my scrawl in the fw weekly ADDENDUM

oh, wow. they ran the review i penned of the new nels cline singers double cd initiate, too.

italian percussion weirdos

hey, ant'ny...

4.30.2010, ftw

i.
hour run
deep breaths
cleanse and heal

ii.
crazy dogs
somebody told me
it's misguided herding behavior
that makes them
nature's crazy drill sergeants:
"HEY! YOU! GET OVER HERE!
GET IN LINE!!!
DON'T IGNORE ME, GAWD DAMMIT!
I'LL SLING YOUR SORRY ASS!"
etc.

iii.
whatthehell
happened?
this used to be
easy for me.
guess i did
more damage
than i thought
in ten years
of voluntary
smoke inhalation.
one foot
in front
of the other.
keep
moving
forward.

bandwrecker for hire

via craigslist. ha.

new christs - "i swear"

4.28-4.29.2010, ftw/oak cliff

t. horn had to back out of drinkie-talkie wednesday, so i accompanied my sweetie to the memorial service for a former student of hers at a church on the south side. felt as alienated as i usually do at religious services, but the music at black churches is a whole lot better than at white churches. the worship team -- b3 with left-hand bass lines and a drummer who was _slammin'_ 'em (he was louder than the guy from magnus that uses a kevlar snare!) and half a dozen singers -- to' it up, while the minister's voice through the distorted p.a. reminded me of the field recordings pinkish black likes to play between songs, or listening to gospel radio while driving through jackson, mississippi. was reminded of the power of faith to help people endure the unendurable.

stopped for dinner at pappa chang's, which i've been wanting to check out because it's a fave of teague's (prolly because they'll make anything on the menu veggie). was amused at the waitress telling a phone order customer "sorry, i'm busy, i can't help you anymore" in a near-empty place after apparently trying for ten minutes to get them to read her the expiration number on their credit card so she could run it. it wasn't hard to understand her, so it must have been either a stolen card number or an incredibly dense person. we weren't knocked out by the food, although they do have gigantic (for an asian place) bowls of soup.

stayed up way too late, got up with my sweetie to transcribe the t. tex edwards interview tape (four hours to do a one-hour convo, my feedback-scorched ears struggling to pick words out of a cloud of static). now just waiting for a burn of the nervebreakers' new recordings so i can finish the piece. napped the afternoon away, then headed out to oak cliff with my sweetie to see mark growden at the kessler theater.

ate dinner at norma's cafe there; just as good as i remembered from 30 years ago, when i lived in that 'hood (a block from the kess, in fact). her breakfast steak was cooked medium rare, our waitress brought condiments and drinks without being prompted, the rolls were like heaven, my club sammie was huge and delish, and it was actually a plus to be able to hear how hard the crew was workin' for us ("I NEED ROLLS, PLEASE!").

on the way in, ran into the gonzalez brothers, aaron and stefan, enroute from their parents' house to their own cribs and other shows. michael henry tillman was holding forth in the li'l room when we got there, playing soulful classical-spanish-jazz-inflected toonage on a nylon-string guitar. t. horn had been hangin' there with a coupla coworkers from the charter school where he teaches. the rest of the ftw contingent -- carl and tina pack, billy wilson, the magical ash adams -- showed up awhile later. carl and tina were heading over to tradewinds social club later, where his ex-gideons guitarist chuck rose was playing with his new band, grass valley (who'll be at the kess on thursday, 5.27).

michael opened the evening in the big room, singing as well as playing in a percussive style that put me in mind of bluesman corey harris' charlie patton-inspahrd guitar-spanking antics. mr. tillman won the ftw mob over with his take on buena vista social club's signature song "chan chan." made me wish jesse the painter coulda been there. later on, i found out that carlos salas, who owns the cliff notes bookstore that just moved into the same building as the kess, is a northside ftw expat who knows william bryan massey III and came up with jesse. uncle walt was right.

mark growden played an incandescent show to an audience that's grown since he played the kessler opening night, five weeks earlier. he's been a busy boy since then, touring and recording his next album with his "banjo band" in tucson. later this year, he'll cut a third album for porto franco records with his l.a. band, which includes himself on accordion and sax, two other sax players, two upright bassists, and a female drummer. (he says they "have less to prove" than male drummers, and claims he likes "the center of gravity lower" for his tub thumper.)

mark played a generous portion of his new saint judas album, including the gorgeous "if the stars could sing," as well as a couple of songs that'll be on the aforementioned upcoming release tucson. he'd spent the afternoon in ovilla with banjo maker chuck lee and waxed enthusiastic about the instrument-builder's creations. he played the receptive audience as adeptly as he did his axes (this time including sruti box as well as banjo and accordion), and closed with a cover of leonard cohen's "i'm your man" that was clearly as anticipated as it was well received. mark managed to hustle a gig in denton at the harvest house that you should catch if you're in "little d" tonight. he'll be back at the kessler in september; so will we.

had to cut out before jazz guitarist bill longhorse's trio took the stage, but from the vid liles posted, it looks like we should take the oppo to check him out another time. tonight's the first night of "other texas music" at the fort worth community arts center. i'll be closing the market tonight, but i'll be playing the second night with HIO tomorrow. hooray!

pssst! hey, kid! live in ny? wanna play with richard lloyd?

fly pr sends:

FAMED TELEVISION AND ROCKET FROM THE TOMBS* GUITARIST

SEEKS HEAVY METAL BAND MATES

I am looking for some heavy metal band members to form a band and record a record at my studio -- one or two guitars, bass, drums and vocalist. Must be willing to wear makeup and act outlandishly. Concept and songs are already partially written. If you are in the New York area, and this applies -- send me a private message.

Richard Lloyd
lloyd206@aol.com

dirt road to psychedelia

texas '60s psych doco.

gutterth catalog online

gutterth records now has their entahr catalog online. prices are reasonable. check it out!

rock and roll

best versh ever of uncle lou's classic from loaded. in the early '70s, every idiot bar band on lawn guyland played this arrangement. i can still play it now. it's in Bb.

the things i carry (apologies to t.'s horn and o'brien)

wallet
keys
name badge from work
guitar picks (optional)
pocket change (optional)
lunch receipts to crumple and throw for auggie
address book
check book

my scrawl in the fw weekly

a review i penned of the dangits' debut disc, greatest hits vol. 1, is online now. yeah!

the wicked pickett

you're not losing your mind...he really is singing in italian. hey, ant'ny...

4.26.2010, ftw

made an unusual weeknight foray to lola's 6th to catch the ludicra/pinkish black/magnus show. (thanks, kara!) 'twas a stunner -- all three bands killed in different ways, and the 40-50 people present were all digging the performances, no patio hangers-out. headliners ludicra are a great metal band from san francisco, whose members (teague sez) all came out of punk bands, which explains a lot. two women up front, on on voxxx, the other on voxxx/guitar. lots of moody arpeggios in between the chordal thunder and harmonized leads. the drummer made more tasteful use of blast beats than the average metal tub-thumper. as i said to a fellow punter, "it's everything you want and nothing that you don't want." much respect.

pinkish black continues to evolve. daron beck said that they've decided to call _all_ the new songs "everything went black," and indeed, there's clearly conceptual continuity afoot in the new music they've penned since tommy atkins' suicide. (his bass rig is now powering bottom-heavy keyboards and the presence of the third man onstage remains palpable.) the music rages and thunders the way yeti's terminal album volume, obliteration, transcendence (cut in the wake of doug ferguson's death) did. teague's now playing keys as well as drums, and daron's added some new pieces to his rig. the music's as forceful and emotive as we've come to expect from these cats, and i became aware listening to them how influenced (in an odd way) the noises i make with HIO are by teague's riddimic sense.

with an andre edmonson mix, magnus sounded a quantum leap better than they had through the self-service p.a. bar at caves lounge when the li'l stoogeband played with them last fall. their music remains complex, knotty, and heavy, powered by andrew tipps' aggressively busy, rifle-shot drums. you can tell that guitarist ben schultz has been working on his single string attack, playing only the good notes. surprisingly, considering that two of the bands used full stacks, i was able to hear pretty well this morning, although i did fall asleep repeatedly during a training class on argentina this afternoon (and dreamed of che guevara eating a milanesa with a glass of malbec on the pampas). worth it, though.

sonny sharrock

this guy amazes me. thanks, phil o., for the hookup on his late-'80s stuff. this first clip is a lot more conventional than the sonny we know 'n' love.



now, this is a li'l more like it.

another phoenix rises in the cliff

jason reimer, ex-history at our disposal, is now involved in helping to revive the texas theater at 231 west jefferson blvd in oak cliff (where lee harvey oswald was _not_ resisting arrest). they're showing the original 1982 TRON there on thursday, may 13. yeah!

the path less pedaled

these folks are traveling cross-country by bicycle, and are giving a talk on their travels at trinity bicycles (207 s. main) this wednesday at 7:30pm. interested peeps will be meeting up at the shop at 5:30pm to ride over to magnolia for dinner before the presentation. sounds edifyin'.

ralph white and amy annelle

local music hound justin robertson (you've seen him, the blonde-haired kid with the cowboy hat that talks just like clay stinnett, but a _lot_ more voluble) is bringing "primitive country-bluegrass" musos ralph white (ex-bad livers) and amy annelle to north texas for a run of shows next weekend, starting with an early (3-6pm) duo outing on friday, 4.30, at fred's texas cafe in the fort, continuing at 8pm that evening with solo performances at good records in dallas. annelle performs solo from 7-10pm at waxahachie's webb gallery on saturday, 5.1, then she and white perform solo sets at dan's silverleaf in denton, on an eclectic bill that also features yells at eels and dim locator. check 'em out.

my scrawl on the i-94 bar

a review i penned of moby grape's live is online now.

anzac day

from laurence binyon's "for the fallen":

They went with songs to the battle, they were young.
Straight of limb, true of eyes, steady and aglow.
They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted,
They fell with their faces to the foe.

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.

At the going down of the sun and in the morning,
We will remember them.

mo' stooges @ lille, 4.17.2010

gang of four

entertainment! was one of my favorite recs after i got back from colorado in the spring of '80. was reminded of it when paul quigg spun it over the p.a. at the kessler theater a couple of weeks ago. now we're listening to it at home again. if you're a fan of subsidizing the arts, you can help them fund their new album by pledging here.

4.24.2010, ftw

i'm up to the last "conversation" with my dad, and i can tell this is going to be the longest and the most difficult to write. dredging through a lot of relatively recent memories of things i was glad to be done with. reading old blog entries last night, i was surprised how long ago some of these things took place -- my mom's joyride in december 2006, the first signs of my dad's dementia in mid-2007, his hospitalization that summer. stuff that happened in 2008 seems like it was yesterday. going through old email exchanges with my sister. this is harder than i thought it was going to be. i may wait until my next full day off (thursday) to resume writing again. we'll see. a necessary journey, though.

doing a little "compare/contrast" between the stooges georgia peaches from '73 and the soundboard of their show in lille, france, last weekend.

stooges last weekend

just what the world needs

another vietnam war novel.

mo' seasick steve

and this one via hickey...

joni mitchell

i'm not a fan, but my big sis liked her a lot in high school, and certain of her songs stick in my head (like thisun, which was there all day today). interestingly (to me, at least), two members of stoogeaphilia were born in morgantown, west virginia. and i still hear the chorus as "...all your teeth are colored brown," which amuses me no end.



and who could forget thisun? i like the way she frets her guitar backwards for a moment there in the vid.



an admission: i used to sing this song to my kids when they were small. i actually remembered all the words from having to listen to my sister's record of this a thousand times, 20 years earlier.

4.23.2010, ftw

back on track with conversations with my father after realizing that trying to write with facebook and gmail chat open is like sparky trying to write in a field full of squirrels. hence, no intarweb while writing the next two days. i'm up to 8000 words, i feel like i've had my ass kicked, and i'm just getting to the tough part now.

was looking at some old blog entries to help me get some context and realized it's been over three years since we realized dad was suffering dementia symptoms. helps me understand a little better why i drank so much during all the stoogeshows i obsessively booked during 2008.

speaking of the li'l stoogeband, looking forward to our 5.15.2010 stand at tradewinds social club in oak cliff. daron beck is opening in his c&w guise as d. wayne grubb featuring cutthroat thompson, then playing pianner with us on "raw power" and "dog, i wanna be yr." we're doing two sets, and wanz dover has graciously agreed to sit in on sax for "1970" and "funhouse." (ben marrow will do the honors once again on 5.9.2010 at "lola's palooza.")

need to have an HIO drinkie-talkie to plan our strategy for next weekend's stand at fort worth community arts center. i believe both terry and hickey will have new instruments to roll out.

once i've got the first iteration of conversations on paper, it'll be time to transcribe the phone int i did with t. tex edwards for submission to maximum rocknroll. and the italian kid has agreed to let me do a "killer or filler"-style local cd wrapup sometime in may. have to have drinks with him soon so he can give me the merkin cd.

lawnchair party this sunday. i need to fucking run this weekend, too.

mr. horn's been busy

Cabinet of Curiosities; Day 2, bird revolution from owl and the octopus on Vimeo.

the birds - "leaving here"

how to prepare a guitar

interesting info here, courtesy of dutch instrument builder yuri landman.

happy berfday, charles mingus

band vs promoter

too much like real life.

interview with cheetah chrome

from left of the dial.

my scrawl on the i-94 bar

a review i penned of the service industry's new album calm down is online now.

4.21.2010, ftw

celebrated iggy's 63rd b-day by mostly listening to jimi's first rays of the new rising sun. started writing something about my dad. i've been procrastinating on this. finally got a workable design in my head and i'm trying to jumpstart this by doing five days of free writing. my goal is to pen 1000 words a day. i'm currently ahead of that. my format is five "conversations" with my dad that take place when i'm four, 17, 19, 35, and 50. it jumps all over in time and space, too.

i suck at multitasking. while i was writing, i ran the washing machine without loading it first. duh. "resolved" a plumbing issue by removing the elbow from under the kitchen sink. all i found was some black water (cue doobie brothers song), but at least now it's draining properly. note to self: don't dump vegetable debris down the drain.

hickey sprung for lunch at montgomery street cafe. one of the funniest cats i know, and the soul of HIO. then i went hunting and gathering for tomatillos, cilantro, peppers, and spinach to make fish tacos, which would have been good (a perfectly serviceable tomatillo salsa) if not ruined by a fish that turns gelatinous when heat is applied to it. the fire next time. backup meal: curly's custard.

yakking with hickey and b-rock miller on FB later, got on a faces/terry anderson kick.

i can't even spell trompe l'oeil...

...but i think these murals are cool.

seasick steve rawks!

t. horn shares.

burroughs in lawrence, ks

a cat guy. no surprise. thanks to the rumpus for the coat-pull. i saw the outside of this house when i played lawrence with nathan brown in 2004. music by patti smith.

stoogeaphilia @ tradewinds lounge, oak cliff, 5.15.2010

with daron beck in his dark country guise as d. wayne grubb with cutthroat thompson. and it's FREE! c'mon! (artwork by ray liberio. click on the image to make it big.)

4.20.2010, ftw

i dig my straight because i get to see folks i know from four or five different lives there: the man that brought me here, my wing commander from two reserve units, folks i worked at radioshack with (including the ex-ceo), people i sold records to or worked in stores with, others i've played music with/to, etc.

putting down the music scrawl for awhile with a couple of exceptions. time to start writing the big story i've been avoiding, about my old man. i don't know if i have this in me, but i've enlisted a poet whose scrawl i respect much to be a "disinterested third party," and plan to do free writing for the next five days. we'll see.

menu planning: i'm stealing a page from justin wallis' [face]book and gonna do a pan-seared mahi mahi in white wine sauce with garlic-shiitake spinach, which sounds like a humongous improvement over the broiled mahi with wilted kale i did the other night. tom'w night, it'll be fish tacos from a recipe my big sis sent...an oppo to get rid of the too-crumbly flounder we've had in the freezer for too long.

"a love supreme" live, 1965

other texas music @ fwcac, 4.30-5.1.2010

HIO is playing the second night of this two-night event at fort worth community arts center (1300 gendy street). shows start at 8:30p and run until 11p. a ten spot gets you in, or $15 for both nights; parking in the adjacent lots goes to $5 on may 1st. here's the full lineup as of now:

Friday:

Gerald Gabel - recorded electronic work
Tammy Gomez & Ramsey Sprague - spoken word and acoustic guitar
-intermission-
Breaking Light - electric guitar with delay processing
David Bithell - performance work & trumpet improvisation with interactive computer

Saturday:

James Talambas & Paul Thomas - sound & visual art improvisation
Swirve - trumpet, electronics, spoken word, etc
-intermission-
Paul Unger & Max Oepen - acoustic bass and percussion
Hentai Improvising Orchestra - improvised "orchestral" hentai

4.17.2010, ftw

no workie, so spent an inordinate amount of my day off woodshedding jimi hendrix's "hey baby" from first rays of the new rising sun (originally on the rainbow bridge soundtrack). i've been obsessed with the toon since teague broke it out at prac. when i was 19, i knew a cat (teddy rispoli) who could play it. i now have bigger respect for teddy than i did back then. got the intro down, just need to 'shed it till the muscle memory kicks in. then i'll learn the arrangement of the song itself. looking fwd to jamming this with teague. besides actual guitar prac (unusual for me), i spent the day listening to the new jeff beck album and watching jimi's live at woodstock dvd.

good stoogeshow at the moon last night. my sweetie was at jubilee theater with her work ppl, so hembree (fresh from a week at a military-industrial complex tradeshow downtown) picked me up 9ish and we headed over to berry street. felt late but we were the first muso there and loaded in our gear, then adjourned over to fuzzy's for tacos 'n' beers. richard joined us there, then teague and his squeeze kara put in an appearance. back over to the moon where kerry dean (a sweet man, ex-darth vato) was holding forth acoustically. shot the shit out on the patio with #1 stoogeband fan amy, john shea, and a hpb coworker of jon's until my sweetie showed up.

teague informed me that another coworker of his, ben marrow, was going to blow sax with us. i had ben's number from a coworker of mine for months but never used it because i'm lame. ben sat in on "1970," then we changed the setlist, dropping "raw power" and adding "funhouse" to give him another oppo to show his stuff. the new moon soundguy (didn't catch his name) earned his pay and the sound onstage was tight -- i could actually hear ray and richard, and i turned up after we started. thinking we might woodshed some roxy music (a current obsesh of ray's along with t. rex) with ben over the summer. was happy to see tommy ware in the house. unassed early as i had to work this morning and i find it hard to go the distance if i'm not playing. think i might try the beck/hendrix pre-gig regime again when we play "lola's palooza" the sunday after miss aimee graduates from tcu.

my scrawl on the i-94 bar

reviews i penned of new toonage by jeff beck, iggy and the stooges, and the batusis are online now. one more to follow.

hey baby

jammed this with teague for a minute at stooge prac last night. now i'll be woodshedding this for weeks.

henry cow

teague's alternative to zappa. fred frith's first band. some quality stuff. only videotaped live performance, from 1976.

"an anthology of north texas performers"

lineup isn't final yet, but HIO will be playing saturday night at 10p. y'all come. artwork by terry horn. click on the image to make it big.

4.14.2010, fttw

walked to my sweetie's old block to get a haircut, then stopped by the fw weekly office to see the italian kid. 'twas a good day to be out 'n' about. liked seeing the groups of schoolkids on their way to the science and history museum, and the work crews taking their lunches in the shade. in a few weeks, it'll be too stupid hot to do that.

lisa's fried chicken didn't seem as tempting today for some reason (possibly because i ate an acai berry bar i got from work before i set out -- i'll eat anything that i don't have to pay for), but i stopped by lola's for beers. carey blackwell was there and i told him i'm re-reading his book homefire after seeing him with lickity split in the dfw punk documentary. graham was tending bar and he told me about camping out overnight to get kai in this arts magnet school up in white settlement. i'm glad the li'l stoogeband is playing lola's palooza the same day as woodeye -- the day after my middle daughter graduates from tcu. saw brian and wished him a happy birthday.

fell by doc's and picked up the rockers soundtrack i saw the other day -- a fave from the early '80s and better than the harder they come for my money -- and asked jenkins to order me the reissue of the first small faces album on four men with beards. they're having free beer, burgers 'n' dogs, a few acoustic acts and 20% off everything used for "record store day" on saturday. sounds like a party to me.

drinkie-talkie at the bull and bush with terry and hickey tonight. terry is going to try and video our conversation. i'm going to try to "interview" sparky.

dove hunter on kxt

dig it. thanks to the italian kid for sharing.

o.c. in atx, 11.18.2010

i don't make pilgrimages to see bands anymore. but this might be an exception. thanks to bassist extraordinaire paul unger for sharing.

4.13.2010, ftw

walking home from work in the cool (but not chill) evening last night felt just about damn perfect.

4.12.2010, ftw

played "rock 'n' roll secretary" this morning. after the 5.30 burrito benefit, putting the stoogeband on hiatus until the fall. waiting to see if HIO dates in austin/houston eventuate and will discuss future plans and other stuff at drinkie-talkie this wednesday. my sweetie 'n' i need to start planning our east coast va-ca for july. and a new clean feed release just arrived in the mail. planning to spend tomorrow doing yard stuff before work. i need a task other than "getting exercise."

4.10.2010, oak cliff

in the event, bolsa was too busy (sorry, but i don't wait an hour and a half to eat _anywhere_), so we toddled across the street to the original gloria's (there's another one in the fort, in montgomery plaza) for some groovy salvadoran chow -- thinly sliced meats, fried plaintains, argentine sausage, black beans and rice, with chocolate flan for dessert really made it. oak cliff was in the middle of its arts crawl and unveiling new murals along 7th street, which seemed a li'l more organic and locally-focused than the main street arts fest in the fort, which in fairness i haven't visited since my kids got too big to enjoy "ice cream of the future." noticed a new space on the davis side of the kessler theater building, which is apparently the new home of cliff notes bookstore.

the band descender is the latest project of casey hess, ex-doosu (beloved of the old wreck room crew) and burden bros., whom i last saw doing his solo electric jump rope girls thing in the front room at el wreck. they're very pro and very rawk, with a hard-hitting drummer, arena-rock sonics and stage trip (lots of guitar changes) laced with some metal moves (right-hand-muted dropped-D guitar-bass unisons). i wondered how they felt about the blonde girl (somebody's g-f? the next warhol superstar? america's top model contestant?) who used them as the backdrop for a photo op.

i asked the bassplayer from true widow whether it was safe for her to play with beer bottles atop her rig; she said she does it all the time. damn solid state amps! (chad deatley from dove hunter started the set with _four_ bottles atop his rig and none of 'em budged, either.) true widow's guitarist used four different combo amps to get a harmonic-rich, F/X-laden sound. the band's music reminded me of nothing so much as doom metal of the southern lord variety, done as appalachian folk music. the drummer hit softer than any percussionist i've heard in such a context -- maybe a tenth of the intensity of a trinidad leal or henry vasquez. 'twas all good, though, and true widow's crowd was particularly enthusiastic (and loyal -- all of 'em unassed after their band played.)

as an indicator how disconnected i've become from local music i'm not a participant in, this was the first time i've seen dove hunter, even though they've played as close to mi casa as the ginger man on camp bowie. they've played at spencer's corner in ridgmar, too. you get the impression that these guys really love to play. having seen quincy holloway in the dfw punk doco (with lickity split!) and in person at last saturday's stoogeshow, i figured it was time.

the lineup's now trimmed down to just jayson wortham (voxxx-guitar, ex-mandarin), chad deatley (bass-keys, another doosu vet), and quincy, with new guy will kapinos on guitar. will was in jetscreamer, a denton grunge-blooze outfit, and recently did a solo turn as a one-man band during the tommy atkins benefit at the kessler, inadvertently becoming the only performer that night to make the 10 o'clock news and generously inviting tommy's bandmate daron beck to join him for a psychotic version of "i put a spell on you" (a signature song of daron's from his american idol daze).

while he's still finding his feet in dove hunter, the guitar interplay between will and jayson wortham is already quite stellar -- not in the solo-wank sense, but in the way they interlock their clean-toned lines like muddy waters and jimmy rogers or, dare i say, the grateful dead's weir and garcia. quincy is so in control of time it's scary, playing inside and around the beat like some unholy hybrid of john bonham and sly dunbar. (the italian kid waggishly referred to the band as "dub hunter" for quincy's sub oslo-ish breakdowns in the middle of songs.) words can't express how refreshing it is to hear a rock band improvising onstage in 2010. unfortunately, not a lot of folks hung around to hear the transformational toonage. hopefully, more will be present when dove hunter plays lola's 6th for the good show showcase on 4.23.2010.

kessler impresario edwin cabaniss joked that people in the fort are going to start talking bad about me if i keep spending so much time in his venue. i figure i don't need any excuse to patronize a good-sounding room, run by enlightened folks, that presents interesting, well-curated shows. even if it's 30 miles from my living room. listening now to the james hall disc that jeff liles burned me, as well as eight tracks from james' new album i downloaded free from james' website. i'm _almost_ sorry i'll be playing with the stoogeband and won't get to catch james and the futura bold at the kessler on 4.17.2010.

4.10.2010, ftw

slept in until 11a. reviewed the dangits' debut cd for fw weekly. hope the italian kid will be able to run it before the release party 5.15 at caves in arlington. also penned a review for the i-94 bar (which the barman will post when he gets unbusy with the niagara/hitmen tour of orstralia) of a new cd on saustex media (whom i like to think of as the smog veil of the southwest) by the service industry, an austin band whose fourth album calm down is maybe the smartest pop-rock noise i've heard since the first goodwin album.

tonight, my sweetie 'n' i are heading over to oak cliff to have a nice dinner at bolsa and hear dove hunter at the kessler theater. apparently will kapinos, who did an interesting one-man-bluesband thang at the benefit for tommy atkins held at the kessler a couple of months back, has now joined dove hunter. and jeff liles sez quincy holloway is bringing a harmonica. sounds good to me.

mo' noo yawk rockaroll #3

another one i've posted before that i never tire of. here's an extremely greenwich village-centric take on the whole history of punk rock, performed by a guy who bears an uncanny resemblance to the late cadillac fraf. i think chad would have liked this.

mo' noo yawk rockaroll #2

another guy that taught social studies at my high school was a cousin of the lead guitarist from this band, nyc's "jewish beatles," the blues project. danny kalb was a folkie session guitarist, al kooper had played in the royal teens of "short shorts" fame as well as with dylan on highway 61 revisited, and their band was an eclectic hodgepodge of styles: not just blues and whiteguy soul as their name would imply but also jazz ("flute thing," later sampled by the beastie boys), and folk-rock as in "steve's song" (sung by steve katz, who went on to form blood, sweat & tears with kooper and whose brother dennis managed lou reed in the '70s). sure, i've posted these before, but i never get tired of hearing 'em. the blues project's projections album has been reissued on vinyl by sundazed. if you never heard it, you owe it to yourself.

mo' noo yawk rockaroll #1

too much is never enough, so here are dion and the belmonts from da bronx. dion dimucci was probably the greatest italo-american blues singer ever (seriously), but a guy from his neighborhood that taught social studies in my high school swore that dion got laughed out of the bronx for shaving his legs (the better to fit in those pipestem jeans). you believe whose story you want. myself, i'll take francis davis' "the moral of the story from the guy who knows," anthologized in like young. read that, watch the film of richard price's the wanderers, and go play some stickball.

r.i.p. malcolm mclaren

goodnight, sir. from the nyt.

new podcast episode up: i'm not just staring into space, i'm working

thisun features music from the nervebreakers, t. tex edwards & out on parole, the small faces, the bipolar express, and joe and the sonic dirt from madagascar. c'mon!

the lawn guyland rockaroll aesthetic #2 ADDENDUM

because the italian kid requested it...

HIO world tour continues

artwork by t. horn. (click on the image to make it big.)

new HIO jams online

HIO plays for kids of all ages: the vortex show 04.04.2010 documents our easter sunday follies inside the big structure outside the modern art museum. it's uploaded on terry's vimeo page because our virb page is so pokey.

ADDENDUM: and now, since hickey is more technologically adept than i, you can view it right here.

HIO Plays for Kids of All Ages; the Vortex show 04.04.2010 from T H on Vimeo.

the lawn guyland rockaroll aesthetic #8

ok, just one more, and i couldn't find any video on the smubbs, but they were the favorite band (from lake ronkonkoma!) of the very first kid my age i knew who had long hair (in 1967; we were ten). i did, however, find this blog entry which includes a link where you can download their 1969 album this is the end of the night, which, it turns out, doesn't include the song i thought was by them that i liked. instead, they sound kinda like a big brother-src ripoff; one song's intro is a dead ringer for one of the slow ones from j. airplane's surrealistic pillow. i wish i had recordings of the bands i used to hear in junior high and high school.

the lawn guyland rockaroll aesthetic #7

i need to put this thing to rest, but first, i'd be remiss without including something from the good rats, who've been a band for over 40 years now, the only constant member being frontman peppy marchello. like fidel castro, peppy was once scouted by a major league baseball team (in fidel's case, the washington senators; in peppy's, the yankees -- who else?). his trademark stage prop was an aluminum ball bat, and he used to have an aluminum trash can full of plastic rats that he'd throw to the crowd at the end of a show. his guitar-slinging brother mickey used to wear a kaftan back in the '70s. these days, peppy plays with his grandsons, and they have _lots_ of the very worst band vids you can see on youtube, shot in sports bars, at motorcycle shop openings, on people's lawns under tents, etc. no matter. like the energizer bunny, he just won't quit, and god bless him for it.

the lawn guyland rockaroll aesthetic #6

i feel entitled to hate billy joel because i've had to put up with him a lot longer than you. and not just because every freshman girl at suny albany in the fall of '74 had two records: greetings from asbury park, n.j. and piano man. exhibit a: the hassles, from 1967. maybe if his career in music had ended after this, richie unterberger would have written about him.



exhibit b: attilla. imagine billy as lee michaels, or in atomic rooster.

the lawn guyland rockaroll aesthetic #5

i've seen more copies of the illusion's albums in half price books in fort worth than you'd expect from a '60s band that was primarily a local lawn guyland phenom -- unless there are more expat lawn guylanders here than i thought. this is such a stereotypical piece of late-'60s post-psychedelic boogie that it's almost laughable. (oops, here comes the drum solo.) but not as much as the rumor i heard in the '70s that lead singer johnny vinci used to work on his motorcycle in his mother's driveway in lake ronkonkoma, still wearing his ruffled/spangled stage outfit from '69. (nice sly "sing a simple song" rip here, too.)

the lawn guyland rockaroll aesthetic #4

these two clips are from the mystic tide, a band absolutely no one ever heard during their actual existence. i grew up on goddamn lawn guyland in the '60s, and i never heard a peep about them until richie unterberger wrote about 'em in unknown legends of rock 'n' roll. guitarist-singer joe docko supposedly destroyed all the copies he had of their records, making it impossible for collector tools to make bank selling them on ebay today. good for him. some awesome garage psych, though, this is.

the lawn guyland rockaroll aesthetic #3

i've posted this clip by the vagrants -- the group leslie west (nee weinstein) was in before he saw cream at the fillmore while on acid, hooked up with felix pappalardi, and went heavy (in the musical sense; les was always a substantial chap) -- before, but it's relevant to the current topic and i just dig it. although their version of "respect" appeared on the original nuggets, this sounds more like what jimi hendrix said he'd never hear again. i particularly like the way leslie steps down off the three-inch riser to take his solo, then _steps back up_. after he saw the who, he started doing feedback-laden versions of the "theme from exodus" at the northport roller rink, and smashing guitars.

the lawn guyland rockaroll aesthetic #2

say what you want about the vanilla fudge: without them, no deep purple, no led zeppelin. (zep opened for them their first time in the states and learned a lot.) who cares if there wasn't an ounce of subtlety or finesse within a mile of these guys? or that mark stein, the organist, wore a wig? or that every douchebag drummer on the island in the '70s used to "take from cawwwmie?" they proved the power of bombast, and we've been living with the results ever since.

the lawn guyland rockaroll aesthetic #1

the alpha: the young rascals. felix and dino were in joey dee and the starlighters of "peppermint twist" fame. dino's stick twirling is still a marvel to behold. a real showman, in the krupa-bellson tradition.

bo diddley

diddley bow

The Bipolar Express

Anybody remember the garage rock revival of the '90s and '00s? Bands like the Pretty Things and the Monks that were too weird for the actual '60s came back for their 15 minutes of fame in the decade when "irony" became an aesthetic, along with energetic young upstarts like the Mooney Suzuki (whose self-produced demo CD I now wish I hadn't given to the guy whose amp I used to borrow for gigs) and, closer to home, the Gospel Swingers.

In an age of maximalism, Nuggets was given the deluxe reissue treatment times two, and for a moment, we were awash in a sea of fuzz 'n' Farfisas and maraca-shaking frontmen with Brian Jones-via-Greg Shaw bangs. By the time the Hives and Jet showed up, I was as burnt out on "garage" as I was on CDs by new bands that sounded "like the MC5," and the garage nazis who'd stand against the back wall while Dead Sexy was playing, stroking their chins and muttering "He's using a wah-wah pedal!" -- their purism as much of a blind alley as blues orthodoxy is.

One of my big disappointments from that time was the fact that the Gospel Swingers -- who admittedly showed up a little "late for the trend" -- didn't make a bigger splash. They definitely had the goods, from Quincy Holloway's hulking presence up front to Alex Cuervo's slide bass to Kari Luna's agile keys. Hank Tosh drummed for the Swingers, as he also did for the Deadites and Feast of Snakes, and he was one crisp, stripped-down trap-kicker. He's doing the same thing now for the Bipolar Express, a Dallas band in the grand old style (not to be confused with the identically-named Seattle outfit) that the li'l Stoogeband has gigged with.

By now, there's no trend left to be late for (well, maybe in Austin...); these guys are just playing what they love for laughs and high times. Joe Jarvis fronts the band with a hearty, hale-fellow-well-met manner, Scott Krakowski plays crunchy guitar, Matt Powers locks it in the pocket with Hank, and Scott Boothe fills out the sound with organ washes that'd make Felix Cavaliere proud.

On their demo CD-R, they play a version of "I Don't Need No Doctor" that's more hopped up than Brother Ray's original (which I revere) but less so than Humble Pie's execrable excess (which I loved). Matt's bass is noticeably flat on "Street Where Nobody Lives," but that shouldn't bother you if you dug the early Stones, whose guitars were _always_ out of tune.

They slow down Bob Seger's Nam-vintage antiwar opus "2+2=?" (here listed as "2 Plus 2") for a more apocalyptic edge. "I'm A Loser" isn't the Beatlesong but rather, something that hits like a 12 X 5 outtake, only more swingin'. Probably the best thing here is "Mexican Fuzz," a road song which reminds me of nothing so much as the Flamin' Groovies' "Headin' For the Texas Border," and that's pretty damn fine indeed.

my scrawl on the i-94 bar

a review i penned of the small faces dvd all or nothing 1965-1968 (a fan's dream with 27 complete performances) is online now.

Joe and the Sonic Dirt From Madagascar's "A to E are Ex, Why, and Z"

Full disclosure: Matt Hickey (whose nom de disque Joe and the Sonic Dirt From Madagascar is) is one of my best friends, and we play together in Hentai Improvising Orchestra. That said, I maintain without reservation that his new album, the third under aforementioned unwieldy rubric, richly deserves your attention.

I was a fan of Hickey's earlier bands, the Rio Grande Babies and the Fellow Americans. I wasn't alone. Hell, back in 2008, even nationally renowned rock scribe Chuck Eddy of Village Voice/Stairway To Hell fame weighed in with a favorable mention of their Search For Numb EP -- albeit one written under the misconception that the T-shirt Hickey wore in that disc's cover pic was inspahrd by Pere Ubu (um, it wasn't, but don't tell Chuck). Unfortunately, no sooner had the virtual ink dried on the virtual page than pretty-boy frontman Jeff Prince deserted the FAmericans, leaving Hickey to handle vocal chores on their recorded swan song, Debut No. 3.

You could tell just by watching him that Hickey wasn't comfortable fronting a rock band, and he still probably isn't the world's biggest fan of performing live. I was surprised, though, when he expressed an interest in PFFFFT!, the now-defunct, rock-based improv outfit I was playing with the year that the wheels came off his band, and even more so when he sat in with us on synth. Apparently his musical interests were broader than I'd imagined. (He's an Anglophile to the core, and fairly '80s-centric, although he demonstrates an awareness of earlier musics.) He's really flowered in HIO, as have all of the core members, in different ways. Maybe Terry Horn wasn't completely bullshitting when he wrote that "hentai means metamorphosis, transformation" (just don't try to Google it).

I remember in particular one night when I called Hickey when I got off work to remind him not to forget to bring his synth to a gig. (These days, he mostly plays electric gopichand, a homemade variant of a classical Indian instrument.) When he replied that he was eating dinner at the IHOP on University Drive and didn't think he'd have time to make it back to his home in Weatherford, I shrugged it off, but he went to CVS and bought a toddler's mini-keyboard and a singing Easter card, which wound up being his instruments for the night. We like to give him shit about having to go home to "slop the hogs," but the rhythm of his life revolves around caring for the animals that he and his wife (who's a veterinary technician that writes novels about wolves and unicorns) keep. A little out of the ordinary, in the same way my life or Terry's life is. Maybe that's why we've all gotten on so well as a drinking and athletic club/improvising orchestra.

As I said earlier, A to E Are Ex, Why, and Z is the third release under the JATSDFM rubric. The first one, Romance of the Artifact I, released in a limited edition of one, consisted of a quarter of an LP record, glued to a turntable. I wrote that the second, Match of the Day, sounded like "the noise a cassette makes while it’s getting mangled by an unruly tape player." I'm not lying, then, when I say that nothing in my experience prepared me for this aurally engaging slab of ambient wonderment.

Hickey's long been a fan of the cutup and the remix. In fact, my favorite thing HIO has recorded was his first remix of our session with trombonist Patrick Crossland, possibly because he kloodged all of my guitar wankage into a multi-layered, backward Are You Experienced?-style freakout. Match of the Day was a 45-minute, Metal Machine Music-like endurance contest that consisted of overlaid, unrelated musical snippets. (He's been working with other bands in his home studio, too, recording One Fingered Fist's terminal set of tracks and mastering Great American Novel's debut.)

On A to E Are Ex, Why, and Z, he seems to have gained enough confidence in himself to risk making something beautiful. The sound of the tracks is spacious and texturally varied, unlike the droning atonal monotony of its predecessor. There's an air of melancholy and even spirituality about these tracks, particularly the last three -- "XO Oxo," which Hickey created for the soundtrack of Terry's short film Bird Revolution; "Ypres," which isn't a Zombies "Butcher's Tale" like I was half-expecting from its World War I history buff author, although somber and evocative of a doomed man's thoughts; and the closing "Zombie City," which reinforces my belief that this is the best groove record to come out of Fort Worth since Marcus Lawyer's Top Secret...Shhh. It's downloadable for free from the link above. Do yourself a favor and check it out. I've been listening to it since Hickey put it in my hand, and I will be for some time to come.

stoogeaphilia @ the moon, 4.17.2010

(click on the image to make it big.)

new rocket from the tombs single!

4.3 and 4.4.2010, ftw

the li'l stoogeband played at the grotto on saturday night for shiny princess linda's 27th birthday. it was supposed to be a going away party for roderick dove, as well, but rod decided against going back in the army. hooray! prophets of rage played first.

i got off work at 7:30p and needed to get some chow and physically/mentally/physically prepare myself for stooge action, so we missed out on the dfw punk doco at 1919 hemphill, but i understand they had a good turnout -- about 60 folks, although i'm not sure how many of them donated. bittersweet, as jamie shipman has decided to pull the plug on the "conscientious projector" film series at 1919 due to low turnouts. can totally understand (i still remember PFFFFT! -- futility can be demoralizing), and feel bad because i never made it to a showing. look forward to buying jamie a beer at a show sometime.

mike haskins and bob childress from the nervebreakers were at the movie, though, and mike and his bride miss patti came to the stoogeshow afterward. mike brought me a dvd of the film, which they were giving out at the showing, and later on, it was good to see t. tex, barry, and paul quigg being interviewed, the nb's and the telefones playing (the 'fones played my fave song of theirs and i was reminded that they were my future ex-wife's fave band back in the day -- those dirkx boyzzz sure were purty).

while i also dug seeing quincy holloway (also in the house for the stoogeshow) and carey blackwell in some lickity split footage that was included (need to re-read blackwell's memoir home fire now), it highlighted how the doc was kind of all over the map, more a fan's compendium of stuff than an actual narrative of events. from the '70s to the '90s, there are actually enough different stories for three or four different films. but, i'm glad the document exists.

the stoogeband was loud and loose (hear hembree's recording here). soundguy kept telling the guitars to turn down, but when i did to where he was happy, my tone evaporated, and so after awhile i turned back up, which just caused an imbalance with richard, who stayed at the agreed upon level -- my bad, and perhaps indicative that more power can make a guitar player act like...well, a guitar player. we broke the seal on blue cheer's "come and get it" and tried out a new, slower tempo for "johanna." hembree was hyped and started a few songs before i was ready, which was fine. i always feed off his energy onstage.

i unplugged myself a couple of times, busted the epi's D string on "tv eye," and inadvertently soaked the tele in beer trying to play slide with a bottle during the "chaos meltdown" portion of "30 seconds over tokyo." not elegant, but mr. haskins said nice things afterward, so mission accomplished. my sweetie 'n' i had a ball hanging outside with him and miss patti before we played; will have to do it again sometime. maybe in dallas. the latest run of stoogeshows continues 4.17 at the moon.

roused myself early on easter sunday morning for HIO field recording/athletics. after timely pause, mr. horn came to pick me up and we met hickey (whose new joe and the sonic dirt from madagascar manifestation a to e are ex, why, and z is a quantum leap forward from match of the day and richly deserves your attention; review to follow) at the modern art museum, where we planned to record inside the vortex. terry and i discussed whether it'd be better to record before or after our walk/jog; in the event, we decided to "run" first, to test the effect of endorphins on our performance, and not worry about the after-church crowd showing up at the museum if we recorded later -- a fortuitous choice, it turned out.

we took the trinity trails to downtown, up the hill on taylor street and around by heritage park, then back via belknap and summit to west 7th an through "the curmudgeon zone." i provided a running commentary of tornado memories, which hickey and terry insisted was fabricated. (i'm not that imaginative, fellas!) arriving back at the museum, we found that not only was the museum open, but there were lots of folks there. we elected to play anyway, using two cbg's (i quickly fucked up the tuning on the 6-string, which terry managed to repair), hickey's gopichand, and a battery of percussion instruments that included bottles, cans, a variety of beaters, and the handheld fans and body massager that i used at the kessler on 3.28. terry set up the video camera, and away we went.

during our performance, a few folks peered into the vortex (ha!) to see what was making all that noise. i don't know that i agree with terry's assessment that this was the largest crowd we've played to, but my field of view was limited by my position; maybe he's right. we were joined by three small children, who came running into the vortex while we were playing. i handed them instruments and soon they were joining in on our performance. i talked to their dad later and he said he'd seen us drinking at the bull & bush, and seen me at the market (humbling/mortifying moment of the week: coming offstage at the grotto and having a girl walk up and tell me, "you sold me my vitamins!"), so i guess we didn't seem like creepy strangers to him. haven't heard the results yet, but it felt like a successful session, with some moments of good communication and the "naive" approach that we go for.

trying to book some HIO dates with the austin/dfw aggro clear spot in june. we'll host them at 1919 here in ftw and at the phoenix project in dallas; hoping to secure dates at super happy fun land in houston and the church of the friendly ghost in austin. film, as they say, at 11.

walk away renee

shit video quality, great song.



And when I see the sign that points one way
The lot we used to pass by every day

Just walk away Renee
You won't see me follow you back home
The empty sidewalks on my block are not the same
You're not to blame

From deep inside the tears that I'm forced to cry
From deep inside the pain that I chose to hide

Just walk away Renee
You won't see me follow you back home
Now as the rain beats down upon my weary eyes
For me it cries

Just walk away Renee
You won't see me follow you back home
Now as the rain beats down upon my weary eyes
For me it cries

Your name and mine inside a heart upon a wall
Still finds a way to haunt me, though they're so small

Just walk away Renee
You won't see me follow you back home
The empty sidewalks on my block are not the same
You're not to blame

quine in '69

that's robert, playing in a band called bruce's farm, via the houndblog. well i'll be damned.

jatsdfm's "a to e are ex, why, and z"

download the new album by matt hickey's solo project joe and the sonic dirt from madagascar here. then listen to it all day long.

white light/black rain

2007 doco about the destruction of hiroshima and nagasaki by u.s. atomic bombs. on dvd if you can stand to watch.

april fool

new HIO audio online @ virb.com

the first of three sets we played for the "raided X+" art event at the kessler theater in oak cliff on 3.28.2010 is online now. (you gotta scroll down.) second set will be up whenever virb's glacial upload process is complete. third set wasn't recorded.

ADDENDUM: second set's up and sounds _evil_.

4.1.2010, ftw

doing rock 'n' roll secretary boo-shee this a.m. yesterday, i got so into writing that i lost track of time and was 40 minutes late for work. guh. gotta watch that. still not listening to much of anything besides arvo part's litany and the new gorillaz album. dig the way "superfast jellyfish" (with de la soul) reminds me of a hip-hop who sell out, while "cloud of unknowing" (with bobby womack) sounds like otis redding fronting the flaming lips. damon albarn -- who'd a thunk it. "woo-hoo!" indeed.