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."