up to find situations not to be the case, and mike leslie is still having those dreams where no one at the diner listens to you when you say you want pancakes and you just go to get them yourself but the grill is at eye level and the pancakes are three inches thick and all you have to flip them with is a wooden spoon. but then people make us biscuit breakfasts and we take warm showers and even if the cat sprints across us over and over with a turd hanging out of it’s butt things are still on the average pretty damn good.
today’s show is in philadelphia at crystal stokowski’s spiritual rejuvenatorium at 2121 bancroft st.. it’s a barbeque at 3pm, with music starting by 5, and jay purdy is playing. be there, naomi reville, others!
new info on tonight’s show from megadeth^M^M^M^M^M^M^Mmeredith:
jake and coolbreeze’s show in brooklyn is at the end of
grand st. in brooklyn. there’s a nice park right on the east river
looking over manhattan. take the L train to bedford and walk against traffic
on bedford and make a right onto grand. take it to the end my
friend.
and as for bad acoustics and all that….well we’ll just have to sit
nice and close to coolbreeze for a real intimate affair.bring
sandwiches and snacks and cleverly hidden beverages in brown paper bags at
8pm.
ok! and i guess there’s a space for rain in case, it’s at “the free store”, up grand st from the water. ok!
we’re two shows into our tour and day four. the first show was in worcester on tuesday, at the bar in matt coe and charlie’s room (“when in rome” is the name of the bar). john kenny played great finger picking acoustic stuff, and yoni played his rocking hollowbody material, and honored requests for billy braggs songs. next day we packed up and got more ready, then took off for providence, where we saw mudboy play in a beautiful concert hall on an incredible wurlitzer theatre organ. that night and the next day more kickin’ it with our fine hosts at little pancakes, and hanging out with the coughs, a great no-wave band that got added to our bill to wonderous effect. that night the show ruled. mike t was insistant that the show start on time (which never happens) and it really threw everyone for a loop. french in action was great and new bassist mike t got a mohawk for the occasion (and a mustache, and short shorts, and a striped shirt). the terribles ruled, and the coughs were awesome, with saxophone, metally guitars and trash percussion (a “garbage band” as ML was quick to point out). cool breeze had everyone in the palm of his hand and i played ok too. i even got away with just playing part of a new song i’m still working on and everyone was pretty into it. today we’re staying around more in providence so i can go to nicole 2 heart’s high school graduation and be a real goon. a real goon.
worcester and providence are real easy towns for me to get over in, the significant “making friends” section of tour starts tomorrow morning. tomorrow’s show in brooklyn is i don’t-exactly-know-where. it was going to be at meredith’s house (“the rearhouse”), but then jj bucks told me it was going to be “on the river”, which i think is a bad idea considering how quiet cool breeze is and how much i appreciate enclosed spaces with lots of people inside. oh well. if i can’t get it moved back to the rearhouse at least there will be directions posted there to the new spot (which isn’t, i hope, far). the rearhouse is 229 bushwick, on the corner of montrose, apt RH (that’s Rear House).