Blinkin' Lights, episode iii

“LOOK AT YOU WITH ALL THE BLINKIN’ LIGHTS!”

a recording memoir by Leo McClusky and Gordon’s Gin

*THE DAY OF THE GIG*

There is a vast, dark chasm that exists between The Plan and The Moment of Fruition. Inhabiting this chasm – maybe it is composed of them – lurk the Goblins of Random Malice and Spite. They are perverse. They exist to thwart and emperil (fuck you Spell Checkk I like this word) the Recording Engineer. Especially when said RE is a flailing hack with a mediocre complement of tools for combating the evils he IS capable of hearing. And morespecially when that flailing douchewagon has to worry about PA, too. But that was my choice. Better than risking a communication gap with the house sound guy - which could mean compromising our recording schematic.

So June 17th arrived. Show time was set for 8:00pm.

Ron and I loaded in around 3:00pm and got right to it. We set up on a large raised platform where several rows of seats used to be. This situated us in the rear/center of the theater. Originally I wanted to set up camp in another room and monitor with speakers, but we were hindered by numerous practical problems. We were also running PA, so our remote Control Room was not to be. We would have to monitor the recording with headphones.

I have a nice, inexpensive pair of Audio Technica M30s. They are very comfortable to listen to, however they tend to exaggerate low end in a dangerous way that might prompt excess cutting and shelving, thus leeching signal of crucial body. But after a few years of using them, I know this. Besides, we’re not EQing anything on the way in. The main thing was to listen for distortion as we dialed in optimum recording levels. We would also be able to listen for any source that just sounded plain bad or wrong due to bad mic choice/placement.

Faker drummer Johnnie D loaned us two Presonus M80 mic preamp units – each good for 8 clean, powerful signals.

For vocal recording we brought along the Joe Meek VC6Q British Channel. This thing has flattered every voice we’ve ever run through it. It’s also great for saving a shitty snare drum recording, FYI. Had we been monitoring on speakers I might have tweaked the EQ a tad – the built-in Meequalizer is a powerful and pleasing-sounding tool.

And the piece de resistance? The ancient Akai tube reel to reel recorder Ron picked up at a garage sale for $3.00. This thing kicks ass. I have no idea how old it is, or how much it went for new. It no longer plays tapes, but the built-in mic preamps are slamming. We set aside one channel of this puppy for the kick drum.

Oh yeah, track count? A whopping 15. 14 when you subtract the Center Room Mic I neglected to patch in. Ah… doucheIamdoucheamI.

Setup was fairly smooth. Despite our best efforts, we wound up with quite a tangle of mic cords onstage. “Neatening” meant shoving them all into one cluster at the back of the riser. I decided not to get too worried about the whole trip-hazard thing, though. I’ve never really seen horn players headbang a la Priest or run around the stage like Mary Lou Retton on crack a la Classic Van Halen. Although I might pitch this idea to Andy…

One little ripple during the setup phase:

Ron, always on top of safety concerns when we do any sound work, dutifully taped down every cable on that stage, and the 100’ snake harness that ran directly under the audience seats to our mixing station.

That’s when Lenny, the theater’s technical director approached me. To this day I applaud his calm – scarce and frayed as it may have been.

“Is that duct tape going to pull up our paint?”

The stage had recently been painted a fresh coat (or several) of flat black. We should have brought gaffer tape. Damn it, I knew this – but do I always think of shit when I should? Evidently not. And now the possibility loomed that when we went to pull the duct tape up at the end of the night it most certainly would grab every coat of paint with it. The results would be ugly.

Much as it killed me – seeing as this was a non-profit, volunteer gig in the first place, I swore to him I would buy paint and come back the very next day and re-do the whole thing. He did not warm to this idea.

(Has word of my criminally bad painting skills spread around NJ? The world? I knew my wife’s blog would be trouble.)

“Ron!”

Ron acknowledged.

“What?”

“Stop!”

Ron didn’t seem to think there would be a problem. Since this tangent is actually a little boring, I’ll conclude it by telling you that Ron was absolutely right. Thank Christ.

The band started to trickle in around 6ish. Horns, Piano (Andy), and the drummer.

The drumset had not yet arrived with the bass player – they were on their way in to Jersey from Brooklyn. A nightmare traffic scenario for a Friday night. Ha Ha Ha. We set about soundchecking the horns, vocal mic, and piano, which was useful as far as making sure individual mics and lines worked, etc.; but pretty friggin worthless as soundchecks go. It helps to have all the musicians playing, and at 7:30 we were still without the bass player and the drummer was without a drumset. He had sticks, though.

So my wife showed up, thank god. Elaine is, as, they say, a trooper. How many gigs – from the sublime to the subpar – has she come to now? Almost every one of them. She is my lifeline. She makes me smile and laugh, and stressful moments are less painful when she’s at my side. I could go on…

Unfortunately I tend to be kinda distant when I’m working, but she understands. Hell I bet she’s been paying attention, and someday will probably engineer circles around me.

So shit it is getting really close to 8:00. People are piling up in the lobby.

I don’t remember exactly, but I think it was about 7:45 when the bass player arrived. The drums were hustled down to the stage. Dan Schnelle (which I believe is German for “fast”) put the set together, well, fast. The mics were already plugged in and nearby, so we moved them into position.

“Are we good to go?”

It was Lenny. Or it might have been Bob. But anyway, why is Len/Bob asking me? Oh yeah, cause right now I’d be the guy that’s supposed to know. So, Ron and I did a quick checklist, confirmed with Andy that the band was ready and decided that yup, it was showtime.

After a feedback-plagued introduction by Bob Carr (on the harmonica player’s mic. The harmonica-ist did not make the gig, but this mic was destined to become vitally important), the quintet incarnation of the group took the stage. They opened with “Pasty Mofo.” What a wild and brave choice for an opener, as there’s a long trombone-and-cymbals breakdown featuring lots of squeaks and gurgles. Screw you, commercial appeal! God Bless the IJG.

Oh and fuck, we’re not getting a bass signal to tape. Mother of crap. We had a DI on Kevin’s bass and now it was sending us nothing. I decided there was not much we could do about it without disrupting the band and wrecking their Mojo. The bass was plenty loud in the room, so I gave hope to the possibility of having ample low end from the ambient mics. The trick would be locating the detail of the bass sound in amongst the blend of the other microphones. Fuck indeed. But everything else was working, and the PA seemed to need constant attention, so I chose not to sweat it. We would fix the problem at intermission. Of course, this meant a discrepancy in the recorded bass sound between Set 1 songs and Set 2 songs, but what the hell - this is the fun of live recording. And besides, what was the likelihood of more gear crapping out on us? Chill, baby, and enjoy some of that swinging bop.

There was a funny smell in the air. Something… electrical? Hm.

A little while later we decided we could no longer stand to not have the bass going to tape. The anxiety it was causing actually resulted in us thinking up a decent plan. The plan was to move the kick drum mic so that it was pointed partially at the bass amp – since bass guitar and kick drum kinda work in the same department musically and sonically speaking, why not combine them for now? Ron handled this mission, and no musicians were agitated in the process. Soloing the track in the headphones revealed that the mission had been worthwhile. The kick sounded slightly thinner, but it was still good and present, and now we could hear the bass. Hah, cha cha cha…

Blinkin' Lights, episode ii

“LOOK AT YOU WITH ALL THE BLINKIN’ LIGHTS!”

a recording memoir by Leo McClusky and Gordon’s Gin

* * * * *

Back to the garage. Help yourself to a Parliament. And a beer if you can find one. The questions multiply quickly and run away from you in all directions.

Stereo pair or multitrack? Ideally, a recording like this would be done with two quality microphones selected carefully for the application. They would be placed in any one of several “textbook” configurations to allow for the best imaging, the least amount of phasing problems, and of course optimal sound quality. The ensemble would control and balance its sound levels naturally, and the mics would capture a pleasing blend of ambient and direct sound. One would be able to play a CD of this recording over one’s home stereo, sit between the speakers, and be made to feel as if they were at the show.

That’s all well and good, but we don’t have two high quality mics. We have some decent stuff, but nothing big-ticket. Yeah yeah yeah it’s not the gear it’s the engineer. I believe that to be true- I have heard solid, magical things done on very cheap equipment, but I couldn’t imagine any pair of mics in our collection – on their own – yielding anything better than “hey, good bootleg!” results. Not only that, but I actually employed forethought. I knew there would come a time during mixdown when a horn part might be too low, or the drums might get lost under a sea of brass. I’d be kicking myself in the head. Literally, I would FIND a way to inflict grievous injury upon myself if I couldn’t control the elements of a mix simply because I was too lazy to set up a multitrack system.

How many tracks, then? Eight? We’ll never get it with eight. Sixteen? For a while I was convinced we could get it with sixteen. Two out front, two overheads, kick, snare, bass, vocal, vocal, piano, horns. And then I started to obsess over the drums. Via email I peppered Andy with ridiculous questions that he probably had no time for in the midst of preparing for the tour: Which drummer are you bringing? How big a set? What is his average velocity per tom hit?

You see, having heard a good deal of the IJG’s stuff, I knew that a traditional jazz sound was not necessarily the objective. It would be tempting to just “hang a mic over the drumkit” and maybe stick a mic on the bass drum and be done with it, but there is usually some really wild drum shit going on in their music. The tom work in “El Grupo de Jazz Industriale” is especially exciting. I would hate to not hear the detail. Or not have access to that detail in mixdown. In a studio environment, or any situation where your drums are isolated from the other instruments – even partially, you can maybe get away with not micing the toms. Hope that your drummer is sensitive to dynamics (and arrangement!), crank your overhead mics, and blammo there’s your toms.

When faced with The Unknown, however, the tendency is to err on the side of “more more more.” We have to mic the toms and there’s just no way around it, so we really need twenty-one tracks.

Scary. The more mics the greater your coverage, yes, but you’re also getting into dangerous country. Phase problems you can’t fix, unusable leakage that blurs your total image into an indistinct pile of crap; and of course the more wires you have running all over the stage/venue, the more shit you have to clean up at the end of the night. But I had decided – with much pretense and melodrama - that overkill was the right way to go.

So, at eight tracks per deck that’s three DA38s, we might as well use all twenty four. Why not borrow another DA38 and make it thirty two? We’ll have ambient mics pointing at the stage and ambient mics pointing AWAY from the stage, it’ll be great! We’ll mic every fucking horn they got. We’ll mic their goddamn CAR horns. Spare tracks for guest musicians, dedicated “snare copy” tracks for lining up groups of eight after we transfer into ProTools, maybe some wireless mics to get audience chatter in the lobby before and after the show… oh yeah baby I’m a RECORDING ENGINEER, right?

Ron doesn’t say too much anymore when I get like this.

We have access to maybe nineteen good preamps – we’re gonna need adapters. Shit we gotta come up with a baffle system. Carpet tiles on mic stands? Perfect!

And so it goes. I’m designing recording schemes at home, at my day job (using Excel. Is there anything that says “hey, I’m working here!” better than a spreadsheet?), on napkins, Post-Its - my life is littered with hundreds of scraps of paper that all start with “AmbL, AmbR, OH1, OH2, KK, SN, T1, T2, Bass, PianoL, PianoR, AndyVoc, JillVoc..”

Then of course there’s reconnaissance. Gotta check out the theater in advance, lest we really hang ourselves with The Unknown.

Recon day went well. It was good to see Bob Carr after so many years. It also warmed my black little heart to see the love that is being poured into restoring the theater. I don’t want to botch their story – check out www.12mileswest.org...

Blinkin' Lights, episode i

So today I'm introducing a new feature on JTMOU: a guest blogger. This'll give me a little extra time as I 1. deal with continuing delays on the new record (oh, so that's why these smaller CD manufacturing companies are so much cheaper), 2. continue to digitize (or, rather, Sibelius-ize) many of the scores from the first three IJG albums (building up the quintet book for some upcoming shows and possibly a local weekly gig), and 3. iron out little details for our upcoming trip to the Reno area.

Leo McClusky is, as will become apparent in a moment, an old friend from way back in my callow youth. I always considered him one of the more tasteful of my various heavy-metal oriented guitarist peers--he could bang his head with the best of them, and yet he had no problem making the transition to musical styles that required a bit more, er, subtlety. That was one of the reasons he was so well-suited to the Evelyn Situation. During that beautiful, all-too-brief moment (maybe it was beautiful because it was brief?) that he and Paul Badalamenti were in the band, I felt like we could do anything.

However, what follows is not about the Evelyn Situation (thank heavens). Rather, it's a lengthy piece (so long it will be broken up over several installments) Mr. McClusky penned to document his experience recording what turned out to be the most complicated show in the IJG's debut East coast tour last spring. As you will see, the guy went pretty goddamm far above the call of duty with this project. I can do little in response except remain flabbergasted. That and thank him again publicly and profusely.

Oh, and I suppose the completion of this memoir means two things: first, I've got to "release" the disc all this work was destined for (it was, after all, intended as a special gift for people who came to see the show). And second, I've got to get my own writeup on the tour together. I've been promising it for months and months.

Anyway, enough prattle. Without further ado, I bring you episode i of:

“LOOK AT YOU WITH ALL THE BLINKIN’ LIGHTS!”

a recording memoir by Leo McClusky and Gordon’s Gin

It is with abundant nerve, and a persistent deaf ignorance to all my varied and numerous shortcomings, that I call myself a recording engineer. That is what I love doing most of all – calling myself a recording engineer. The day may come when I can back up this audacity, but until then I am just a hack who points mics at things and scrambles the controls hoping to hell that a listenable piece of music is being committed to tape or hard drive. Playback is the proof, and I’d say maybe one-third of my attempts to date are at best not-too-embarrassing. The rest of it amounts to thousands of hours of squandered time and miles of wasted tape -- ear-fatiguing sonic waste that destroyed the very music it was supposed to reflect and/or flatter.

Success is a combination of… hold on- … aw shit I’ll be right back.

OK, I’m back. Where was I? Success? Good one. Moving on…

I understand that simple approaches often work best, and yet I invariably find a way to use every channel, every cable, every last shitty Ratty O’ Shoppe adapter (by the way, guys, what’s happening to your selection down there? and do you really need my Zip Code AGAIN AND PLEASE STOP ASKING ME IF I NEED HELP JUST LET ME STARE AT THE ADAPTER WALL LIKE A CATATONIC TRUST ME EVERYTHING IS FINE!!!!).

If you stopped reading at this point I wouldn’t blame you. You get the point. I’m an unfocussed mess. On with the story then?

Anyway, I know Andrew Durkin from high school. We really didn’t do much together musically, but if he did in fact write and perform a full-length rock opera for his senior year Independent Study project, then I in fact played guitar for the show and sang one of the tunes. If it really happened, then he really got an “A.” Might have been an A-, just to keep him humble. Cause everyone knows what an arrogant, loud guy Andy is.

I made a laughable attempt at forming a jazz band sometime around then. Andrew politely obliged, as did a few other kind people. We would be jazz, I reasoned, because we would have a cool name like “The Mellotones,” and because I had just discovered minor seventh chords. Mercifully we only had one practice and it was never spoken of again.

Paul Badalamenti and I joined Andy’s group The Evelyn Situation in 1994. That was a blast. Andy wrote these great songs with great lyrics, arranged wild three-part vocals for Jill, Donna, and Danielle, and played acoustic guitar or piano. As for me and Paul, Andy gave us carte blanche. The weirder our guitar parts, the more he seemed to like them. Did we step all over those beautiful vocals? Maybe.

Donna quit and was replaced. I wigged out, quit and wasn’t replaced. Not too long after that, Andy and a couple of the chicks split for the west coast and that was pretty much it for the Evelyn Situation. I don’t need to repeat their whole story at this point. Mainly because I don’t know what happened. Paul is still around.

Scrub forward to 2005. The IJG is coming East, man. Andy’s dragging the whole shootin’ match out here for gigs. One of em’s at a theater co-managed by Bob Carr (another HS alum) and it’s six miles from my house in New Jersey. Hmm…

I could just buy a ticket and enjoy the show, but that’s not me. It had to be recorded. No question. I suggested it to Andy and he was all in favor.

I would spend the two months leading up to the show thinking of nothing but. I also began to hound Ron at every cigarette break.

Now’s a good time to introduce Ron Strebel. I’ve known Ron ever since we played in Joyseed together. Joyseed, despite the goofy name, was yet another good band that spun its wheels in a rut until the motor died and everybody got out and walked home. But this is not the time for that story. Suffice to say, I wigged out and quit. Ron and I remained friends and developed a mutual interest in recording. We’ve also been playing together in the Fakers for around seven years now. The Fakers story, thankfully, is not over. Nor is it printable here…

So yeah, to know me and Ron is to know a smoky garage and an endless conversation about getting music on tape the best way possible. Not having the funds to secure a regular space, i.e., studio- for ourselves, we have to jump on whatever live or basement recording project we can find. We’re much happier when there’s a mission. Remember Martin Sheen in the beginning of “Apocalypse Now?” That’s me when I don’t have a project to occupy myself with. Thankfully I haven’t punched any mirrors yet. As for the drinking and hysterical crying….

[to be continued...]

Go Go: Re-drawn

This may be the one...

What the font?

Been doing a little research on fonts as we're fine-tuning the artwork for Go Go, and found this excellent site. It has an amazing search feature ("What the font") that allows you to upload an image of some text written in a certain font, which it then analyzes and tries to match. Great when you're trying to find an obscure retro font (the dilemma I currently find myself in).

And the test sentences (used to demonstrate the fonts the site finds) are hilarious (see sample above).

Go Go: Drawn

A draft of the cover for our next album. Courtesy of Becky H. at Lonely Records.

Almost done...

State of the P-Union

Up, down, up, down, up, down... is this the only exercise these assholes get all year?!

(Photo courtesy of the the BAG.)

Go Go: Gone

Well, it's off. The next IJG record, which I've been blathering about in this space for the last year, has been sent off to the manufacturer. Should get 'em back by mid-February.

Above are some shots of the (extremely talented and patient) engineers on this project, Michael Kramer (recording / mixing, left) and Chris Landen (mastering, right), as they (first) consider a mix, and (second) become entranced by the wonders of an Entertainment Weekly insert.

(Don't be fooled by the dates annoyingly provided by my digital camera. This session actually took place last week, late at night in the offices of Delos records, where Chris is the in-house mastering engineer.)

Big industrial-strength thanks to everyone who worked on this one. I hope it lives up to the hype. TRL, here we come!

My new theme song (at least temporarily)

"What's Wrong With Me," by the Gardenias. Available on the above compilation (can't get it in the US, so thank [insert deity of your choice] for blogs like this... and BTW, I'll have more to say about said blogs soon).

Anyway, the Gardenias sing:

What's the matter with me
I can't get around like I used to
What's the matter with me
I can't get around like I used to
Well I truly do believe
that old age is creepin' up on me

And so on. There's even a reference to "sweet arthritis"... which is sort of my problem, in the form of Ankylosing Spondylitis. Been flat on my back for over 24 hours now. The pain is, how do you say... exquisite?

Normally I can keep my AS in check, as long as I adhere to a routine of regular massage, yoga, exercise, and acupuncture (oh yeah, and for some reason it helps to go easy on the sauce / coffee, which requires a restraint I don't generally have these days). But every once it a while it sneaks up on me, and KA-BLAM! It's like root canal for the lower back.

Ah well. I gotta be more diligent. BTW, the above collection is highly recommended. Check out Don Gardner's "MY Baby Likes to Boogaloo," or Donald and the Delighters (they sure don't name them like that anymore, do they?) doing "Wang Dang Dula."

Lots of other gems too. Can you believe the labels just want to throw this stuff away?!

The Crow is Hiding in the Tree

Thandie's been throwing out individual words for a while now, but as far as we can tell, this was her first complete, relatively complex sentence.

Sounds like a good song title... hmmm...

Another thing I stumbled across while working on the cover concept for the new record

Don't want to turn this blog into a list of lists, but, well, here's another list. This time the topic is bad album covers. If you check it out, be sure to read the commentary, which is suitably wry. For instance, about the above cover, the compiler writes: "On the epic quest of a lifetime, a band of ancient adventurers cross the darkest oceans, slay the fiercest beasts and scale the highest mountains... in search of meatloaf."

Some of the selections are a bit sick (not in a good way), but most are just funny.

Definitely funny, definitely

The above comes from this photoshop contest over at Worth1000.com. Other notable entries: 12 Monkees and Munsters, Inc. But the whole list is worth a glance. (The contest: combine TV shows and movies.)

Yet even another

This writeup (on the Star Chamber) appeared at the KFJC online review site.

Hard to keep track of these after awhile...

Ain't google grand?

Why do we obsess over all the wrong things?

Why do we get all bent out of shape over provocative album covers, for instance? (Sorry, I'm working on the design for the new IJG record, and in my research I came across this website.)

We don't we care about the things that actually matter? (Thanks to David Corn for that last link.)

Hulled

Just found these words on The Star Chamber by the Village Voice Jazz Consumer Guide Critic, Tom Hull. Here's the link, but I'll cut and paste the relevant portion below anyway:

Industrial Jazz Group: The Star Chamber (2003 [2004], Innova). When rock met "industrial" the music emphasized the machines with their mechanistic rhythms and spurious noise. The industrial era, certainly in the artistic imagination, was marked by the growth of factories and foundries, by the production of steel and the spew of dark smoke. In the U.S. and Europe it took off in the latter half of the nineteenth century, and accelerated so relentlessly we called it progress, up to and through the cataclasm of World War II. Sometime since then we've started to inch into a postindustrial era, one marked by processing of data through electronics and ultrafast communications -- not that the industrial world has faded away, but at least it's been tidied up a bit and nudged out of sight. All of which has nothing to do with this orchestra, but given the misdirection of their name I had to get that out of my system first. The group itself is a nine-piece acoustic jazz orchestra, for all intents and purposes a big band. It is heavy on the horns, with three reeds, three brass, bass-drums-piano, with the piano not prominent -- leader Andrew Durkin holds that chair, but introduces himself first as composer/conductor. It sounds to me like the music is composed throughout, the musicians filling in well-mapped roles, and that may be the nominal concept -- even if the roles require skilled workers, they leave little room for individuals. Moreover, it sounds like it's technically rooted in late euroclassicism -- a music I abhor and have spent most of my life avoiding, but I don't know where else the clustering of trumpets and the interplay of flutes may have come from. But I don't find it cloying -- it's much too cold and clear for that, and that's not a complaint. I've many times quoted Adorno on his preference for ascetic music and lush life vs. the contrary. This music isn't exactly ascetic, but it lives that way. B+

I'm not sure if this actually made it into the paper, or if it will in future editions. Probably not.

Hull is a quirky, interesting guy, and a really great writer. He's got an elaborate, even obsessive rating system--you can find it somewhere on the main site. I must say, I can't imagine organizing my listening in that way--taste is such a flexible thing for me, and though I know what I like, I might like it in different ways at different times. Occasionally, Hull's school-marmish reliance on grades almost succeeds in leeching the fun a reader might have in following his expansive listening... but the site is well worth poking around anyway.

Duke of Earl

So like pretty much every other white piano-playing kid with rock and roll aspirations growing up in suburban New Jersey in the 1980s, I once idolized Billy Joel. Once I had digested everything the Beatles had ever recorded, there was a period (roughly the end of high school through the beginning of my first attempt at college) when I thought he was the shit. I even went to a few of his concerts, thanks mostly to my friend Jeff. For a while Mr. Joel was my number one role model, even though I never saw myself as a singer-songwriter per se.

Tempus fugit, and all that. Saw Mr. Joel on Conan O'Brien a few weeks back. How depressing! Sure, he was older, fatter, balder. But that stuff wasn't an issue for me... pretty much inevitable, you know. However: sad, sad, sad was a story he told about how bored he gets playing all of his hits--playing them to death, to the point where he literally zones out during a performance. (Incidentally, I distinctly remember him relating the similar story to Rolling Stone back in the late 80s--which makes the whole thing even more depressing.)

Cut to commercial. Cut back, and Mr. Joel launches into two relatively obscure gems from his catalogue: "Vienna" and "Everybody Loves You Now." Nice to pull those out and remind us of how consummate his songwriting skills once were. But the performances... good god, pretty much verbatim from the original recordings. Same arrangements, same solos, very little leeway, aside from a few vocal modifications. You would think, being Billy Joel and all, that he could get away with taking a few liberties. Risk losing a few miserable fans who couldn't handle anything new or unusual. But no. Let's continue to live in the past.

No wonder the man is an alcoholic.

One of my favorite lines from a Billy Joel song: "Thought I was the Duke of Earl / When I made it with a red-head girl / in a Cheverolet" (from "Keepin' the Faith"). I recently discovered the "real" Duke of Earl--Gene Chandler, who recorded the tune Joel references in 1962. What a perfect piece of music. The beauty of a Sam Cooke melody, but with a hell of a lot less innocence. Out-swaggers most modern rap tunes, and even features a small two-horn sax "section" (very rare for Doo-Wop).

As I walk through this world
Nothing can stop the Duke of Earl
And you are my girl
And no one can hurt you, oh, no

And when I hold you you'll be my duchess
Duchess of Earl
We'll walk through my dukedom
And a paradise we will share

"Duke of Earl" is sort of naive, lustful, and full of dumb male bravado all at once. Just the sort of thing to prompt artistic risk-taking. I wish Mr. Joel would go back and listen to it again.

A new year, a new label

So you might as well know now... we're not going to release Go-Go with Innova (our label for Angles and Chamber). Instead, we're going with our good friend Phillip Greenlief's label, Evander Music.

Someday I'll explain why. In the meantime, here's a preview of the upcoming release.

Never look back, baby.

A much better W than the one we've got

I'm not ashamed to admit that I like the Christmas carol "Good King Wenceslaus." Sometimes I think it's the only carol I care about... though a bitchen arrangement can make all the difference with even some of the cheesier ditties.

The thing about "Wenceslaus," aside from the archetypal "old world" melody, is the lyrical content, which describes a model of compassion and altruism that most kings / queens / politicians / leaders lack. It's simultaneously hopeful (a model for us to live up to) and poignant / depressing (real world evidence suggests that it is extremely rare for people in positions of power to emulate the good king).

The Roches do a surprisingly good version of this tune on their Christmas record from a while back.

That's all I'm going to say about Christmas this year.

Seen at the CMC

Random shots of the group in action last Saturday evening. All courtesy of Rebecca Dulatre-Corbin. (Thanks!)

So we had a good time, I think, and the group may have even been in better form than it was in San Diego. But there was a catch. The audience was a lot smaller; we had maybe 20-25 people, while Dizzy's was, I'm told, a SRO show (possibly because no one was brave enough to sit in the front row.) To me the audience is the whole point of playing live, and so I couldn't help but feel like the small turnout at CMC was a bit of an anticlimax. Especially after a 5-6 hour drive (or an even longer plane ride, in Jill's case).

On the other hand, we got a pretty nice recording, which I'll be making available on the Internet Archive soon. As I said, everyone was in fine form (though I am beginning to get more and more ideas for how to nitpick us into even better shape). BTW, I've got to say it: Dan Schnelle gets the award for being probably the best drummer we've ever had. Holy shit, he seems to be memorizing the music. And Tiner gets the purple heart; he bit his lip pretty badly earlier that same day (bad news for a horn player), but held things together for the performance rather well.

Rosenboom, Walsh, and Richardson all drove back to LA the same night. That's night quite as crazy as Jill's cross-country trek, but it's close. I continue to be astounded at / humbled by the lengths to which people will go to play in this group.

Anyway, after the performance, I got a little bit of a sense of why the show was so poorly-attended (aside from there being precious little parking, and aside from the dearth of media coverage, which is another story). As we were loading our gear into the van, a fight broke out on the next block. T'weren't no scuffle, neither--it was a veritable rumble involving maybe six or seven guys, vehicles smashing into each other, and eventually a set of cop cars blocking off the street. Kinda reminded me of being shot at in Rochester this past June.

Driving home on Sunday, pretty much all of the van denizens fell asleep except me. I love those fleeting "alone" moments on tour--whether driving the van or heading out to Walgreens at 2:30 in the morning because I realized I had forgotten my toothbrush. They give me a chance to get my head on straight, and get whatever perspective I might need for the next task (and believe me, with a group this large there is always a next task).

Anyway I hope to use January to get "Go-Go" out (finally), and then we're not playing again until February 24-5 (we'll be up in Truckee and Carson City). Stay tuned.

Oh yeah, and how could I forget?! RIP Richard Pryor.

Pre-show goofery

Pre-show, CMC, December 10, 2005.

Top pic, L-R: Oliver Newell (bass), Dan Boissy (alto), Phil Rodriguez (trumpet), Brian Walsh (obscured).
Next pic, L-R: Dan Rosenboom (trumpet), Brian Walsh (tenor), Evan Francis (alto).
Next pic, L-R: Damon Zick (soprano), Mike Richardson (obscured), Kris Tiner (obscured), Dan Schnelle (drums).
Bottom pic, L-R: Robert Jacobson (guitar), Oliver Newell (bass), Jilll Knapp (vocals).

I'll have more to say about this show (and more pix to share) after a bit of sleep, but for the time being, I should relate what is perhaps the most amazing coincidence of my life:

Driving home on Sunday, halfway between San Francisco and LA, we stopped into one of the many rest areas on the 5 to get some gas, coffee, grub, whatever. As I'm heading for the john, who do I run into but Rob Waller, of the LA-based alt country supergroup I See Hawks in LA. Rob is also an old friend from our days teaching WRIT-140 in USC's Freshman Comp program. We actually once did a quirky double bill (I See Hawks and IJG) at the Knitting Factory. Anyway, the Hawks were up north this weekend for the same reason we were...

Paul Laques, one of the members of I See Hawks, is also in Double Naught Spy Car, another great unsung LA group (sort of a surf / guitar exotica outift) that also boasts Joe Berardi on drums. Joe plays on the forthcoming IJG release, Industrial Jazz-a-Go-Go.

Small fucking world, ain't it?

If you're going to San Francisco...

...be sure to wear some flowers in your hair. Oh, yeah, and come see the IJG.

Forwarded from Evander Music announcement list, run by our good friend Phillip Greenlief:

Dear Friends,

This weekend I am super excited to present the Industrial Jazz Group – an outstanding entourage of top-drawer players all assembled to realize the compositions of the mad composer Andrew Durkin. Durkin has forged a strong compositional voice that has quite naturally digested the most diverse forms of the popular song, the early 20th century modernist side of the avant-garde, supremely swinging be bop, soulful do-wop, and an hodge-podge array of post-jazz structures that allow his stable of young lions plenty of room to knock about and rough his delightful melodies into a frenzied, lyrical submission.

If you come to one Evander Music concert this year (and you don’t have long to get out and do that if you haven’t already done so!), come down and catch this wildly entertaining large ensemble that pays homage to groups like Sun Ra’s Intergalactic Arkestra, Charles Mingus’ early Atlantic gems, Raymond Scott’s cartoon bands, junior high concert bands, Ellington’s 1960’s masterworks, and the darker, more carnival sides of the legendary American Bandstand. Check out their top-notch compositions, great musicianship and scores of playful energy – what more could you ask for?

Check out the critically acclaimed Industrial Jazz Group, now preparing to release their 4th recording on Innova Records.

See you there!
Phillip Greenlief

Evander Music Presents
The Industrial Jazz Group at CMC

8 PM, Saturday, December 10
@The Community Music Center
544 Capp Street (between 20th & 21st Streets)
San Francisco, CA
Info: (510) 652-7914
Tickets: $15, $10 w/Student ID
http://www.sfcmc.org/site/

* * * * *

One correction: though we do have a new album popping out any day now, it will not be released on Innova. More on that later.

The moron on C-SPAN right now...

...is Rep. Jack Kingston, a pro-war Republican from Georgia. Did I mention he is a moron?

I'm too tired to elaborate. Google "moron," and you'll find out more about him.

Happy Birthday to Me

Well, I managed to keep everyone misinformed of the fact of my natal day until pretty much late in the game on Saturday evening. If it weren't for the fact that Mike Richardson, one of the new trombonists, was also born December 3, I would have gotten away with it. (Sorry all, I seem to be habitually shy and self-effacing when it comes to birthday celebrations. This is not intended as rudeness, it's just kind of the way I am, for better or worse.)

Anyway... the gig was super-hot. White-hot even. We got what I think was our first official encore--by which I mean that once we were done with the second set, the audience wouldn't let us leave, so we had to pull out "The Truth and the Abstract Blues"--as-of-yet unrehearsed with this large version of the group.

We had a damned fine crowd of people. And most of the group finally took the plunge and wore a costume of some sort. And the guys who didn't seemed not like party poopers, but rather "straight men"--so it worked. The picture above (kindly taken by our new friend Jim Romeo) gives you some sense of the cut of our jib, though this was taken after the show, so a few of us (including me) had already dressed down. (From left to right: Jill Knapp, David Moyer, Dan Boissy, Ryan Perez-Daple, me, Oliver Newell, Hayan Charlston, Cory Wright, Mike Richardson, Phil Rodriguez, Dan Schnelle, Robert Jacobson, Kris Tiner, Ron Christian, Kelly Corbin, Dan Rosenboom.)

Musically, it was surprisingly tight. I think it's possible that that was because of the wacky garb--but maybe too we've reached some sort of magic number or critical mass in terms of personnel. There were a few awkward moments, particularly in set two--for my own part, the challenge was not only focusing on the moment in each tune, but also trying to anticipate how we were going to get from tune to tune. Still, I don't think the audience noticed or cared about these little inconsistencies.

BTW, Thursday evening's discussion with Vince Outlaw was a hoot. If you missed it he will be putting up mp3s soon (if he hasn't already).

All in all, a splendid weekend. Jill, who flew 3000 miles to do the show (and who sounded great), took a number of fantastic shots that I will be posting soon. I'm a very lucky motherfucker.

IJG on TNJT

Just a reminder: I'll be chatting a bit with Vince Outlaw over at The New Jazz Thing on KSDS, this Thursday evening from 8;20-8:40 PM (just minutes before a 9 PM rehearsal for our December 3 show at Dizzy's). It should be fun. Vince, always one of our staunchest (and bravest) supporters, has been graciously spinning a few cuts from the upcoming album, so if you want to get a preview be sure to tune in. Or something like that...

BTW, I just discovered the Captain Beefheart tune "Kandy Korn," thanks to Liam at 8 Days in April. Now there's an overlooked Halloween classic if ever there was one...

But I guess we're past Halloween now, aren't we? That's right, it was just Thanksgiving, wasn't it? I guess Daphne, Thandie, and I hardly noticed, having moved into our new place two days before. Poor Simon (one of our cats) was so freaked by the move that the first thing he did when he got here was to hide in the fireplace. For a day and a half. He used to be gray and white. Now he's just gray. Maybe I'll post a picture soon...

You can't make this stuff up...

Thanks, Mongolia!

Maybe he should stick to malfeasance

Below is a stunningly bad (and disturbing) paragraph from Scooter Libby's 1996 novel, The Apprentice. (Yes, it's that Scooter Libby.) The narrative context is the training of a Japanese prostitute:

"The young samurai’s mother had the child sold to a brothel, where she swept the floors and oiled the men and watched the secret ways. At age ten the madam put the child in a cage with a bear trained to couple with young girls so the girls would be frigid and not fall in love with their patrons. They fed her through the bars and aroused the bear with a stick when it seemed to lose interest. Groups of men paid to watch. Like other girls who have been trained this way, she learned to handle many men in a single night and her skin turned a milky-white."

Get the fascinating, abominable story over at Tom Paine.

About last night...

A few shots from our Club Tropical show, courtesy of Gary Davis. Featuring Matt Otto (tenor), Kelly Corbin (tenor), David Moyer (bari), Ryan Perez-Daple (soprano), Cory Wright (alto and soprano), Dan Boissy (alto), Ron Christian (bone), Kris Tiner (trumpet), Dan Rosenboom (trumpet and PLOTZ!), Phil Rodriguez (trumpet), Oliver Newell (bass), Robert Jacobson (guitar), Dan Schnelle (drums), and yours truly (the guy with his back to the camera).

We're in the archive

The Internet Archive, that is. I just entered Industrialjazzwerke, vol. 1 into the IA database. (IJWerke was the album of outtakes, live recordings, and other miscellaneous stuff that I put together for fans of the group a year or two ago, as part of a fundraising effort. It's not an "official" IJG album, but it could have been if I had had a bit more money at the time.) I also entered a live recording of our 2005 show in Bound Brook, NJ (we appeared there during our June east coast tour). Somehow this live show (not our best, technically, but lots of fun because of the rambunctious crowd--a few of whom climbed onto the stage at one point). recorded by our good friends in the Cosmic Brotherhood of Ra, was input as part of IJWerke by mistake.

So I need to do some disentangling of files. In any case, lots of new IJG audio online.

Speaking of... to get a bit of a preview of the new album, check out the great Vince Outlaw's show, The New Jazz Thing Live, over at KSDS-FM in San Diego (the show airs Thursday evenings). Vince has been a big supporter of the IJG (and new jazz in general) over the past few years, and he's been gracious enough to start hyping our upcoming Dec 3 San Diego show (even though it's still November). To wit: he's already started playing some cuts from the new album (which actually isn't entirely done yet, but is very close).

In addition to being a great DJ, Vince is also a rare cat because of his interest in techhnology and its role in the continuation of jazz as an art form. Off the top of my head I can't think of many--or any--jazz DJs who share his enthusiasm for digital technology and the web. He's really pushing at the boundaries of this new medium, and he's one of the only people out there considering its implications for jazz. I for one say "bravo!"

A First

Wow--as far as I know this is the first time another independent artist (or indeed anyone) has actually cited the IJG as an influence. Very flattering--many thanks, Hoppin' John.

Old airplanes never die...

...they just go here.

The Ivory Tower

Though my "day job" requires that I spend a lot of time cavorting with academics, in general I prefer the company of musicians, since I think of myself fundamentally as a member of the latter group. I get depressed when the two areas merge, as they seem to do with a vengeance in this guy.

He seems to have interesting enough ideas, where one can make sense of them. But unless this is meant as an elaborate joke (entirely possible; this is the web, after all), he seems utterly detached from any possible audience. Try these paragraphs on for size:

"The underlying theory of polyradial or dislocutionary moves and countermoves could, in the opinion of several experimental physicists, form the point of departure for a unified field theory. The basis for this hypothesis are the so-called mytrons, a coaxial matrix of atomic particles whose assumed oscillitory invergence of minus 17 has been confirmed in a number of laboratory experiments. [...] Jerry Zachary Adamki has transposed this matrix onto the magnetic field line systogram of the earth developed by Myra Hodginson and Julius Sundbrunnen, whereby seven 'geosonar bijectives' were determined, i.e. points of interface between earth-immanent micro- and earth-constitutive macrostructure. At these geographical points Adamski will produce specific 'sound markings' on location."

"Dislocutionary"? "Systogram"? "Bijectives"?

Okay, so the presentation is a wee bit jargony. But then we get this:

"[...] with the help of the newest submarine recovery technology, Adamski will raise stones to the surface from an estimated ocean depth of 400 meters and bring them into sonic resonance. This costly endeavor is to be supported by funds from the Jennifer Manilow Foundation for the Promotion of New Music. The expenses incurred by a specially modified deep-sea crane and its crew are expected to amount to around 7,000 dollars per day."

Great. Abstruse and extravagant. Does that make it good art?

Patenting stupidity

So you've probably already heard by now about the guy who wants to patent a storyline. You're also probably well aware of how utterly problematic that is. I know you are all smart people, after all.

But did you actually see the plot? Here it is, direct from the press release:

"The fictitious story, which Knight dubs “The Zombie Stare,” tells of an ambitious high school senior, consumed by anticipation of college admission, who prays one night to remain unconscious until receiving his MIT admissions letter. He consciously awakes 30 years later when he finally receives the letter, lost in the mail for so many years, and discovers that, to all external observers, he has lived an apparently normal life. He desperately seeks to regain 30 years’ worth of memories lost as an unconscious philosophical zombie."

Oooo! Sounds like a good one, huh?! Can't wait to see the movie.

Ahem. What I meant to say was: he's about as good a plot-deviser as he is a legal thinker. (Put another way, if that's the best he can come up with, then maybe we should just let him have it.)

Things to do tomorrow

1. Go to one of these. No president was ever more worth our contempt and scorn.

2. Listen to the mighty Perez Prado over at 8 Days in April. (Now there's a blog.) Click the link, scroll down and dig it. Mondo Mambo may be the first album I've enjoyed listening to repeatedly in, I don't know, a month or so.

3. Consider this flash demo of a new interface for the web. Pretty fucking cool.

Happy Happy

Enjoy.

(Who knew scientists could be so goofy?)

Some things just don't translate...

Check it out: the Simpsons go Arab.

Am I Spam?

Just had the disconcerting experience of being unable to read the spam-fighting character string that Yahoo has incorporated into its email system...

Been gone too long?

So I've been in Chicago for a few days with my lovely family, not for holiday (I can't seem to stop working), but nevertheless without access to a robust internet connection. At first I was anxious about not checking my email twenty times a day, but then I discovered that it was kind of nice to "unplug" from the net for a while.

Anyway, the above photo (taken by yours truly) features Thandie standing in the middle of Millenium Park. It was one of the most astounding places I've been in a while.

In other news, I recently noticed this preview of the upcoming IJG show in San Diego.

Another question

What value has Kirsten Dunst really added to the sum total of human accomplishment?

I'm just asking.

Signage we love, no. 3

Saw this one today. (I'll paraphrase it because, once again, I don't have a cameraphone.)

The scene: an overhead digital sign on Vermont, just south of the intersection with Adams.

The sign: "Stop at the red, or else you'll be dead."

Something like that.

(So what, now, do they have traffic cops poised at the intersection, ready to pick off anyone who runs the red light?)

Come on... you know this is creepy

So. You're an indigenous soldier fighting for the freedom of your country, and you're walking down a dirt path one day, and you see some nitwit in one of these. Do you

a.) run like hell?

b.) laugh uncontrollably (hopefully without getting shot)?

c.) go with the flow, and, Bugs Bunny-like, provide directions to the local barbershop, then go on your merry way?

America is burning redux

My colleague at the IML, Steve Anderson, was kind enough to post the actual image of the LA Times front page; you know, the one I alluded to a few posts ago. You've got to see it to get the full effect.

IJG sighting

Joe Taylor just did a nice piece on us at the Soundstage AV website. Get it here.

The Pyramids

I'll admit it. I've become something of a sucker for surf music. Possibly because so much of it is available for free online.

That's not the only reason, of course. I was always a fan of the film Endless Summer; the idea of going on that sort of massive road trip, without much more than your wits and the clothes on your back, has always been appealing to me (thus my willingness to make the jump to California in the first place). At its best, surfing is the ultimate Hemingwayesque challenge: a puny human trying his or her mettle against the forces of nature.

Anyway, in the rotation right now: the Pyramids. Here's a little bit about them, courtesy of Reverend Frost's blog (where you can also get some of their music):

"The Long Beach, California group achieved some notoriety after [their manager] convinced them to shave their heads just as the British Invasion and became 'America's answer to the Beatles.' During their concerts they'd wear Beatle wigs which they would throw to the audience halfway through the show revealing their bald heads. Hired girls would then storm the stage. Other gimmicks were arriving at a job on elephants or in a helicopter. The gimmicks worked and they were soon appearing on Bandstand and Hullabaloo and in the beach movie Bikini Beach."

America is burning

If you have a chance to look at the front page of yesterday's LA Times, do so.

The banner headline: "Roberts Confirmed as Chief Justice."

The banner image directly under that headline: a wide angle aerial shot of the California fires. Lots of red and orange, and huge plumes of smoke.

The size and juxtaposition conveys the (ostensibly unintentional) message that now that Roberts is in, we should all prepare for a long run of hellfire and damnation. It's quite poetic, in a sick way...

Zombie Jazz

Thanks to Robert Jacobson for passing along this photo of the fifteen piece version of the IJG (which debuted last Sunday). Don't know who actually took the shot--it wasn't Robert, as he's in it--but because of the weird blurring and the bizarre "eye effect" (not redeye exactly, but something similar) it looks to me like we've just returned from the dead. In fact, we had just finished a rather exhausting--though exhilirating--show.

To my ears, the experiment was a success, so fifteen pieces will now be the default size for the group.

Pee Wee rides again

One of the great unsung heroes of American culture now has his own day.

The seedy underbelly of Hollywood (you know, the stuff that is actually interesting)

Fellow bloggers and Hollywood insiders at Query Letters I Love have taken it upon themselves to post the wackiest "query letters" they have received ("query letter" is industry-speak for a missive pitching a film or tv series idea). Funny thing is, most of this stuff is more interesting (albeit strange) than anything Hollywood actually wants to produce. My favorite one so far is Fat Journalist: the Manitoba Years. (Come on, doesn't that sound more fun than yet another episode of The Apprentice?)

The comments are a blast too.

Question

Why does the background of Larry King's studio look like it's made out of Lite Brite?

One-of-a-kind art

Get it here.

Upcoming IJG (from the list)

Q: How many jazz musicians does it take to screw in a light bulb?

A: We thought it was ten, but maybe it's actually fifteen.

* * * * *

That's right, the Industrial Jazz Group will be debuting its fifteen piece incarnation this Sunday (details below). Earplugs recommended (but not necessary).

I don't know what the short and snappy label for such a grouping would be (fifteen-tet?), but I do know which of our esteemed colleagues will be participating. They are, in no particular order:

Ben Wendel (soprano sax); Cory Wright (soprano and alto sax); Dan Boissy (alto sax); Brian Walsh (tenor sax, clarinet); Matt Otto (tenor sax); Damon Zick (baritone sax); Phil Rodriguez (trumpet); Kris Tiner (trumpet); Dan Rosenboom (trumpet); Shaunte Palmer
(trombone); Robyn Javier (trombone); Robert Jacobson (guitar); Aaron Kohen (bass); Dan Schnelle (drums); Andrew Durkin (piano, conducting, compositions, unrealistic expectations).

Stellar players all. (Much too good for this group, in fact.)

We’ll be performing a set of mostly-new material, which has been conceived as a sort of post-apocalyptic ballet in search of some dancers.

Also on the bill that evening are, first, a new as-of-yet unnamed quartet featuring tunes by Ornette Coleman, Brad Shepik, Robert Jacobson, Oliver Newell, and others (with Oliver Newell: bass, Matt Mayhall: drums, Robert Jacobson: guitar, Ryan Perez Daple: woodwinds). And second, the infamous Pablo Calogero Trio.

Hope you can make it!

* * * * *

DETAILS:

Sunday, September 25, at Club Tropical.

Music starts at 6 pm, IJG goes on at 9 pm and will be playing ONE SET ONLY.

Club Tropical is located at 8641 W.Washington Blvd., in Culver City. (FYI, they make the best Salvadoran food you will ever eat.)

Cover: $10 ($5 for students and former "Jazz on a Monday Vibe" patrons).

All ages admitted.

*A portion of the proceeds from this show will go toward Hurricane Relief.*

Now here's something you don't do every day

This morning I cut my thumb on a piece of cheese. It hurt like a motherfucker.

(Explanation: I was cleaning the side of a saucepan onto which some cheese had melted, hardened, and then hardened some more.

Either that, or the cheese stabbed me with a little machete.)

False teeth advertising

A sign seen today:

In really large letters, the words "Free Teeth."
In smaller letters, right underneath: "Whitening!"

I really need to get a camera phone to capture these moments.

More of the mashed stuff, please

I recently discovered Mashuptown, which is sort of an aggregator of various mashups around the web, mostly with a bias toward the strictly dance-oriented stuff. Nothing wrong with that, but nothing I've heard here tops the scope, humor, sophistication, and general magnificence of "A Night at the Hip-Hopera."

Still, there is some good shit, so to speak. My favorite track of what I've heard so far is "Smells Like Booty" (posted last May), which wins points as much for its title as for its musical content: a combination of two particularly monstrous (in more ways than one) hits by Destiny's Child and Nirvana. (By the way, April Winchell recently had a hilarious post that catalogued many of the too many covers of "Smells Like Teen Spirit"-- one of which finds the tune decked out in a gregorian chant style (April's commentary: "smells like nap time").)

Also worth checking out: "Jim, Can You Tell Me How To Get To Sesame Street?" (The Doors plus the Macarena plus the Muppets.)

Hitler Youth

Ah! An old post that I never finished. Let me have at it again.

So a few weeks ago I stumbled into the living room at 6 AM, in a half-hungover, half-arthritic daze, and turned on (what else?) C-SPAN. What to my wondering eyes should appear but an absurdist convention, only slightly disguised as the 27th Annual National Conservative Student Conference. What a way to start the day. Dada isn't dead, it has just become a tool of the right.

Technically, the college kids who assembled for this upside-down hoe-down aren't really in a cult. But it's hard to tell for sure. Why do they all look the same? Why do they all talk the same? Why all the toothy fucking grins?

Truth be told, as someone who spends a good deal (probably way too much, actually) of his time moonlighting in the day-to-day workings of one university in particular, I can tell you that even if there is a liberal bias among humanities professors (which may or may not be true, and may or may not be a bad thing if true), the rest of this environment--the administration, the fraternities / sororities, the trustees, the sports teams, the student body in general--is fairly biased toward the corporate money / power / status nexus. They may not all be pro-Bush, but they tend to love the social status quo--either because they benefit from it already or because they expect to benefit from it soon. So to see this same contingent complaining about "discriminatory treatment"... well, it's just utterly unconvincing to me.

It's also fairly hypocritical.

Turn your Mac inside out

Like this: CTRL-ALT/OPTION-[Apple-key]-8. Same combination to turn it back.


Groovy! Thanks to Cheese Bikini.

'Cause disasters don't rest...

(Even though the president does.)

What we've got here is a FEMA-produced "kidz rap" (kindly ripped and posted by the good folks at Music for Maniacs) about... what else? Disasters.

One line jumped out at me:

"Disaster prep is your responsibility
And mitigation is important to our agency."

So there you have it. FEMA doesn't take responsibility for "disaster prep." That's up to everyone else.

Good gawd, this stuff isn't even funny anymore.

The view from Everest

No, really. Check it out.

Beatle-mania

The Beatles were sort of technologically innovative in their heyday. Why is it that their corporate remnants are such Luddites?

A related question: how much more money do they really need to squeeze out of that back catalog? Why not do something bold and inspiring for the first time in, I don't know, thirty years: just make it all available for free?

Now there's a sentence you don't hear every day

Just heard on CNN:

"Tonight, on Larry King Live: the Dalai Lama takes your calls!"

For reference

Go here to see how much territory the flood would have covered in your hometown.

He's so rich, so German

In honor of that vacuous putz Wolf Blitzer, Daphne and I have been adding "so black" to the end of our sentences at every opportunity.

Fr'instance: "What's for dinner? I'm so hungry, so black." Or: "I think I'll turn in. I'm so tired, so black."

Try it, it's fun.

Lookit

I credit political cartoons with getting me interested in the subject of politics. I can remember sitting in Mr. Tamburo's high school history class (was it called social studies then?), bored out of my mind, drawing caricatures of both Reagan and Mondale (this was during the presidential campaign between the two of 'em). And I used to love to look through the "year's best political cartoon" anthologies--these were among the few volumes I was actually glad our library carried.

Anyway, I just saw the drawing above, liked it, and decided to pass it along. (Why, I wonder, does the president seem to be leading with his crotch?)

Thanks to Molly Douthett.

Not a second career (but we should still kick him out of his current one)

Discovered this great site, and was astounded by the above picture and accompanying analysis. What an ugly, resonant image. My caption: "One of the motherlode cities of American music is being destroyed, but the president can't hear it over the sound of his own wretched, egomaniacal twanging."

There's some amazing stuff at the bagnews site: highly recommended.

Jesus Fucking Christ

She may as well have said that things are going swimmingly.

And again...

Nota bene.

I've been hearing some talk in the media and elsewhere about how "now is not the time for anger." I couldn't disagree more. This is the time for anger--not the kind of anger that prevents us from finding the remaining survivors, or getting quickly into the rebuilding process... but the kind of (dare I say it) righteous anger that motivates those things. We need to nurture the kind of anger that will survive weeks, months, years (if need be)... however long it takes until whoever is responsible for this systemic, catastrophic failure of government is held to account.

When our country is gone, anger is all we have left. And without anger there can be no reasonable hope.

Never forget how you feel about New Orleans at this moment.

Still more...

(Still more stuff that has been forwarded, and that I forward, re: New Orleans.)

Donated money? Please donate a little time. Join the Katrina PeopleFinder Project.

It's easy. All you need is an internet connection and the ability to copy data into a form.

After Katrina many friends and family members have been separated and left with no clear way to find each other. Hundreds of internet websites are gathering hundreds, and probably thousands, of entries about missing persons or persons who want to let others know they're okay.

The problem is: the data on these sites has no particular form or structure. So it's almost impossible for people to search or match things up. Plus there are dozens of sites - making it hard for a person seeking lost loved ones to search them all.

The Katrina PeopleFinder Project NEEDS YOUR HELP to enter data about missing and found people from various online sources. We're requesting as little as an hour of your time. All you need to do is help read unstructured posts about missing or found persons, and then add the relevant data to a database through a simple online form.

To get started please click here.

Questions? Email katrina-people (at) activist-tech.org

Thanks!!!
The Katrina PeopleFinder Team

More on New Orleans

(I used to be a big Allen Toussaint fan. I still think Fats Domino is the shit. Thankfully they're okay. But what about all of the others?)

Music industry in disarray after the storm

By Bill Werde Sat Sep 3,11:32 AM ET

NEW YORK (Billboard) - As flood waters rose in the days after Hurricane Katrina's August 29 rampage through New Orleans and the Gulf Coast, so too did concern for the myriad musicians, business associates, friends and family in the region.

The scope of the loss and tragedy Katrina caused is clear: It will be years before a locale renowned for its entertainment industry is back to business as usual -- if it ever is again.

For the music industry, the top priority became tracking down the missing. Reports began to surface that Antoine "Fats" Domino, songwriter Allen Toussaint (who penned Patti LaBelle's hit "Lady Marmalade") and others had not been heard from since Katrina touched down. On Friday (September 2), Domino, the 76-year-old Rock and Roll Hall of Fame member, and his family were reported safe, having been rescued by boat from floodwaters near their New Orleans home.

The Neville Brothers, long associated with New Orleans, were fine, but Charles Neville could not locate his three daughters.

But it was not just well-known musicians who were missing or displaced. The Gulf Coast, and in particular the New Orleans region, is also home to a thriving community of local musicians who make a living playing jazz, zydeco and Cajun music, especially for tourists.

"I just can't get ahold of anyone," said Jonno Frishberg, a 45-year-old fiddler who earns his livelihood playing Cajun music gigs. "You're talking about a whole community of musicians like me, with no unemployment insurance and no way to make a living." Frishberg and his wife and two children are all safe. "If I didn't have kids, I'd be looking to head far away from here," he says. "I'll still have to go on the road to make a living. I'm just looking for a way to feed my family."

GRIM PROSPECTS

On Wednesday evening (August 31) retail music chains were still scrambling to learn of their employees' well-being, while wholesalers said they had not been able to get through to check on their independent accounts.

"We are in contact with our management team there, but we are still trying to track down our employees," Tower Records senior VP of operations Bill Duffy said. "We have heard from about half of them."

Phone calls to independent stores in New Orleans; Biloxi, Miss.; and Mobile, Ala., either went unanswered or offered only a busy signal.

"We have been unable to get through to any stores in New Orleans," Super D indie sales manager Mark Grindle reported. "We don't know how they are."

As for the retail locations themselves, executives contacted by Billboard were assuming the worst: that the stores were flooded, with massive damage to merchandise.

The shape of live entertainment in the region will be affected for months, if not permanently.

Among the large venues in the region hit by Katrina are the Superdome, New Orleans Arena and Keifer UNO Lakefront Arena in New Orleans; the Cajundome in Lafayette, La.; the RiverCenter in Baton Rouge, La.; the Mississippi Coast Coliseum in Biloxi; the Mitchell Center and Mobile Civic Center in Mobile, Ala.; the Pensacola (Fla.) Civic Center; and the entire Mississippi Gulf Coast casino market.

Home to dozens of thriving music venues, New Orleans is also home to promoters Beaver Productions and Superfly Presents, as well as the site of the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival and the flagship House of Blues club. "We believe everyone is safe," HOB's Kevin Morrow said; as of Wednesday, his club was still dry. "We are looking to relocate some people until we can figure out how long it will be till we can start operations again," Morrow said.

"It's going to be a long road," said Don Fox, president of Beaver Productions. "There won't be any concerts in New Orleans for a while, at least three to six months."

Katrina made a substantial impact on the radio business in and around the Gulf Coast as well. Entercom closed two of its four stations in the area and received assistance from competitor Clear Channel, which used a helicopter to help evacuate Entercom employees from downtown New Orleans.

Broadcasters Clear Channel, Entercom, Citadel, Apex, and the Louisiana State Network have partnered to form the United Radio Broadcasters of New Orleans. Clear Channel VP of news/talk programming Gabe Hobbs and Entercom VP news/talk Ken Beck combined their staff to produce news that will be broadcast over nine surviving radio stations in the stricken
city.

GOODWILL ABOUNDS

Many in the music industry not directly affected by the hurricane set about to assist the victims. Some of the higher-profile efforts included a September 12 Dave Matthews benefit concert at Red Rocks Amphitheatre in Denver; a September 10 special on MTV, VH1 and CMT; and "A Concert for Hurricane Relief," an hour-long TV special scheduled that aired Friday (September 2) on NBC, MSNBC and CNBC, featuring Tim McGraw, Harry Connick Jr., Wynton Marsalis and others. "Our city will come back, but it will take the entire country," Marsalis said. "When you take New Orleans from America, our soul equation goes down."

Marsalis and special guests will highlight the Higher Ground Hurricane Relief Concert, to take place September 17 at Rose Theater in New York. The event will be recorded by Jazz at Lincoln Center. A CD from the event will be released by Blue Note Records with all profits going to relief funds.

Putumayo World Music is also donating proceeds from the sale of two records, "New Orleans," and "Mississippi Blues," to relief efforts, through year's end.

In the digital realm, Napster began selling a "Download to Donate" compilation September 1, with profits going to the American Red Cross. CD Baby, where thousands of independent artists sell their music online, set up a special page to sell CDs from those who wanted their profits to go to the Red Cross.

And on radio, Clear Channel stations are airing PSAs directing listeners to stormaid.com, where they can make donations to the American Red Cross. In addition, Clear Channel Entertainment is organizing benefit concerts and collection drives.

In New York, the rapper Juvenile broke down at a Thursday (September 1) press conference announcing a September 9 telethon on BET. Juvenile lost his house in New Orleans and had yet to locate certain family members. The clothes he wore had to be purchased by his publicist, and his label, Atlantic, had been wiring money to his family, who lost everything in the floods. "Like the effort we put toward war and the tsunami," a red-eyed Juvenile said, "We need to put forth the same effort to saving our own country."

Master P, rapper and head of the label No Limit, was also at the press conference, and also lost a home. Master P launched the organization Team Rescue (teamrescueone.com) to get supplies to those left in New Orleans.

And while the various factions of the robust New Orleans hip-hop scenes had been competitive in the past, Master P said he plans to do an album and tour with members of the Cash Money label and Juvenile. "It ain't about No Limit or Cash Money," Master P said. "It's about New Orleans. We'll do whatever we have to do for our people."

Reuters/Billboard

Mashups will save music, one hit at a time

Jeff, if you're reading this, go here and check out "Tricky Wipeout." When I heard it I had a major flashback back to high school. (Not that that's a good reason for listening, but anyway... check it out, check it out.)

Actually, everybody, go, go. Put down what you're doing. Go hear the above-linked album. The RIAA might not be quite as brilliant as the Kleptones, but they're damned good.

Don't forget the musicians... or any of the rest of this week

It's kind of difficult to comment on the events of this week without sounding a bit like Anderson Cooper (whose sympathy is probably genuine, but who always seems contrived to me... actually, everything on CNN seems contrived to me).

The administration is always talking about how important it is "never to forget." So I'm going to suggest a few things about this week that they should remember.

1. Don't forget that a lot of people died on a bridge in Iraq. I mean a lot of people. Civilians.

2. Don't forget that Bush could have done something about the general ill-preparedness that characterized the response to Katrina.

3. Don't forget the role of race and class in all this. Kudos to Kanye West (whoever he is) for pointing that fact out on national (or almost national) television.

4. Don't forget the musicians in New Orleans.

To that last point, I want to pass along information about two great organizations to donate to if you've got the bread (the following is copied and pasted from a recent email that was forwarded to me--a bit of a clunky read, but some solid information):

1. New Orleans Musicians Clinic (NOMC)

This is a fantastic hands-on organization who has the names and addresses of many great musicians who have been coming to their FREE health clinic all these years--and now, they are the ones who are tracking down the local musicians and finding them shelter.

They can be contacted at musiciank@swlahec.com.

Or contact Kathy Richard directly at 337 989-0001.

Send donations to:
NOMC Emergency Fund

funds will be distributed by:
SW LA Area Health Education Center Foundation, Inc.
103 Independence Blvd.
Lafayette, LA 70506
desk: 337-989-0001
fax: 337-989-1401
email: finance@swlahec.com

(AND)

2. Jazz Foundation of America

We will be addressing the longer term needs of those jazz and blues artists who have just lost everything.

We will be raising funds and distributing money for the musicians to get a new apartment or room for rent: by giving a first month's rent, possibly more, for them to start over, a place to live. (This is what we normally do on a daily basis for musicians across the country who become sick and can't pay their rent, we also keep food on the table and get employment to hundreds of elderly musicians through our Jazz in the Schools program. Our operations normally assist 35 musicians a week.)

As well, we will be attempting to help New Orleans musicians by replacing the thing that matters most and the only way they can ever work again: their instruments. To those who lost their instruments, like drummers and bassists who could not carry their heavy equipment, and guitarist with their amps, we will be making an effort to work with manufacturers and music stores to replace those instruments for as many as we possibly can.

Remember, New Orleans was only "New Orleans" because of the musicians...

Send donations to:

Jazz Foundation of America
322 West 48th Street 6th floor
NYC 10036

Director: Wendy Oxenhorn
Phone: 212-245-3999 Ext. 21

email contact: Joyce@jazzfoundation.org

To make an online CREDIT CARD DONATION OR PLEDGE
(click on the link, then click in the bottom right corner of page where it says "instant pledge")

Thank you, from our hearts.

As if a full-sized Kiss tribute is not already surreal enough

They're small. They imitate Kiss. They tour and make money and appear on TV.

What am I doing playing jazz again?

Old Nick

I have only gotten partway through this presentation / lecture / performance by Slonimsky, but it's fantastic.

A highlight of the first half hour is S.'s description of how he taught his baby daughter to love atonal music by getting her to associate it with the pleasures of the (baby) bottle. Very Pavlovian, that, and not exactly my own approach (I merely try to play a wide variety of music for Thandie, and let her make up her own mind about what she does or doesn't like)--but I love the way it points up the false assumptions that plague the way most adults think about music and kids.

Speaking of Retro

This article also caught my eye this week. Due to a preponderance of pop-up ads on the CD Freaks site, I reproduce it here:

Vinyl records are heading back in fashion with sales up 87%
Posted by Seán Byrne on 12 July 2005 - 19:15

Just while most thought the Vinyl record has been obsolete, apparently Vinyl is actually making a come-back with sales rising a whopping 87.3% between April and June, compared with the same three month period last year. In fact, 7" Vinyl has now had the best 12 month sales period since 1998. In just the twelve months up to March 31st 2005, 7" vinyl sales have reached 1.38 million.

Apparently while DJ's are the main vinyl users due to the ability to perform scratching, music fans are actually making the most of vinyl, especially those into British indie and rock acts. Some teenagers prefer vinyl due to the warmer tone such as from guitars and percussive musical instruments.

While CD single sales have fallen by 23% this year, overall sales including music downloads and vinyl have risen by 52.4% from ~7.25 million (April to June 2004) to 11.04 million sales (April to June 2005).

Vinyl was once seen as a dying format in the music industry, but according to sales figures it is now very much in fashion.

Sales of the seven inch have shot up by a massive 87.3 per cent compared to the same three-month period last year.

The British Phonographic Industry says annual sales of vinyl singles are now approaching 1.4 million. In the twelve months up to March 31 this year, sales of the seven inch hit the 1,380,000 mark.

This already represented a year-on-year improvement of 64 per cent, and the best 12 months for vinyl since 1998.

The figures released show that in the three months from April to June 2005, vinyl flew off the shelves even more rapidly.

They rose by 87.3 per cent from 154,216 sales during April to June 2004 to 288,780 for the same period this year.

I would wonder if the Vinyl sales increase has anything to do with what the music industry is doing with CD singles such as forcing a high price for just a few tracks. Then again, it is nice to see Vinyl making a come back, especially with teenagers who generally prefer to stick with the latest in technology. It will be interesting to see how well turntables are selling, especially since most Hi-Fi systems have not been equipped with a turntable since the late 1990's.

Vinyl did have one major advantage over CDs in that there was no way for the music industry to start messing about with the structure of the recording or medium itself to prevent copying. For example, the only way for a vinyl record not to play on a given turntable is if there is a fault with the turntable, arm or needle or if the record has been damaged in some way. In fact, if the CD (or any other digital version for music) was never invented, chances are that the music industry would still be putting up a major fuss about consumers taping from vinyl and not being able to do much about it.

Speaking of Nigerian Scammers

This story found its way into my inbox this week. Since it appeared on Yahoo news, I feel compelled to replicate it here (no telling how long it will be online):

Missing Music Producer Found, Hospitalized

08/27/2005 12:12 AM, AP
Tim Molloy

The nearly weeklong search for a Grammy-nominated producer ended Friday after a resident spotted the man sitting naked in a backyard creek, washing his jeans.

The Topanga Canyon resident found a distraught Christian Julian Irwin saying he feared he was being pursued by Nigerians who had contacted him in an Internet scam, sheriff's Capt. Ray Peavy said.

Peavy said there was no evidence anyone was actually pursuing the 48-year-old producer, who has worked with Carly Simon and David Bowie, among others.

Irwin was taken into custody because he was deemed mentally incompetent and possibly dangerous to himself, Peavy said. He was found at about 4:30 p.m. and agreed to go with police about two hours later after negotiations in which authorities, at Irwin's request, located his sister to help calm him.

Irwin was questioned by medical and mental health workers and taken to a hospital to make sure he was in good physical health. He was to be transferred to another hospital for observation.

Authorities began looking for Irwin on Sunday after he made a panicked phone call to a friend, saying he was being pursued by people with dogs. He told his friend he was running through water and had lost his glasses and shoes in a creek.

Topanga Canyon, a rustic area long a favorite with artists and musicians, is about 20 miles from downtown Los Angeles in the Santa Monica Mountains.

Mainstream / avant garde

For whatever reason, I've been delving into a lot of "exotica" (or "easy listening") music lately. I stumbled across a network (you can get to it by checking out this site and its many links) that seems to have taken up the task of digitizing numerous out-of-print LPs (unavailable on CD), and making those recordings available via the web.

It's amazing, when you think about it, the sort of aesthetic transformations these albums go through. When they were created, they were as commercial and square as all get-out. Balding middle-aged arrangers trying to capitalize on the hipster scene. Now they are hip in their own right (at least with a certain crowd).

Taste is such an interesting, contingent phenomenon.

Scamming the scammers

For anyone who has ever been bugged by that annoying Nigerian email scam (who am I kidding--that's everyone in the world, right?!), Dean Cameron's site is a must-read. (And I suspect the show is a must-see.) I have often thought of responding to one of those letters myself, but who the fuck has the time?! Well, apparently, Cameron did. (I wonder if he knew after his first short email that this would evolve into a full-blown dadaist epistolary novel?)

There are numerous gems in the correspondence, but here is one of my favorite passages (written by Cameron to one of the scammers, after an apparent lapse in communication that prompted the latter to get impatient): "I am so sorry that I have not been in contact. When I was in Canada, I was thought to have contracted a minor case of SARS and was quarantined for the last month in that allah forsaken country! It was horrible with a Capital YUCK!"

"Horrible with a Capital YUCK!" Now that's comedy.

Meet the International Association of Gay & Lesbian Square Dance Clubs

Very cool. And brave. I'm reminded of a stunt on the Ali G show in which Bruno raised the hackles of some homophobic sashayers. It was funny, but I kept thinking that it was quite possible that Cohen was going to get his head kicked in.

It's pronounced "Moh-g"

Sad. Bob Moog died yesterday. He was 71.

In poking around the Moog site, I came across this promotional campaign. I kinda want the free T-Shirt, but I don't want to buy the gizmo. Rats.

Speaking of death, I for one am glad that that infernal Six Feet Under is over. Show about death: cool and interesting. Show that takes self-absorption to a new level: yawn.

Uh, okay

I just saw a list of warnings on the coffeepot here at work. Mostly sensible things like "Do Not Heat Empty Pot." The last one, though, was perhaps too sensible: "Do Not Pour Towards People."

Rules, rules, rules!

Upping the ante

More on the previously-blogged Flying Spaghetti Monster.

The Way We Were

If you have had a webpage for a while, you really oughtta check out the Wayback Machine, courtesy of the Internet Archive. It's lots of fun.

If you go to this incompletely archived page and click on the "Ugly Rug Records" logo, you'll get to a fully archived page demonstrating the early emergence of what would become the IJG (referred to then, somewhat bombastically, as "The Industry Standard"). We didn't even have a drummer yet. We were still a quartet, if I recall correctly: me, Aaron, Mike, and Jessica. Cory was still a "guest artist" (the soundtrack session referred to on this page was the first time I met Cory, as a matter of fact). We were still playing at Buster's Coffeehouse in South Pasadena.

It's amazing how things change.

Onward and upward: the next IJG gig is September 25 at Club Tropical. I'm going to attempt to expand the group to 15 pieces (5 brass, 6 reeds, 4 rhythm). I guess I've decided that things in my life just aren't crazy enough.

Soundtrack to a film I've never seen

This rendition of the "complete soundtrack to Super Mario World" may be a contender for the best album of the year (at least in the grammy awards in my head... which are sort of like the anti-grammy awards). The funny thing is that I have never been an avid video game guy, but I am fascinated by the genre of video game music. And I can't honestly say I have ever experienced the music of Super Mario World, but the first thing I thought when I heard this set was "Of course!" The tunes and arrangements somehow seem fundamentally right for the job. Bravo, Jason Cox. (via BoingBoing)

Operation Sleepy Time

I couldn't make this stuff up: the idiots at Seventh Avenue now manufacture "Night Vision" bedding for your young 'un. In the daylight it looks pretty much like Iraq war camouflage.

They have a whole line of this sort of stuff--ceiling fans, furniture--all with the same decor, all designed for kids.

I guess they figure that since we're going to be occupying the Middle East for the foreseeable future, we might as well get the little tykes acclimated now, right?

Nonsense

Bush says getting out of Iraq would send a bad signal.

This is one of the reasons I harp on the value of teaching argumentation in college. "Sending a bad signal" is not a reason for staying in Iraq. It's not a reason at all. It's almost a completely meaningless phrase, in fact, at least without some sort of context. ("Bad signal" for whom exactly? And why "bad"?)

That's not staying "on message." There is no message, really, except for the only slightly veiled one that that we should just shut up and do whatever the President wants. And that, friends, would be unconscionable.

I sincerely hope Ms. Sheehan and her supporters push this as far as it can go.

Ouch.

A South Korean man recently died while playing a video game, and this article seems to suggest that the game killed him.

Something tells me there must have been something else wrong.

Unsung Stax no. 3

Eddie Floyd: "Big Bird."

No, it is not about the Sesame Street character of the same name. Floyd wrote it in response to the death-by-airplane of label mate Otis Redding. Specifically: en route to Redding's funeral, Floyd was waiting to get on board a plane that was having mechanical problems. Shee-it!

I really dig the mysterious "big horn sound" on this one, which paradoxically sounds to me like it was created with very few horns.

May you be forever touched by his noodly appendage

Another coup for the critics of right wing moral stupidity.

I'm starting to think this is what the web is best at: not the Alexandrine library that most people tout, but simply a delightful stream of really top-notch satire.

Keep it up, folks.