things to do this week

1) take daily walks around the neighborhood (i'm attempting to use endorphins to wean myself off nicotine)

2) use protocol provided by wife's coworker to rehab my shoulder from excessive mouse usage in prep for possible xmas retail gig

3) get car tuned up and brakes checked

4) have my granddtr over for dinner thursday

5) figure out workable budget for new financially-diminished circumstances

6) prepare for film shoot starting sat'day (i'm helping out on the teen a go go doco) by any means necessary

7) whatever my sweetie wants (the dreaded "honey-do" list)

8) watch wind move trees around from front porch

a veritable bonanza of ron geida gigs this thursday

fleet-fingered gtrist-teacher-red sox fan ron geida has two, count 'em, two shows this thursday night (assuming the weather cooperates). round about 7pm, he'll be at recent fw weekly profile subject fred's with reggae-afrobeat-jazz unit barber mack. then at 10:30pm, he and bassist john shook will drag their equipment down the street to the black dog, where revitalized country-rawkers jasper stone (who played the best set i've ever seen by them at fred's a month or so ago and have a new rekkid in the can) will be holding forth. you donwanna miss it.

my back pages

going through some old files and notebooks i hadn't looked at in at least four yrs. finding things like:

1) the contact info for an old interview subject i've been asked for by strangers via email _dozens_ of times. turns out i had an email address after all (but it's no longer good - feh).

2) email from my old g-f wherein she complains about my "careless" attitude toward money, and the fact she wants me to buy her jewelry for valentine's day.

3) the setlist (from the dark ages of the internet) for the time i saw the who at forest hills in nyc, july 31st, 1971:

love ain't for keeping
pure and easy
my wife
i can't explain
substitute
bargain
behind blue eyes
magic bus
won't get fooled again
i don't know myself
baby don't you do it
pinball wizard
see me feel me
water
my generation
magic bus (again?)
naked eye
roadrunner

funny: i have absolutely no recollection of them playing the tommy and live at leeds songs at all. i hear their new alb is out tom'w.

such fascinating stuff, to me if no one else.

addnerim, merkin, one fingered fist

the show i gotta see this week will be at the li'l wreck room on sat'day, november 4th. the lineup: addnerim (chops-oriented heavy rawk with the kid that usedta play rush songs at the jam on gtr), merkin (whose drummer cameron i met the other night and whose sound, i'm told, is redolent of in utero-era nirvana), and one fingered fist (raging hardcore punk with new me-thinks drummer trucker john behind the traps). plus there's a groovy, lucha libre-themed ray liberio poster to promote the event. hotcha!

the misunderstood

digging the mp3's on the website of the misunderstood, perhaps the ultimate flowering of 'meercun garage-psych, part three of whose story i've been reading in ugly things #22. hailing from riverside, cali, and championed by brit dj john peel, they relocated to the u.k. in '66 and cut classic sides "children of the sun" and "find the hidden door" before the vietnam draft snatched up a coupla band mbrs, one of whom went awol and wound up in india (um, giving the lie to john sinclair's contention in the mc5*a true testimonial flick that "_nobody_ joined the army!"). the misunderstood were like an american yardbirds, combining over-the-top energy and out-of-their-heads experimentalismo in exactly the same way as the muy influential brit combo, and even had a virtuoso instrumentalist a la messrs. clapton/beck/page in the form of steel gtrist glenn ross campbell (who later logged time in juicy lucy and joe cocker's band). awesome stuff.

new toons on the stoogeplayer

katboy informs me that he's posted new toonage on the mp3 player thingy on the stoogeaphilia myspace page. "down on the street" and "loose" were recorded on my 49th berfday, june 28th, at the li'l wreck room by wizard o' sound andre edmonson and lovingly tweaked by matt at meow mix. i was kinda inebriated and had already been playing gtr for six hrs at the time we hit (between the josh clark jam at fred's and lee 'n' carl's at el wreck), so any clamblow you hear gtr-wise is undoubtedly mine. in spite of that, the recording came out pretty well -- voxxx audible, lotsa presence 'n' power from the riddim boyzzz, best recorded balance we've had yet between the gtrs. i miss playing at el wreck; the stoogeband will prolly do a set there some wednesday night soon, and once i get done with the project i'm gonna be working on for the next coupla wks, i'll try to make it back to jam with lee-boy, too. it's been too damn long.

in december, matt's going to be in tennessee visiting his home folks during the week of the year's final "i wanna be your black dog" thursday, so we're gonna have some special guests filling in on bass. watch this space for more exciting details.

over under sideways down

my nerves are fucking shot
three days away from the straight
that was giving me nervous indigestion
and tying my body into knots
having just signed on to a cool project
with lotsa interesting possibilities
and starting to feel like myself again
i find i'd still rather curl up at home with
a two-year-old magazine and a black cat on my lap
(digging stax's sterling scholarship
and the scrawl of a cat
i remember from when i was editing
the merchandising newsletter
for, um, radioshack)
than hang out with friends or
go catch a gig by a band i really dig

i think i'm done for awhile
with "laughing joking drinking smoking
till i've spent my wage"

tammy said "sit down and do the work"
and now i think maybe it's time
to do just that

breathing out

first day in awhile where my cortisol levels were not thru the roof. cashed an expense check from my ex-job which will pay for din-din tonight (terry at fred's is cooking the same meal he made for our wedding dinner -- nice coincidence), voted early (thus ensuring my right to continue bitching about texas / local politics until the big presidential throwdown), sold some shitty cd's and picked up some local honey for my sweetie (good allergy remedy).

endorphin rush from the stoogeshow last night helped cleanse away some of the bad stress-chemicals, even tho the poets ran late again (talked to billy about maybe getting another night where we could start earlier and maybe draw some more ppl) and we had to cut the second set short when jon broke his bass drum head (he slams 'em hard). damn, i was just starting to feel it, too. the peavey was satisfactory with the new tubes z-man installed, but the big muff is a big disappointment -- used it for solos only on the first set and it was starting to die by the start of the second (how can a pedal suck so much juice?). luckily i'd taken the precaution of including the dod overdrive in my pedal chain, so there was no absence of filth in my sound. inasmuch as i really don't like the way it sounds, the dod is at least reliable. let sir steffin borrow the big muff for the new project he's working on with bobby zanzucchi, which will _not_ be called sleepy atlantis.

this evening i'll get a massage, then we'll walk down to fred's. i have a prospect of picking up a li'l coin working on a fun project i believe in, so that'll be a nice transition back into the world of job-seeking if it eventuates.

life's damn good, doncha know.

los noviembres

speaking of musos that kin writ gud, gtrist-composer-educator, raconteur and bon vivant paul boll is about to roll his eclectic new project los noviembres out of the basement with appearances at eurotazza on november 4th and the kimbell art museum on november 11th. should be worth a listen.

katboy scrawls

besides playing in four bands, working a day gig, and doing occasional on-air stuff for ktcu-fm 88.7, bassist extraordinaire matt hembree (the final installment of whose underground railroad tour blog is now up on his myspace thingy) is now the 817 correspondent for cindy chaffin's the fine line music blog. jayzus, one might wonder, when does this guy _sleep_?!?!?

me-thinks double e.p. release!!!

ray liberio writes:

Well kids the moment we have all been waiting for is here. Not we as in you necessarily, but we as in the band we...you know what I am saying here. We finally finished the Double EP and actually suckered a record label into putting it out for us. I know what you're thinking...it's amazing to us too. I guess anyone really can do this "band" thing.

Anyhow, it goes down on Saturday, November 11th at (where else?)...the Wreck Room in Fort Worth. We have The Fellow Americans and Legends of the South on the bill that night too so come on down, guzzle some booze, listen to some rock, and maybe even get yourselves a Double EP AND a t-shirt (while supplies and sizes last of course) for a measly 8 bucks. You heard me right...2 discs...1 shirt...8 dollars. We would've just given em away but this time Jack from Indian Casino Records is a ruthless business man and he's making us charge something.

We hope to see you all that night.

The Fellow Americans - 10ish
The Me-Thinks - 11ish
Legends of the South - 12ish

Ray...The Me_Thinks

b.d. trail

each year, on the anniversary of our meeting, i read my sweetie a poem called "growing old together" by the man who taught me to be a writer -- the soldier-teacher-poet benard doss trail, whom i've blogged on at length elsewhere. (i've added some links to a few more places where you can read his work online -- look over there on the right and you'll see 'em.) i have i copy of the complete oeuvre at la casa. i'll be reading 'em aloud, 'cos that's how poetry works best, over the next coupla weeks. so, if you wanna hear me declaiming poetry about war and love and death, come on-a my house.

rest easy and thank you, sir.

the last word on c.b.g.b.'s

before the ur rawk dump recedes into the mists of history (or more accurately, of "my grandma went to c.b.g.b.'s and all i got was this f*ckin' t-shirt"), richard hell, who was present at the creation (as a member of television), has his say.

the last word, though, must belong to patti smith, quoted in the village voice, who expressed no nostalgia for the j'int, but rather opined, "the new kids are going to have their own places. new places. they'll do what we did -- find some shithole and play in it."

as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. amen.

babs says "shut the fuck up"

i have a whole new opinion of barbra streisand. as our friend jessamine says, "she says that with some authority." dude mixed it and put it on his myspace page. this is going to have _so_ many uses.

teen a go go

more from melissa kirkendall: filming starts november 4th on teen a go go, a documentary chronicling the proliferation of nuggets-esque teen-snot bands that sprung up around the fort in the wake of the beatles 'n' stones. these bands gained nationwide notoriety a coupla yrs back with the release on noo yawk-based norton records of the three-volume fort worth teen scene comp, assembled by local rekkid geeks/historians larry harrison and david campbell. imagine an era when the stones and yardbirds played at will rogers and the opening acts were crews of local teens who otherwise packed high school sock-hops and local teen clubs with hundreds of their beat-crazed schoolmates. it happened right here in the panther city, about 40 yrs ago, and now the full story will finally be told. film, as they say, at 11.

scary movie time at the rose marine tonight!

rawk promoter-turned-film maven melissa kirkendall writes:

Lone Star Open Screen Presents:

7:30pm - Feature:
THE MIDNIGHT SPECIAL
Directed by: Patrick Prejusa
Time: 98 minutes; Language and Violence
THE MIDNIGHT SPECIAL, a "COPS Reality TV" inspired comedy about a secret monster squad known as "Shadow Company" whose job is to rid their part of the world of Vampires, Werewolves, and Zombies who lurk in the darkness. Filmed entirely in the Dallas/ Fort Worth area.

6:30pm - Shorts:
THE LOST AND FOUND
Directed by: Ashley Eberhart and Tiffany Galvan
Time: 11minutes
2 teens stay after school to help out their teacher without knowing they are locked inside school with a killer.

UTOPIA
DirectED BY: Erik Clapp
Time: 1 minute 20 seconds
Have you ever thought you were going to die, and wish one pill would make it all go away?

WOMEN'S INTUITION
Directed by: Patrick Rea
Time: 8 minutes
A young woman who has a suspicion she is in danger.
Filmed in Kansas, WINNER Audience Choice at Kansas Int.l Film Festival 2006.

Hangman’s Most Wanted – Special Presentation. 14 min

$5 for ALL films/ includes a free beverage!

Thurs. Oct. 26
Rose Marine Theater, 1440 Main St.
Box office opens at 6PM
Info: 817-735-1117
www.lonestarfilmsociety.org

Sponsored By:
The Fort Worth Weekly
Coca-cola

***** NOW ACCEPTING SUBMISSIONS FOR the December & February showcases! THIS COSTS NOTHING to the FILMMAKER! Lone Star pays for the theater & screen rental and all advertising including full color postcards we mail out to our list of 500+ people!

email me or visit the Lone Star web site to find out more details!
www.LoneStarFilmSociety.com

Please spread the love, this is a wonderful project we need Lone Star to keep supporting!!

Have a happy, scary Halloween!!

BOO!
-melissa

further o.c.

man, i wish i still had the vhs of shirley clarke's documentary ornette: made in america that i bought in the li'l store at caravan of dreams on my lunch hour one day when that magnificent space was still open. clarke's doc was shot over a 20-yr period and included footage of ornette receiving the key to the city of fort worth in conjunction with caravan's 1983 opening, the convention center theater-emptying performance of his skies of america with the fw symphony, a string quartet performing some of his chamber music inside caravan's geodesic dome, and ornette and prime time blowing the roof off caravan itself. also included was this interview with iconoclastic composer george russell. hey uncle johnny, you still got that tape?

mind if we dance wit' showdates

stoogeaphilia at the black dog tonight

carey wolff next door at 7th haven, also tonight

the great tyrant at el wreck room saturday, october 28th (they play early)

pablo and the hemphill 7 at the black dog that same night (they play till late)

ADDENDUM: jon teague says the wreck room website is incorrect -- great tyrant will NOT be playing there saturday. feh.

dia de los muertes

tammy gomez writes:

Dia de Los Muertes is a Mexican commemoration for the beloved who have passed on.

Fort Worth will celebrate DDLM 2006
at the Metrognome Collective warehouse
(the new kitsch on the block)
at 1518 E. Lancaster (and no, it's not hard to find--before nightfall)

Wednesday, November 1st
2006
9pm (come early to get a good seat and have a cold beer--byob)

$7 - helps keep the Boys & Girls Clubs of FW up & running....

with VISUAL ART by folks including Christopher Blay, Kate McDougal,
and many others.

with PERFORMANCE ART by Rachel Loera, Patricia Urbina, Natalia Dominguez,
Tammy Gomez, and several others.

with POETRY by Cesar Hernandez and Gabriela Lomonaca and several others.

with LIVE MUSICAL SETS by Sleeplab, Skin and Bones, Dia de Los Muertos
(like naming your band Easter Sunday....), and a coupla others.

with Andre on audio controls (which means it's gonna sound sweet,
no matter what).

with some food, random snacks (though the poster promises "local food"--
whatever the hell that means...).

with un monton de espiritu y talento con corazon, ese.

See yous there!

la Tammy

marchel ivery

oh yeah...i didn't look to see whether or not tad sprung for an ad in the fweakly, but texas tenorman marchel ivery makes a special guest appearance at the 9th anniversary of the black dog's sunday jazz thingy this weekend. i usedta go see marchel's quartet with thomas reese, charles scott, and walter winn at the recovery room on lemmon avenue in dallas ca. '78. back then, miles' '50s pianist red garland would occasionally spell reese at the 88s, and one memorable night, ornette's '60s drummer charles moffett brought his three phenomenal freeblowing sons to sit in during a band break and they practically blew the roof off the j'int. in the '90s, marchel cut three albs for the dallas-based leaning house label, including one with nouveau organ-funk guy joey defrancesco. the regular sunday night cats always look forward to his visits. worth checking out, i'm thinking.

breathing in 2

tonight i made pancakes for dinner
can't remember the last time i did that
tomorrow i'll go turn in my laptop and office key
my battery died last night and i concluded
that it was a sign from the universe
that i'm not supposed to work there anymore
and one ignores messages from the universe
at their own peril

i'm reading a book called your money or your life
it's about changing your relationship with money
so you can live a more sustainable life
it was a gift to my sweetie from her li'l sis
who also gave me a book about families
called the shelter of each other
(she's a book-giver)
i'm reading this new one with great interest

we're already pretty frugal, my sweetie 'n' i
but i think we can become even more so
(my beer of choice just went from shiner to lone star etc.)
i've been talking a lot about attaining moderation
and balance in life while all the while
my life was becoming more immoderate and unbalanced
(no more whiskey for me, kids -- DEVIL JUICE)
feh

i miss playing at the jam with lee allen
i haven't in two months (since the first night okay james played)
it's hard to believe i did that every week for over a year
it all seems very distant to me now
tomorrow i'll spend a large part of the day preparing
"like a gladiola for the arena" (as senor pablo says)
for the stoogeshow, which will mainly consist of
checking my pedals and sleeping a lot

this friday marks three years since
the night i met my sweetie
standing at the black dog bar with my beer
not doing anything in particular
since then, my life has gotten a whole lot better
and my overarching intention now
is to let it continue to be so
for as long as is humanly possible

so there

recipe for fried rice

this highly, um, westernized version is the one my dear old grey-haired moms fixed us when i was a snotnose and the same one i served my kids. after my heart attack scare last year, i gave up eating bacon, but my middle dtr enjoys this so well that she requested (and i of course agreed) that i fix this for her berfday in a coupla wks. there's nothing exotically asiatic about this -- it's _po' people food_ -- but you can add to it any odd animal or vegetable matter you have sitting in the refrigerator with decent results. if you're in a "hawaiian" frame of mind, substitute spam for the bacon. (because both of my parents are hawaiian-born, i was raised to think of the gelatinous meat-like substance as "food." still do.)

1 cup of cooked rice (this recipe is, of course, expandable)
3 or 4 slices of bacon
3 or 4 scallions (that's green onions, like booker t.)
2 eggs (i remove the yolk from one in a half-assed attempt at heart-healthiness)
soy sauce

slice the bacon in 1-inch sections. chop the scallions not-_too_-fine. start the bacon in a cold pan and fry until crispy. drain on paper towels and pour the grease into a coffee can. (the one that perpetually sat on the stove in my various apartments was a source of mute horror to my children for yrs.) combine the bacon bits and scallions over medium heat. break up the massive clump of rice (you _did_ refrigerate it, didn't you?) with a wooden spoon or spatula, then add the rice to the pan. splash on soy sauce (not too much!) and mix the ingredients well, flattening them out to maximize heat absorption. add the eggs; break the yolk before you start mixing it with the rice. keep stirring; the goal is to coat all the rice with egg before the egg starts to solidify. don't leave it runny, but don't let it burn, either. serve with hot green tea (or coca-cola if children are involved).

proof positive (as if any more were needed) that i am not a songwriter

earlier tonight i spent a coupla hrs sitting in the rain, waiting for a tow truck outside my ex-wife's house. that's all i got.

o.c.

lately all i seem to wanna hear is ornette coleman's town hall concert 1962 on esp-disk. while much is made of ornette's innovation, his harmolodic theory, and his fort worth-ness, what really draws me to this music is its capacity to express both great joy and unutterable sorrow, sometimes within the confines of a single toon.

dennis gonzalez

wow. was saddened to read in this article from jazzwise mag that dallas avant-garde muso/painter/poet/educator dennis gonzalez is losing is hearing. typically, tho, the man is taking it in stride. he and his band yells at eels be's at mountain view college in dallas this thursday, october 26th.

six word sci-fi

brevity is the soul of wit.

verily.

thanks 'n' a tip o' the hat to jeremy hull for the link.

when i was really poor

when i was really poor, i usedta
read cookbooks while eating a peanut butter sammitch
wear all my clothes to bed in the wintertime
pawn my equipment and sell my record collection
contemplate blood donation as a "career alternative"

two things i never did when i was really poor:
steal shit, and dream about what i would do
if i hit the lottery

how fuckin' weird is _that_?

jesse's own two cents on his show

Ken,

Thanks for all of your kind words and your support. It means a lot, Brother. It's good that people notice what I’ve done in the last few years. A lot of people still only know me for the stuff I did back in 1998. Then there are people like you and Kat and Graham and others who take notice and interest of the new stuff. As for those paintings from the back room from the last 414 show, two I have, the other two -- one being “Cortes the Killer” -- were lost in transit from a gallery in San Antonio. I’ve tried to track them down but with no avail. I’ve given up on them. Those paintings were about the past and now they’re a part of it. I don’t wish to speak of them anymore. We will be out of the studio in a few days. No need for a farewell party or anything. We did that on Gallery Night. We had a good run. I want to thank you and everyone who supported us. It was a very creative and positive space. I think we accomplished a lot. Though there are some that would say it was a waste of space, only using it for a studio. I want to give a special thanks to Greg Bahr -- that guy’s helped and inspired me more than he knows, I couldn't ask for a better studio mate. We'll keep Schlankin’ it only in different places. Thanks again.

Jesse Sierra Hernandez

recipe for beef stew

(my youngest dtr is learning how to cook, so i gotta write some of this shit down)

this is enough for 2 ppl -- modify quantities accordingly:

1 lb. beef stew meat (cubed)
1 yellow onion
4 redskin potatoes
2 carrots
2 ribs of celery
basil (fresh is best)
black pepper
paprika (_not_ cayenne pepper - duh, all red powder looks the same)
white pepper (the last 2 are my sweetie's innovation ;-})
flour
butter

slice onions thin (or dice them). quarter potatoes and slice veg in 1-inch sections. chop basil and mix black, cayenne, and white pepper. in a skillet, melt enough butter to cover the bottom completely. saute onions until they're translucent, then remove to a pot or saucepan. melt more butter and add the beef cubes. dust with flour and add the spices and half of the basil. brown the beef on all sides, then remove to the pot/saucepan. sprinkle the beef with the rest of the basil. put some water in the skillet and scrape off the burned bits from the bottom. pour the water into the pot/saucepan, then add as much water as you need to cover the meat and onions. put the pot/saucepan over high heat and add the potatoes, carrots, and celery. bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer 2-3 hours, stirring occasionally. (don't let it boil over!) serve with crusty bread and red wine.

variations: for a different flavor, you can add beef bouillon cubes or red wine to the water before you boil it. (i almost never do.) i guess you could add mushrooms to the mix, too, if you really wanted to.

happy berfday, joey

shame on me, i hadn't been to the sunday jazz at the black dog in, like, fo' evah, so when joey carter's wife diana emailed to inform me that they were celebrating joey's 40th b'day there this sunday because "that's my only hope of making sure he'll be there," i made a mental note to remember the date. as it eventuated, i was just settling down with the crossword after a day spent cooking stew and hangin' out with my youngest dtr, her b-f and baby girl, and (briefly) her middle sister when i remembered joey's party (and the also-forgotten fact that i needed to go hang up flyers for this week's "i wanna be your [black] dog" thursday with stoogeaphilia), so up i jumped and off i headed for the corner of crockett and norwood.

when i asked joey whether he felt any different having hit the big four-oh, he replied, "not really," but then reconsidered and said, "well, maybe i'm thinking a _little_ bit more about what i want to do this year." his 39th having included bertha coolidge reunion shows and participation in both sam walker's thelonious monk tribute project and jhon kahsen's avant-garde improv evenings, in addition to his usual fully-booked calendar of gig-o-rama, i told joey he could do worse than to simply have another year like the one just past. when i had to tip out ('cos i knew my sweetie was home, waiting up for my return), he'd just finished a stellar run through "softly as in a morning sunrise" in the company of his regular sunday compadres paul metzger, drew phelps, and dave karnes, and oaklin bloodworth had just taken the stage to render "how high the moon" in his inimitable fashion. in other words, the jazz cat's jazz cat and former educator (academia's loss) was in his natural habitat, doing what he does best. may it always be so.

also in the house: gtrist keith wingate, whom i haven't seen on the boards in far too long. maybe see if we can do something about that.

my two cents on jesse's show

went to check out jesse sierra hernandez' solo show schlankin' it at gallery 414 down the street from where i usedta live off 5th street and university. the print rags will prolly pub their usual snidely dismissive comments on it, so i figured i'd put my two cents in.

it's been an unalloyed pleasure watching jesse's art develop the past several yrs, in the same way it's a gas to watch a good local band grow up in public (with their pants down). schlankin' it is the result of an unprecedented-since-i've-known-the-artist burst of creativity the past three months. he aimed to produce 16 new works for the event, and damn near did (there were a couple that he completed but felt didn't quite fit). while these won't exactly make aficionados forget the striking christian-aztec-conquistador imagery of a couple of the pieces from his 2003 show (so whatever _did_ happen to those paintings, jess?), they're impressive enough on their own terms.

jesse continues to grow in his command of his materials and the manner in which he presents his subjects (particularly dig the use of negative space in his figure studies), and these days, he's sure enough of himself to include his own image inside the frame for the first time. (guess that "smacks of hubris," huh?) besides the self-portrait that's the last piece one sees before exiting the gallery, there's a roomful of paintings that show the artist at work alongside his models. in the painting which gives the exhibit its title, we see jesse "schlankin' it" alongside his longtime friend and studio mate greg bahr. in a way, the piece (in fact, that whole series) serve as the artist's "adios" to studio 4, the space behind the wreck room where he's slung paint and shown the results for the past three yrs and change.

studio 4 will be vacated soon; schlankin' it runs through november 19 -- noon till 5pm saturdays and sundays, or by appointment (call 817-336-6595). i say check it out.

at least he's reading

so i decided, if'n i'm gonna try to be a writer again,
i first have to become a reader again.

so this week, i'm reading:
the master and margarita by mikhail bulgakov.

it's the book gentleman james hinkle
has been recommending as long as i've known him.

film, as they say, at 11.

whythehell do jazz rekkids cost so much?

oh yeah, that's right -- 'cos nobody _buys them_.

breathing in

i feel crushed
i feel broken
i feel disconnected
from my entahr life
(except for my family
thank goodness)

i dunno if i can write anymore
(this is not writing,
this is _whining_)
i dunno if i can play anymore
i dunno if i can be a friend anymore
i dunno if i can do
anything

i feel like i've been living with
an insane person who's never satisfied
and ever more demanding

i feel like a mechanic with a wrench
that _sometimes_, when he turns it
too for to the left
(or occasionally to the right),
rabid wolverines come and
rip out his liver

i feel like i've been sitting
in a roomful of people
talking in some foreign tongue
with the velocity of touch-typists
on crystal methamphetamine
and not understanding
a single word

i want my time back
i want my mind back
i want my life back

now

like andre says:
"bad dream,
bad dream"

WAKE UP!

poison

i'm not a big lyric-rememberer -- in fact, i have a total inability to recall the lyrics from any song i learned after 1973 -- but lately these 'uns, from wayne kramer's song on the mc5's high time alb, have seemed particularly _relevant_:

The partisans not the artisans
Are doing their dirty show
But i ripped my pants
Doing some dance
That i learned in France
And they think there ain't
nothin' to know

Used, abused
Locked up, beaten and fined
But i got free
Copped a plea
And i can see
That there ain't no freedom
bell gonna chime
This time

Truth and love
are my law and worship
Form and conscience

my manifestation and guide
Nature and peace are
my shelter and companion
Order is my attitude
Beauty and perfection
Are my attack

False faces
Fast company
A night of thrills
With no jealousy, no poison

Nobody's tool
Will be a public fool
To manipulate the masses
Who lie and cheat
And eat their meat
And think it's sweet
While the rest all clean their glasses
In status classes

jesse's show gets some straight press

here's mark lowry's kinda backhanded preview (jeez, why always so dismissive, guys?) of jesse sierra hernandez' solo show schlankin' it, which opens at gallery 414 this weekend. oh well. as my dear old grey-headed moms always usedta say, "even negative attention is still attention."

agoraphobia

Irrational fear of being in a situation where escape is difficult or impossible.
shee-it (say it the miles davis way, as a four-syllable word)
i need some time to get my chops back together
("chops" in this instance referring to "spirit, self, life etc.")

the whiskey rebel

while i'm not a fan of his band rancid vat, i think that phil irwin a.k.a. the whiskey rebel's scrawl is high-fuckin'-larious. just dig this excerpt from his must-read book jobjumper. work-fueled angst has never been rendered so amusingly (well, maybe in office space, but that was a _movie_). and just like scott wade, he's from san marcos.

uh-oh, nels cline's got an andrew hill tribute rekkid

i loved nels cline's gtr skronkage on mike watt's '90s albs, in banyan, and on things like cline and drummer greg bendian's electrified reimagining of coltrane's interstellar space, but i kinda lost the thread when i heard he'd joined wilco (tweedy's master class with richard lloyd notwithstanding). howevah, nels' recently-released new monastery: a view into the music of andrew hill on cryptogramophone might just be enough to make me pick it up again. back in the '60s, hill was blue note's house avant-gardist (must hear: 1964's point of departure, which unites the pianist with both joe henderson and most of the musos who played on dolphy's out to lunch to predictably stunning effect), and his spiky, thought-provoking toons haven't lost a step since then. whatthehell, if nels could make hill believers out of even a small handful of wilco fans, wouldn't _that_ be something? methinks it would.

the dust art of scott wade

dig the art scott wade makes on dusty cars, which one perceptive viewer likens to buddhist sand mandalas. proof positive, as if any more were needed, that art is where you find it.

toons we like

songs i can't get out of my head lately: darrin kobetich's "playing in the hedges," the me-thinks' "still in the h.c." and "burnout timeline," and when i woke up in my car the other day, the stooges' "funhouse." duh.

bye-bye cbgb's

so they've played the last show at hilly krystal's beloved bowery rawk dump. now he's tearing it down and moving the whole thing -- including the urinals -- to vegas. hey brian, you gonna do the same thing with the wreck room when it closes? vegas is a little far; maybe just across west 7th?

early morning 10/17/2006

saw a shooting star
blaze across the morning sky
burning out in space

new stooges alb

while i'm generally leery of reunion albs, this one i prolly can't afford to miss. first in 33 yrs (the two tracks on skull ring don't count). mike watt on bass. produced by steve albini. especially if the stoogeaphiles are able to pull off katboy's idea of snagging a pre-release track and learning it.

christopher blay

some ppl can make an art project out of pert near anything. a few months ago, liberian-born foat wuth photog christopher blay did with the dismantling, bit by bit, of his myspace page. since then, he's done lotsa new work and even entered the blog universe via the artmosphere. dig his images 'n' words.

mea culpa

lotsa stress - food + alcohol = one lame ass

music is revolution

so i was scrawlin' the other day about mc5 bassist michael davis and his music is revolution foundation to help support music education in schools. turns out their website just went live and it's apparently possible for educators and other interested parties to apply for "mini-grants." there's also a link there to the site of menc, the association for music education. here in the fort, at least, it appears that the worm has turned in terms of funding for art and music programs that were cut a few yrs back, but it's always good to have another resource.

freddy fender

another texas tornado bites the dust. somewhere tonight i hope the man born baldemar huerta is kickin' back with his buddy doug sahm, tippin' a lone star and singing "wasted days and wasted nights" and "before the next teardrop falls."

michael davis

surfin' the web today, i learned that mc5 bassist michael davis has a blog, and that in the last yr 'n' change, besides touring the world with mc5-dkt, he's done some painting, undergone treatment for hepatitis-c, recovered from injuries suffered in a motorcycle accident, and started a foundation, music is revolution, to support music in the public schools. a true gentleman and a busy guy.

miscellaneous likes

i'm an unashamed homebody and a doggone 76107-centric one at that, but that doesn't preclude an appreciation for places in other zip codes. these are a few of my favorite thangs:

casino el camino in austin
the whitewater tavern in little rock
lawrence, kansas and the eighth street tap room there
the beachland ballroom in cleveland
zingerman's deli in ann arbor
washington square park in nyc

dana williams

besides getting to play some of my favorite music w/4 of my favorite ppl/musos on earth at fredtoberfest today, i'm anticipating an oppo to reconnect with big dana williams and his sweetie alyssa.

dana owns/operates a carpentry business in the fort now, but he usedta play bass in the mullens and the sunday drunks, the latter a band that opened both of the dictators shows i alluded to in the previous post. in fact, for awhile there, the drunks occupied a position kinda analogous to that the nervebreakers held back in the day, e.g., opening every cool punk show that came through dallas. yeah!

always nice stumbling into little pcs of yr past.

today at mi casa is brought to you by the letter "d"

...which stands for the dictators, whom i thought were a joke when i saw 'em open for jeff beck way back in '76 or so, but were one of the best live bands i've evah seen when i caught 'em in big d in 2001 and 2002. this weekend, they're playing the final weekend at cbgb's in nyc. vale.

also died pretty, the '80s-vintage aussie band who shoulda been as big as u2 and r.e.m. (for evidence, seek out their doughboy hollow alb). they were actually signed to columbia (once the gem of rekkid labels) in the states but, the story goes, a corporate suit who witnessed a u.s. performance was so unnerved by frontguy ronald s. peno's gayness that the company wound up totally failing to promote their '93 trace alb, resulting in its sinking without a etc. my sweetie was perusing the shelf in our living room and unearthed their best-of out of the underworld this week, so i've been reminded of its pleasures.

winding down from a hellride of a week, looking fwd to playing a stoogeshow at fredtoberfest tomorrow (um, at 6pm, _not_ noon), and going to see my youngest dtr, her b-f and baby girl at their new digs on sunday. life is good.

kotj

explosion of light
and color promising noise,
flash and excitement

why radio sucks

ok, kids, here it is: pulpmeister/aging rockarolla mick farren 'splaining much better than i could the atrocity that is "classic rock" radio. read it and weep.

schlankin' it

i keep tellin' jesse the painter (that's jesse sierra hernandez to y'all) that he needs to get a web presence and he keeps tellin' me, "not now." his solo show schlankin' it be's at gallery 414 from october 21st thru november 19th, but if you go to the pad's site, you can see some examples of his art and read his artist's statement. jesse's best known for his nudes and musician paintings, but his last show (way, way back in 2003) raised some eyebrows and he promises this one -- featuring 16 new works created especially for this event -- will make folks forget all 'bout thatun. i believe, i believe.

high time

so yeah, brock, i usedta be all about the stooges and mc5...as a snotnose way back ca. '70-'71 and then again as an adult internet obsessive, um, almost 30 yrs later. now i've even got a band that plays stoogesongs with a little bit of what made the five's kick out the jams the best one-sided alb evah (noise, feedback, yelling...well, we gotta work on the yelling part a bit). so it was prolly inevitable that i'd eventually score the sundazed vinyl reish of the five's high time. me-thinks will gifted ray back in the u.s.a. at last yr's mustachio party, but i still prefer the sounds 'n' toonage on thisun, even tho it sounds like it was recorded thru layers of cotton wool. (a sympathetic 'n' enthusiastic recordist geoffrey haslam mighta been, but to be true, the cat had a cloth ear. ever heard the velvets' loaded?)

in some ways, this alb is the anti-raw power. where thatun is all shrieking high end (the engineer didn't even get _levels_ on the bass 'n' drums, and the lead gtr sounds like a switchblade in the ear), high time has plenty riddim section (with the bass curiously mixed way up front) but the gtrs sound itty bitty 'n' kinda muffled. below a certain volume, it just sounds like a bad transistor radio, so you gotta PLAY IT LOUD. all the berryesque rawkers are on side one (conceptual continuity note: dig the fact that all the fred smith songs fall at the beginning and end of the program), but the real _interesting_ shit is on side two: rob tyner's "future now," which mirrors both the stooges' "1969" and "no fun" in its chord progression and fleetwood mac's "oh well" structurally, and features the best stickwork ever waxed by dennis "machine gun" thompson; the churning vat of political dissafection that is wayne kramer's "poison;" fred's "over and over," which lyrically covers the same turf as the temptations' "ball of confusion" and the 'oo's "won't get fooled again," beautifully sung by rob, the verses bisected by a tortuous yet lyrical sonic smith gtr solo; and "skunk (sonically speaking)," which weds rawk 'n' free jazz in a very different way than, say, "starship" on kotj did.

i look fwd to listening to this music for _another_ 30+ yrs.

b-rock

i saw brock miller and his honey at benito's the other night
always seem to see somebody i know when we go there
this particular night it was him

he's working second shift now, and i'm up to my eyeballs in alligators
but one of these days, sooner than later, i gotta get me
some "art of the jam" action wit' him agin

outcats 2

second avant-garde evening at sardines tonight. i got off work at 8 and hurried home to pick up my sweetie 'n' get there before the band hit. made it just in time. besides jhon kahsen on piannner, joey carter on vibes, and chris white on bass, there were a few musos who hadn't participated in the previous evening: dave williams on tenor, pat brown on 'bone, and danny chacko on drums. while the others all made worthy contributions, it was definitely chris 'n' danny's evening. besides handling the low-end theory, chris also blew a conch, small wood whistle, and flute. i actually saw him _dancing_ up there. keith wingate always usedta tell me that danny was his preferred drummer, and while i'd heard mr. chacko play a variety of styles, mostly with st. frinatra (straightahead, funk, latin, caribbean), nothing coulda prepared a listener for this onslaught. a coupla minutes in, i leaned over and asked my sweetie, "you think he digs elvin?" (that wasn't a question, it was an answer.) chacko's a remarkably physical and aggressive stickman, and he dominated the set like a prowling lion, challenging the other musos with volley after volley of polyrhythmic thunder. and of course, it wasn't recorded, so if you weren't there, you truly missed it. next one's set for december 12th (remember: second tuesday, every other month). you owe it to yrself.

out @ sardines - 9pm tonight

tonight at sardines: pianist jhon kahsen and an all-star cast in an evening of avant-garde improv wonderment. miss at your peril!

sunrise fw 10/10/06

the indians say
rain is like a gift from god
drink up, thirsty land

sunburned hand of the man

best cure for insomnia (meant in a positive way): the daily crossword puzzle and sunburned hand of the man. the ummagumma-esque tribal weirdness of boston-based juggernaut's rare wood and the trickle down theory of lord knows what ceedees (my lights-out soundtrack of late) recalls st. lester's description of the godz: "like squatting dogmen around a cannibal fire." ah, sweet monotony.

stoogeaphilia

for those who care to rawk, katboy's stoogeaphilia archive hath been updated with audio from our 6/28 wreck room extravaganza. stoogeaphilia members will also be playing el wreck on october 28th (the great tyrant), november 11th (me-thinks), and november 25th (pablo and the hemphill 7).

as if that weren't enough, the stoogeaphiles and me-thinks will share the stage at fredtoberfest this sat'day with the gideons, blood of the sun, and honky. and don't forget the next "i wanna be your [black] dog" thursday, october 26th at el black dog.

did i leave anything out?

ADDENDUM: katboy sez the november 25th pablo show sleeps w/the fishes. feh.

julia alvarez

listening to julia alvarez on npr the other day, i thought for a minute i was hearing tammy gomez before julia started talking about teaching college in new england. feh. similar voices, somewhat similar life / creative path trajectories. we take inspiration from wherever we can.

rock lottery 8

finelinelive has sound clips of all the insta-bands that performed at last week's rock lottery in denton, including state and local authorities, the band for which great tyrant / stoogeaphilia stalwart jon teague drummed. yeah!

stooges rider

this is pert fuckin' hilarious. nice to know there's someone in the stooge organization who can write more than watt.

road stories

perhaps i was inspahrd by seeing nathan brown at the stoogegig last wk, or maybe it's reading the latest installment of katboy's underground railroad tour diary, but i've been reflecting with more fondness than i'd expect on my last misadventure on the road with nathan 'n' dave karnes, back in january 2004. (in the last week or two, i've been reminded much of stuff i put out of my mind a coupla yrs ago.) some _good_ thangs i 'member 'bout the nathan 'n' dave tour:

1) playing a show at the wreck room right before we left with two of my kids 'n' my sweetie in the audience. standing in the wings with nathan before we hit, watching snmnm tear it up with just bass, drums, 'n' wah-wah accordian, wondering how in the fuck we were gonna follow _that_. afterward, having my oldest dtr help me carry my gtrs back to my sweetie's li'l house over on boland. on the tour, wearing the "plantation owner's hat" my middle dtr brought back from a trip to south carolina.

2) looking over my shoulder every night for a wk and seeing dave karnes playing the drums.

3) the place where we stayed in atlanta's cabbagetown, a fonky 'n' bohemian 'hood where a lot of the houses are decorated, um, eccentrically, and where there's a tunnel that's not owned by the city where graffiti artists can tag at will. taking a nap in a room in the house that had the warmest golden quality of light in the middle of the afternoon.

4) watching karnage eat an entahr can of pinto beans with chopsticks in the parking lot of the club where we played in atlanta. not bad for a whiteboy.

5) columbia, south carolina, where i awoke to the smell of sauteeing chicken cutlets (courtesy of our hostess' largesse 'n' il karnaggio's culinary skills) and we got to take showers, do laundry, and check e-mail.

6) the place where we played in columbia (or was it columbus, georgia? fucked if i can remember). we played two sets and the club comped us more beer than karnes 'n' i could drink. we were actually giving it away to bar patrons. as a result, the second set was considerably shakier 'n the first. not that anybody noticed (except nathan).

7) playing nathan's songs "i've been feeling it," "my favorite 1" (the english rock orchestra version), and "let's eat" (aka "the steely dan song").

8) sleeping 16 hours a day in the van (in between reading the english patient).

9) seeing a functioning drive-in theater in shelby, mississippi (where my uncle trained during ww2). we were supposed to come back to play a gig in town there but it didn't eventuate. as a result, i failed to get a pic of the drive-in. somewhere in this house, there's a disposable camera w/pics of us on the beach in charleston, south carolina, and other stuff. i should prolly get that developed one of these days.

10) coming home. even if it was by bus for 18 hrs. seeing my sweetie waiting in the bus station.

there was some other stuff, too, but we won't belabor that.

today i feel...

...like i'm trying to get dressed
and undressed at the same time
while trying to give a tiger an enema
in a phone booth

barry sez...

ex-nervebreaker barry kooda writes:

In light of recent current events, I felt compelled to come up with a definitive stance on this issue and here it is:

"I have no problem with murder / suicide as long as you reverse the order..."

dinner last night

my sweetie found a new recipe: grilled chicken seasoned with butter, cilantro, diced red onion, garlic, 'n' a li'l sea salt. it's a keeper. yum!

sun elvis

tonight, while working at home (something i try to avoid -- the curse of the work laptop), jerry lee lewis' old tyme country music led inexorably to elvis' sun sessions ceedee (because i'm too lazy to change vinyl when i have my head down slaving away over a hot 'puter; '80s technology is more functional in those moments.) perhaps i was recalling something my dtr's ex-housemate, a '50s trash culcha obsessive, once told her when she was depressed: "you need _more rockabilly_ in your life!"

until '97 or so, i was kinda of the same mind about el as chuck d and john sinclair ("after 1958, elvis was _not_ a rebel -- _he went in the army!_"). when i was just a wee laddie, i somehow got the idea that elvis was italian (because all the ppl i knew who looked 'n' dressed like that were italian), and that he had something to do with my uncle frank (who served in the army in germany around the same time as pvt. presley). but i bought the sun sessions 'cos reading greil marcus' mystery train stirred my curiosity (a good rawk scribe can make you wanna hear music that you _know_ you don't like) and experienced an epiphany thru repeated plays with a headful of cold medicine that transformed me, against my better judgment, into a dyed-in-the-wool fan of el in his "hillbilly cat" (tho not "40-and-fat") daze. the 'riginal punk-rock? perhaps. whatever he mighta devolved into later, his version of "blue moon" remains otherworldly. pass the nyquil.

virtual fakebook

i never sing in public, but when my kids were tee-tiny and i was too busy guarding freedom's frontier to join a band, i usedta strum 'n' sing to 'em at night. my oldest gtr-playing dtr and i usedta do a little of that together in days gone by, too, and her middle sister and i did some of the same after she moved in with me a few yrs back. prolly hadn't done it in yrs until the other night, and now i feel compelled to try and remember some of the songs i usedta sing for 'em back when (an odd melange of things my mother used to sing us when we were kids and a few innocuous li'l ditties by the who/velvets/beatles/kinks etc. that i learned over the yrs). when i'm too lazy to go back and listen to the rekkid (or don't actually own a recording -- my music collection has routinely gone into hock when the wolf was at the door), i go to songtrellis or chordie, which are generally better than all those shitty tab sites (altho some of the transcriptions still contain some howlers). it's much better than watching tv.

shaggy addendum

From: Sunlit
Date: Oct 2, 2006 11:03 PM

i talked to Tad up at the Dog last wk
and suggested that maybe we get folks
to write Shaggy on specific day so he
can receive mail every SINGLE day
he's locked up. Tad said he's going
to have stamps, envelopes at the bar;
i said, yeah, while people are leaning
there sipping suds, it shouldn't take
much effort for them to scribble some
thing positive/funny/thoughtful for
Tad to stick in an envelope & post to
Shaggy. let's do it---no one would
want to be sitting in the pokey wondering
if anybody cares about you.

ima work on the poets--get 'em to write
on tuesdays during People's Poetry open
mic night...

free shaggy!

while steve biko or john sinclair he mos' def is not, black dog bartender shaggy mccormack aka trixie trailer trash is gettin' ready to do a stretch in the pokey out in parker county. (be strong, bro.) this from he:

From: Trixie TrailerTrash
Date: Oct 2, 2006 8:22 PM

If incase anybody in the Western Hemisphere hasn't heard yet, I'm going to Parker County Jail this coming Friday Oct. 6th ofr a 120 day sentance, which according to my attorney actually means 40-60 actual days, so that should get me out sometime around Turkey Day give or take a week. Meanwhile, I can receive snail-mail in there at the following address:

JOHN FRANCIS MCCORMACK JR. (my real name)
Parker County Jail
129 Hogle St.
Weatherford, TX 76086

If you care to support/donate to my cause, there's 2 ways:

1. you can send a MONEY ORDER for any amount to that same address also marked "c/o INMATE TRUST FUND" which go to pay for stuff like candy-bars & clean underwear for me.

OR

2. leave some cash in my "FREE SHAGGY FUND" jar up @ the BLACK DOG to help cover my bills & rent, etc. while I'm away (and thus have no income). Talk to your bartenders. Damian is in charge of that, cause he's house-sitting for me.

And of corse keep wearing your FREE SHAGGY t-shirts!!!

Thanx for all the love and support and FAN MAIL!!! :)

Shaggy/Trixie

fredtoberfest, saturday october 14th

until the folks at fred's get around to updating the fredtoberfest calendar, here's the no-fooling lineup for that date:

The Me-Thinks: 3 pm
The Gideons: 4:30pm
STOOGEAPHILIA: 6pm
Blood of the Sun: 7:30pm
Honky: 9pm

arrive early, stay late.

tammy says

wrote myself a note
dig: "sit down and do the work"
do it for yourself

hardcore hall of fame

it weren't exactly my moment (emerged in the decade i spent guarding freedom's frontier for, uh, reagan), but if i ever get a chance to peruse hardcore hall of fame's pages, p'rhaps i'll understand a li'l better what ray 'n' jon are yakking about in between songs at stoogeaphilia pracs. or not.