La Dolce Vita

The Oregon Jazz Society-based Jazz Scene (primarily a print publication) has a very flattering review of LEEF in their August issue (thus providing some nice promo for our upcoming PNW tour):

If ever there were a perfect band for a Fellini film, this is it. Raucous, intense, whimsical and accomplished, the Industrial Jazz Group is like a carnival for the ears. Leader/composer/pianist Andrew Durkin describes his music as “avant-garde party music,” which is fitting. The music is challenging and, at times, cacophonous, but it’s just accessible enough to be fun. With multiple saxes, trumpets and percussion, this 15-piece L.A. group marches to their own beat, meshing tones and styles, big band swing to classical, Gershwin-esque flourishes with Mingus-like harmonies. This live recording finds the group playing to an Amsterdam audience, who apparently likes the rather bizarre nature of the music. It’s a big soup of a sound but it manages to be somewhat charming in its oddity. Give a listen, if you dare.

Thanks to Kyle O'Brien for the kind words.

Songs don't make people gay. People do.

Clif at the brilliant Sadly, No! (or is that "the brilliant Clif at Sadly, No!"?) links to and skewers this annoying religious article about the Katy Perry song that all the kids are listening to these days (you knew it was bound to happen, right?).

"How long," asks Johnnie Moore, the author of said article, "will all these media moguls be allowed to sit around board room tables and make decisions that alter the healthy development of our nation’s kids?"

Oy. How I wish people would get that self-righteous about the thing that really bothers me about the song: it sucks.

Anyway, my favorite Clif quotes:

"What happened to the good old days when you had to suck cock (or, for the ladies, eat pussy) to become a homosexual?"

And:

"Query: if kissing can make you gay, how come kissing a girl didn’t make me straight?"

Can I get an amen?

(Via Balloon Juice.)

Barack Obama wrote on your funwall

And 365 other things.

Here's the website.

(I doubt that I'd survive this political season if I didn't have my beloved Wonkette.)

More on Obama 2.0

"Regular blogging" (whatever that is) will recommence soon (or whenever my other brain gets back from the shop). In the meantime, please read this quick piece by David Sirota. It's about the election, and stuff.

Aw hell, let me just quote Sirota quoting Sirota:

"[Obama]'s like any politician. He's cautious," Sirota said. "He's a potential vehicle for change, and I think he is a good vehicle, but he is just a vehicle."

His presidency may represent fundamental change, but that doesn't mean he will initiate such sweeping changes if he's elected.

"Politicians, even the best-intentioned ones, are weather vanes," Sirota said. "If the wind isn't blowing in the right direction, they will perpetuate the status quo."

It will take more than a presidential candidate to change the status quo; it'll take a movement, Sirota says.

"My concern is that people will think that by simply electing Obama, change will come, whether it's on race or economic justice issues," he said.

"If people believe that, then real change will not happen."

Righteous.

As I was reading through the angry responses to Obama's statement on FISA yesterday -- many of which were explicit rejections of the Obama candidacy by disaffected former supporters -- it occurred to me that, combined with the fact that (even after the last week) McCain is not getting laughed off the national stage for some of the idiotic things he's saying, Democrats may actually manage to lose this fucking election.

Wouldn't that be something? I would have thought that we had witnessed the full monty of stupidity in this country by electing Bush twice (I know, I know, he wasn't really elected, but it still astonishes me that those elections were even close). But if McCain hangs in there and pulls this shit off, well, we ain't seen nothin' yet.

One of the comments on the FISA thing (don't remember exactly where I read it, alas) said something to the effect that: "Damn! If Russ Feingold were our nominee, all this moving-to-the-center stuff wouldn't be happening!"

Bullshit. I love Russ Feingold as much as the next progressive, but come on! First of all, we did have a candidate who had a Feingoldian cut to his jib. His name was Dennis Kucinich. He didn't make it. Why didn't he make it? Because this is not a progressive country.

Would that it were. And would that it were a country in which more than 2% of the population actually had a love for jazz (or anything beyond the pablum peddled by the major labels). Maybe someday it will be both of those things (hurray, activism! hurray, advocacy! hurray, education!). But right now it ain't.

Secondly, Ghandi himself could not negotiate his way through our broken election system without having to occasionally talk out of both sides of his mouth. Sure, the problem is exacerbated by the politicians themselves, and sure, systems are made of people, and people have free will and can act differently if they so choose. But there are simultaneously other forces at work too: big, bad forces. Inertia forces. Id forces. Zeitgeist forces. Irrational, cultural forces. Technological forces (I'm looking at you, media!).

That system needs to be fixed, and those forces need to be altered, but such things are not going to happen simply by electing a certain president -- though of course it does matter who we elect to that job. (Complicated, eh?)

I repeat and paraphrase: if we screw this one up, the horror has just begun. Please, fellow lefties, I beg of you:

Happy Sunday

Do you remember when having long hair was a more or less clear symbol that you were a member of the counterculture?

Wow, those days are long gone, aren't they? Watch as some dude who could pass for a young Ozzy Osbourne interrupts (mid-sermon) an openly gay Anglican bishop who could pass for an old Ozzie Nelson.

What's with kids today, anyhow?

Oh, and by the way: if I live to be a thousand, I will never understand why anyone gives a shit what anyone else does in the privacy of their own bedroom. Alas, we humans are a petty lot.

Sasha Frere-Jones does Kelly Clarkson

Fun with the 21st century recording studio.

Probably nothing new to most of you, but an entertaining listen nonetheless.

Via.

Speaking of blogs...

...I just got wind of the LA Jazz Collective's online journal.

I've known about this group for a while, but I didn't know they were delving into the whole blog thing. Note to LAJC: Get out while you can, guys! Save your sanity!

Anyway, go check it out; it's a good read.

Alas, any realistic jazz blog is gonna be peppered with heartbreaking posts like this postmortem of a gig gone bad, written by pianist Gary Fukushima. An excerpt:

Dolores told me she felt disrespected by the musicians for a number of things, including the coffee cups, band members complaining about their food, and the fact that I advertised this gig in the LAJC newsletter starting with the phrase, “on a smaller scale…”. Of course, what comes to mind when hearing something like that is all of these little things that she took offense to were probably generated by the fact that no musician in their right mind thinks they’ve invested a lifetime’s worth of study and often times very expensive college tuition at a first rate music school so they can play at a place that won’t invest a dime of its own money into the music. The resentment is there from the beginning, which can be mitigated if the club respects the musicians and the music. Well, the bartender was grumpy at best and sometimes unbelievably rude, the band had to buy their own drinks, and tonight they wouldn’t even feed the band, so Robby bought drinks for his band instead. This on top of making $6 each at the door.

It’s an intolerable situation. The club feels like they’re doing the musicians a favor by providing a space for them to make music. The musicians feel like they’re doing the club a favor by providing music for their space. If business is good, that agreement is fine, if it’s bad those sentiments turn toxic in a hurry, which is exactly what happened.

Robby said something very important after our ill-fated evening. He said one of the main reasons why we have started the LAJC is to avoid these situations, and he’s right. We should have the power and the resources to make sure this thing doesn’t happen again, to set up a situation that will be both beneficial to the musicians and the venues that host us.

I recently fell into a situation where I may have an opportunity to present a music series of my own here in PDX... but when I'm reminded of scenarios like the one Gary describes, I have to wonder if I reeeeaaaally want to get into that. We'll see.

"Friday" Muxtape no. 10 (belated as hell); Obama 2.0

Yup, this shoulda woulda coulda gone up on Friday. [Insert the usual excuses here, tour planning, life intruding, blah blah blah.]

Mea culpa. But don't hold it against me: the mux is still worth a listen!

Paticularly: track two features Kris Tiner's splendid lil' ensemble, referenced in a previous post o' mine. The album (and the band) are highly recommended, of course.

The Sonics: "Have Love Will Travel"
Empty Cage Quartet: "Old Ladies"
Lee Wiley: "A Hundred Years From Today"
Pink Martini: "Lilly"
Jerseyband: "Lord Magnificent"
James Brown: "Down and Out in NY City"
The Louvin Brothers: "The Great Atomic Power"
James Kochalka Superstar: "Monkey vs. Robot"
Angelic Gospel Singers: "Back to the Dust"
Johnny Otis: "Castin' My Spell on You"
Lee Hazlewood: "I Move Around"
Spoon: "The Underdog"

Hotcha!

* * * * *

[Oh, boy, here he goes shooting his mouth off on the subject of politics again. Goddamn, but I thought he was done with that -- Ed.]

Okay, I can't resist any longer. How about that Barack Obama, eh? It's been a busy few weeks.

Those of you who have been reading this blog for a while know that I have been an Obama supporter for a long time -- well before the primaries, in fact.

But honestly, I have never felt swayed by the "rockstar" thing, the in-the-tank mentality, or the halo-allegations that seem to have attracted many of his supporters. I didn't get the Obama girl concept, I thought the man came off as a bit of a buffoon on the Ellen Degeneres show, I thought the will.i.am video was about 35% too precious, and although I liked most of the speeches, I know full well that we can not live by rhetoric alone. (And, incidentally, I don't get Barry's tendency to use prompters planted on diametrically opposed sides of the room -- it usually gives the impression that he's watching a very slow-motion tennis match while speech-ifying. Awkward!)

So the more extreme, ethereal, emotional form of Obama-mania always frightened me, at least partly because it was inevitable that the bubble was going to burst at some point. Predictably, for some folks it has been bursting practically every day since the primaries ended.

The mainstream media, in their infinite wisdom, have a phrase for this burstification. They call it "moving to the center." Maybe that's what it is, maybe it isn't. (I'd like to believe 'em, really I would, but it's hard to know how to process information given to you by people who seriously entertain the notion that getting shot down in Vietnam may actually be a qualification for being president).

Look: I can hardly blame leftward-oriented folks for feeling more than a little on-edge in the wake of post-primary developments (FISA, Supreme Court decisions, Muslim photo ops, faith-based initiatives, etc.), or in anticipation of this election. After 7 years of Bush (not to mention the brave new world of the Internets), whaddya expect? Plus, when it comes to the future of this country, there's so much that has all the texture and aroma of Armageddon that the late great George Carlin may have been right when he declared that "this country is finished."

But shit, people -- now is not a time for purism, either. I mean, we don't want to lose, do we?! Here's someone named Sara opining on the brouhaha over Obama's FISA stance:

I don't understand what all the fuss is about Obama's statement. To me it seems like a pretty typical case of working within the system to rise up through the system in order to change the system. Is patience such a rare quality in a politician that we don't recognize it anymore and misperceive it as cowardice?

Prioritizing the present and the future over the past--with an end date in mind for this prioritization--is hardly a glaring warning sign of ethical fluidity or weakness. It's basic triage.

He doesn't want to try to fix everything from the floor of the Senate. That's why he's running for President. I'm OK with that approach.

Indeed. And here's insightful MandyW (same post):

In a democracy, unelected activists are free to take extreme, uncompromising positions. They succeed insofar as their arguments convince the majority of the people of the correctness and importance of their views (e.g. abolitionists like William Lloyd Garrison). Thus, they can transform unrealistic ideals into practical possibilities.

Elected politicians, otoh, MUST compromise to reflect the mainstream of public opinion. (What's the point of democracy if elected leaders pay NO attention to the "will of the people"?) That means the reforms they can accomplish are by definition less sweeping than what outside activists would prefer, but at least they can actually accomplish something (e.g. Presidents like Abraham Lincoln).

For democracy to work, we need BOTH outside activists AND elected politicians. It's silly for activists to denounce ANY deviation by a politician from their view of what's "perfect" as a sellout. It's equally silly for politicians to dismiss ANY deviation by an activist from their view of what's "practical" as not worth considering.

Yes, I'm disappointed at the stance that the Dems, including Obama, are taking on the FISA Act. I assume it's because they fear that a stronger stand would encourage 527's to pop up to attack them, citing FISA as proof that they're "soft on terrorism".

Sadly, imho, such 527 attacks would probably be effective. It could make it a lot harder for Obama to get elected and/or for the Dems to get a large enough majority in Congress to actually accomplish anything on things like Health Care after the election.

These ladies have it exactly right. How much stupider could Obama be than to get hamstrung by the "PETA syndrome" -- political stances that may draw attention and engender a certain degree of moral satisfaction (for those who grasp and sympathize with their meaning), but that ultimately fail to break through the deadlock. It would be like, oh, I don't know, a jazz composer declaring that there was no redeeming value in pop music, thereby shoring up the quaint but useless notion of "high art."

When I taught writing in college, the primary criterion for evaluating student work was cogency. All freshman writing assignments presented students with a basic debate into which they were supposed to position themselves effectively. The idea was to write an argument that had the potential to actually convince someone on the other side, rather than taking up the rhetorical bludgeon and simply attempting to insist and assert the reader into submission. Students had to start by trying to find some common ground with their opposition, giving whatever counterarguments existed a fair shake (without, of course, weakening their own position).

That's not an easy thing to do, but Obama would have aced that class. I just hope his supporters can figure it out too.

* * * * *

And besides. Specifically:

I learned long ago, when working as an organizer on the South Side of Chicago, that when citizens join their voices together, they can hold their leaders accountable. I’m not exempt from that. I’m certainly not perfect, and expect to be held accountable too.

I'd like to see John McCain say that without choking.

* * * * *

By the way, phenomenal PDX-based saxophonist Lee Elderton -- who will most likely be joining the IJG for our Pacific Northwest tour this September (fingers crossed!) -- has a blog. It features much better Obama rally pix than the ones I posted here.

Whom blog?

Why, my wife, of course.

Here is her post commemorating our neighbor Chuck's 95th birthday party, which we attended this weekend.

I know, I know, she kicks my ass at blogging too.

Also, if you haven't seen it already, you need to go check out Kris Tiner's photo-heavy series of posts on the trip he and the Empty Cage Quartet recently took to France. Too much to link separately here, but if you start at May 28 and work forward you'll see what I mean. (Or just click on the May and June archives.) Hot diggity.

If you haven't heard the ECQ, I'll be including something from their great new disc in an upcoming mux.

In the meantime, here's a different American in Paris, just because:

Friday Muxtape no. 9; a new review

Dealing with a hellacious headcold and a number of tour deadlines at the moment -- sorry for the lapse in blogging. I'll get back to it soon, but in the meantime here's this week's mux:

1. Albert Ammons: "Bass Goin' Crazy"

2. Buddy Holly: "Crying, Waiting, Hoping" (the demo version)

3. Holus Bolus: "Dirt Track" (This is the great Josh Sinton's band. Holy cow do I love this record.)

4. Soul Brothers: "Indawo Yokulala"

5. Carla Bley "Ups and Downs"

6. The Byrds: "Pretty Boy Floyd"

7. Third World War: "Shepherd's Bush Cowboy"

8. Edmund Meisel: "Die Tat / Fackellichter In Der Stadt"

9. Ray Agee: "From Now On"

10. Golden Arm Trio: "Finster Crumley"

11. Evangelistic Ensemble: "Heaven Belongs to You"

12. Spike Jones and His City Slickers: "Ghost Riders in the Sky" (live)

* * * * *

And the latest review, c/o our friend Craig Matsumoto at KZSU.

More soon...

Friday Muxtape no. 8; tour planning update

First of all, holy crap. For the first time in a long time, I actually have a full five-day IJG tour planned out more than two months in advance. Not sure if it's just blind luck, or I'm getting better at this, or what. In any case, we'll be hitting (and hopefully converting) the Pacific Northwest right after Labor Day this year. Here is the order of events:

September 2: Jewel Box Theater (Seattle, WA).

September 3: Cozmic Pizza (Eugene, OR).

September 4: Le Voyeur (Olympia, WA).

September 5: Mississippi Pizza (Portland, OR).

September 6: Seasons (Yakima, WA).

Times and other specifics TBA. For now, I can tell you that we'll most likely be sharing the bill with the great Baby Gramps in Seattle, and at least one (and probably several) of the subsequent shows will be mutual efforts with our old friends (and fellow dadaists) Reptet. Oh yes, and we'll most likely be doing a live recording at PDX-area jazz station KMHD, probably toward the end of the week. This courtesy of one of our biggest advocates, Mary Burlingame (thanks, Mary!).

So you see, I've been busy.

* * * * *

On to the mux. No IJG-related stuff this week -- but more is in the queue, so stay tuned. For now, here's the playlist:

1. Kria Brekkan: "Gomul Visa um Vorid"

2. My Morning Jacket: "Bermuda Highway"

3. The Rosie Taylor Project: "London Pleasures"

4. The Mars Volta: "Wax Simulacra"

5. Frank Zappa: "Camarillo Brillo"

6. Run DMC: "Slow and Low" (demo version)

7. Clyde Arnold: "Black Smoke and Blue Tears"

8. The Continental Cousins: "Kana Kapila"

9. Gil Scott-Heron: "Lady Day and John Coltrane"

10. Mahmoud Ahmed: "Aynotche Terabu"

11. The Monkees: "Sunny Girlfriend"

12. James: "Destiny Calling"

Google what you like. Ignore what you hate.

Point, counterpoint

(Photo by His Master's Voice.)

More evidence that music PR is not an exact science.

Here's Derek Sivers, founder of CD Baby -- somebody who knows his shit -- on getting the Music Director of a radio station to pay attention to your release:

Back in 1997, when “The X Files” was still on the air, a friend of mine who called himself Captain T put out a record called US Aliens that was all about conspiracy theories, Area 51, alien cover-ups, and the Incredible Hulk [...] He wanted to send his album to college radio stations, but couldn’t afford to hire a real radio promoter. When we decided to do it ourselves, I was about to do things in a very normal way, but I thought I should take my own advice, and make his marketing an extension of his art, his image, his message.

(Also, I was thinking about that kid in the college radio station that gets 20 CDs a day, all exactly the same, in boring envelopes. I wanted to make his week.)

So - we bought 500 black envelopes, 500 sheets of brown oatmeal paper, 500 alien head stickers, and the best part : 500 huge stickers that said “CONFIDENTIAL MAIL - DO NOT OPEN FOR ANY REASON”.

We did a mail-merge to the 500 program directors at 500 college radio stations, so that each one got a personalized letter that said this:

Dear __name__,

You don’t know me, but I live in the bushes behind your station.

I have been here for 12 years and your station has saved my life many times over.

The music that you play has kept me going through my darkest of days and for this I owe you everything.

In this spirit, I must tell you that a man named Captain T found me in the gutter yesterday, and he taught me about what is really going on with the government and what really happened down there in Area 51. This man has a message that you have to get out to the world, because people need to know the TRUTH!

Signed,

Man in the bushes, looking through your window right now

We took each letter out to the backyard and literally rubbed it in dirt, crumpled it into a little tiny ball, then flattened it out a little bit, put the CD inside, sealed it into a black envelope, put the alien head sticker on it, covered it with the huge sticker that said “CONFIDENTIAL MAIL - DO NOT OPEN FOR ANY REASON”, and mailed them out to each station.

We laughed for hours while doing it.

[...]

375 of the radio stations played it.

Every now and then, my friend Captain T gets approached by someone that used to work at a college radio station back in 1997. They tell him they still remember it, because it was the coolest package they ever got.

And then here's John Richards, of Seattle station KEXP (and one of the founders of Loveless Records) -- again, a guy who knows a little something about the music biz --on getting the Music Director of a radio station to pay attention to your release:

Send other promotional items that will help your chances… but use judgment. Don't toss in things that spoil or appear unprofessional. I once received a package with a hotdog in it. I happened to be on vacation at the time and when I returned the package smelled so bad I threw it out…CD and all. Plus, what does a hotdog have to do with getting airplay? Don’t spend time or money or energy on a sweet picture of yourself. Why on earth would you do that? Stations like this one are interested in the music not your looks. I’ve seen more bands get caught up on this…..

There are no guarantees. (That's okay, of course.)

Gee, thanks George

You put the US on a collision course with hell, but before you go, you're gonna declare June "Black Music Month"?

As if you could name a single piece of music by Scott Joplin, Marian Anderson, Eubie Blake, Mahalia Jackson, Duke Ellington, Muddy Waters, or Ruth Brown.

Cretin.

Friday Muxtape, no. 7

Get it while it's fresh.

1. Glenn Gould: Allemande (Italian Ground)

2. Harry Miller: Orange Grove

3. Howard McGhee / Fats Navarro Sextet: The Skunk

4. Flaming Lips: Free Radicals (live)

5. The Heptones: Message From a Black Man

6. Dimitri Tiomkin: Conway and Sondra

7. Cui Ping: This Precious Night

8. Columbia Orchestra: Tangled Tunes, part one

9. US Girls: Prove It All Night

10. Oliwa: Crooked

[Brief plug: Oliwa is Oliver Newell's group. Oliver has been the bass player for the IJG since late 2005. He's another one of those sine qua non cats -- it's hard to imagine the group without him (he's got musical energy like nobody's business). Also, he's a helluva composer.]

11. Harry Betts: Theme from the Fantastic Plastic Machine

12. The Four Tops: L'Arcobaleno

'Nuff said.

"What is this shit?"

I can't tell you how long I have been waiting for a "legitimate" reviewer to provide us with a heartily dismissive pull-quote that I can display prominently next to more favorable critical commentary in the IJG press kit. You see, not unlike my new friend in Washington (the guy with the faux fat fetish), I too long to puncture through the tedious pleasantries and spin of the indie music media/promotional derby. Not out of spite, mind you, but just because I'm impatient to get past the words, to something real.

You see, dear reader, once you figure out that, to some extent, PR is a game, and that, with a little persistence, a savvy marketing person can always get someone somewhere to write a compelling review that makes [insert the artist of your choice here] sound like they are the next [insert the music god of your choice here] -- well, then, the whole process starts to feel a little empty. Which is not to say that I haven't appreciated the great things that some of our critics have said about the IJG over the years. Au contraire -- I am floored and flattered by every one of them. In my (many) weak moments, I even savor them.

But the anti-authoritarian in me has also always fought against the notion of filters, and tastemakers, and folks whose authority derives from the things they say about art. Idealist that I am, I imagine a world where a listener's inherent curiosity simply drives her to explore and discover new music -- just as much as (if not more than) the commentary of some self-appointed "in the know" cultural observer. Music criticism, in this crazy fantasy-land of mine, continues to be written and read and appreciated, but primarily as literature. And love-of-music happens not because of what someone said about a piece, or how it was framed, but simply because of what it sounded like.

I know, I know: I'm being pretty unrealistic, and there are certain things you just have to deal with when you get into the music business. But humor me for a minute. Those of you who read this blog regularly know that we came close to achieving my bass-ackwards goal of picking up a press-kit-worthy negative comment with "This is a bad joke -- right?" Alas, that one didn't come from a pro, so it didn't serve my purposes quite so well. But now the cranky-but-entertaining Tom Hull (who really is one of my favorite critics) has delivered manna from the heavens in the form of his review of LEEF. Enjoy:

Cheap cardstock wallet packaging, back cover printed white on yellow (glad I was able to lift the credits and track list elsewhere), full liner notes promised on website but not available yet. Started this while driving around Detroit, but popped it out after a few "what is this shit?" minutes. I've played and enjoyed a couple of Andrew Durkin's group's records in the past, but wasn't prepared for this sharp swerve into Zappa-land. (Actually, I flashed on Brecht/Weill cabaret first, which may have been the initial idea -- but Zappa does get a name check.) I've avoided it ever since, only putting it on when there was nothing else left to unpack from the travel case. Played it twice. First, if you bracket the vocal stuff, the musical performance is stellar. Industrial Jazz has always been a catchphrase in search of a concept -- e.g., the analogy to Industrial Rock never fit -- but Durkin has finally managed to squeeze all individuality out of the big band without sacrificing idiosyncrasy. Hard to imagine anything but a machine managing that, or exhibiting such spurious complexity just because it's possible to gear it that way. Clearest case is "Bongo Non Troppo," working off a relatively simple Latin riff, but there's more in "Howl" and "Fuck the Muck" (at least until the voices appear). The vocal stuff is more scattered -- skit and shtick, a bit of "Fuck the Muck" choir, and two legit songs (both optimistically reprised in radio edits at the end): "The Job Song" (on the Brechtian end) and "Big Ass Truck" (more Zappaesque). In Christgau's CG scheme a couple of these named pieces would be Choice Cuts. I don't do that because I'm still stuck in the old-fashioned rut of trying to swallow records whole. B+(*)

There is one factual error here -- the packaging is not "cardstock," and it wasn't cheap by any stretch. But everything else he says is true. Unless you disagree with it, in which case it is false.

(Oh, and as an added bonus, Hull also covers the new Empty Cage record in this same review set. I'll leave it to Tiner to comment if he sees fit.)

While looking for a gig yesterday...

...I wondered: is Craig's List so entertaining in other cities?

It started simply enough:

this is not a joke ive been egg shaking for over 17 years im the fucking jimi hendrix of egg shaking if ur bands looking for that right sound e-mail me im down for going on tour and taking your band to the top,recording, but i can also shred and solo, something not alot of wanna be egg shakers can do. i look forward to hearing from you my influences are slayer,slipknot,megadeth, cannible corpse, id like to join a serious metal band

But it soon evolved into an extended parody of the CL's musician page:

Professional DOUBLE Egg Shaker.

I'm an Egg Shaker, n' damn good too. I've played Egg with Curtis Salgado and lots a guys that worked with Dianna Ross. My forte is double Egg Shakin'...that's one (1) in each hand. I can go from Zep to Allman Brother's to Karen Carpenter, Kenny G; I've even done country (resume on request). 'Death Metal' egg shakin' isn't a true form of the art, I don't care what they say...it's too damn hard ta' stay on top a' the beat, n' that's what egg shakin' is all about. Sure, you'll find other egg shakers in town, but if ya want the best (resume on request), call me first. I play two (2!) eggs at once!

Seeking Qualified Egg-Shaking Teacher.

I am an aspiring egg shaker seeking a QUALIFIED teacher. My last teacher was showing me the modes, but I'm just a beginner! Is there an egg-shaker-teacher who will travel to my home and teach me custom-made egg-shaking lessons? I don't have much money, so maybe we could exchange schnauzer-burnishing instruction for egg shaking lessons. Anyone between 20-35 (no older!) want to help?

Peace out.

Band Seeking FEMALE Egg Shaker.

We're a 2 piece band seeking a female egg shaker...sorry guys..females only. Our sound is somewhat emo/goth.
Leave your attitude at the door!
Must be willing to practice 3 times a week...touring will follow.

RE: Professional DOUBLE Egg Shaker.

I've had lots of inquiries, and I figure I should make something clear: No, I am not available for "touring"...I've got a wife and seven kids; I want to play with REAL people with REAL day jobs, and maybe just be in an egg shakin' band for weekend fun and to make some cash ($). My technique as a "double" egg shaker means I use two (2) hands ala Eddie Van Halen (I've been two-hand egg tapping since the first time I heard his "Eruption" solo), but this doesn't prevent me from working the lounge circuit, 'cuz I can do the Stanley Jorden stuff too ("Yesterday" "On The Wings of a Dove"), classics, ballads, REAL Book...you name it. Serious only! (Please be over 21 and not any older than 23, or 24 maybe)

RE: Professional DOUBLE Egg Shaker.

Whatever dude! Sitting at home posting on CL all day that you are a PRO does not make you one. Just cause you played an open mic one time where someone bought you a donut doesn't make you PRO. Get a life and go practice!!

But, if there is someone out there serious about needing an egg shaker that REALLY is pro and can play all styles from afro-cuban to baroque, look me up. I only play paying gigs so don't bother with "we're gonna be huge" crap. I show up, you give me the sheet music, I play, you pay me. I might consider rehearsing once if the gig is at the Schnitz or Old Nob Hill Pharmacy.

I also can color coordinate with your costumes for an additional fee.

RE: Professional DOUBLE Egg Shaker.

I’ve sent you half a dozen e-mails and left several voice messages but I can’t seem to get through to you. We’ve got a paying gig on Saturday and my regular egg shaker guy dropped out of the band last minute. The gig is from 7pm to 2am and pays $25 plus 50% off food and drinks. It would be great if you could practice with us every night this week until you learn all the songs. We’re a punk, metal, country, polka group that performs primarily original music. We do a lot of obscure time signatures (2/4 3/4 & 4/4) so I hope that this is within you professional capabilities.

Please get back to me ASAP.

Need sheet music for egg shaker.

I am looking for sheet music for egg shaker for these pieces:

24 Caprices for Solo Egg Shaker by Paganini
Sonata for violin, guitar and egg shaker in A major by Paganini
Stairway To Heaven tab for egg shaker
Foxy Lady tab for egg shaker
Charlie Parker Omnibus for egg shaker (Bb egg shaker instruments)

Also, does anyone know if Korg makes a tuner for egg shaker? Or will the Korg guitar tuner work?

I also have a used egg shaker for sale. These things go for up to $3.99 on Ebay. I'll let it go for $2.99. I'll even throw in a hardshell case. :)

Thanks in advance.

Now back to practice.

***End Egg-pression*** one musician at a time.

For centuries the beautiful and sacred blessing from goddess that is the egg has been desecrated and defiled by oppressive anti-egg culture. Closely linked with the destruction of nature and the systematic psychological enslavement of egg-bearing females, the encouragement of this insidious "egg-shaking" must be stopped. In some cities, children as young as 2 years old are encouraged to shake an egg filled with sand or small rocks--an egg robbed of the gift of its little chicken life, its soul literally sucked out by nasty egg-sucking egg-shakers!

Stop the madness! Free the majestic egg!

MARCH TO END EGG-OPPRESSION, begins this Saturday at Pioneer Square in downtown PDX--just follow the smell of chickenshit to find us.

egg shakers are not that entertaining.

what the hell are all the ridiculous egg shaker posts all about? what the hell is so damn funny about egg shakers? I am all about posting whatever you want in this forum but the egg shaker crap is not funny and just annoying.
morons

CHICKEN SHAKER.

Former egg shaker now available or WORKING band. I now shake a mean chicken. Sure, I still play the eggs once in awhile, but it seems like egg shakers are a dime a' dozen these days, so I started to specialize in chicken shakin' instead. Mostly old-school funk stuff, Jaco, Marcus Miller...but I can pocket-down with the James Jamerson stuff too.

I'm kinda old now, but I've got lots of experience and great contacts. Plus, I sing! That's right...a singin' Chicken shakin', multi-taskin' groove-slammin' "team" player.

And on and on. Most have been flagged and removed by now, alas. (Or thankfully, depending on your perspective.)

Life's Rich Pageant

The business of booking a tour (even a short tour) is long, tedious, and mind-numbing. You never know the sort of response you're going to get when you fire out that "would you be interested in booking us?" email (you never know if you're going to get a response at all, in fact). To some extent you have to steel yourself against the inevitable frustration of interacting with folks who are themselves overworked and underpaid. It's a sure-fire recipe for agita.

Of course, some booking agents are a joy to work with -- I'm thinking of the ones who cut right to the chase, cuz that always makes life a lot easier. And then every once in a while you have an exchange with someone who -- even though they might not be able to help you directly -- approaches the booking dance in such an idiosyncratic way that it makes the experience weird and human enough to be entertaining in and of itself.

And when that happens, you have to smile, even if only in confusion.

So a big thank you to the dude from Washington state (he's a complete stranger to me, so I'm not at liberty to reveal his identity) who recently sent me this email in response to a booking request:

You guys are fantastic! You're too good to play here but we'd still love to have you! You also might be too BIG to play here and by BIG I mean LARGE but not FAT, because that would be rude, even if it were true, which it isn't, not that there would be anything bad if it were true, except for the potential discrimination on my part. You'd never fit in our little back room. Again, NOT due to any idividual girth, rather required cumulative elbow-room, which is not some Olympia hippie PC term which circumvents the hatred inherent in the word FAT while communicating the idea of FAT. No one has fat elbows... they taper. God, I wish you could play here. Could you maybe all squeeze? Circular breath? MIDI? No no no. Seriously, how many are you on this tour? Maybe we can butter the walls (no licking them fatty).

Friday Muxtape, no. 6

I gotta start working on these things earlier in the week...

Anyway, hear here.

1. Bootsy Collins: "Bootzilla." I think Daphne would agree: for a while this was "our song."

2. Mendelssohn: "Saltarello-Presto from Symphony no. 4." Performed by 16 player pianos, at the behest of Paul Lehrman.

3. Duke Ellington: "Come Sunday Interlude." From the Black, Brown and Beige album. Ray Nance on the violin.

4. Howlin' Wolf: "300 Pounds of Joy." This is not the Real Folk Blues version. (I love that one too, except for the horrible edit at the beginning.)

Anyone know where I got this? (No, seriously, I can't find the album it came from. Maybe I'm just tired.)

5. The Videos: "Trickle, Trickle." In honor of the PDX weather god's apparent intention to make summer a lot shorter this year.

6. Moondog: "Bird's Lament." Played by the London Saxophonic. And then turned into a car commercial. Fuckers!

7. Guided By Voices: "Chasing Heather Crazy." Dependable? Tuneful?

8. Andrew Bird: "The Trees Were Mistaken." Eerie? Hypnotic?

9. The Chap: "Surgery." Poppy? Quirky?

10. Damon Zick and Friends: "Hill Country." Damon has played every damned saxophone book in the IJG -- and all of them with incredible skill. As such he's often the go-to guy whenever a new sax player needs something about one of my tunes explained. He's a motherfucker, as this track of his will attest.

(Oh, yeah, and his wife just had a baby boy -- congratulations, Zicks!)

11. Duke Ellington: "Rockin' in Rhythm." With Sam Woodyard on the drums, it's not so much rockin' as white-hot burning.

12. Cliff Jackson and Jellean Delk with the Naturals: "Frank, This Is It." Respectfully, this is for HRC. Make of that what you will.

Now that's what I call grass roots activism...

Further fodder for my ongoing love-affair with Portland: somebody took the liberty of mowing the word "Obama" into this field (a few hundred yards from our house). I know it's hard to see -- sorry, I didn't have access to a helicopter.

I'll probably have a lot more to say about the events of this week when I can catch my breath (I've been fairly busy planning the next IJG adventure, which will hopefully come together in September).

Until then, then...

Hey, Bo Diddley

If Chuck Berry is rock and roll's storyteller/comic, and Little Richard its acrobat/ecstatic, then Bo Diddley was its eccentric folklorist. His music was like an anthopology class with a wicked backbeat: instantly recognizeable as something you have heard before, somewhere (on a playground, probably) -- but reconfigured and revitalized in a unique, addictive way.

It's common now to say that punk was invented to get back to the spirit of early rock and roll (after the combined "excesses" (not my term) of disco and, uh, Led Zeppelin). Maybe that's true, but in any case it's worth pointing out that, even in the context of early rock and roll, BD was "punk." For him, the guitar was a kind of drum (in fact, if you're feeling ambitious, perhaps you could argue that he presaged not only the punks but the modern-day percussive guitarists like Kaki King). The result was stripped-down, drone-based, fluid music that succeeded on the strength of its pulse -- though the occasional punctuation of weird effects didn't hurt any.

Okay, I'll just say it: in the end I always felt Bo Diddley was aesthetically closer to the master bluesman John Lee Hooker than he was to any of his fellow rockers. (Maybe that's why he fit in so well at the Long Beach Blues festival when I saw him there back in the 90s.)

And by the way, "Mr. Diddley" (as the NYT so politely calls him) also has the distinction of being the first rocker to hire female guitarists -- perhaps the best-known being Peggy Jones, aka "Lady Bo" (who worked with him primarily between 1956 and 1962, and appears on all of his classic recordings from this period, including "Hey, Bo Diddley", "Mona", "The Story of Bo Diddley", and "Road Runner") and Norma-Jean Wofford, aka "the Duchess" (who appears in the clip above, and was in the band until 1966). Given the "testicular fortitude" that is often associated with rock and roll, this openness to having a "chick in the band" (prominently) is a not insignificant detail of the man's biography.

* * * * *

Here are a few (a very few) of the other rock/pop tunes that use the so-called "Bo Diddley Beat," the rhythm of which is helpfully transcribed in DJA's tribute.

Need more evidence of the man's influence? Here are the Strangeloves doing "I Want Candy" in 1965 (with a surprise appearance from Sammy Davis Jr. at the end):



(That's an insipid imitation, I know.)

Of course, at some point it can be hard to follow the trajectories of artistic influence / overlap. Here, the inimitable Dr. John demonstrates a contemporaneous instance of the "BD beat" (i.e., Sugar Boy Crawford's "Jock-a-Mo" -- aka "IKO IKO" -- originally released in 1954):



Sometimes stuff is just in the air, ya know?

Anyway: rest in peace (and thank you), Ellas McDaniel.