scrawl, shows, rekkids, massey

have been kinda lazy with the bloggage of late, as i'm deep into the history i'm writing of the haltom city-riverside crew, which will be pubbed here and in a _very_ limited edition (just for the crew, like a high school yearbook, dig?) by, um, stashdauber press, prolly this summer. lots more work to do on thatun, however, before it's ready for prime time.

for that reason and because my sweetie is still busy putting in her local plantings, we missed the first night of fredfest's "matt hembree weekend," but katboy informs us that during pablo's set, "the fort" (fred's patio) was jammed with people from the stage to the entrance. with the outer area fenced in, this year's turnout was prolly the best they've ever had, in spite of all the construction that's going on around the cafe.

we did, however, catch an incredible set by stumptone (whose new alb gravity suddenly released sounds _even more incredible_ on vinyl) at lola's, with an opening solo set by ex-mandarin mainman matt leer (a.k.a. "the diamond age") in place of history at our disposal, who had to cancel because their drummer wasn't back from jazzfest in nawlins (altho mastermind jason reimer did make it to the show and ex-h.a.o.d. drummer clay stinnett was also in the house, so maybe they coulda played after all -- sigh). playing a fender jaguar with a sampler and a bunch of f/x, leer made music that was surprisingly rhythmic and visceral, stacking loops on top of loops, blowing a plastic flute and even singing over the resultant musical architecture. he's got an album, the emerald curse, that's downloadable from bird and whale (you gotta scroll down). surprisingly thrilling stuff.

had to work early on sunday but as soon as i got off, we made haste to get to fred's in time to scarf a fredburger and catch the mighty me-thinks, who played the tightest set i've heard from them in awhile, with new toonage to boot. bandy looked none the worse for wear after his onstage aardvark mishap, and his and marlin's gtr tones made evabody else's shit the rest of the day sound like so much processed cheez. i got copies of new cd's by darrin kobetich (which i'll review for iloveftw.com in the fullness of time) and shotgun messenger (which i'll review for the i-94 bar). the stoogeband played hard and sloppy as always and got a good response. we invited william bryan massey III (whose sons and their friends were parked right in front of the stage during our set, along with a little girl whom i sincerely hope was wearing earplugs, altho i doubt it -- come _on_, mom and/or dad!) to join us during the "meltdown" part of "little doll" and he gave the crowd something to remember. sorry 'bout the beer on the monitors, dre.


wouldn't you know, massey's on youtube now. it's about damn time.