today instead of band practice me and jim and ML got totally goofy and watched part one of the three-dvd tantric lovemaking box set their roommate got and left out “for everyone”. uh, first off, “goofy” ≠ “high”. but anyway, yes. also (as mentioned before), no. and most importantly, i know. it was cool in that way knowingly stupid and awkward experiences are cool, plus there was a lot of trippy new age computer kaleidoscope and embarrassing “spiritual” interior design, and anyway we got a lot of good material out of it. at one point they were talking about “sky dancing”, which is a for connecting with your personalness (or something), and i couldn’t help but think “this is a world without moshing, looking for moshing”. upon further reflection, i came to the view that the whole thing (spiritual sexuality for white people) is by and for people who don”t connect at all with music, looking for what happens when people who really like music listen to music. i guess now it’s “now who’s being trippy?”, but music is the healing force of the universe, right?
oh yeah, this weekend the phone book / bone zone / dungeoneers mini-tour (uh, i mean “tantric conference”) hits vermont and western mass. saturday at 8pm, at the main street museum, 58 bridge st., white river junction VT. sunday at hampshire college, somethinghampton MA, at, what, bong thirty?
last night’s show was fun- the dungeoneers (which is the terribles with mz on drums and new songs) ruled as can be expected, with costumes even. MC KC had a new jam that solid ruled– i wish she’d cut a tape already. the beats are occasionally herky, but the new shit is fully on point and with a catchy chorus even. uh, not to say i don’t like herky beats because i do. it’s cool and you feel like you’re watching someone from a million years in the future trying to accurately portray early 90s rap but filtering it through, like i said, many generations of awesome fucked future. ok, now i’m getting into that frequent territory where maybe i’m saying too much how much i like something and maybe i’m talking about the thing the person that does the thing doesn’t like about the thing. uh, KC rules. cut a tape, i’ll jeep it.
popocatepetl, i have to say, i was psyched about / ready to be critical towards, based on the fact that , an active volcano which takes the form of a man once a year to walk the streets of mexico city with its wife, the volcano iztaccihuatl. so, a lot to live up to. anyway, they were a noise band and kind of a bummer in that they took a long time to set up and their set up included an altar and a costume change and getting way high, and in that you kind of got the vibe that they were like “let’s blow people’s lids by being freaky”, and once you get that vibe, nothing a person does is freaky, it’s just being on a haunted hayride in the daytime. no “goin’ for it”, reading aloud during the first song, which set the stage for me not paying attention at all. the best parts of the set were both us: ML making fart sounds in the background with his marvelous armpits; nik perry, dog schmidt, and little andrew bumrushing the instruments beforehand while the band was out smoking up, and having more fun.
ok fair guy, so how was phone book? well, let’s be self-critical as though i’m not ever. phone book (which is my band with GT on drums and me playing guitar), is a creative band in the go-ahead style of enthusiasm over everything else, steady chooglin’ with natural rhythms, less about notes than shapes of sounds and their movement and density, in the vernacular of mid-tempo riff rock. as i see it, we are exactly as successful, show to show, as as much fun we’re having. is this a valid mode for a band? i say, in the eleventh hour, all things being valid, yes. and did we have a lot of fun? again, yes. there are still hesitations, times where one or both of us is/are out of it, self-conscious, and coasting. but in our moments, which we are finding easier and easier, there is no thought. which is, as dracula famously said, glorious. fa!
tonight there was a show at the go go, bone zone played new songs with a live drummer (jjbb), yoni gordon controlled in his hollow-bodied manner, ed’s band “a primitive and savage land” screamed it out for the , and, holy shit, (kara’s old roommates from philadelphia, aka “the girl terribles”) totally ruled. mid tempo riffs! gnarly + epic = GNARPIC!!!!!!! not like i’m trying to be king quote over here, but in the words of the poet, “i was like, ‘holy shit!’.”.
ok, special bonus for all readers of long winded boasts and the other kind: here’s a picture of the original , with disgusting neckbeard even! hail to the gooniest kid on cape cod!
busy as two bees even if i’ve been sleeping on the webpage[s]. yes, fuffin’, grubbin’, aw heckin’, nicklin’, dimin’, shuckin’, no noodlin’, no doodlin’; admittedly i’m not full-time destroying like i should be, and somedays i feel like i did nothing at all, but what can you expect from a universe that creates and destroys itself instant to instant?
tomorrow matt carroll will be at the store from 5-8pm doing mad libs with people in the full guise of a 19th century british naval officer.
today i did a mess of silkscreening (shirts and patches and finally bandanas (all for the store)) plus i went to the mall with pars, which was heavenly. not that it was great, i mean, every moment with pars is like getting a bottle rocket shot at you (great), but the time at the mall wasn’t especially super wonderful, it was just that, with the colors and lighting and architecture being so weird, and time collapsed in that weird mall way, and people looking so strange and clean, and everyone playing this weird game i can’t exactly discern, and there’s nothing to really do– it’s like a heaven as viewed by a person who for one reason or another has opted out.
sunday i went down to providence to set up an art show at the
, which is haley’s gallery on broadway. the show was great, the theme was “creatures” and i made some new stuffed animals for it (which i showed alongside a select few of the stuffed animals i already made. many heads at the show but i have that thing where i can’t have actual conversations with people in a party setting, i can only say “hey, how’s it going?” and “what have you been up to?” over and over again. plus i was super hungry and frazzled from running late all over (and staying up really late working on the animals last-minute style), so i pretty much just stood in the corner plowing through free sushi but that’s totally OK.
saturday working on the animals as stated (a la mode) and finally (reverse-finally)
friday night total sweets party for JK’s birthday. dude is such a sweet tooth he just asked everyone to bring sweets to share, and i flew so high and crashed so fast and hard and with extreme prejudice that it messed me physically and emotionally up for from then until almost now. but if that’s what JK wants that’s what he gets because he’s an angel and what he says goes. my part in the potluck was a first try at “desert dogs”, which entailed frying plantains with brown sugar and putting them in grilled hot dog buns with chocolate syrup. sounds good but i burned the damn things, and i even burned the buns, which should if anything show my commitment to fucking everything up that can be up at all, or to put it another way, the simple ease with which i do everything wrong always and rep it.
oh, plus peter’s back from thailand and taking (indefinite?) time off from school, so take him out for coffee and he’ll tell you about going to a rave in a jungle. he came to worcester this weekend and totally creased my dome, wearing a lime green t-shirt with a flaccid anthropomorphic phallus on fire printed on the collarbone. you think he’s set for zig, he zags- psibs for emperor!
drawing at MZ’s house last night while he worked on the zombie painting he’s been working on for months now. obviously i could never do that- i can barely wait for paint to dry. the other thing i realized i can’t do is let a drawing sit in my sketchbook- almost everything i ever draw ends up getting used in something nowadays. and even backwards through history, as i’ve been raiding old sketchbooks for pictures (and lyrics).
the other day i won a business card raffle for a free lunch at the broadway, for me and 15 friends. we had to sit through this 5 minute sales presentation about financial planning, but it was worth it. i kept getting the feeling that we were scamming this dude, but in fact we were telling totally the truth. i do run a record label, we are all in bands, this is our careers.
closed the store early today because it’s snowing like a MF, and i cancelled tonight’s event too- matt carroll in 19th century british naval character doing mad libs with store denizens. or should i say, i rescheduled. stop in wednesday 5 – 8pm and get a dose. BYO nouns, verbs, etc.. ok, i have to not fritter away this snow day like i have done almost every other snow day in my long life, i have actual things to do right now, things that before the storm i was hair-tearing about not having the time for. lots of sewing, some silk screening, listening to the new uke of spaces corners LP. ok, the USC LP came fresh in the mail yesterday from somewhere in dan beckmanistan, alongside the uke of… / erin tobey “on the phone” split. i listened to the tape at the store, it rules so hard, and you can listen to both individual sets online via , alongside other epic nods like BARR, daniel higgs, jana hunter, jad fair, daniel johnston, microphones/mt eerie, thanksgiving, mountain goats, jolie holland… EPIC!!!!! nadav you’re the king of the air and the wire and the other wire (which is a system of wires). i’ll have a set for you soon ok?
well, shit, it sure has been nice out these past few days. yes, it’s been so nice i upgraded from “gee whiz” to “well, shit”. today i walked around visiting and enjoying, and remembering the merits of spending an hour outside among people every day (classic cometbus advice). at one point a mildly wasted and ruddy man, steady mobbing his way up the street, looked at me as shouted “how’s it going, brother?”. i told him quite honestly that things were going pretty good, and then thought, “i am this man’s brother!”. also today i told one of my favorite lies, one so good i almost believe it every time. it’s really the popcorn of lies: “while you were gone [x] punched [y] in the belly and [y]‘s pants fell down and [y] wasn’t wearing underwear”.
tomorrow i film a music video and do the laundry, but not at the same time (probably).
oh yeah, and james mcshane has a , here’s a picture:
dude always kills it!
this is a circuit bent instrument i made- it used to be a novelty pager, connecting to no one. now, it connects to you! five body contacts on the top alter the sounds made when you press one of the four buttons. in other words, pressing two or more of the contacts makes you a mysterious and essential part of the circuit! and how hard you press changes the voltage, which changes the sound again. sounds difficult, but is totally intuitive. good for babies. contains instructions on further modifications you can do yourself, most notably installing a line-out jack. takes 2 AA batteries, which are included. color and stickers may vary.
my morning mode as of late has been to always have the alarm on the pod set for 9:00, but not actually wake up until i’m actually done sleeping (lately until 10:30 – 11). i’ve gone through many revisions of my “wake up” playlist, all with their problems– either it’s all too annoying and i just turn it off, or it’s all too nice and then i lay there listening and eventually fall back asleep. the current playlist of wake-up choice is “recently played”, a dynamic list culling from the last 700 different songs played- a good mix of familiarity and surprise, allowing for both pleasant juxtapositions and instances of songs i am tired of hearing. so lately i’ve been waking up with intrigue, fueled by boredom. today the first song i was cognizant of was “bells” by albert ayler (off “love cry”), and had late-stage dreams informed by slipping in and out of blind guardian, sun ra, gism, the fall, and quincunx ““. and ghostface. now for ,. ooh, season giraffe ribs rotissiere ropes! and the hickory cinnamon scented glaze? you remembered!
when walls were built were really tight, and sounded like the promise ring. it was cool to see a band with piano in it, also one of the band members works at the college library, and my roommate mel is his boss.
mt gigantic was totally great, with real headbang and vocals that MZ says “sounded like a fucked-up bird” (which we both like). i enjoy watching drummers and matty popchart is a fun drummer– the best kind. uh, that’s 2/3 of the band, now i should say something nice about erin. … but i would have said something nice anyway. hi, erin!
i headlined, and played ok, and at one point i played almost all of “metal warriors” by manowar before i realized what i was even doing. yes, this makes the second manowar cover in as many shows WTF. i messed up a lot but i think it was ok– MZ’s second of two really good compliments to me was “when you fuck up it works” (the first was “i decided during your set that i’m going to call in sick tomorrow– i don’t even have any plans!”).
hopefully i’ll be able to get a mess of records and zines from the gigantics tomorrow when they come to the store. petty cash is running a little low, though. it’s been cold, no one wants to go outside (your humble narrator included). if i still have the store next year, i’m definitely using the christmas money to take february and/or march on vay-cay, get some vitamin d. nick, i will call on your birthday.
oh, and here’s ‘s comics website. i don’t really know erin super-good, and now the main thing we’ve ever talked about is the viability of sustaining yourself on internet ad sales. the scene is set at my funeral, and of course everyone is crying. matt: “we never even really had a chance to really talk”. erin: “we talked a little, but only about the internet”. how embarrassing (for me, hiding in the ceiling still secretly alive). ok, if they come to the store tomorrow i’ll interview them. damn, Fictitious Funeral Scenario always wins!
and before anyone asks, no, i’m not at the point where i can support myself with internet ad sales, but i do think it’s feasible, based on how cheap i live. when it happens i’ll make a note of it. and now you’re thinking of this paragraph years later as you read an erroneous report of my untimely demise.
this epic shirt was designed by mel soter and printed at john shirley temple. two color print- rusty purple monster party backdrop with black silhouette of a one-horned (or one-eared) creature with claws at the ready. says “HBML” and “junk shoppe”. playerrrrrrrrrr. screened by hand on 100% cotton (and 100% LAVENDER) american apparel shirts, available in S M L and XL (also known as “petite”, “rock music”, “frisbee” and “rap music”). proceeds go to support .
the new installment is dropping STAT, sign up now while you can. for a reasonable $30, you get special limited edition, “rent club only” prints from nik “hulk out” perry, scott “work/death” reber, and matthew “” thurber, mailed to you once a month for three months. and this all keeps our works in motion for the duration. membership is limited to 50 people. DON’T SLEEP.
