Didn’t really feel like writing much during the tour, as I was too busy eating great food and trying to have a good time. It was a great time, almost all of the shows were outstanding, and we met a lot of wonderful people. Can’t wait to go over there with Tre Orsi at some point. Photos and stuff to come once I find my SD card reader.
This week, continuing work on the Jasper Stone record and catching up on Tre Orsi practice. We’re trying to book a few more shows before the end of the year, and will do a little bit of recording here and there over the next couple of months. What will come of these recordings, I dunno!
My body is just now re-adjusting to CST; I have been waking up at 5:00AM every day since I got back. Today I managed to get up at 7:00, which is a sign of progress.
Whew.
Put it about 70 hours at UNT in the past week, including two overnight stretches. There’s more to come this week, I’m sure, as I slept all day yesterday to recoup and am now a day behind.
Also managed to record a few songs for Ft. Worth-based doom/sludge metal band, Four Days to Burn. They’re the first real metal band I’ve recorded in a long time, very much in the Southern Lord vein, with two singers, one growling, the other screaming. So much guitar, these guys! Very simple setup on this one: guitars and bass together in the iso room. MD421′s on the guitars, an M88 and KSM141 on the bass. D112 on the kick, SM57 on the snare (!!!), double-mic’ed toms, spaced KM84′s pretty high overhead, and TC40k’s on the floor, delayed 22ms. Vocals were the SM7 and a distressor. We tracked 7 songs and mixed two of those for a 7″ on the Dada Drumming label, who are also supposed to release a Great Tyrant 7″. I suppose I’ll be recording that as well.
Received a letter from Touch and Go today with details re: the 25th anniversary thing. They’re so organized, honest, etc — just so damned admirable.
More practice this week, then a session starting on Sunday. After that, sleep, I hope!
Via Denton ex-pat, Lani: The Monks on Beat Club, 1966.
At work, moving ~160gb of data from a SAN-attached volume to an NFS volume in order to free up space for our new database server. It’s more boring than it sounds, and I’ve been doing it for the past five hours. All week, I’ve been a ball of nervous energy in anticipation of this major WebCT Vista upgrade: we’re looking at a new database server, new SAN storage, at least three new app servers, and two application updates. Oh, and we had a complete disk failure on a management node, but it’s only used to, you know, process all new course requests. If we actually manage to complete this by Friday, I’m gonna buy myself a sandwich.
Lessee…
Thursday night I mixed Spoon at the Ridglea in Ft. Worth. Incredibly wonderful fellows, and a great-sounding band. The show was sponsered by Camel, which I think made everyone involved more than a little apprehensive.
Slept for an hour that night, then awoke at 4AM to catch my flight to Boston for two New Year shows. I feared a dreadfully long line at security, but things moved quickly enough. Took a Xanax before the flight in hopes that it would help me sleep, but I instead spent most of the flight shaking and halfway nodding-off, never really snoozing at all.
By the time I found the rendevouz spot in Somerville and greeted the OSRs, my mind was ready for a rack but my body was happy to waltz around the neighborhood. Found an excellent Portuguese (maybe Brazilian) caf? and bakery just down the street, and sipped the best espresso I’ve had in months while snacking on a lovely little lemon/almond tart thing.
Made my way back to the JamSpot (the actual name of this rehearsal studio), and attempted a little bum rack (using the NY Times as my pillow and the Financial Times as a blanket), but the hip hop/r&b band next door kept repeating the first 12 bars of their song over and over again and my mind just couldn’t rest.
After the New Year had remembered enough of their songs to not completely embarass themselves, we made our way over to the Middle East. Load-in and soundcheck were uneventful, save for exchanging pleasantries and WTF! w/ Kahoots and Nina Nastasia. The show itself was great on all counts: good turnout, friendly staff, and all three bands were excellent. Afterward, Donofrio set off for Winchester and his friend Brock’s house for a good night’s sleep.
The next morning after a nice breakfast w/ Brock, we took off for a farm owned by Josh’s family. There we picked fruit (amazing plums) and chatted with his relatives. Quite beautiful up there, but we had to split for NYC. On the way, found both The Great White North and Dr. Hook’s Greatest Hits on cassette, just as I did on the Shearwater tour. Could someone have just dumped a few thousand of these on an unknowing populace?
Anyhow, New York — Williamsburg, to be exact. Usual rock club stuff: load-in, soundcheck, shit-shooting. Caught up with Denton ex-pat and Northsix house guy, Deron Pulley. He gave me a CD-R of remastered Banes recordings, which made me happy as a lamb. Turnout again was good, not great, but everything went fine.
After the show I was to take the train back to my aunt’s apartment on the West Side, but after waiting for over 30 minutes and then seeing the Brooklyn-bound L on the Manhattan-bound track show up and sit there for 10 minutes, I said “WTF!” and left for a cab. On the street ran into Rebecca Gates, which was quite pleasant. The cab took 15 minutes, cost $18, and was the best idea I’ve had in a long time.
Sweet, beautiful rack @ Suze’s place; slept with the windows open, even. Spent the next day hanging with Jamie, eating food, drinking coffee, shopping for clothes in a flea market, and picking up a few records. I bought her a copy of G?tatch?w M?kurya’s ?thiopiques disc both as an early birthday gift and as a thank-you for putting me up so many times in Brooklyn.
My flight outta NYC was at 7:15, and I didn’t get into the cab until 5:10. I was sure I was to be fucked due to lines at security, but ’twas calm at LGA and I had plenty of time to down a Xanax and a couple of beers before the flight.
Whew!
Jams purchased this go-round:
Spent the past five days in the studio with the Kadane and McKay brothers, recording for what will eventually be another Bedhead Loved Macha/Macha Loved Bedhead-type affair. There were a few pre-determined songs, but I spent a couple of days TV-watching and bathroom-cleaning while the Bros. knocked out a few hours of jams. I ended up staying at the studio every night along with the fellows, usually not finding sleep until 4 or 5 AM. At the end of it all, there’s about 70 gigabytes/2 hours of music to sort through.
Peter’s record has been mastered, though I need to talk to John Golden and have him make a few adjustments. Sounds great, though.
Mixing Spoon this Thursday, because their usual guy (Jeff Byrd) is out of town. Flying into BOS on Friday morning for two shows with The New Year (BOS and NYC), then back home Sunday where I hope to catch up on sleep and housework.
So much band work to do, and about 7 weeks to do it. We cannot cancel this time. We do this or we die! I’ve been demoing stuff here in GarageBand in between catching up with email. The Bros. jams have actually given me a bit of hope that we can pull this off.
“Rock music is about moving big black boxes from one part of town to another.” — David Thomas
Peter Doran, associate professor of earth and environmental sciences at the University of Illinois at Chicago in The New York Times:
Our results have been misused as ?evidence? against global warming by Michael Crichton in his novel ?State of Fear? and by Ann Coulter in her latest book, ?Godless: The Church of Liberalism.? . . . I have never said that ?the unexpected colder climate in Antarctica may possibly be signaling a lessening of the current global warming cycle.? I have never thought such a thing either.
The disappointing thing is that we are even debating the direction of climate change on this globally important continent. And it may not end until we have more weather stations on Antarctica and longer-term data that demonstrate a clear trend.
In the meantime, I would like to remove my name from the list of scientists who dispute global warming. I know my coauthors would as well.
From Drive Democracy:
Why, then, is Rick Perry so keen on selling off our public land to individuals and foreign companies? Rick Perry is so proud of Texas he is selling it.
Recently, Texas Parks & Wildlife warned that budget cutbacks ordered by Perry might require the sale or closure of 18 state parks.
Also, Parks & Wildlife transferred 12,000 acres of the Black Gap Wildlife Area in Big Bend to the General Land Office so it can be sold.
See the video, God’s Country: For Sale at YouTube:
Interesting reading: A Timeline of CIA Atrocities:
When a Greek ambassador objects to President Johnson about U.S. plans for Cypress, Johnson tells him: “Fuck your parliament and your constitution.”
Related: excerpts from the CIA’s Freedom Fighter’s Manual.
More interesting reading, this time a bit on the inadequacy of 401(k) plans, from the Dallas Morning News:
Bottom line: Regardless of future wage gains, workers will have to save more than 9 percent of income (6 percent on their own with a 3 percent employer match).
Those who save less, or have a smaller employer match, will have a greater shortfall.
Employees who have high-expense 401(k) plans that reduce net returns below 8.5 percent will also have a shortfall, as will those whose employer match is company stock that underperforms.
Older, but still great: The Dead C playing “Sky” on NZ TV in the early 1990′s:
The Pere Ubu Protocols and Operations page:
We reserve the right to be arbitrary – it is our art.
As soon as possible Mr Thomas must be guided to a chair from which he may play his accordion & dominate the immediate space in an absolutist manner.
It is a shameful thing for a man to pose for a picture and we seek to hide our shame from the public. Photographers, note: we will not run or jump or do anything. Don’t ask. Don’t think you can wear us down. Many have tried. We do NOT relax.
Read the novel “Catch 22″ for a full understanding of the principles involved.
Finally, in the Village Voice, Robert Christgau sees 32 shows in 30 days:
In the 65th year of my life on this planet, I went out to see live music every night (or day) of June. The main reason I conceived this project, which many considered nuts, was that I wasn’t liking enough new guitar bands.
From Rasmussen Reports, via Burnt Orange Report (emphasis mine):
In a race that needs a scorecard to keep track of its cast of characters, voters aren?t sticking to party labels when choosing their candidates of choice. Strayhorn, currently holding office elected office as a Republican and running for governor as an Independent has a higher favorable rating among Democrats (57%) than Bell, the party?s official candidate, who pulls a 50% favorable rating from his party peers.
Should this really surprise anyone? Bell has almost no presence as a candidate; if anything, I’d say he is the spoiler in the election, not Kinky.
Last April I charted myself on the The Political Compass. While stumbling along today, I took the quiz again. This is the result:
Economic Left/Right: -6.88
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -6.97
Compared to the last time:
Economic Left/Right: -7.88
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -7.59
Dear Lord, did I actually just drift to the Right a little???
Bah, whatever. I’m still more radical that the Dalai Lama and Ghandi.
The Evolution of Fry St.