my wife's fave chow 2

so tonight we had grilled cheese 'n' tomato sammitches -- the tomatoes from our garden, both the cherries and the biguns, grown on sun 'n' water and nada else, are among the most flavorful i've ever had, no bullshit -- with a little canned minestrone (somewhere i must have my mom's recipe for five-bean soup, which would 1) go real well with the sammitches, 2) do a great job of keeping the house warm while simmering in its pot for 4-5 hours, and 3) be an acceptable offering for our growing number of veggie -- or at least _less carniverous_ -- friends).

after our last, less-than-optimal batch of g.c.&t. sammies (made with big thick slices o' cheese, they fell apart when i went to flip 'em over -- d'oh), we decided to try some different stuff. to wit:

1) letting the butter melt before slathering it liberally on the crusty bread we dig so well.

2) grating the cheese -- in this case, monterey jack, our current cheese o' choice -- and spreading layers of it under and over the tomatoes for better melting, adhesion, and resultant sammitch integrity.

3) using two spatulas (one on top, upside down, the other underneath) to keep the precious goods inside from spilling out when the sammitch is flipped (if'n the cheese isn't yet melted enough to do the job).

mmm-mmm good indeed.

art of the jam 20

thought we were gonna get pre-empted by the katrina benefit (which raised $700; not bad for a wednesday night -- kudos to the ppl who put it together and to the bands that played: exit 380, peachtruck republic, egress, poo live crew, and a y'allternative-type singer cat whose name, because i suck, escapes me) but instead we wound up playing 15-minute "mini-sets" on the little "wreck west" stage in between the bene bands. most of the night it was just the trio of jam-meiser lee allen on bass 'n' vox, joe "drumzilla" cruz on the skins, and me on gtr. we started out ungodly loud, loud enough to run everyone but the bartender out of "wreck west," in spite of the fact our volume settings were identical to what they'd been the last time we played the little room without damaging any patrons' hearing. then wreck room wizard o' sound andre edmonson pulled down the curtains that we'd pulled up (so the sound from our amps 'n' drums could bounce off the glass) and things got more manageable.

given the limitations of the format, the fact that different ppl would be in and out of the bar all night, and our own inclinations, certain toons got repeated plays: "standing on the verge of getting it on" _three_ times, "maggot brain" and "cissy strut" twice each. that wasn't _all_ we played; lee sang "come together" after we turned down and jam namesake carl pack got up to vocalize on the butthole surfers' "pepper." (there's no psychedelia like punk psychedelia.) later on, lee broke out "la fiesta" for the first time in a few weeks, and caroline collier (back in action after drumming for the kids at jo kelly school, then injuring her back on the job and missing austin city limits -- feel better soon, caro) sat in on drums, laying down a groove that morphed into (of course) "cissy strut (slight return)."

after playing their pukka set, four out of five young cats from the band egress got up on our gear to play 311 covers (and bring their not-inconsiderable crowd over to wreck west, which was nice 'cos it gave the patio king a chance to make some coin behind the bar). to the ign'ant shitheels who rejected my friend phil when he auditioned for their rockband on the basis of "what would we sound like with a _black guy lead singer_?" the answer of course is "pretty fuckin' rad." like the dirtbombs. or the gospel swingers. or geno washington and the ram jam band. or thin lizzy. or egress. cat has great pipes and a stage trip to match -- refreshing in this here "age of the non-singer" (if bob dylan were here, he'd be turning in his grave).

on a personal note, i was happy that in spite of the abundance of downtime, i managed to avoid getting shithammered, less happy that i broke down and bummed a coupla smokes at the end of the night. felt remarkably lifelike at work most of today.

my wife's fave chow

cooked my wife's favorite meal tonight: fried tilapia with rice and cucumber salad. basically a meal my mom likes to make. it's easy. here's how:

1) peel a couple of cucumbers and cut them in half, then scoop out the seeds and slice 'em thin (but not _too_ thin). soak them in rice vinegar with a little sugar mixed in. refrigerate.

2) the secret to making perfect rice is so simple, even caucasians can do it without specialized equipment. all you need is a covered pot and a 2:1 ratio of water to rice. put it on the burner cold and let it boil. before it overflows, turn the heat off and let it sit, covered, for 30 minutes. perfect every time: fluffy and not sticky.

3) in preparation for this feast, you'll need to buy some tilapia filets. i grew up eating flounder and haddock, but tilapia appears to be the least expensive whitefish here in tejas.

4) beat a couple of eggs in a bowl and add some milk. mix up some breadcrumbs and herbs (or do like i do and cheat by buying the pre-mixed kind at the store) so you have just enough to cover a dinner plate. have another plate standing by to receive the breaded fish.

4) heat some oil in a pan. i use olive; you may have yr own preference.

5) dip the fish filets in the egg-and-milk mixture, making sure to coat them thoroughly, then in the breadcrumbs -- same drill. (you may need to add some more crumbs.) by this time, the oil should be starting to sizzle.

6) put the filets in the pan two or three at a time, however many will fit. when the edges start to brown, it's time to turn 'em over. (you can use a fork, but i prefer a spatula; keeps 'em from breaking apart, most of the time.) give 'em a minute or two on the other side, then remove to yet another plate, lined with napkins to soak up the grease. (this is a plate-intensive meal, all rit.) at this point, you may need to add some more oil if what you were using cooks off. you might also wanna lower the heat; it doesn't take much to do the job once the pan is hot.

7) cut up some limes to squeeze over the tilapia. not necessary if the stuff you're using is fresh, but it's a little nicety that we like real much. tonight we had fresh mango, too. it was awesome.

the fish will reheat acceptably in a microwave, but don't try heating a homemade fish sammitch in a microwave like i did once -- it can be kinda greasy and soggy. our friend senor tilapia is great cold, too.

an epidemic of stoopidity

i gotta go to lunch w/my coworkers more often. in the course of one (admittedly protracted -- hour-and-a-half) sit-down the other day, i heard the following:

1) one coworker's band was headlining at a club that shall remain nameless when a brawl erupted between two of the opening bands. apparently, when these two sterling aggros had appeared together on a bill at the same club the week before (who booked these idiots together again, anyway?), one of the bands had kicked the other band's asses. so last week, while the erstwhile ass-kickers were performing, the erstwhile ass-kickees rushed the stage in a hail of beer bottles and testosterone-'n'-alcohol-fueled righteous rage. in due course, the police were summoned and order was restored, but jayzus. if i cared enough to go back and look it up, i'd include the names of the ass-kickin' bands along with advice to any clubowner with half (maybe a quarter of?) a brain never to book either of these outfits or any of the ppl in 'em ever ever ever again. it's folks like this who give being an asshole a bad name.

2) speaking of assholes, how about the drummer from another local band who was fired one weekend (for "anger management" issues) but still showed up the next weekend to play a wedding reception with them. all well and good, except when said drummer took off his shirt and someone commented on it, it probably would have been a good idea to pause and wait and see who was talking instead of just turning around and clocking him, which is what drummer boy did. turns out it was the bridegroom's father. after being beat down by his friends (?!?!?), the kid winds up on the sidewalk, where he goes up to some random person (actually, a "big biker guy" according to the coworker who told the story) and rips the shirt off his back. afterward, the storyteller said, "i let the guy hit him four times before i pulled him off, because that was a stupid thing to do."

3) last but not least, another coworker reported receiving a late-night call from her teenage son, requesting a pickup from the door (that'd be the, um, christian-rock club up in cowtown's stockyards) before a big fight went down _between the preps and the emos_. wtf? mod-'n'-rockerismo comes to the northside? a quadrophenia or slc punk for the oh-ohs? i repeat, wtf?!?!? since when do "emos" _fight_? i thought they'd cry or just lie down on the sidewalk and allow the abercrombie & fitch wearers to stomp the shit out of 'em. proof positive, as if any more were needed, that fashion is _evil_: leads to warfare.

just what i needed: more reasons never to leave my house.

now let us praise famous bluesfans

to get the 411 at what's happening at metromess blues venues (particularly those that don't advertise in the fweakly or the startime), check out uberfan jack mcgee's website. jack's a city cable employee by day, and one of his evil minions, chris connelly, is responsible for the fort worth academy of music rock camp vid that's been screening on channel 31 (for those of you who have cable, unlike me).

insomnia 2

been waking up at 3am lately, no matter what time i went to sleep. woke up last night, dicked around on the puter for a bit, drank a fresca, went back to sleep and dreamed of an innard-eating parasite. the symbolism was not lost.

galen jeter, james and myles, keith wingate, johnny case, miss kim

so jeremy hull says he just made a jazz record with the galen jeter orchestra (formerly the dallas jazz orchestra...long sad political story) -- big band versions of country chestnuts which galen is hoping to get high-powered stars like willie nelson and norah jones to sing on. could happen, too; willie's known for making cameo appearances on projects like carla bozulich's re-imagining of his red-headed stranger alb. if the concept seems weird, just go back to gerald wilson and gil fuller's arrangements of nashville toonage on ray charles' modern sounds in country and western music, a listenable copy of which i scored on vinyl from sumter the other day. a lot of it has to do with the fact that bro. ray could sing the phonebook and make it sound soulful, but as much of a commercial move as this alb might have seemed way back in '62, it makes most of the other stuff i'm going to hear today sound downright silly. jeremy also might be playing bass w/harry connick, jr., at an upcoming katrina benefit at the bass hall. if the ticket cost weren't prohibitive, it'd be enough to make me and my sweetiie wanna go and sit in the cheap seats and go apeshit like tx families @ highschool graduations when harry jr. introduces the band.

saw keith wingate the other night for the first time since he became a dad to twin son 'n' dtr (the new wingate trio in 15 yrs? _you_ decide!!!) and got a copy of the empty tables cd by james nichols and myles hayes that he played on (along with the aforementioned jeremy hull, jaelun washington, daniel hardaway, and other ppl like that). james has been vocalizing with keith on his weekend 8.0 gigs (where dave williams of "and daver" fame has also been showing up with his tenor in tow), while myles fronts a bluesy outfit called "trouble in mind." didn't make it to the cd release show at the moon, but heard it was packed. the rec itself is nice enough -- both james and myles have pleasant, smooth voices in a chet baker kinda way (minus the trumpet, the doomed prettiness, and hopefully the heroin addiction), but their approach to these well-worn standards isn't particularly original or distinctive -- at least oaklin bloodworth projected a persona on _his_ disc (altho this one has it all over that 'un in terms of pure sonics; another jordan richardson / first street audio production). keith himself remains a tasteful master of chordal wondermeant and a fiery improvisor. myself, i'd like to hear him do more with the extended compositional foray he was working on the last time we spoke. he could roll it out at arts fifth avenue and not even have to pay for a babysitter.

speaking of arts fifth avenue, johnny case (now aka jhon kasen) is holding the cd release party for his politically-themed love's bitter rage disc there tonight. because i suck, i have ppl coming over for din-din, so i won't be able to make it out, but hopefully lots of others will. johnny's always had strong political convictions but this is the first time they've manifested themselves thematically in his music. on the upside, we went to sardines to try and hear him the other night and had to walk away from a 45-minute wait for a table. nice to know the place is doing well, and that so many folks are getting to hear johnny's jazz pianner mastery (if they've got ears to listen).

finally, we went to the re-opened bluebird blues club at horne and wellesley last night to hear miss kim and the b.t.a. band. new proprietor sam harris seems like a nice cat, and he's made some big improvements to the bluebird's interior (like putting in air conditioning). didn't see a lot of folks eating the food ($5 hand-pressed hamburgers last night), but it brought back memories just being in that room again (although i couldn't help being struck, as i was the first time i set foot in austin's continental club after 20+ yrs, by how _small_ the room was). ray reed's college-kid son was playing drums and keyboardist oscar spruill was along to supply instrumental fireworks and showmanship, but the foundation as always came from ray's rough-hewn vox and gtr, and quincy brown's solid support on bass. miss kim still keeps her mama's portrait onstage, but her vocal grit and athleticism remain all her own. the crowd coulda been bigger, but there was a big festival on at j&j's and a few regular b.t.a. followers are preoccupied with family mbrs affected by the recent spate of storms. still, big sam runs a nice room, and it was a gas to be able to go see miss kim and b.t.a. five minutes from my house.

happy berfday to trane

john coltrane woulda been 79 today if he hadn't checked out too early in '67. tonight i'm gonna go home and think about trane and his journey while i listen to a love supreme.

deconstructing "the jetsons"

here's something to keep all you pop kulcha nerds busy until the next buffy the vampire slayer symposium. jayzus.

arts fifth avenue

lotsa good stuff upcoming at arts fifth avenue, including johnny case's cd release party at 7pm this sunday, september 25th, and a two-night salute to the texas tenor saxophone october 14-15. gracey tune and eddie dunlap got it goin' on. (thanks to caroline collier for pulling my coat to the johnny date.)

the new "major label deal"

my dutch punk-rawker pal tony slug (nitwitz / bgk / loveslug / hydromatics / spades) posted a rant on myspace awhile back instructing bands _not_ to hit him up for eurotour hookups, to which i replied, "'touring europe' is the new 'major label deal' for bottom-of-the-foodchain u.s. bands." which, of course, it is: cloud cuckoo land. hoping for a major label deal is like hoping for the chance to take out a loan from the mafia. (oops, i mean, the _vending machine industry_.) europeans are wonderful ppl who really know how to treat musicians. however, the likelihood is that if you visit their continent, you'll come back (at best) with empty pockets. a vacation-with-gigs can be fun, but is that what you're really looking for?

mo' bettah advice for bands that wanna advance themselves: get yr web presence together, including a continuous infusion (weekly works well) of new content and something interactive like a forum. sell your stuff online, and don't make ppl get a paypal acct to buy it. releasing product more often than every five yrs or so is a good idea, too, esp. if you wanna tour. optimally, the cd promotes the tour which finances the next cd. realistically, you gotta at least break even. you're not doing this shit for the money, but it can be a _very_ expensive hobby if you're not frugal. fuck corporate welfare. learn how to market yourself and _do the legwork goddammit_. do that and you can have a sustainable career doing what you love for as long as you wanna. so sayeth me.

art of the jam 19

looks like the little wreck room's wednesday night jam could be pre-empted next week (september 28th) by a katrina benefit nobody seems to know much about. more 'n' likely, we'll wind up playing in the little room before it starts and in between bands. this week jam-meister lee allen delivered a cd of toonage for the regular jammers to learn, so we've got more of a repertoire of stuff to fall back on. (the ignominy of woodshedding black sabbath and chili peppers songs is mitigated by the knowledge that "standing on the verge of getting it on" appears to have acquired "jam standard" status.) and in two weeks (october 5th, i do believe), james hinkle and ponty bone are supposed to pay a visit.

last night damien stewart made his first jam appearance in awhile, playing double drums w/joe cruz. they did a good job of staying out of each other's way, altho later damien said it's hard to get a groove happenin' with two kits and maybe they should have alternated songs or something. both drummers got to play bass 'n' drum duets w/lee, too. fern and jeffa showed up to do their mellow gtr thang (altho the sleeplab cd jeffa laid on me last week shows that they can do more, much more). later on, a coupla shaolin death squad musos showed up and sat in on gtr and drums. i'm gonna have to give their cd another listen, 'cos i dug what i was hearing last night a lot more than i remember digging it when i heard it.

i did on ok job of not smoking cigs (andre sez take ten deep breaths every time you wanna smoke; usually i lose count and forget after two or three) until late in the evening when i was well into being a garrruuunnnk asshole and wound up bumming a couple. i'm a-thinking that from now on, if i'm going to get there two hrs before we start playing, i need to take a walk through the neighborhood or something after i finish setting up my shit (which takes all of five minutes) -- just walk for half an hour, turn around and walk back. otherwise the beers just go down too quick, which is a problem not so much from the alcohol-as-non-performance-enhancer angle as it is from the not-wanting-to-comport-myself-in-a-manner-i'll-be-ashamed-of-later side. as my friend ryan sez, maturity is needed in this matter. or as g. clinton said, "if you don't like the effects, don't produce the cause."

new age thought

sittin' on the crapper earlier, going thru my pre-jam ritual of trying to clear out my headspace, was thinkin' about how i haven't practiced gtr this wk and how much better it was last wk when i had. then it occurred to me that i donwanna get better at playing gtr more than i wanna get better at _living_. it must be this "relaxing music for sleep" i borrowed from andre, talking.

breathe, grasshopper. fuckin' a.

vinyl 5

some stuff i've been listening to lately:

1) the yardbirds - for your love. i originally bought this for 99 cents at an e.j. korvettes on long island. it was the heaviest slab of vinyl i had ever seen -- like a fucking manhole cover. this reish isn't as heavy, and has noise at the top of each side. feh. this rec is pure bubblegum, as wrongheaded a ploy to capture the hearts 'n' minds of a fictitious teen america as was the mc5's pathetic, mewling post-politics / landau-produced sophomore lp back in the u.s.a. that said, tho, in the fullness of time, wack toons like "putty (in your hands)" and "sweet music" sound more like keith relf (r.i.p.) trying to sing r&b than they do like the evil spectre of commercialsmo that eric clapton took them to be before he bolted to hitchhike around the world and join mayall's bluesbreakers. in the transition from eric (who _plays his ass off_; if he'd retreated to obscurity after this instead of doing what he did, he really _would_ be "god") to jeff beck (whose mug appears on the cover even though he only plays on three songs) the backing evolves from polite merseybeat lameness to piledriver bass-and-gtr unison: the true birth of metal.

2) the best of otis redding. forget nik cohn's sweat-and-tom allegations in awopbopaloobop. saint otis had enough soul to make a jaded, cynical dutch punker weep _from beyond the grave_. his music -- including crucial support from booker t & the mg's -- contributed everything that was worthwhile to the rolling stones' sound from about 1965 to 1969, which means that it's the _true_ sound of '60s rawk. it's nice to hear toons like "shake" and "i can't turn you lose" done at their proper tempo and not sped up a la the blues brothers; here they sound powerful, not cartoon-like. and if there's a recording extant with more _life_ in it than otis' "cigarettes and coffee," i sure haven't heard it. there's a whole world of possibilities and regrets in the way he sings this song -- enough to make you wish you could call him up and invite him over for a beer.

3) the thelonious monk memorial album. i bought this from sumter bruton and it usedta be _his_ record, which makes me glad. an exploitation quickie released in the wake of monk's death in '82, this is also a pretty groovy little compilation of our greatest jazz composer (after ellington) from his best (imo) period -- the riverside / prestige years when he'd just started to exploit the possibilities of the lp medium (e.g., longer takes that make the classic blue note sides sound like mere sketches) and he hadn't yet started repeating himself, the way he did on some of his columbia albs. "ruby my dear" (with coltrane on tenor, about to achieve his apotheosis) is my fave monk ballad (and one of these days, i'm gonna get johnny case to play it, dammit), but there are so many great toons here: "round midnight," "brilliant corners," "bemsha swing," "jackie-ing," "i mean you," and the backing (coleman hawkins and sonny rollins on tenor as well as trane, for starters) is fittingly stellar.

dave and daver, old punks, grit noise & revolution

so last saturday we went to the little jazz fest to see dave and daver play with the sun directly in their faces in front of a huge expanse of empty v.i.p. tables so the ppl who came to see them had to stand a minimum of like 50 feet away. the best seat in the house was occupied by a cadillac (hearing jazz always makes me want an escalade). on bass, wearing a mucho-appropriate porkpie hat to protect his dome from the rays, paul unger sounded so good that i'll bet he wasn't even thinking about the tiny-ass wittle stage to which the schedulers had consigned his miles davis tribute during evening rush hour on friday. ditto dave karnes on drums, in spite of the fact the cloth-eared soundman had neglected to mic anything but the kick and snare. the set really belonged to self-effacing tenorman / co-leader dave williams, whose tunes they were playing. it was good to hear 'em outdoors in the light of day, and they even lit some fireworks on "solid state marty" and "night at the bongalows." prolly now, having made it up to 'em for last yr, when they got rained out, the festival organizers'll write 'em off in favor of festival generica. feh.

a coupla days later, ex-nervebreaker / current big gun mike haskins e-mailed a buncha ppl a pic of a hendrix show he attended as a teenager back in '68, which was notable for the complete absence of stage monitors and drum mics. musos weren't pussies in those days; they spent eons tuning onstage, and drummers like mitch mitchell learned to hit them skins _hard_ to try and be heard over those marshall stacks: their technique was all forearm, no wrist. as the protracted virtual convo turned to such esoteric subjects as who influenced who, mike bloomfield / the grateful dead / the cream, it occurred to me that the first generation of punks like haskins and steve dirkx from the telefones were really '60s rock'n'roll kids. in the same way as tim leary and richard alpert were whiskey-drinking harvard academics who'd ingested the whole of western culture up to their moment before they started eating acid, those old punkers had their _cultural referents_ down before they went about the biz of smashing 'em, and it made all the difference.

yeah, yeah, we know, boring old fart, 40 is the new 20, blah blah blah. let's hear some _old school_ punk: green day.

_fuck_ you poser-ass bitches.

finally, i should note the existence of a tome entitled grit, noise, and revolution: the birth of detroit rock 'n' roll, written by one david a. carson and pubbed by the university of michigan press. inasmuch as i would rather be ripped in half by tractors in texas stadium than read another book like this, i would be less than honest if i didn't admit that this is, in a sense, the book i wanted to write a few yrs ago, when i was doing lotsa interviewing of '60s and '70s dee-troit rock'n'roll peeps. oh well.

my butt-hunger subsides, but the nicotine withdrawal apparently has other interesting side-effects.

banishing the madman

"hey man," said pablo, "i hope you are takin' care of yo self."

"more walks, fewer (zero) smokes," said steve.

"take a full breath," said dre, "and then let it out...not in a hurry. work your way back through yr day, back to when you were fresh, and then let the thought leave you."

"i want to grow old with you," said my sweetie.

"don't be an asshole," said my inner voice.

the litmus test, of course, will be the little jam tom'w. i can't wait.

one foot in front of the other.

one step at a time.

shaking my smoking jones for good is one of the hardest things i have ever done.

miss kim at the bluebird

initially skeptical at the reopening of robert ealey's old stomping ground the new bluebird nite club at horne and wellesley (renamed, um, big sam's bluebird blues club; _whatevah_), i now have a reason to check it out: lady pearl's daughter miss kim, along with kim's uncle, gtrist-vocalist ray reed, and the rest of the b.t.a. (that's "better than average," for you newbies) showband will be holding forth in como's resurgent blues mecca on saturday, september 24th. show starts at 10pm, so don't y'all be late.

simon weisenthal

simon weisenthal checked out tuesday, age 96. he spent time in five nazi concentration camps and by his own count, had 89 relatives exterminated in the camps. he spent the rest of his life hunting down the perpetrators of nazi genocide and bringing them to trial -- not for vengeance, he said, but for justice.

very shortly, there will be no one left who experienced these events firsthand, which makes it ever more important to keep their memory alive. back in the '80s, a buddy of mine who was both an air force historian and a jew took a world war II class at one of the bible colleges in abilene. the premise of the class, he said, was that the holocaust never happened -- that it was a hoax. this in spite of the mountains of documentary evidence (and human remains). persistent denial of reality _is_ a sign of madness.

to simon weisenthal, at last, peace.

dead rockstars

it's a tossup: check out steve's dead rock stars online or just read the obits magnetized to my refrigerator. we're gonna have to make room for clarence "gatemouth" brown (who once dedicated "yellow rose of texas" to my wife at a bluesfest in, um, iowa) in between u.p. wilson and johnny ramone.

decrepitude

so i got a little scare the other day: i thought i was having a heart attack. i guess work stress is worse than i reckoned. anxiety attack is prolly the correct term and luckily my wife is good at modulating elevated arousal states 'n' shit from her work as a speech-language pathologist w/pre-verbal multi-disabled kids. (hunh? sorry, i'm not gonna 'splain.) sure, i've been in tighter fixes than the one i'm experiencing currently, but i was younger / fitter then, and perhaps felt like i had greater ability to influence events than i do now. i have an appt to see the quack in a week. in the meantime, i'll be thinking a lot about starting over as a landscaper or housepainter. good side: made it real easy to quit smoking. tbd side: food, sleep, invigorating walks, etc. now take precedence over maintaining this blog. (note: the announcement of a hiatus from bloggage is usually the precursor to a flurry of blog activity.) at any rate, i'll still be playing at the little wreckroom on wednesday nights. and writing whenever the f*ck i feel like it (altho not always when i think i should). see ya.

cartoon speech bubbles

so this cat put up 50,000 cartoon speech bubbles around nyc. whadda _you_ think happened?

(this shit is pert hilarious, but takes awhile to load.)

billy harvey

i dig the way this austin (i think) dude uses his website to create a persona. also the way he moves between the polaroids when you move yr mouse. his beatlesque pop-rock ain't bad either.

punk is as punk does 2

funny...just got done watching slc punk (which i told my wife "is _not_ the story you think you're gonna see") and found this oral history of the san jose skate punk scene online. it's everywhere, it's everywhere...

art of the jam 18

wreck room wizard o' sound andre edmonson had another commitmment, so jam-meister lee allen decided we'd go on the small stage by the window over in "wreck west." lee walked in singing funkadelic's "standing on the verge of getting it on." it just so happened that i'd been trying for 10 yrs or so to find musos who could play that song, so we opened with it, kinda setting the tone for the night, which was energetic and funk-wah heavy. (joe cruz nailed the drum part the first time, too, and yes, we _did_ play it again later.)

lee had hinted that some heavy jazz cats were coming, which actually motivated me to practice over the w-e, something i never ever ever do. funny: i think after four months on this gig, my chops are starting to come back.

jesse sierra hernandez set up his congas 'cos he had ppl to impress -- in this case, a bunch of brits who'd come over to accompany a kimbell exhibit that was just closing back across the pond. he'd had 'em drinking margaritas at joe t. garcia's for four hours, then brought 'em to the wreck so they could hear him play a pummeling solo on "oye como va." steve huber played his violin from the bar all night, running without f/x 'cos lee unplugged 'em after the third or fourth blast of ear-imploding feedback.

jeffa the nylon-string gtr dude showed up without his partner fern and played a little on the indonesian strat clone with joe, steve, and lee (on congas). they made some connections and jeffa gave me a copy of his sleeplab cd which i stupidly left in the bar during my drunken 3am load-out; hopefully it'll still be there the next time i go back.

later, a couple of kulcha far i boys (bassist john shook and drummer jeffrey williams) showed up with zimbabwean singer andy brown in tow, taking a break from rehearsals for a 3-week u.s. tour. they jammed a bit with andy on gtr, then lee took over the squier to ride their groove through an extended funk excursion. i got back up to play some hendrix with shook and jeffrey (kinda wishing kulcha gtrist ron geida would make it out; it's funny how many toons "impulse of will" plays that ron and i used to play in our late, unlamented days as "the occasionals"). then lee and joe came back to finish up, and john stevens from confusatron took over gtr duties for "voodoo child," playing long, flowing lines that cascaded like molten silver.

from my perspective, it was a great night: i got off, and we had a bunch of jammers, in keeping with lee's vision of "an ever-changing lineup of musicians." only non-snazz aspect: no andre, so no recording. feh.

as g. clinton would say, "stick it in yr ear and dig it..."

yitzhak perlman story

inspiring stuff, reposted from caroline collier's myspace blog...

sleeplab, the brokers, myles and james

lately my fave music to stream at work has been the album-length demo by sleeplab, a project of recent wednesday night wreck room jammers jeffa and fern (and a drummer who's since bailed). this stuff hits like the soundtrack to a movie yr eyes haven't seen yet. some of the "scenes" are arid soundscapes that could, with the addition of a femme vox (like the one in "sambastyle"), take on a portishead-like astringency. others are more wired and fonkier and jostle like the sounds heard behind '70s blaxploitation flicks. atmospheric, evocative, me like a lot.

just heard that the brokers, the young reggae crew fronted by sin-c's drummer adrian, will be at the black dog on saturday, october 1st. they played a solid first-ever show at the ridglea a few months back, opening for ph7, in spite of the fact they were using a fill-in drummer (the original one having bolted...is this beginning to sound like a trend?) and suffering from an overabundance of hats onstage. the good news is that they've solved the drummer problem, have a bunch of new toons _and_ a one-member fedora limit at shows. nice to hear they're getting that hat thing under control.

the first time i met myles hayes, he ran naked across the yard at the old darth vato house. since then, he's become a kind of _avatar of joy_, dancing ecstatically at many a berry street show. myles also fronts a blues-oriented outfit called trouble in mind that includes ex-solomonic/keith wingate trio bassist chuck brown (whose old sectionmate lucas white has found a home in confusatron), and now he has a duo thang with another vocalist, jazz jam stalwart james norris, that could, perhaps, become the fort's own martin & lewis. their cd, empty tables, features top local jazzers (including jaelun washington, jeremy hull, daniel hardaway, and new father wingate his own self) and the release party for it is at the moon this friday.

overused sci-fi plots

my wife says there are only seven plots in all of litterchur. i beg to differ...

self-improvement

my niece just started college.
she says it's both everything she expected
and totally different.
she (who horrifies her mother with
multiple body piercings and bad driving)
says she's developed "a maternal reputation."

my advice to her: enjoy finding out
about yrself and the world
and where you fit in it.
and don't spend too much of your time
taking care of puking emo boys.

and to myself:
stop smoking cigarettes.
start eating and sleeping regularly.
you want to be around
for a few more yrs of this
and you're not getting
any fucking younger, y'know.

kulcha far i

with bassist john shook returned from a seven-week sojourn in europe, kulcha far i (chris hakata, shook, ron geida, and jeffrey williams) will spend the rest of this week learning 30 songs in preparation for a three-week u.s. tour, backing and opening for zimbabwean singer andy brown. the tour starts this saturday, september 17, in dallas.

jazzfest

because i suck, there are only three events i plan to check out at next weekend's jazz by the boulevard fest. friday night, the reprise of paul unger's miles davis tribute will be on the jagee heritage stage (that's on the montgomery street side of the festival site) from 5 to 7:30pm, so i'll be busting ass to get out of work early enough to catch it. on saturday, the swingmasters (with sumter bruton on gtr) appear on the main stage at 2:30, followed (after a set by the nawlins gumbo kings) by dave and daver at 4:45 (if it doesn't rain). that's it.

an unanticipated change from last year's event: the presence in will rogers memorial center of several hundred ppl displaced by hurricane katrina. hopefully the festival folks will make them feel welcome.

high points of weekend

1) going to fred's friday night and hearing saint frinatra, with the fiery young slovak jozef bobula on 6-string bass. not only does this cat have monstrous chops (which he deploys intelligently), he's entertaining as hell to watch. he looks like he has springs in his feet, and his facial expressions while playing are a show all by themselves. along with danny chacko detonating lots of little explosions on drums, the rest of the band (brian sharp, trumpet; frank hailey, piano; ron thayer, percussion) and singer rebecca gillespie were inspahrd to new heights of performance. appropriate, too, since there were a godzillion ppl out on the patio (enticed by the guest chef from nola; at $30, the four-course special-of-the-day was a little beyond our means, but it looked and smelled fabulous).

2) spending most of saturday painting a friend's house and afterward, sleeping better than i have in six months. there's something to be said for doing physical labor outside where you can see the results of your efforts immediately. sunday after the rain i got out from behind the 'puter and went out to pull some weeds. felt good. could make a habit of this.

3) seeing the throngs who came out to see the new works by jesse sierra hernandez, greg bahr, and kate mcdougall at jesse's studio 4 on gallery night. running into ppl i hadn't seen in yrs. laughing at the silly wonk walking around with a copy of foucault who asked my wife, "of course you know this book?" (to which i would have replied, "yes, i know all about 'fuck-all'").

4) learning that my dtr's b-f had the presence of mind to leap up and call 911 when they had a car drive into the front of the house where she lives after the driver suffered an epileptic fit, plowing through a brick pillar, smashing windows, and filling the living room with dust and debris. maybe the kid is okay after all.

why dr. paul slavens is my fave dj on earth

tonight he played samuel barber's "adagio for strings," followed a few minutes later by randy newman's "louisiana 1927."

i can't even remember the last time a dj expressed so perfectly what was on my mind.

stoopid katrina quotes

read! laugh! cry!

kilgore trout ain't no theodore sturgeon

i've recently been re-reading kurt vonnegut, jr.'s slaughterhouse-five and welcome to the monkey house (i love the early vonnegut, before he got self-indulgent and precious). so natcherly i was delighted when jeremy hull sent me this link to a site devoted to one of my fave vonnegut creations, the fictive sci-fi writer kilgore trout.

art of the jam 17a

for those of you who care, there's now a web presence for the wreck room's wednesday night jam thingy. according to lee allen, "impulse of will" is a conducting term, but one jam participant who heard the name for the first time was moved to ask, "who's will?" (or was it "whose will?") there should be some mp3's up there soon. in the meantime, you can check out some of the jam's quieter moments here. just scroll down to "bossa whatever" and click on the cow skull. (thanks to jeff for the link.)

art of the jam 17

there were some peeps from nola at the wreck tonight. they came in during the first set (when everytime i looked up it seemed there were a few more ppl in the room than the last time i looked) and were playing pool in the room off to the side.

sticky d. couldn't make it to the little jam 'cos he's leaving in the morning for bay st. louis, mississippi, to rescue his uncle who's been stranded there since the hurricane with no power or running water and a 6' x 6' hole in his roof. here's hoping yr trip is safe and everything goes smoothly, bro.

carl pack came out for the first time in weeks and graced the stage for a coupla toons. the little wreck room seemed more like itself when he was in the house.

it wound up being a pretty good night, even though we started late and there was no one in the back room (including jammers) when we started -- just lee allen, joe cruz, and me. after awhile, darrell from confusatron showed up and set up his computer with keyboard thingy attached and made things a lot more interesting with his ambient sounds 'n' samples. jeffrey williams from kulcha far i drummed some, and said the kulcha boys are going to be backing a singer from africa on tour for a couple of weeks after john shook returns from amsterdam. for the second set, fern and jeff got up with their nylon-strings, bringing their mellow brazilian vibe to the proceedings. at the ass-end of the night, we played "cissy strut" for nola, then jammed a little funk that brought the folks from the big easy (who are currently residing over at will rogers memorial center) up to the front of the stage. felt good. afterwards, one of the cats told me that they'd gone to another bar earlier and the bartender wouldn't even serve 'em. hard to figure.

btw, i found out that this weekend, fred's has a guest chef, another crescent city evacuee whom terry chandler met on fred's relief run last weekend. he'll be cooking a nawlins special this friday night. sounds like a good time to go check out saint frinatra (and try and arm-twist brian sharp into coming back out to the jam). we can't forget "the city that care forgot."

extra! extra! white house press corps finds balls!

dig this transcript from a briefing by white house press secretary scott mcclellan re: the sluggish federal response to hurricane katrina's devastation. in fairness to mcclellan, it should be said, the operative phrase here is "like shooting fish in a barrel."

house gigs

ok, so maybe the fort _isn't_ "austin-when-it-was-austin"; it's still a pretty good place to hear interesting, eclectic live music for free, any night of the week. (and i'm not even including mchenry's, which i've never visited 'cos i'm generally allergic to singer-songwriters.) dig:

- monday: justin pate, keyboard-vox extraordinaire of visitors / bindle / pablo and the hemphill 7 / confusatron fame, now has a solo gig playing his favorite covers and making weird noises at the moon on berry st. and some young blood singer-songwriter types have started an acoustic jam at the saffire lounge on west 7th.

- tuesday: hank hankshaw does his country-rockabilly thang during happy hour at the wreck room.

- wednesday: there's lee and carl's invitational jam at the wreck room, dave and daver's jazz at the black dog, and mike richardson, who's famous for putting together cover bands at a moment's notice, doing a solo pianner thang at the moon.

- thursday: scott copeland, the fort's best-kept secret songwriterwise, has happy hour at the wreck. later on, confusatron does their funky-jazzy hipi-dippy jamband thang at the black dog. and dru weber just started doing a country-blues set over at fred's.

- friday: you get to choose between darrin kobetich's solo acoustic gtr raga-blues-bluegrass wonderfulness at the wreck during happy hour or saint frinatra's jazz later on at fred's. or why not do both?

- saturday: darrin does his solo deal for the non-carnivores at spiral diner on magnolia, then runs over to fred's to play bluegrass with the electric mountain rotten apple gang.

- sunday: dave karnes and joey carter have taken over the sunday jazz at the black dog. or if ya like bluesjams, there's johnny mack at the keys lounge or paul byrd at j&j's.

and any night of the week except monday, you can hear johnny case's jazz piano at sardines ristorante italiano. (i think he usually subs out monday, so there's still music to be heard there, too.)

not too shabby, methinks. and i just composed this off the top of my head in like five minutes. there are undoubtedly others. plus the traffic mostly doesn't suck. so there.

insomnia

3 o'clock in the morning
sitting thinking
about what i need to do tom'w
things i hate:
stupidity and ign'ance
ppl that talk all the time
and especially
sound clips on ppl's myspace profiles

ganeshfest '05: it's on, baby!

one of my coworkers is staying home tom'w to cook indian food for a small army of ppl for the festival of ganesh, the elephant-headed hindu god. my sister-in-law, who spent a year of high school in india, says that ganesh is the god of education, knowledge, and wisdom, so he looks after teachers -- which makes me predisposed to like him. he's not an ass-kicker like, say, shiva. i found out he's also the _destroyer of obstacles_. all in all, a pretty good deity to have in your corner.

what does it mean to dream of corn?

another food dream the other night. i was eating an ear of roasted corn. the kernels were burnt but only enough to caramelize 'em, so the smokey flavor of the carbonized part mixed with the natural sugars to make a sweetness that was nothing like cloying. it tasted good, and real.

it reminded me of clambakes when i was a kid, clams on the half shell with lemon and chickens and hotdogs and potatoes all cooked in a fire pit on the beach while we tore ass around the picnic site like wild indians and the grown-ups drank cold beer and laughed loudly at stories we couldn't understand.

later on when i was a teenager, we used to troop out to the same beach in convoys of cars, maybe 40 or 50 kids, and build huge bonfires. we'd buy gallons of canadian ace beer, which cost 75 cents back in 1973 (when you had to wait in line for what seemed like hrs to buy gas) and was made, i was told, from skunk cabbage. when you broke the seal on the jug, it smelled like a wet fart. on the top it was water, on the bottom it was like 20% alcohol -- no quality control. if you accidentally spilled half of your gallon on the beach, you didn't care: it was just that much less that you had to drink. we didnt cook; instead, we'd bring shit like cans of ravioli, which would inevitably get consumed cold out of the can in the morning after sleeping with four or five guys jammed into somebody's car to get out of the rain (and it _always_ rained). driving back home hung over, listening to the rascals or the james gang or john coltrane on frank santora's cassette player.

my sweetie brought home some ears of corn from the market the other day. she said the produce dude said they were wa-a-ay sweet. i understand they're genetically engineering 'em to taste that way now. ng. i don't care. now i just need to find a little hibachi to roast it on. yum.

the sunday jazz

we hadn't been to the black dog to hear the sunday jazz in forever, so we decided to take advantage of the monday holiday and go check it out. it seemed like everybody else in town had the same idea (at least the ones that weren't at the tejano festival in sundance square) -- there were a ton of peeps in the house when we arrived about an hour after start time, and more trickled in later, but the atmosphere wasn't as oppressive as it sometimes gets on confusatron nights ("elbow room!" cried daniel boone). and they were a listening crowd, by and large, although there was the usual complement of see-and-be-scenesters lining the bar; thankfully, only a handful persisted with loud convos, which at no time threatened to drown out the music.

having recently seen joey carter on a restaurant jazz gig that featured, um, electronic drums with that boomy-echoed '80s mutt lange sound, looking as forlorn as a majestic lion taken from the savannah and held captive in a stinking, fly-infested zoo cage somewhere (although he swears he just looks that way when he's playing pianner), it was an extreme delight to see him back in his natural habitat, as it were, mallets flying over ringing vibes, amazing everyone with his melodic-percussive facility, then pushing the changes and backing every other soloist to the hilt.

behind the trapset, a recently-rehabbed dave karnes looked happy and fit and sounded every bit like the master drummer he is. karnage has more ways of subdividing time than a dozen of yr garden-variety tub-thumpers, and he was putting 'em all on display last night, thundering like tony williams on an astonishing "footprints" that featured a couple of blazing teenagers (17 and 18 yrs old, you'd scarcely believe it) on trumpet and tenor, providing the relentless forward motion for a land-speed-record "mr. p.c.", funking up a ballad behind regular black dog guest vocalist ron, always tempering his vibrant, overpowering energy and excitement with sheer musicality, intelligence, and taste. there was a certain karmic justice in seeing a healthy dave karnes playing his ass off in front of an attentive and appreciative room full of ppl. life should always be so good.

on bass, the ubiquitous drew phelps swung hard and soloed effectively, both arco and pizzicato. on gtr, joey's bertha coolidge bandmate paul metzger left his f/x at home and made the gig on pure tone, touch, attack, and ideas. he's got more blues in his sound than most bebop cats, and isn't afraid to play it straight, which he did to great advantage behind oaklin bloodworth's vocal features. all in all, a great night.

all of the above whets my appetite to hear the reprise of paul unger's miles davis tribute (featuring the above-named musos, among others) at the jazz by the boulevard fest on september 17th, and johnny case's new, politically-themed record, with joey carter on drums and percussion, release of which is also imminent.

so anyway, it looks like tad gaither's moving his bar to a new location on currie, diagonally across the street from fred's, on november 1. this makes me glad, as it'll be less of a hassle to make it there from my house than it currently is. (is my westside chauvinism showing?) now that carter, karnes, and the rest have banished anything mundane from the sunday night jazz, i might have to make it a regular weekly stop again. and with closer proximity to the wreck room, it'll also be easier for me to catch dave and daver on wednesday nights after lee and carl's jam winds up. as i said, life's good.

let's go to the beach

driving out to benbrook today to try and see my oldest dtr working at subway (went too late, she got off a couple of hrs before), had my poor man's a.c. on -- windows open, warm breeze blowing in my face. it reminded me of driving to the beach on long island in the summertime. made me think about taking my granddaughter there, to see the ocean. maybe someday.

anne rice on nola

i've never read any of anne rice's novels, but maybe i oughtta. the nawlins native testifies here. (thanks to jodi for the link.)

nola, icicle & the kid, honchie

after the last few days, writing bullshit about music should be the furthest thing from my mind. the suffering in the wake of hurricane katrina and the inadequate federal response to this emergency has got me thinking lots about 'meercuh and the dynamic of race and class here. could blather a lot about that, i suppose, but nawlins mayor ray nagin and rapper kanye west have spoken so much more eloquently than i could ever hope to.

anyway, had a nice surprise visit today from my middle dtr, recently flown the nest, and (a little later on) her boyfriend. after dinner, we all headed over to the little wreck room to hear icicle & the kid along with the headliners, last-minute add honchie. when we got there, a couple of minutes into icicle & the kid's second song, the audience was mostly friends 'n' family, but that soon changed. sure, there were plenty of veterans of old fort worth cats days at the hop, tootsie's, and zero's new wave lounge, but there were plenty of other folks, too (including those dancers from the jam this past week, still dancing, along with several other ppl i'd never seen in the wreck before) -- always a good thing.

even more so because icicle & the kid _to' it up_, and this after maybe a decade between performances, one rehearsal, and a warm-up gig at fred's thursday night. john "johnny icicle" seibman, david "kid" daniel, and eric martin played rock'n'roll the way it's supposed to be played -- with joyous abandon. no self-conscious posing here, only proof positive that maybe rawk ain't just a young man's game (just ask chuck berry, or keef richards -- um, y'know, the guy who's gonna play johnny depp's father in the new pirates of the caribbean flick). that's not to say there was no grandstanding, it's just that when kid daniel moves from his signature splay-legged stance to a full mc5 backbend, there's nothing fake about it -- this is just the way the cat acts when he's feeling the spirit, and has a roomful of silly-ass dancing mofos in front of him to egg him on.

seibman still has the same battered jazzmaster he was playing in '79 (which he bought in '70, when he was 20 -- he's got more than a few rings around his trunk). watching him standing there transported, eyes shut, spinning out nothing but good reverb-laden freddie king goes surfin' gtr, you can feel the connection between these guys and the fort worth teen scene crews, all the way back to when mac curtis and the galbraith brothers rode their rockabilly rocket all the way from weatherford to the brooklyn paramount. these days, seibman doesn't even play anymore, he says -- "i just want it to be _fun_, and with these guys, we know how we are; i know what a nutball [kid] is." (he also says their old fort worth cats bandmate mike neal is "doing a karaoke one-man-band thing out in azle -- the same thing he was doing when i met him.")

here's hoping it won't be another ten years before kid daniel makes his way up from corpus christi to play with these guys again.

i hadn't seen honchie since, um, prolly sxsw 2004, and their show has only gotten more hilariously entertaining, plus they have a buttload of new material which should see release on shiny silver disc by thanksgiving or thereabouts. chuck stephenson remains the best natural physical comic i've ever seen onstage, while doug krause's between-songs patter has gotten even more unctuous. none of the shtick would work if it wasn't smartly conceived and well-played, and it is -- no fooling, these guys _rip_. can't wait to hear the new discage.

the thing that sticks in my mind most, though, is the last song icicle & the kid played: the old jay & the americans hit from the kennedy years, "only in america." ironic? _you_ decide.

r.l. burnside / the bluebird

crap. primitive electric country bluesman r.l. burnside checked out in a memphis hospital room on september 1st. he was 79. thanks to my dutch bro tony slug for sharing this sad news.

on a more positive note, larry harrison sez that robert ealey's new bluebird night club at horne and wellesley here in the fort is set to reopen this weekend. i was planning to go see sumter bruton today anyhow, but now i definitely will.

UPDATE: sumter said that the main guy behind the new bluebird is a former fort worthian now living in tennessee. apparently he's booking mainly memphis bands for the first few shows. improvements to the physical plant supposedly include central air and heat (!!!) and an expanded men's room (which now occupies the former kitchen space). we'll see what we'll see.

archiving

hahahahaha. it looks like blogger only archives this sh*t for a yr. so much for immortality. hahahahaha.

rock camp

if you're in fort worth and have (or know someone who has) kids ages 12-18 who wanna learn how to rawk, lee allen and dave karnes' fort worth academy of music is starting the fall session of its rock camp on september 12th. enrollment is still open and it's way better than stealing tires.

icicle & the kid....

...to' it up at fred's tonight. it was weird seeing john "johnny icicle" seibman (gtr/vox), david "kid" daniel (bass/vox), and eric martin (drums) together again -- like being caught in a timewarp. these cats haven't lost many steps since 1980something, however, no matter what kid says. seibman, who's starting to look more than a little like the "happy little clouds" painting guy from pbs, even plays the same jazzmaster i saw him play with the fort worth cats in 1979 (with lotsa reverb).

yrs after i fraudulently gained entree to a fort worth cats show by masquerading as a journo, i did a legit interview with seibman for a story about the legendary velvet underground shows at the end of cole in dallas for a story that i was never able to place. seibman went to the show, but didn't dig the velvets so much: "i dug ppl that could _play_, like james brown's band." (that didn't prevent kid from singing the velvets' "what goes on," however.)

if i hadn't known they'd only had one rehearsal, i wouldn't a thunk it. they mixed things up nicely, moving between vocals and instrumentals, slow and fast toons, with seibman and daniel alternating on lead vox. hearing 'em essay forgotten classics like jody reynolds' "endless sleep" and roky erickson's "i walked with a zombie" took me back to the hop and tootsie's ca. '79, and i finally got to hear kid sing "be bop a lula."

(my general state of dissolution at the ass-end of the '70s was such that i don't have real strong memories of any of the backlne cats looked, only seibman and mike neal. for some reason, my memory substitutes the vision of a much huskier guy i usedta work with for the real kid daniel, who along with eric martin has to be one of the skinniest middle-aged men anywhere -- not a lot of profile on either of those guys.)

only somewhat non-snazz moment was a long, rambling jam seibman introduced as "spitball scalped a baby" (nice beefheart ref, john, altho the toon they played wasn't the same as the sax-and-drum duet don used it for, thank gawd), which served as a reminder that perhaps the '60s ended for a reason.

it was a school night, so we couldn't hang out for the second set (when i'll bet they played "get it of your chest," a fave of mine from fort worth cats days), but i'm hoping they'll do it when they play the wreck room this saturday, september 3rd, opening for shtick-rockers honchie (whom i haven't seen in a coupla yrs but are always entertaining). ya mo be there. maybe you too?

they found fats domino...

...alive in the 9th ward. hopefully this is not the last piece of good news to emerge from nola the next few weeks. there's sure enough of the other kind. amazing how little time it takes for the social order to break down when cataclysmic events occur. (i seem to remember my sociology prof called this "anomie" a million yrs ago.) we're all a lot closer to savagery than we like to think. a down thought.

art of the jam 16

a first at this week's jam: there were _dancers_ (well, two of 'em anyway). hot-lookin' _wimmin_, even. and of course, musos _always_ play with more, um, _conviction_ when there's booty-shakin' involved. it's a law of physics or something.

at first, it looked as if it was gonna be just a trio (jam-meister lee allen, drummer joe cruz, me), but then all of a sudden we were inundated in gtr players: fingerstyle specialists fern (who brought a hollowbody electric in place of his unamplified nylon-string) and jeff, cody from monday nights at the saffire, mark neumann from bombshelter. then cody's drummer austin showed up with a djembe.

what happened next: two hours blew by in about a minute. the proceedings were alternately lyrical, funky, and comic, but in general, folks listened and gave each other space, and fine times were had by all. when we broke, i was skying on endorphins -- and i'd arrived feeling like i'd been run over by a fleet of mack trucks; music-playing is good for what ails ya.

ex-axis/engine room/mad hatter's/satellite dish impresario melissa kirkendall was there, taking a break from working on movies in dallas and elsewhere (it was her friends who were dancing). speaking of movies, ray liberio from the me-thinks was there, too, returned from his vacation in the pacific northwest, where he searched for the location where they filmed the goonies. the me-thinks are back in action, resuming work on their anxiously-anticipated double e.p., and ray noted that his gig posters are starting to disappear from the venues where they're posted (hopefully after the shows). collectable, he is. ppl are starting to find out.

then we played another set until near closing time, and sat around listening to andre edmonson's boss-ass recording of what we'd just played. supposedly this weekend he and lee are gonna sit down with dre's 40something hours of vhs tape and lee's dvd burner and try and compile a sort-of "best of the jams" cd. better them than me, as far as having to listen to that much material, but it'd be cool to have an easy way for ppl who've never been to hear what's going on wednesday nights at the little wreck room.

and oh yeah. we closed with a taste of meters "cissy strut," for the big easy with love and hope.