mark growden pics @ meezlady.blogspot.com

my sweetie posted some of her pics of mark growden's shows at lola's 6th street and 1919 hemphill on her photo blog. click on 'em to make 'em big and leave her a comment, why doncha?

she does everything for me

wow. here's a zombies song i never heard before. pretty rockin'. thanks to t. tex for the link.

whonose

i refuse to watch the fucking super bowl to see these guys prostitute themselves yet again, but i do think that pete remains self-aware as ever, if not necessarily "relevant."

blood tea and red string

stop-motion animation film by christian cegavske, with music by mark growden. on dvd too.

rjd2 / q-tip

my buddy matt in brooklyn pulled my coat to this cat and his new album the colossus. also q-tip's the renaissance and kamaal the abstract. (him i remember from a tribe called quest.) still waiting for promised underground hip-hop tapes from terry and my middle daughter.

ADDENDUM: now _this_ is what i'm talkin' about!

1.30.2010, ftw

spent a lazy day at home before the HIO show. met terry for dinner at benito's, where we saw the magical ash and his high school art teacher john moore. i don't usually like to eat a big meal before a gig, but i figured we'd be freezing our asses off at 1919 and needed the extra calories.

it wound up being warmer up there than i reckoned. they had a new space heater with a blower that kept things a lot toastier than i remembered 'em being the last time (although with temps dipping down into the 20s it was still cold enough to leave your coat on the whole time we were there).

before and between bands, christopher blay screened some anime vids and old 8mm movies while spinning some vinyl in his "dj low-rez" persona. no eddie dunlap this time, so for this performance, HIO consisted of me, terry, hickey, marcus, ramsey sprague on clarinet and F/X, and nevada hill (briefly) on violin and my guitar. marcus and charlsye's car started smoking on the way to the gig, so she wound up having to get it towed home.

harry has a head like a ping pong ball played a couple of older tunes of theirs with a lot of intensity and more filth than last time i heard 'em (travis laminack was using my marshall bluesbreaker, since his rat pedal went south on the gig).

mark growden wrapped up his four-day sojourn in the fort with an abbreviated set, since he's leaving at 7am to begin the drive home to the left coast. he had jamie turn off the heater for his performance, since he was working without amplification, and the set felt even more intimate than the one at the stockyards on thursday night. the small crowd (maybe 20 people) seemed to connect with his songs and stories. he'll be back in march; have to put out a couple of feelers to help him secure some different bookings then.

HIO reached a high level of intensity pretty early and stayed there. briggs was using a patch of the loudest noises he could find at every frequency level, and ramsey used a battery of effects to alter the sound of his clarinet. big marcus was a mainstay as always and i struggled to control a guitar sound that was pretty toppy for some reason.

couldn't hear terry or hickey very well, but that's a familiar problem. nevada hill (of zanzibar snails/drug mountain, who coincidentally used to play in harry has a head etc. several years ago) sat in with us on un-mic'ed violin, which i could hear but no one else could, so i invited him to take my guitar for a spell. hopefully he'll join us another time under better circumstances.

my sweetie took pics which, in the fullness of time, she'll post to her photo blog.

tomorrow i don't go to work until 5pm, so i plan to spend another lazy day at home, working my way through a stack of review cd's and reading john "drumbo" french's book about captain beefheart, all of which arrived this week. will cook some more cod for early dinner before i head in.

wx

this is indeed some funny bullshit. as is this. thanks to tommy v. and mike n. for the links.

fela

"he who carries death in his pouch," filmed in 1971 by ginger baker. thanks to forest ward for the link.

1.29.2010, ftw

second mark growden show in two nights last night at lola's 6th. better attended than the previous evening in the stockyards, thanks to headliner the great tyrant. while i dug the intimacy and duration of the previous night, you could tell mark was getting a charge from the audience's energy.

a smoke-free lola's 6th was a little weird, but not unwelcome, and got to see a bunch of folks we hadn't seen in awhile: scott copeland (who'd just finished playing a happy hour set), carey wolff (who's playing at the grotto next friday with reggie rueffer -- perfect storm; save the date) and graham richardson in a corner, jesse sierra hernandez and his sweetie becky, darryl wood (who says he's doing a project with darrin kobetich: electronics and acoustic guitar; sounds interesting) and jeffrey williams (who has long hair now!), making me feel like i was back at the wreck room for a minute and like i'm the romper room lady now.

orange coax (prounouned "cokes") opened with a slam-bang set of '70s no-wave sounding squall with just sax, drums, and voxxx and the tyrant were their classic selves, but we had to didi early as my sweetie was flagging and we wanted to save energy for tonight's HIO extravaganza at 1919 hemphill, with harry has a head like a ping pong ball, dj lo-rez, and yes, mark growden is our special guest. hopefully i'll get to hear him play my favorite song o' the moment again.



thisun is becoming a fave as well. dig the way he makes that accordion sing like a damn pipe organ.



ADDENDUM: also met john moore, an interesting artist who taught the magical ash adams and michael chamy at trinity valley, and is apparently also collaborating with darrin kobetich on a play based on the writings of edward abbey, to be produced by hip pocket theater. (thanks to kavin for the coat-pull on the play.)

louis moholo-moholo w/yells at eels @ phoenix project, 2.12.2010

dennis gonzalez sends:

Friday Night, February 12

Two weeks from tonight, we welcome the legendary South African drummer, Louis Moholo-Moholo to Dallas to play a concert with us at Phoenix Project, the alternative music space near Fair Park. Moholo-Moholo is the only surviving member of the original crew of South Africans who left Cape Town for London in 1964 because of apartheid. It will be a great night of celebratory, spiritual jazz. Please come and support our effort!

philip pullman

my middle daughter pulled my coat to this guy's scrawl. i want to read the golden compass for the HIO "book club" (after we get done reading hickey's wife's books).

ecstatic yod

byron coley's book 'n' rekkid emporium is back online. hooray!

international harvester

pssst...hey kid, wanna hear some '60s swedish psych?

bye, j.d.

j.d. salinger checked out yesterday, aged 91. when my daughter was reading the catcher in the rye for an assignment in high school, i told her i got in trouble for reading it on my own when i was in 9th grade. might be time to revisit it again. and nine stories.

valleys of neptune

pssst...hey, kid wanna hear a new hendrix song? link's in this article.

1.28.2010, ftw

mark growden is in town to play two shows at lola's (stockyards tonight, 6th street tomorrow with the great tyrant) and do some media. he's staying with andre, so tonight before the show we ate dinner together. mark made a wonderful swiss chard, green squash, and potato soup (using an immersion blender, which is a piece of kitchen hardware we might need to invest in) and my sweetie made broiled cabbage (with bacon for mark, her, and me; without for dre). pure goodness.

the crowd at the stockyards was small due to the rain and threat of freeze, but mark made the intimacy of the venue work for him once he got some sound problems sorted out -- he's used to performing in theaters without microphones, and the rockaroll p.a. was putting out a lot more sound than he needed; at one point, chris fisher remarked, "i forgot how much voice projection you have." for the handful of people there, it was like having our own private mark growden show -- a good thing. (hopefully tomorrow night's performance will be better attended.)

accompanying himself on sruti box, accordion, and banjo, mark played a set that mixed material from his new album saint judas, other songs he's planning to record with his "tucson edition" band, and some unrecorded covers, done his own way of course (broooce's "i'm on fire," an adapted version of aretha's "i never loved a man," smokey robinson's "you really got a hold on me"). the solo format served to highlight the strength of growden's lyrics, particularly on two saint judas songs: "coyote" and "if the stars could sing." looking forward to hearing him again tomorrow night.

ADDENDUM: because i'm an idiot, i missed at dinner when mark said he doesn't eat meat anymore. mea culpa.

new podcast url

my pal the barman, who's far more techno-literate than i, helped me get my podcast hosted. hooray! new url is here. there's no vid, so just click on the episode archive on the right.

ADDENDUM: new episode up now. i feel like a child with a new toy, or an obsessive-compulsive with a new scab.

my scrawl in the fw weekly

a review i penned of drug mountain's self-titled vinyl e.p. is in this week's paper and online now.

wilco for haiti

wilco is offering two shows for free download and asking fans to donate at least $15 to either oxfam or doctors without borders for haiti relief. a generous offer for a good cause. wish i liked 'em more.

sleep talkin' man

this is indeed some funny bullshit.

21 underrated songs by the who

and i agree with almost all of them.

volcanic tongue

wow. here's a brit distributor who has many of the recommended gems from julian cope's japrocksampler, as well as much music in similar spirit. if you're looking for a place to drop much coin, you could do worse.

nx35 lineup announced

pert darn impressive, and this doesn't even include the flaming lips, who are playing for free on saturday 3.13. nx35 runs march 11-14. whew!

black cracker in print

old-school bibliophiles take note: josh alan friedman's autobiographical novel black cracker (previously available only via amazon kindle) will be in print "within a month," the author says, under the new texture imprint.

gunslingers' "manifesto zero" out on world in sound

gunslingers send:

Who should have thought some incoming spawn would survive No More Invention (2008) ? — Yes Sirs, inside the Grand Procreator's consumed ashes, still half lying half standing thus was some rebel mass endowed with the urge to appear in face of the fallen stuff. It would be chemically determined as a following sacrificial revenge after Invention got lost 2 years ago in a Rock located in San Pedro Ville, France.

And then came rebellion appearing in its entire regained nudity, though it was given a load of Seltz water so it can endure its own terrifying blast power. Here it is — now Maniacs & Zealots, be afraid of intending to tickle the Beast from your players !

World In Sound presents Manifesto Zero, Gunslingers' second atrocious little deformed baby, recorded on the infuriated November of 2009 while evil-red-eyed wolves were getting enraged in the frightened night. No doubt it has to be a relentless sonic testimony in the style of throwing Vitriol at the snobbish subculture's face and, Willy-nilly, you'll be given a proper naughty chase and a sixfold punishment always greedy of its prey from start to finish.

Rhythmically Cyclopean _ as overexcited as starving due to the constant hammering of its ritualistic tempo & contra-tempo gluttony _, its disturbing debauchery of lysergic & contemplative elements gives besides the whole savagery thing some multiple-headed Beast aspect by leading its own sound color touch (& its obvious axis of devastation) right into the alley of a space glider under over-saturated hypnosis ; and more generally, into variable expressions & exploration areas which stand between Underground Rock Music's unclassified genres & subgenres.

Demented Guitar wall-of-acid-riffs, pissed off takeoffs & instrumental smashs on bewitchment mode, harmonic death traps, pulsatory frenzy & insane grooves in the likes of a vicious contortionist highway, startling surrealistic vocals sealed to a psychotic Daedalus-esque bass unfurling, and ultimately a scary statement of visceral power.

The whole thing devoted to the cult of analog 4 track tape recording, the everlasting oily machine & Slingers dynamo.

Manifesto Zero is nothing less than an authentic firebrand.

___ World In Sound, January 2010

** Releases of both LP (350gr vinyl cover + poster) & CD Digipack coming all together on World In Sound.

the stash dauber podcast: winter 2010 mix

this is extremely ill advised. i sound like a douchebag. some good tunes, anyway. at least imo.

american legends @ guardian.co.uk

great series on giants of 20th century american music, introduced by nick tosches. from a brit newspaper, of course.

the future is unwritten

forgot we had this dvd of a doc about joe strummer, but we watched it last night. it seems like the first time we saw it (a screener i borrowed from kristian lin), there was a sequence where you see the mural that appears just fleetingly at the end of the dvd being painted. curious. the dvd has a ton of interviews that weren't used in the film. i've got them playing on random scramble now. proud to say i saw him twice with the clash, autumn of '79. some people are bigger than life.



ADDENDUM: found it!

johnny butler

just reviewed this cat's solo e.p. for the fort worth weekly. he plays tenor sax with loops. pert amazing stuff.

jeff beck @ nokia theater, 4.25.2010

i'll bet this cancels. no way he can fill that place. one non-snazz aspect: no tal wilkenfeld, no vinnie colaiuta.

the junk man

as much as i love vinyl, some of my fave spins the past couple of months have been from downloads of archival stuff -- the move @ flllmore '70, velvets @ hilltop festival '69, the dead @ avalon '68, and this '76 bedroom-recorded gem from the late peter laughner (rocket from the tombs, pere ubu). best moments here are two versions (one over ten minutes long) of a dylanesque laughner 'riginal, "the junk man." when he checked out at 24, this dissolute young man hadn't even begun to scratch the surface of his talent. a shame.

feel like a gringo

just got back from a visit to haltom city, where we gave money for haitian 'quake victims to a cute li'l vietnamese girl outside the vietnam plaza market. this minutemen song pretty much sums up how i feel anytime i go up to the h.c.'s asian enclave.

man with money

lately i've been obsessed with the who's cover of the everly brothers' "man with money," which they recorded in '66 but never released until the '90s cd-bonus-track era. from the ironleg blog, here's a link that includes an mp3 of the 'riginal, which was even better, a spectorian teen melodrama that fit the post-"my generation"/pre-tommy storytelling-pop-single 'oo like a glove. from the everlys' '65 beat 'n soul elpee.

sam sadigursky music vid

from his words project III miniatures cd. thanks to matt m. for the link.

1.23.2010, ftw

got my sxsw res confirmation courtesy of the fw weekly this week, and learned today that mark growden will be playing there. a good thing, as i don't want the weekly's readers to think that all i care about is the nervebreakers and casino el camino. looking fwd to seeing mark this coming week at lola's stockyards (thursday) and 6th street (friday, with the great tyrant). and of course HIO's saturday 1.30 extravaganza at 1919 hemphill (with harry has a head like a ping pong ball, not ohm).

marcus brigstocke

dunno who this guy is, but wanna find out more. thanks to keith wingate for the link.

1.22.2010, ftw

discussion at HIO drinkie-talkie last night centered around the new gorillaz album, various other kinds of primates, and an elaborate matt hickey death hoax. backward masking furore to follow.

kotj @ friar's club, aylesbury, 2.11.72

amazing. there's mc5 vid i haven't seen yet. this fairly rips, too. stolen from syd vennum via facebook.

gunslingers u.s. tour!

sadly, it's west/east coast only -- nowhere near texas. feh.

GUNSLINGERS US TOUR 2010 (March-April)

— CONFIRMED SHOWS :

MARCH 2010 —
thursd-4 => seattle @ funhouse
Sat-6 or sund. 7 => portland @ East End
mond-8 => Redding @ Downtown Eatery & Libations
tuesd-9 => sacramento @ java lounge
wedn-10 => Reno @ Lincoln Lounge
thursd-11 => san francisco @ thee parkside
tuesd-16 => los angeles @... Origami Vinyl
thursd-18 => san diego @ soda bar
Sat-20 => los angeles @ mountain bar

APRIL 2010 :
tuesd-23 => Chicago @ permanent records (instore / 6pm)
wedn-24 => Chicago @ empty bottle
thursd-25 => detroit @ Lager House
frid-26 => cleveland @ Now That's Class
tuesd-30 => richmond @ richmond house shows
wedn-31 => washington DC @ red & black
thursd-1 => Baltimore @ Golden West
frid-2 => philadelphia @ M-Room
sund-4 => Brooklyn @ Knitting Factory
tuesd-6 => providence @ AS220
thursd-8 => new haven @ cafe nine
frid-9 => new york @ death by audio

++ below are still open dates :

MARCH :
frid-5 => tacoma or olympia..everywhere around
frid-12 => san jose or around..
sat-13 => santa cruz or around..
mond-15 => everywhere between SF & LA..
wedn-17 => long beach, palm springs, anheim...?..
frid-19 => LA & around..

APRIL :
Sat-27 => columbus
mond-29 => Harrisonburg or pittsburg...
wedn-7 => boston

it might as well be spring

since the weather turned nice, the feral cats that live under the house (a.k.a. "the yardies") have been having "suntory time" on a frequent and regular basis. my youngest daughter and i witnessed one such occasion when we took my grandson outside to run around. "that's a _big_ cat next door...oh...my...gawd! let's go back inside." i suppose that's how living things celebrate surviving the winter: by procreating like mad.

new HIO audio online @ virb.com

just uploaded the results of our 1.15.2010 "warehouse session" to the HIO virb.com thingy in two parts (cleverly entitled "part 1" and "part 2"). you can stream or download 'em now. (if you like doing remixes, please be our guest, but send us a copy, too.) also belatedly posted some of my sweetie's pics of the session to the virb site.

terry has a new movie page on virb, too. check him out.

1.20.2010, ftw

trying to upload HIO audio to virb.com. we have shows at 1919 hemphill 1.30, j&j's pizza 2.20, lola's 6th street 2.27, and the phoenix project 3.7. i've also been invited to participate in the second annual improv lottery at the phoenix project on 2.20. (must remember to ask off from work for that.)

stoogeband is trying to sked a prac when hembree gets back from alabama. prolly first week in february. ray has feelers out to doublewide and the moon. i'm doing the duty for lola's. we'd also like to explore playing the grotto again. good to have possibilities.

hamster shredder

my sister finds the best stuff! not as disgusting as you might think.

bertha coolidge @ scat jazz lounge tonight!

aden bubeck sez they'll start at 8:30p without paul metzger, who'll join them later. and it's on for the next two weeks. hooray!

celeste boursier-mougenot

this is incredible. thanks to the magical ash adams for the link!

autobiographical trivia

this is one of those silly facebook things that i did when i was bored and couldn't sleepthe other night.

1) I don't speak Japanese and didn't eat sushi until I was 50.

2) When I was six and living in Illinois, I missed the school bus once and got home by following the bus route, then looking at the water meter on the apartment building (ours had a broken cover).

3) I like cats. I grew up with one that lived to be 17. When she died, my boss at the time gave me the day off.

4) I was a master sergeant in the Air Force (although I had to leave active duty for the Reserves to attain that rank). I served 19 years active and Reserve. In the best job I had on active duty, which is the best job I ever had, I served as a drill instructor and an aerobics instructor, in addition to teaching management and communication. I'm not making this up.

5) I'm 52 1/2 years old. I have three children, ages 27, 25, and 21, and five grandchildren, ages 8, 3 (two), and 1 (two). My youngest grandson has the same birthday I do.

6) I don't drive, although I could (except I can't drive stick).

7) I can't remember the names of 20 people I went to high school with.

8) I went to college for a year and a half but never finished. I took a year off that lasted 30 years. I have two meaningless associates degrees from Community College of the Air Force, which include credit for marching in basic training.

9) I'm an obsessive-compulsive workaholic and insomniac.

10) In spite of my OCD, I've spent most of my adult life actively dodging responsibility. On those few occasions when I neglected to do this, I've always gotten in trouble.

11) I started smoking cigarettes when I was 15 to hide from my parents the fact that I was smoking marijuana. I quit for 15 years, then started again and smoked for ten. Duh. Quit back in May for the last time (I hope).

12) I can't drink whiskey. If I take a single shot of whiskey, I can feel myself turning into an asshole.

13) I am incredibly fortunate to have met my wife at a point in my life when I had decided that I was OK living alone for the rest of my life. Since then, my life has gotten better every year. Even a blind squirrel gets a nut sometimes.

14) As much time/energy/effort as I invest in other bullshit, my children are actually the most important thing in the world to me. If I seem preoccupied, that is perhaps why.

15) I write like a nervous habit, like picking at a scab.

16) Playing music is the most fulfilling activity in the world for me. I'm entirely self-taught, which is why it took me a decade to master fundamentals, after which I realized I was mediocre and put down for seven years. When I picked up again, I was surprised to discover I could be expressive (for myself, at least) on an instrument. I am incredibly fortunate to be able to play the music I want to with people I like and respect.

17) I owe more than I can ever repay to my mother, Michael Rudden (RIP), Stephen Gray, Bruce Wade, Charles Buxton, Dan Lightner, Al Huddleston (RIP), B.D. Trail (RIP), Dave Anderson, Larry Harrison, Craig Regan, Phil Overeem, Denise Lands, Anthony Mariani, Kat Shimamoto, Lee Allen, and Terry Horn.

18) I hate to wait.

19) I dislike drama.

20) I hate hanging out in bars unless I'm playing.

21) I know just enough about sports to sound knowledgeable and interested if I'm waiting for the game to end so I can play.

22) My basic tendency is to be, shall we say, overassertive, but I've been striving to overcome it for the last five years or so.

23) I have very few friends that I've stayed in touch with over time. In that regard, I'm not unlike my father.

24) I used to run and ride bikes obsessively, back when my work schedule was structured to allow that. It was a much healthier addiction than some others I've had.

25) I like my day job. I think I'm temperamentally well suited to retail. I don't sweat the small stuff. The day gig facilitates the lifestyle and all the other stuff I like to do that I can't make a living doing.

r.i.p. the tote

the tote -- melbourne, orstralia's long-lived music venue -- went tango uniform this past weekend for the usual stupid reasons. sounds like a place i would've felt at home. you can see vids of a protest rally held on the eve of its closure here and listen to the live-to-air broadcast of its last night here. when my fave local rawk dump went south back in 2007, i wrote a book about it. muso-scribe bill gibson will have his say on the tote's demise via the i-94 bar when craig the barman reopens for biz later this month.

new HIO pics @ meezlady.blogspot.com

my sweetie posted some of her pics of HIO's "warehouse session" on her photo blog. click on 'em to make 'em big and leave her a comment, why doncha?

auggie is famous!

terry horn posted vid of him attacking grapes on facebook.

happy berfday captain beefheart, scott walker, and curt kirkwood

from kosmik radiation radio. online until 1.29.

eno talks, you listen

from the guardian.

michael davis

two-part interview with ex-mc5 bassist michael davis from aznightbuzz.com. part one here and part two here. his blog is here.

1.15.2010, ftw

HIO recorded again, this time at ben rogers' new spot at 2510c hemphill (across the street from the biggest lisa's fried chicken i've ever seen or can imagine -- seriously, the place looks like a firehouse). cool space, with three cats and tony ferraro passing through in the course of the evening; ben had his new year's eve party there.

hembree's in alabama for work, sarah a. and michael c. were unavailable, so the starting lineup was terry, hickey, marcus, michael briggs, and your humble chronicler o' events. tammy gomez had agreed to come and flow some verse, but hembree's absence meant no p.a. (we'd hoped to use the li'l one that goodwin uses for rehearsals); terry brought a couple of extra li'l guitar amps, along with some percussion/noisemakers and a very distressed violin.

we recorded the way we always do...the first person to set up (in this case, briggs) starts playing and others fall in as we go. it was a fun sesh. i tried using the violin bow on the guitar, as well as the e-bow and a screwdriver, and attacked the violin with much ornettitude, as well as playing percussion and drums (for whiskey folk ramblers' drumkit was set up in a corner of the leaky "stage"). marcus played drums and keyboards as well as bass trombone. hickey's electric gopichand was more audible than it's been on some of our other sessions. terry played a lot of electric cigarbox guitar as well as percussion and noisemakers.

after awhile, tammy showed up, along with these sweet kids tina and alex from san francisco. tammy flowed some verse and played some percussion and after awhile, the kids got into it, too, playing cbg, drums, and guitar. my sweetie was there and took some pics, which she'll post later on her photo blog. be interesting to hear how hickey's recording turned out.

work today, then tomorrow i'll get to see my youngest daughter and at least one of her kids, whom i haven't seen in like six months. it'll be a good day.

my scrawl in the fw weekly

a review i penned of thai tina's is in this week's paper. and online, of course.

ADDENDUM: oh, duh. reviews i penned of sam sadigursky's words project III miniatures and staff benda bilili's tres tres fort are also in this week's paper.

transient songs in wikipedia

article refers (with appropriate citations) to two bits of my scrawl. hey, frum, did you write this?

robert quine

...woulda been 67 today. here's a link to a houndblog post that features his last recordings. and one to an e-int the barman and i did with him back in y2k.

recipe for another mixtape

thisun i call "always on my mind," because it's a bunch of stuff of varying vintages -- much of it from the time when i could still remember the words to songs, also a lot of guitar noise that i like -- that continually intrudes in my consciousness.

eric ambel - "always on my mind." i know this song from the willie nelson versh, but roscoe recorded this and included it on his odds-and-sods garbagehead cd. my buddy geoff in philly pulled my coat to his music, and i got to see him with the yayhoos at poor david's a few years back.

deep purple - "listen, learn, read on." from the book of taliesyn by the "mk I" lineup that's the only one i really like. the fuzz bass solo on this is awesome.

deep purple - "the bird has flown." the song i always think of when i'm walking home from work, for some reason.

terry reid - "without expression." the man who said no to fronting led zeppelin and deep purple. i love his singing. reo speedwagon did a cover of this that was nowhere near as good.

flamin' groovies - "have you seen my baby." i used to sing this in an abortive attempt at a band with nick girgenti. there are reasons why some bands never get out of the garage. love the groovies' versh of this randy newman song, though, from their teenage head album.

jefferson airplane - "young girl sunday blues." from after bathing at baxter's, which paul williams saw as the culmination of the byrds/butterfield/lovin' spoonful period in american rock. i love the way the guitar solos over the bridge the first time, then the singers take it the second time.

otis rush - "double trouble." the cobra recordings are his greatest work. i got hip to 'em reading st. lester in the village voice. i love the way he sings the line "some of this generation is millionair-es."

small faces - "song of a baker." from ogden's nut gone flake. having mousy ronnie lane sing lead on this crunching rocker was genius.

the remains - "hang on sloopy" / "why do i cry" / "aint that her." a triple shot of the boston band that opened for the beatles, from a session with the remains, which they recorded early in the morning after playing an all-night club gig. maybe the best of the nuggets-era "garage" bands.

mike watt - "drove up from pedro." a sweet song from his "wrestling record." with nels cline.

elvis presley - "blue moon." from the sun sessions. not "blue moon of kentucky;" rather, the rodgers and hart chestnut the marcels more famously recorded and eric clapton plagiarized for the beginning of his "sunshine of your love" solo. when el starts keening, he sounds like a ghost from history like hank senior or robert johnson -- which he is now, of course.

deep purple - "emmaretta." i stole lots of blackmore's licks from this song, and my sweetie digs it, too.

lou reed - "baton rouge." tinged with regret, an atypical song from uncle lou's great, underappreciated ecstasy album.

jefferson airplane - "won't you try/saturday afternoon." another baxter's song, with lyrics about about the human be-in.

mike watt - "maggot brain." another from the "wrestling record," the funkadelic classic redone with j. mascis and bernie worrell.

terry reid - "silver white light." self-explanatory.

1.11.2010, ftw

lots of time to kill today, since i don't work until 2pm.

good weekend. wrote a record and a restaurant review for the fort worth weekly. the li'l stoogeband played the grotto for the first time. the room sounded better than i expected, and we had a good crowd and played well. it was amy kadleck's b-day, so my sweetie got her a cake and bubbles, as well as a dia de los muertos skeleton-monkey from plaza del sol. mike haskins from the nervebreakers showed up with his wife patti and made my night. (they dug the show.) mike sez the nb's will be playing sxsw again this year, which is a reason for me to go. tony chapman was in the house -- first time i'd seen him in months.

yesterday made bacon, beans and toast for breakfast, grilled cheese sammies for lunch, then my sweetie made herbed chicken and bok choy for din-din.

today i just need to do the catbox and cans, wait for edits from the italian kid, and remember to bring home o.j. and more cm chicken pot pies (two for $6 until wednesday!) as my sweetie has a meeting this evening.

a box of hentai

behold the magnificent splendor of the HIO box set.

carol corbett

i guess this kind of proves that i have too much time on my hands. here's a pic (stolen from this guy's blog) of the lady that used to host the gumby cartoon show on channel 11 in nyc ca. 1965. i had a crush on her when i was eight.

ladies and gentlemen, the magical ASH ADAMS!

stoogeaphilia and great american novel pics @ meezlady.blogspot.com

my sweetie posted some of her pics of stoogeaphilia and great american novel from last night's grotto extravaganza on her photo blog. click on 'em to make 'em big and leave her a comment, why doncha?

nils lofgren waxing roy buchanan's ass on "shotgun"

seeing this when i was 13 made me want to play guitar. glad somebody finally youtube'd it. thanks to ron sanchez for the link.

who '66

thanks again, t.tex!

r.i.p. art clokey

the man who gave us gumby is gone. we'll have to watch some of his videos tomorrow.

yardbirds '66

...with page on bass (!), sounding as good as they ever did on tv. welcome back to facebook, t. tex!

1.8.2010, ftw

listening to jeff arsenault's recording of the li'l stoogeband at lola's stockyards. it's an hour long, so the first half hour or so of our set goes missing, but what he caught sounds pretty awesome, if i do say so myself. i fucked up that night and left my amp on the 20% power setting from the 10.17 HIO recording sesh, so i had to crank it to pain threshold volume to be able to hear myself onstage and was still deaf a good part of the next morning. you can tell there are moments when teague can't hear me at all, but somehow we hold it together. a big treat for me is getting to hear ray and richard, whom i can almost never hear onstage. jeff offered to get together to tweak the mix, and i might see if any of the other stoogeaphiles wanna take him up on that once they hear it.

notes for an imaginary podcast

hadn't made my sweetie a mixtape in a long time, so this evening i compiled one in itunes for cd-r burnage. the barman thinks i should do a podcast, but i'm too tech-illiterate, even though i do have itunes. feh. anyway, here are some toons i dug listening to in 2009. i call this my "winter 2010 mix." if you want one, lemme know and i'll burn one for you.

mark growden - "faith in my pocket." my favorite song from saint judas, an early candidate for my album of the year.

neil young - "tell me why." my fave neil song, from live at massey hall. i love it when i find a new way to enjoy stuff i already love.

bob fante - "go go supertoy." the solo project of one of the most prolific and talented cats i know, eaton lake tonics' tony ferraro. forget the mixtape, you need to download from here. do it now!

velvet underground - "run run run." embarrassing to admit that two of the things i listened to the most last year were downloads of audience-recorded bootlegs from antiquity, but it's the truth: thisun (from the wild side of the street release of the vu's set at the legendary hilltop festival in rindge, new hampshire, 1969) and the move live at the fillmore west, same year.

seabrook power plant - "peter dennis blandford townshend." lead track from an album i reviewed for the fw weekly by a banjo-led avant-garde power trio. track's named after the who's mastermind, himself a former (recovered?) banjo player.

dennis gonzalez band of sorcerers featuring frank lowe - "hymn for john carter." the world at large is beginning to realize the magnitude of trumpeter dennis gonzalez's achievement. in 2009, he released four albums, all of them stunning in different ways: songs of early autumn with a quartet including joe morris on bass; the great bydgozscz concert, a document -- at long last -- of what yells at eels, the trio featuring dennis with his sons aaron (bass) and stefan (drums) is capable of in live performance; a matter of blood with pianist curtis clark and ex-coltrane bassist reggie workman; and scapegrace, a lovely, lyrical album of duets with portuguese pianist joao pablo. the one i can't stop listening to, though, is a board tape of a 1989 gig in d.c. with a patched-together band featuring the mighty tenor saxophonist lowe, who left the planet too early, in 2003. the tune's a dedication to the clarinetist and former fwisd teacher.

marty ehrlich rites quartet - "dogon a.d." from things have got to change. ehrlich's an estimable reedman going back to the '70s and disciple of fort worth expat julius hemphill (subject of another dedication on the gonzalez/lowe disc). "dogon a.d." was a hemphill signature piece.

jack rose - "kensington blues." the virginia-born, philadelphia-based virtuoso made significant contributions to the john fahey-founded school of "american primitive" guitar before dying of a heart attack december 5th, aged 38. this is the title track from his best and deepest album.

chris potter underground - "rumples." from ultrahang. as i pointed out in my review, potter's a saxophonist who's worked with steely dan, dave holland, and dave douglas. my favorite part of this track is pianist craig taborn's supremely funky left-hand bass.

snowbyrd - "is it on." great san antonio band, blending alt-country with desert psych. their drummer manny castillo died of cancer a year ago. the survivors continue.

stooges - "i got a right." from you want my action!, brit label easy action's document of the short-lived 1971 lineup that featured ron asheton (r.i.p.) playing guitar alongside james williamson, whose return to the fold was _the_ comeback story of 2009.

awkquarius - "let's hit the town." debut single by the latest vehicle for ex-ppt mainmen pikahsso and tahiti, recorded by dallas hip-hop eminence ty macklin, with 10 seconds of attempted ernie isley at the end by yours truly.

mike reed's people, places & things

free jazz is alive and well and living in chicago. thanks to matt m. for the link.

no idea festival @ phoenix project in dallas 1.17.2010

www.noideafestival.com

Inner Realms Outer Realms
presents
No Idea Festival 2010: Seeds and Systems
featuring:

Chris Cogburn/Jesse Kudler Duo
(Austin/Philadelphia-percussion and tabletop guitar)

Screwed Anthologies
A free improv tribute to DJ Screw
Dave Dove/Lucas Gorham Duo
(Houston-trombone/electronics and pedal steel guitar/samples)

Remi Alvarez Trio
featuring Aaron and Stefan Gonzalez
(Mexico City/Dallas-saxophone, bass and drums)

January 17th, 2010
8:00 p.m.
@ The Phoenix Project
406 S. Haskell Ave.
Dallas, Texas 75226
$8 or $5 for Phoenix Project Collective members
All ages

Visit the website for full artist biographies and performances in other cities!

caitlin upton/sam sadigursky

this is how art is made. first, watch this vid of caitlin upton at the miss teen usa 2007 pageant.



now, go to composer sam sadigursky's website. click the "music" link. play the track "miss teen usa" from his album words project II. enjoy!

my scrawl in the fw weekly

a review i penned of tom waits' new album glitter and doom live is in this week's paper and online now. i'm sure tom is thrilled.

stackable steamers

thinking of acquiring one of these since our old reliable steamer appears to be heading south and john nuckels mentioned them when i saw him at the market last night. it would certainly simplify our process when, say, we want to serve rice with one (or more!) steamed veg.

1.6.2010, ftw

my sweetie prefers it when i keep my beard trimmed, rather than letting it grow to eric dolphy/hcm/pharaoh amenhotep length. yet, she doesn't want me to shave it off -- possibly because she's never seen me without it. i've been contemplating doing so, partly in response to the facial hair/no facial hair imbalance in the stoogeband since ray grew his "lycantrophilia" beard. he and richard can grow full ones overnight; hembree and i take longer and the results are sparser, and jon teague long ago figured out that a man with a strong jaw needs no foliage sullying his mug.

nx35

it's march 11-14 in denton. the flaming lips are playing for free on the 13th. yowzah.

violent squid

ty stamp is one of the wine vendors that call on the market. he also plays in a denton band that sounds pretty interesting in the "i'd like to investigate this" sense, not the "i heard your band and i'm trying to avoid telling you what i think of them" sense. i keep giving him HIO cd-r's. maybe someday we'll do a show together. they're playing at hailey's this saturday, the same night i'm playing at the grotto with the stoogeband. oh well.

the himes 100: best albums of 2009

now here's a hip list. thanks to matt m. for the link.

wes race w/harry hoggard

the loudness wars

it's true: digital formats are fatiguing to the ear. here comes the science (with mastering master bob ludwig as your guide). thanks to tommy v. for the link.

por favor matame

new spanish edition of please kill me. site has a bunch of cool media you've already seen, but nice to have 'em all in one place.

cat haiku

my big sis finds the best stuff.

Frank Rosaly

Chicago's illustrious musical heritage dates back to the 1920s, when King Oliver summoned Louis Armstrong to inaugurate the heroic tradition of the soloist in jazz; the '40s, when Muddy Waters and Howlin' Wolf established the template for the electric blues band, which in turn begat the guitar-bass-drums rock band; and the '60s, when the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians pushed the boundaries of free jazz past the breakthroughs of Trane, Ornette, and Cecil. Today, the Windy City's probably the only place in these United States outside of, um, Brooklyn where the improv/experimental, rock, and jazz scenes are so intertwined.

Drummer Frank Rosaly's been on the set in Chicago for a decade, playing with a score of bands, composing, recording prolifically, and curating a weekly creative music showcase. He's a disciple of early Ornette/'60s Blue Note main man Billy Higgins, whose influence you can hear in this clip from a recent tour Rosaly undertook with saxophonist Dave Rempis.



On Cyrillic, released 1.12.2010 on 482 Music, the two men demonstrate their versatility within the duo format, covering all the bases from loose-limbed and funky (the opening "Antiphony") to frenetic and intense ("Tainos," the 16-minute tour de force "How To Cross When Bridges Are Out") to spacey and minimalist ("Still Will"). Rempis alternates between alto, tenor, and bari saxes, while Rosaly employs extended techniques as well as traditional trap attacks.

To comprehend the full depth and breadth of Rosaly's achievement, however, you have to hear his solo CD Milkwork (released the same day on Contraphonic), where in the course of a single track ("Adolescents") he'll impersonate both an Indian classical hand drummer and an entire high school drum line. Like Tyshawn Sorey, Rosaly keeps his composer hat on at all times, and you can hear the contours of his compositions even when there's no tonal element present -- which there often is here, thanks to the array of analog synths and effects pedals he uses alongside his drums. On the 12-minute version of "NY Prices!," he comes across like a one-man Heldon -- no small feat. Makes me wish I hadn't missed him when he came through Texas (well, Houston and Austin, anyway) back in October.

The Flying Eyes

What's happening to De Yoof of America today? I have no idea, but I find it..._interesting_ when musos born in the '80s come across like, well, _we_ did back when I was a snotnose in the '70s. I'm thinking of bands like The Lonely H from Washington, with whom PFFFFT! had the pleasure of playing at the Chat Room wa-a-ay back in 2008, and Memphians The Dirty Secrets, beloved of brother Eric Hermeyer; for reasons why, see the clip below. (Here's a hint, guys: There's already another band, thisun made up of middle-aged losers, who have the same name and also do a versh of "Funk 49" -- I'm just sayin'.)



Just got a shiny silver disc in the mail from The Flying Eyes, a heavy psych outfit from Baltimore, of all places, whose two self-released EPs were just picked up for release on a single CD by World In Sound/Trip In Time, the same smiling folks from Germany who brought us the Gunslingers awhile back. Their sonic palette includes shades that range from Black (Sabbath, Keys, Angels) to Pink (Floyd), and indeed, on "Lay With Me" from their Bad Blood EP (which kicks off the CD), they alternately channel a freak-folk Jim Morrison and the Queens of the Stone Age.

The Morrisonics are a constant (just dig how Will Kelly intones "Brown river is burning, can't you see" on "Don't Point Your God At Me"), as is the droning, wheezing organ (courtesy of Adam Bufano, who also splits guitar duties with Kelly). By the time they cut the Winter EP (conveniently sequenced in chronological order on the CD), their fusion of scuzz-rock and acid-blooze strains was sounding more organic and confident, not to mention darker and doomier. I'd like to see these guys play on the back of a flatbed truck in some park -- maybe even at their homegrown "Farm Fest," held annually on a farm in Manchester, Maryland. Recommended if you like Dungen and all those bands that Julian Cope is forever championing.

Geronimo! @ 1919 Hemphill, 1.15.2010

For years, bands have sought to come up with a final solution to the bassplayer problem. The Doors used Ray Manzarek's left hand; Local H, bass pickups on Scott Lucas' guitar; the White Stripes, a big empty space onstage between Meg 'n' Jack. Give Chicago-based trio Geronimo! credit for crafting a new 'n' original approach: a pitch-shifted keyboard, run through a bass rig.

These three refugees from Rockford, Illinois -- ranked among the ten worst cities in America by no less of an authority than Money magazine -- mix a pop-punker's obsession with melody (and reedy vocals) with heavy dynamics (these boys likes to play it LOUD). Their penchant for fuzz 'n' thump (dig "Kicked Out the Fear" on their Myspace thingy) is indicative they listened to the same Tull and Sabbath platters from the '70s as Soundgarden did, but their thrusting forward motion on "Design Yourself a Heart," which features a guitar hook that might well have been cribbed from the mighty Me-Thinks' "Speedhair," sounds for all the world like the Violent Femmes on crank after they stole Cobain's distortion pedals.

If I wasn't recording with HIO the night they hit 1919 Hemphill, I'd surely be there to throw these guys some gas money. If you don't have a similar excuse, you should be there. And tell I'm I sent ya.

cigar box nation

who knew there was a cigar box guitar community online? founded by the guy in the vid below. makes me wanna put some lighter strings on my cbg and try rockin' some raga.

1.2.2010, dallas/ftw

took a walk with t. horn and his bride this morning, then rode over to big d. with him to visit the big half price books and good records. found vinyl copies of charlie haden's ballad of the fallen with the liberation music orchestra and arthur blythe's lennox avenue breakdown (a promo, same as the copy i used to own -- i don't think i ever saw a "real" copy of this record). good was out of the new live tom waits glitter and doom, which i pre-ordered for my sweetie from amazon back in october and wound up getting refunded for when it failed to show up a month after it was supposedly mailed. feh. wound up getting it for eight bucks at best buy back in the fort.

lunched and beered at vickery park, which features better-than-average bar food (he: brisket sammie; i: a noble club sammie) and has genesee cream ale in the bottle.

work early tom'w, then monday i'm off, so i'll try and get another walk in, as well as scribing on new music by chicagoans geronimo! (who'll be at 1919 hemphill on 1.15, the night HIO is recording at rahr brewery) and frank rosaly, as well as the flying eyes, a heavy psych band from baltimore with an album out on the same german label that brought us the gunslingers last year. yeah!

don ivan punchatz

here's wilonsky in the observer on jesse the painter's late mentor. and here's a remembrance from spectrum fantastic art.

when we were toasting don and ben trail the other night, i told jesse, "they're gone, but we still remember them."

"yeah," he said. "but do they still remember us?"

1.1.2010, ftw

i can't stop listening to the new HIO recordings, especially hickey's 30-minute remix. he told me he cut the big, 35-minute live recording into five-minute sections and overlaid them, which resulted in episodes of first my, then patrick's, then my overlaid solos, with intervals of michaels briggs and chamy in between. (for this sesh, terry was serving as the "percussionist.") the guitar sections sound nicely in-your-face and psychedelic -- maybe dan mcguire would even like them! -- while the trombone sections sound like a herd of elephants playing "consequences" from trane's meditations. me likey much! not sure whether or not we're going to put thisun on the web for free downloading -- need patrick's approval before we go forward.

bye, hank

fifty-seven years ago, the man who said, "people don't go to honky tonks to listen to music; they go there to fight" took his last ride. when i was going to an air force school in montgomery, i went to visit his grave. he and his bride are surrounded by british and french aviators who were killed in training accidents during world war II. for me, hank and robert johnson epitomize "the old weird america."

staff benda bilili

a band of handicapped musicians from congo who play homemade instruments.

my top 10 o' the decade

since i couldn't remember my yahoo mail password (having abandoned that account to the spammers), i won't be participating in the village voice critics' poll this year. (awww...) instead, here's my top 10 albums o' the decade, in no particular order:

lou reed - ecstasy
hochimen - totenlieder
woodeye - such sweet sorrow
goodwin - s/t
top secret...shhh
m. ward - post-war
jack rose - kensington blues
unknown instructors - the way things work
mark growden - live at the odeon
boris - smile

nye

my least fave holiday (along with st. patrick's day) was actually pretty good this year. we went to jesse's and saw some good friends that we don't get to see all the time since we became such homebodies. jesse and i toasted my pops, cadillac fraf, ben trail and don punchatz. i talked to chris blay about him doing a video installation in conjunction with the HIO show at 1919 hemphill on 1.30.2010. the magical ash adams ushered in the new decade with feats of prestidigitation, amazing all. and we got home without seeing a single drunk jackass on the road. hooray!

woke up this morning and put on some dennis gonzalez -- his scapegrace duet album with pianist joao paulo. his accomplishment really is amazing -- four great albums (five if you count the archival one) released last year. he, reggie rueffer, and mark growden are my favorite musos of the last decade. no question.