Thanks a million, Love Ryan.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In case you haven’t heard, The Lucksmiths called it quits last month.  May 12th, to be exact.  Ah man, I haven’t been this sad over a last act since Stuart Adamson commited suicide back in 2001.  Or Epic Soundtracks in ‘97.  Well, at least the lads are all still living.  It’s been a slow gloomy june in LA, especially after a jam packed May, so I’ve had a good chance to properly mourn.  In fact, I think it’s the gloomiest, grayest june in all of the 16 years we’ve been here. Perfect. Dark days till about 6:30 in the pm, then the sun rises and you feel better.  What a Southern Cali softy!

Well, here’s a couple things I believe: I believe that The World According to Garp contains all the wisdom you need to encounter almost every situation in life.  I believe that art can save you and make you less lonely and that The Lucksmiths give that vital “As I lay with my head in your lap, Camarado” spirit you need to buoy through the toughest and worst times and make better the good times. MST3K helps too. Shit, I’m gonna miss them. When I was traveling all the time and away from home (Laura), “Guess How Much I Love You” was the kind of song that said exactly what I wanted to say (and those lines “ya know I’m thinking of you, in the book store, in the laundry mat” and the phrase “the loneliness of the long distance phone call” were eerily exact…).  And every time we road tripped up north and spanned one of the glorious WPA bridges on Highway 1 near Big Sur, we’d “hold our breath” across each one and make a wish.  Ya know, almost every situation you’ll encounter in love, you’ll find in The Lucksmiths.

On Monday, I finally made some headway in clearing out our garage and turning it into our “club house”: I played ALL their music and made my way through lots of personal history, trashing trash and finding a safe place for keepsakes.  It was an all day affair and I got quite misty eyed and pie eyed in the process.  We have a name for this: we call it the “Old Charley Effect”.  It means, when you spend a day sifting through your personal artifacts trying to make a livable space amongst all the history, you can’t help but imbibe lots of vino or cerveza or both.  Partly because you’re remembering soooo much and partly because of the daunting physical task of gettin’ er done.  The expression “Old Charley” comes from my dad’s old ‘68 VW van.  He was sweet on it and called it Charley, and as kids we came to call anything old and friendly and nostalgic an “Old Charley”.

Anyways, I just wanted to say “thanks” for the music. O Brother that sounds cheap, but man o man it’s true. The Lucksmiths have been good companions for along time and I love ‘em. Adios. And if you’re ever in Glendale CA., stop in and have a drink.  It’s never too late.

 

The world is a beautiful place tonight.

Alright, THINK ABOUT LIFE are officially one of my favorite bands.  You can’t really say that with any authority (Not So!)  if they only got 1 album, but now they got 2!!!  I hated it on first listen, and fell in love on the second try.  When you buy it, you’ll see what I mean cuz it sounds a lot different than you expect.  I was just working in Alexandria VA ( cue the song!, thanks Caithlin…) and I listened to it nonstop solo party drop (HA!), sheesh, what joy!  And if possible, I’ve listened to the song “Nueva Nueva” about 600 times in the 9 days I was there.  WOW, it’s a love letter to Nueva York especially meaningful since Laura and I were just in NY City in January and she fell in love with it so it makes me even impossibly sweeter on her and the city and the song.  The album is a crazy gem of feel good dance party stroll: you can not not dance when listening.  You’ll grin alot too.  It’s the kind of art that’s free and seemingly effortless.

And as for awesome ear goodness for the ages: Nadja’s Numbness.  Holy sh*t, that’s some heavier than the house apocalyptic ambient doooooooom! Those 2 (Aiden + Leah) are surely the powers-that-be in an alternate universe of majestic sonic bloom.

Thanks Kyle!

Aaaaaawwwesome….The 13 year old high school girl in me squealed aloud when 1: I saw the handwritten note on the envelope (it took a couple weeks to get here, hence the meaning of the missive), 2: when I saw that Kyle hooked me up with #1 of 300!!! and 3: when I actually started listening to it.  It’s beee-yooot-iful!  Sheeesh, I could sing along to every song by the end of the first day!  

More happy news, Caithlin De Marrais put out her own gorgeous solo album!  Plus, her + Kyle started their own label, End Up Records.  So as sad as I was when Rainer Maria split, now it’s like getting two RM records all at once!  Albeit less rocking…But where’s William?  I think he might have something to do with this, but I’m not sure.  Very mysterious…regardless, it’s a killer site with some frighteningly pretty sounds…

An Almost Total History Of One Picture.

Got these beat old pins at All Star Lanes in Eagle Rock, CA.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Too clean…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sumatra gives critical cute support to “the artist”…

 

 

 

 

 

 

The worlds loneliest bowling alley…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sumatra gives critical art direction to “the artist”…

Results: a Laszlo Moholy-Nagy (at least in my head), 1950’s inspired color experiment in fun! HA, Enjoy! Couldn’t have been finished without:

Sumatra, cuddly/cranky old timer and warmest of work companions!!!

Nadja’s “Radiance Of Shadows”

the complete works of Davey Von Bohlen

Klangstabil’s “Math And Emotion”, with a super special nod to the tracks “love has too much audience”, “hanham vs. steinitz” and “good night kingdom”.  I must have kept each of those 3 songs on repeat, in turn, for most of this shoot. Gracias!!!

Our Buddy, Pecos.

He lived and loved us for 14 years.  We were very lucky.  He was the heart of our house and the house is so quite without him now.  We miss you, buddy.

I delayed cleaning and scrubbing away all his little paw prints on the floor till today. He had a number of things go bad inside him with age; the dry cleaners wondered when I was going to pick up the pillow slips, cushions, and blankets I had dropped off over a month ago.

We miss him coming to the door to greet us, laying all his 18 pounds of love against us when we watched a movie or listened to music on the floor in the living room.  When I’d stretch in the morning he used to snuggly slip under every new position I’d make, forcing me to push him out of the way. He loved licking the inside of my coffee cup and sniffing newly washed hair.  He could barely wait for us to go to bed to push deep into the covers between me and Laura and nod off.  Ah jeeze dude, we love you.

Stay Cool, I’ll See You Next Summer Pt. I

I found this picture on the Sunset Strip. Besides being very cool and mysterious (what’s up with that black shoe on the left, why was this lying on the sidewalk, who still shoots film?) this pic got me all nostalgic for summer coming to an end. Which gets me all nostalgic for the year gone by. Here’s some of my favorite things so far…

1. Carla Bozulich at Amoeba 3/25/08.

I stumbled upon one of the best shows I’ve ever seen when I arrived for a job one night on Vancouver Island BC exactly two years ago and found this poster hanging from a telephone pole. Carla Bozulich (who’s got the spookiest and most unrelenting eye contact of any artist I’ve seen) opened and immediately haunted the place with her gorgeous caterwhauling and voodoo walk through the audience. When The Tra La La Band came on-stopped on a dime-then sang together as a CHOIR, I seriously levitated right up to the rafters. This poster is one my favorite relics of rock…this March I brought it to Amoeba and got to meet her after her show. I told her the story of my luck that night, she dug it, and that’s the meaning of her inscription. I still swoon every time I look at that heart she drew! And if you haven’t heard “Smooth Jazz” or “Truth Is Dark Like Outer Space” off of Hello, Voyager-then your summer ain’t over yet! I cribbed my mantra for this year from “Paper Kitten Claw”: Every time you see the word never, you must cross it out.

2. Warning Sticker on Ryoji Ikeda’s new album TEST PATTERN

I didn’t quite believe it so I did a careful test. About 2 1/2 minutes into the last track the word “OVER” started flashing in red on my receiver. The word “OVER”. In red! I’m not kidding: how ROCK is that!

3. Tara Jane O’Neil singing “The Poisoned Mine” live at Echo Curio 8/4/08

The 2nd most memorable cry I’ve ever had at a show. Number 1: Rainer Maria singing “Burn” at Cafe Du Nord about 9 months before Catastrophe Keeps Us Together came out. It was the first time I ever heard it. Buckets, I tell you!

4. The cowbell that gets the ROCK started on“Statement”

I restart the first ten seconds of that song at least a dozen times everytime I play it. Three words: Monsters_Of_Rock.

The Album Leaf @The Echo 2/20/08 with Kill Me Tomorrow & What Laura Says Thinks And Feels.

What Laura Says Thinks And Feels are one of those bands that are awesome to see live even if you don’t like what they’re playing. Which I didn’t, but their live energy was catching and kept me cheering.

Kill Me Tomorrow is a bad ass trio from San Diego. They reminded me of all those bastard spawns of The Birthday Party, the mighty mid 80’s-early 90’s Mute triumvirate of Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds, Crime & The City Solution, and These Immortal Souls. Meaning that their songs are black epics roaring with the apocalyptic gallop of plague drums, creaking guitar, and mean, mean bass. I’ve been humming their soaring slave shanties to myself since I left the show that night. At least those I can remember: their website is about 2 years outdated and the tracks on it represent an earlier incarnation of the band that don’t sound anything like what I heard. Bummer…

I love The Album Leaf. I’d like to be their sound, that pure and beautiful energy that Arthur C. Clarke says we might evolve into one day. I’d even like to be that video projection that plays over them and the stage, all percolating electronic blips and melancholy blurs of oceans and sunlight. The Microphones make me feel OK about dying and The Album Leaf makes me hope there’s more when I do.

Mirah and The Blow LIVE…

…in Hollywood. The opening band was High Places from New York City and they confirmed Lauras’ long held belief that the opening band on any 3 band billing will always suck. High Places is a duo: she sings a little, he occasionally rocks the “casio kettledrum”, but mostly they do a lot of conferring over a card table of wires and metal boxes that produce massively anonymous beats. I hate to talk shit but…uhm, they were really not good. Every song kinda reminded me of I Want Candy or Bananarama doing Iko, Iko (“…my grandma and your grandma, sittin’ by the fire…”). I do like how boring their name is, though. Almost as perfectly bland as And, And, And! from The Commitments.

K Records is one of my favorite labels but I never listened to The Blow. Jeez, what a mistake (I’m sorry ears). The Blow is, or was, Khaela Maricich, and Jona Bechtolt (aka YACHT) who’s no longer a collaborator so it was just the ghost of his beats while she held the stage alone, delivering an amazing performance piece about:

-longing

-pop lyric meaningfulness

as told through:

-unbelievably catchy electronica

-hilarious/heartbreaking spoken-word

-captivating choreography

Seeing them live was one of the most transcendent ART experiences I’ve ever been lucky enough to dance to. When they finished we were overwhelmed with that crazy kind of elation you get from being tossed around by waves.

Laura asked me in the parking lot if I was excited to see Mirah and I half jokingly quoted Shawshank Redemption: “I’m so excited I can barely keep a thought in my head.” Seeing live music is one of the greatest things about being alive and some bands have a mythical grasp on my brain. Just seeing their name-card in the record store gives me a thrill. Her name does that. But the Henry Fonda Theatre was not the best venue for her music, way too big and a large percent of the crowd that night was pretty lame. It was hard listening when all I wanted to do was shout for everyone to shut the hell up. It reminded me of something I read recently: a writer was watching Bill Evans play solo piano for an unruly and talky audience. Annoyed himself, he asked Evans if he found it difficult performing such intimate stuff for so rude a crowd. “No,” he said, “It just makes me dig deeper into the music.” That’s what Mirah did. She made no concessions to the philistines, even playing some versions of her songs more delicately than on the records till the crowd thinned down to the true fans who rousingly stomped out the beat to her final encore of Cold Cold Water.

OK, now lets really get started…

I figured it was time to dust 6 months of metaphorical dust off of this blog. I started it concurrently with a rather surprising/tumultuous/and spooky time in my life so it got set a side after just one posting. Any ways, things have adjusted so here I go…

My birthday just passed and I got the sweetest gift other than your kitty’s new borns: a $125.00 gift certificate to Amoeba Records from a buddy of mine, Bill. Manna from Bill! Amongst all my loot (see photo for complete details) I got the latest Boris and Merzbow release: ROCK DREAM. I’m terrible at writing hot on a listen so I’ll give a full account later (so far my favorite moment is near the end of PINK, when amidst all the 1-2-3-4 ROCK, Merzbow “takes a solo” with a searing acid windstorm. Sweet…! Runner up: last track FAREWELL-a soaring 8 minute mini-epic perfect for any New Years Eve climax. Incidentally, the last song I played in 2007 was Search For The New Land by Lee Morgan. First song of 2008: Winter Sky by Big Country-my greatest weakness and, forgive me, my favorite band of all time. My tastes are a bit spazz. 2nd song of 2008: Misty Melody by Kiss Me Deadly. I know New Years beginnings are as cynically arbitrary as Valentines Day or Xmas but still, I believe…).

Anyways, here is some extreme randomness concerning Masami Akita, aka Merzbow. He is the true distillation and Holy Spirit of PUNK. And unlike most things said about PUNK, this is not empty rhetoric. I don’t think you can go any further than this, musically, without causing actual physical trauma to yourself. If any music could be accused of triggering psychosis in an unbalanced individual, this is it. When people use the lazy expression “wall of sound” they’re not even getting close to the sheer metal majesty of his aural assault. Exclamation mark!

Merzbow surpasses the average auditory experience. Tangible forces start acting upon your physiology: sinus passages thrum and drip, thin planes of bone vibrate between the ears, a hole opens up slowly at the base of the skull as new worlds are banged into messy creation.

His recordings are NOISE: brutal documents of the hive, the insect roar of metal hatchlings in birth riot, field recordings from the core of the sun, the catastrophic sound of universal entropy. His sound is so FULL it’s positively rococo and his damage is absolute. What’s funny is: the more goofily pretentious I get, the more accurate it all starts to sound. But I think my brother has the best and most succinct appraisal: “This is challenging music.” So, to begin what I know will be a long and strong lineage, here is a quick nod to my favorite releases….

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1930,

My favorite. Keep in mind, however, that Merzbow has put out over 300 albums and I own thirteen. 1930 is all about speed, a spooky instrumental narrative of unrelenting forward menace. It’s an insane and exhausting feat of rhythmic chaos that gathers, shatters and drops in entirely new ways over and over and over again. This is one of those albums where you just keep saying “Daaaammmn!” while it’s playing out. It also has one of my favorite Merzbow moments: what sounds like the terrified howl of some animal attempting to outrun the vicious momentum of sound, only to be struck and mortally wounded by it (track 2: minute marker 1:49.) Then devoured by it (minute marker 2:00). That’s one of the things I really dig about him; from pure sound Merzbow creates convincing life forms, both organic and meca, and in the midst of blistering carnage these “voices” can rise up and disturb you with authentic feeling. DAMN!!!….

First Post.

If Sleater-Kinney had a beatbox and a big gay desire to get you move’n on the dance floor they’d sound just like Lesbians On Ecstasy: heavy, industrial revolutionaries armed with relentless, sometimes spooky rhythms and soaring choral singalongs to uplift and unify the people. The best part of listening to them for the first time is when you suddenly realize through all the glorious LOUDNESS-“Hey, this is genuine protest music!” In a better world people would flock to arenas to hear these mighty anthems. It makes you wanna dance and write your congressman. And when they say “We are your friends, you’ll never be alone again” I believe it, like when Kimya Dawson says it. Cushy suburban kids yearning for street cred will want to be lesbians after listening to these ladies.

Think About Life are so good you want to be remembered as the person who first introduced them to your friends. They’ve got that basement fuck‘d techno sound best described as beastie or scrofulous with joyous vocal bursts that are just barely kept in step with the frenetic and skittering robot beats. Driving to them in my no-AC ’84 white Rabbit through smoggy brown afternoons of Los Angeles july, I’d call their sound “sweaty”. Plus, this album has the best secret song ever.

Both bands are on the amazing and canadian Alien8Records. Their site has the best deal around for folks who want to have the album art but also want to get their good time going on now: order any CD for postal delivery and they give you a free download of the complete album on the spot. Sweet!

Also ran: Who Still Kill Sound by Kid 606. The songs move so fast I want to crash my car. Only complaint: too long. 16 track + albums just encourage today’s decadent age of shuffle. Yr Inside The Smallest Rave On Earth gets honorable mention for funniest/coolest/best sample from a movie: Don Cheadle selling quadraphonic hi-fi gear in Boogie Nights-

“..Oh, I think you need ALL that bass…I mean, if you want a system to handle what you want-then Yeah, you need that bass…”