Empty Room

At Land

2012-03-14T13:56:00.000-07:00

Been checking out filmmaker/choreographer/poet Maya Deren's work lately. Pretty amazing stuff, especially considering a lot of it was made in the early 1940's.

1994

2012-02-16T14:02:00.000-08:00

My band from right after I graduated high school. Chore, circa winter 1994.What did this band sound like? Can you tell by the photo? Me neither.

Rocks & Powder

2012-02-12T09:55:00.000-08:00

Here's the poster I designed for a show next week. If you're in the lower Michigan area, come by! It promises to be a good one.

NYC/RIP

2012-02-02T11:13:00.000-08:00

A sad farewell to Mike Kelley yesterday and forever. I was 15 or 16 when I first came in contact with his work, like a lot of people my age did, in the form of Sonic Youth's Dirty record art. I remember it was snowy out and a friend of mine was annoyed that he had to circle the block around the record shop while I got this brand new tape we couldn't even listen to cause he didn't have a tape deck in his car. We drove home, already inspecting the artwork and liner notes, strangely unsettled by the eerie portraits of smeared, discarded stuffed animals. Years later I would learn more about Kelley's ties to Detroit and Destroy All Monsters and become more familiar with his weird, sharp style equal parts ridiculous and meticulous. I'm sad to see him go, and confused by his suicide, a horrific move in any circumstance, but so often a useless and selfish choice. My friend Forest linked up this amazing interview from 1991, and Kelley's segments on PBS' Art 21 series were some of the funniest and most interesting on the show. Peace, Mike.

In other art world news, Damned Dogs are headed to New York later this month to play a very special gig at the New Museum in lower Manhattan. More news on this soon, but I have got to say I haven't been this excited about a show in a while.

2012-01-31T20:02:00.000-08:00

How To Catch A Mouse

2012-01-29T08:41:00.000-08:00

Mice are so damn cute. I really love the skittering little sweethearts, but sometimes in the winter they get into your house and start fucking things up. We had a mouse in the house as recently as yesterday and here is a step-by-step for how to safely and humanely capture and gently release the mouse.

1. Put an amount of peanut butter or almond butter in the end of an empty toilet paper roll. This is the mouse bait!

2.Place the roll on a high kitchen counter, precariously placed with the nut-butter end sticking over the ledge. The idea is the mouse will crawl through the tube to get the bait and fall safely down into...

3.The tall garbage bin placed below the counter. It has to be tall as hell because the mouse will be freaked and try to jump up and out. Two 1/2 feet minimum height.

4. Go play a weird gig, or do something that will leave the kitchen dark and free of humanistic smells. We went to do a Damned Dogs set in Allen Park. Try to find the weirdest possible thing to do so it leaves the house unstirred for at least an hour.

5.Upon your return the mouse will have been trapped!!! Take it out into a field or somewhere at least a half mile away, otherwise it will just come right back into your house. Give it something rare to eat, give it a name, give it a kiss and then say goodbye until you meet again.

Take Time

2012-01-28T11:10:00.000-08:00

Checked out Windy & Carl last night at the Sonic Lullaby mini-fest in Berkley, Michigan. Two nights of ambient drone and soft textural music. W&C have been unraveling and recoiling their sonics for almost 20 years and have developed and inarguable signature sound that relies on equal parts subtlety and sensitivity. I've been following their music since about 1996 or so, and watching their incredibly thoughtful evolution has been a constantly thought-provoking and rewarding thing. Details in my mind are blurred, but I think the first time I saw them was at Alvin's in Detroit at part of some Godzuki record release show where ten or eleven bands covered the songs on the Godzuki record. I couldn't believe how icy Windy & Carl rendered the sunny electro-twee of Godzuki's original using just guitars and pedals. It was really transporting, even though there was this strange disconnected reservation to their playing. I didn't really have my head around drone music when I was 20, but I knew I was seeing something unusual and special. Last night was much the same. They started out with Carl on a tape delay unit of some sort and Windy processing her vocals through an electric thumb-piano made of a metal box and contact mic. This dark, ensconcing sound rolled by softly. Eventually they picked up guitars and added to the glowing/growling tones, moving by in heavy gusts until an abrupt yet natural fade back to silence. Their set was so controlled while being almost completely effortless. Like watching winter slowly freeze and thaw in some blurred stop-motion. They just finished a new record on Kranky called "We Will Always Be" which is their first release in about three or four years. It's so good to watch the continuing progress of these kind and talented people, just getting better and more focused as time goes on.

Also:
The RFD "Lead Me Home" is a Christian private press record from 1971. I wrote a review of it a few years back and every winter I return to this record and just repeat jam it. The most insular, frozen waiting vibes in some false hippy commune sheen. Seriously an amazing facade of brotherly love masking some deep pit-of-the-stomach depression.

Electric Chair

2012-01-27T11:21:00.000-08:00

The past two days Swimsuit has come out from under our rock to play a few really fun shows. The first one on Wednesday night was in Ann Arbor with our friends Bad Indians and Gardens.

B'Indians all blurry and demonic.

Gardens from Detroit in a LEGALIZE IT fashion. They're back to a three piece, down from a quartet. They sounded amazing.

On Thursday we played in Detroit. Two punk shows and it's not even the weekend yet. Fake Surfers were so young they had to get X'd up. Pretty sure they were not straightedege.

Scott Davidson from Butt Babies treein' the bees.

Bleached from LA played. They have some ex Mika Miko people in the band and their records are really good, their live show was pretty cool. They were selling their newest 7" for $10 which is something I couldn't really comprehend, but didn't wanna waste any time thinking about. Maybe it's an LA thing. God, the restaurants in LA are so good. Pure Luck was a place that recently closed, and Vice took us there while we were on tour the week before they shut down. Because it was nearing the end, the waitress hooked us up insanely and five people ate like royalty for $30. Or three 7"s!!!

Thanks to the computer age, you can watch the entire Swimsuit set (and all the other sets) from last night below!

Everyone was happy.

Cruel Summer

2012-01-25T08:02:00.000-08:00

This is the cover of the Billowing record from 2010, "Cruel Summer". Me and Scott DeRoche's minimal warped-sound tape-music project. The Radiant Now posted up the record for download today over here and reminded me of how stoked I was on dubbed out noise and pastel shanty town vibes that summer. We recorded a second full-length's worth of more rhythm-based gnarlings that's still in the process of being edited.

Weekender Pt. 2

2012-01-22T21:17:00.000-08:00

Damned Dogs (aka Damned Dizawgs) took it west last night to participate in Wake Up Weekend, a vegan activism/awareness conference that happens in Grand Rapids every year. This is the second year in a row Amber & I have made it out to jam, eat and celebrate cruelty-free living with out GR crew. I made the fool-hearty choice to not eat all day, saving myself for the chili cook-off and endless flow of vegan grub I was imagining. It was still happening when we got there, but I had waited so long to eat my blood-sugar was midway through writing a suicide note in itself. Nothing some curry slaw salad didn't rectify, and hilariously, we jammed with almost the exact same line up as last year. Radiator Hospital and Royl Space. Absent was XTra Vomit, who played last year and were around this year, but didn't play for some reason. In my hunger I forgot my camera and didn't get any photos all weekend, but I jacked this picture, taken by Matt Halteman, from his facebook.

New Curses

2012-01-21T10:20:00.000-08:00

Fred Thomas : Front Seat Film from Mostly Midwest on Vimeo.
Then there's this; my old-ass song "The Curse Is Broken! On To New Curses!" performed at Mittenfest in the fading days of last year. The High Strung was supposed to play, but their bassist was stricken by food poisoning and I filled in with a solo set. Can you tell from the noise in the crowd how intensely rapt with wide-eyed wonder the audience was?

Random Notes / Out On The Weekend

2012-01-17T20:00:00.000-08:00

So much is always happening.
I forgot to write about several important things, like the last Ypsi Flea, which happened about a month ago, but it feels like a year.
A bunch of my homies sold stuff and played music, this was the third time we'd done it. The vibe was a little different for some reason, but it was still really good.

Jules from Bad Indians is modeling the magic marker above. Is that a Sharpie, you might ask? OH HELL TO THE NO, young friend. Look close and you'll see that is actually a "Skerple" magic marker, or a bootleg Sharpie if we're being honest with ourselves. Ryan was on break from school, so we jammed a quick and gnarly City Center set, first one together since May and executed primarily on muscle memory alone.

Raphael jammed a Sail set.

Amber jammed an Avery Feral set.

Annie jammed an Annie Palmer set and Sam came from Grand Rapids to jam a Radiator Hospital set before heading back home to play three other shows with three other bands that same night.

Then it was winter.

I went to Chicago last weekend to play the Tomorrow Never Knows festival as City Center. I got in the night before to see my friends Wild Belle play and holy fuck, my friend Karen was there, tour managing for Chairlift!! AND IT WAS HER BIRTHDAY!! I took a picture where you could actually see her, but somehow the photo above says a lot more about the night. Pure cake feelings.

The next day I hung out with Erik all day and worked on some recordings at his home studio. Drew and Gabe came through with a bag of new tapes literally bursting at the seams, and Matt from LOE, Amy and some other homies were in attendance. Elisse made me cookies (!!above!!) and shot a video of the set (below). I AM BORING LOOKING when I play! Gotta work on that in 2012. This was my first live performance of the year, a year which already feels really important, fucked up and ride or die for some/so many reasons. I had to leave pretty quickly after I played, missing some friend's bands, but had to get home for the Monday morning office jam. Chicago was such a positive vibe though. Everybody seemed to be doing well, and the winter felt warm.

City Center - Schuba's 1/15/12 from Elisse LaRoche on Vimeo.

Everyone was happy.

Treasure Teeth

2012-01-16T18:29:00.000-08:00

I've been working for a little while on mastering a single for this relatively new band Treasure Teeth. This duo is from London but now lives in Brooklyn and they sound kinda like if High Places had only ever listened to Massive Attack and ran all their gear through a Jamaican mixer where King Tubby was dubbing the right channel while Laurie Anderson was tweaking the left. Super stereo and supremely fantastic songs. It's actually a project from Barbara from Whiteoak, who I wrote about all the way back in the summer of 2008. Remember that? ME FUCKING NEITHER!! Check out songs, sights and goings on from Treasure Teeth on their blog.

I Don't Remember Halloween

2012-01-11T14:14:00.000-08:00

Corpsekisser are in the UK on tour right now! My really good friends Heather and Ethan have been doing the band for maybe 7 years or so, and I think they've played under 20 shows! This number may have gone up with their jet-settin' jams, but I feel like when you play between one and 5 shows a year, you're doing something right. Their LP "Cry Laughing" was the first record on my label Life Like, and they have a bandcamp you can check out over here... Thanks to Kimberly for the photo!!!

Silver Cycles

2012-01-09T09:37:00.000-08:00

Above: Passed out as hell in the van, somewhere in Europe, 2005.

Below: Merchandise table in Baltimore, fall 2003.

I've been transferring (actual) hundreds of cassette four-track masters and last night I came across an unmarked cassette that was probably from 2000 or 2001. Along with two horrendously boring instrumentals, there was a lost take of my friend Tim Sendra from Veronica Lake, Madison Electric and currently Santa Monica Swim & Dive Club doing the vocals for an early version of what would become "No Good With Secrets" on Saturday Looks Good To Me's All Your Summer Songs record. In the end Matt Smith from Outrageous Cherry ended up singing the version that ended up on the record, but I did a mix of Tim's track and here it is, downloadable below. I remember this song was vaguely about a severe in-the-closet love affair, but like a lot of my early songs, I'm not sure that the meaning came through loud and/or clear. This version has somewhat different lyrics and no string section. Not a lot of stuff from that early SLGTM time didn't get released somewhere, so it's astonishing that this slipped through the cracks for so long.

Saturday Looks Good To Me "No Good With Secrets" (Tim Sendra Vocals)

Miss Esme

2012-01-02T13:39:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I got a call that my friend Esme Barrera in Texas was dead. She was murdered in her home in Austin at 3AM, coming back from New Year's Eve celebrations. No arrests have been made at this point and from all the facts I've been able to gather, this unthinkable crime was committed without reason or even logic. It feels grossly inadequate to even try to sum up anything this horrific in a blog post, but there are no adequate outlets, no better ways to deal, really. Most importantly to anyone reading this, there is a site set up to help the family pay for services and expenses. I would urge anyone reading to donate if you can or at least pass the word along.

Mostly for my departed friend, myself and anyone sharing this loss with me, I've collected some thoughts below. I'm overcome with sadness and a burning sense of anger for the ugly, useless world where something like this just happens. Someone killed my friend, on purpose, seemingly at random and I'll never ever see her again. All of the things people say when they lose someone too soon like this ring true more than ever for me right now. Esme was a ray of pure, beautiful light and while no one deserves to meet such a fate, this really happened to the wrong person. Talking to VC earlier today, he said he was trying to keep in the forefront of his mind how amazing she was. Rather than let the feelings of pain and injustice overtake me, I'm trying to do the same. I send my love and condolences to anyone and everyone feeling this grief right now, and I send my love to Esme. You will be missed like no other.

I met Esme in 2003. She and my dear friend Esme from Detroit had met online somehow, most likely because they shared an uncommon name and both dug weird indie pop. With this single degree of separation, Esme came to see Saturday Looks Good To Me doing an especially nonsensical show with Helios Creed and some other gnarler bands at Emo's in Austin. Instead of sheepish introductions or awkwardness, Esme approached with glowing hugs, an endless stream of quick-witted jokes and the open-hearted warmth of reuniting with someone who you'd been friends with for decades. Just like that, she and I were insta-homies.

For me, 2003-2006 were spent almost entirely on tour with one band or another. I met a lot of great people in that time, but my friendship with Esme transcended most of the traveling acquaintances I made. I drifted through lots of towns multiple times, but seeing Esme in Austin was always kind of like a homecoming. No matter who I was travelling with, my friends were her friends within minutes of meeting and the good times rolled in the most natural, fun way every time. I saw Esme as much as four or five times a year in this heavy-touring era, and there were no moments that didn't rule. I remember sneaking into some pool within 8 hours of meeting Esme and swimming for the first time in years. Coming up from the water, seeing her smiling, this person I barely knew gave me a look so familiar and loving, as if to wordlessly telecommunicate "There, isn't that a lot better?" A bright moment of peace in what was then my regularly-clouded head.

I did a solo tour where I played a show at a rad church on the East side of town. Esme came through, excitedly and introduced me to her date, some random and nice-enough seeming guy. Minutes later she made up something about wanting to show me the kitchen or the basement of the church and as soon as we were out of sight from the dude she came with we started making out in what we both deemed an "extremely junior high" fashion. Sorry if you were her date on that occasion, but you have to admit, it's pretty funny. The circumstances and the factor of fun were what made it so awesome. Esme was always a babe, and as such, obsessed with babes and talking about them with other babes. Our shared admiration and perma-crush for each other grew from clumsy moments like that one in the church to deeply honest and real confidence in one another. If something or someone was hurting either of our hearts, there was a kinship and comfort we shared together that only true romantics can latch onto. For the most part, this happened with a thousand miles between us, but it was as real and beautiful in late night drunken text threads as it was sitting side by side, smiling.

As the years went on, our friendship grew and changed with our lives. From afar I heard of her adventures in teaching, new loves, a few rough breakups, a million songs and three million jokes. I moved around a lot, but stayed in touch. City Center ended up in NYC for a week of shows the same time Esme was there on vacation. Not sure if the photo to the left of she and Ryan repeatedly fake-puking into each other's shirts gives you any indication of how cool a week it was, but it was.

There are countless times with Esme, coming through in fragmented memories, that made up a huge and endlessly happy picture. For any time of complete ridiculousness and abandon, there were times of quiet sweetness. For every complicated joke about suitcases full of Skittles, a heartfelt expression of real love and appreciation. This says nothing about the almost older-sibling like wealth of excitement and desire to share cool music, art, culture and times that Esme had. Our friendship existed in mix CDs, care packages, pen-pal letters, late night Taco runs, early morning hungover haircuts, bus rides, long walks, heartbreak texts and one long hug that started the moment we met and even yesterday can't end.

The most amazing thing about Esme is that everyone (EVERYONE) I know who knows her feels the same way as I do to some degree. She was a friend to all and her absence will be felt in a dazzling, huge, almost incomprehensible way. I am so lucky to have known her and we didn't even live in the same town. I can only imagine what her closest day-to-day homies, students, loves and everyone else she touched in her 29 years on the planet must be going through. If you were lucky enough to meet Esme, you know exactly what I mean. There's no good way to end this because I can't quite accept that I won't have any more times with my cherished friend. I guess rather than an end, I'll leave this as open as I can and say I'll miss you Miss Esme, and we all will, and the times we were all blessed enough to have had together will exist eternally anytime anyone thinks of your smile or hears your laughter in their head.

Blood Brother, Sol Sister

2011-12-29T12:44:00.000-08:00

The day after Christmas I jumped over to Livonia to work on some music with my friend Aleise Barnett for her project Blood Brother/Sol Sister. My long-time love of basement studios in Livonia goes way back, so checking out Andy Elliott's spot felt like a homecoming, even though I'd never been there before. I've been working with Aleise since 2001 or 2002 when she sang a Saturday Looks Good To Me song in my basement. We did a bunch of shows and recordings for a while, but then we both moved away in 2006 and things got quiet on her end musically for a bit. This new resurgence of inspiration and songs was pretty stellar and with the help of Ian Fulcher on horns, Pat Elkins on vocals, Thom Elliott on drums and Josh Bertram hung over as hell kinda hangin around, ten songs were knocked out over the course of the day. They're all in their roughest form right now, but you can hear some here at Aleise's bandcamp and more will surely follow. If you live in the New York area, there will be some BB/SS shows in the coming months. All hiatuses must be destroyed!!!!!

Winter Inside, Winter Outside

2011-12-11T13:06:00.000-08:00

Last week was one of the most full-of-things weeks I've had in years. Seriously a gig of some sort every night and not a lot of sleep in between. One of the highlights was getting to do two shows with Love Of Everything, my homies from Chicago. We had a sick Toledo one night/Detroit the next mini-tour, and it made me wish deeply I could have been out with them the entire time. I played shows with them first in 2003, and the band has morphed many times as our paths continually crossed since then. My friend Cole Rabenort came along with me to the Detroit gig and took the photos you see above. Note the beer-can Xmas tree in the Garden Bowl where we jammed.

This fall I've been getting back into playing some more stripped-down, bummed-out solo songs, and have been working on recording all the new ones. The extremely talented Brook Davis (who recorded the Billowing record last year, as well as some yet-to-be-released krautrock style sessions) has been meeting with me after hours and working deep into the night on these sessions, and we're moving on to mixing now. There's Brook above, making sure the microphone is placed juuuuusssttt so... The record doesn't have a title yet, but is going to be released sometime next year on NYC label Ernest Jenning Record Co.

Here is a rough mix of a song I recorded during these sessions. It's a cover of my bestie and sometimes bandmate Kelly Jean Caldwell's recent mega-weeper "Water Inside Water Outside". Her version is better, but this one has a vibe of some sort, too.

"Water Inside Water Outside" (Kelly Caldwell cover)

2011-11-20T15:59:00.001-08:00

Daylight Savings

2011-11-15T12:29:00.001-08:00

I just realized that there have been gigs every Sunday night for like the last month, and Sunday night gigs to come for weeks into the future. HAS SUNDAY REPLACED FRIDAY AS THE ULTIMATE NIGHT OF JAMS? In reverse order, this last weekend was a show at the State Theater in Ann Arbor with Wiccans, Perpetual Dusk At Curtsy Caverns and a shadow puppetry show by Patrick Elkins. There was a show there in the 90's I think with Couch and Quintron, but I missed it. I heard the bass drum kept sliding down the slanted stage, which makes sense cause even the bongos I was playing were kinds slippin' down the slope. On Friday Damned Dogs did an amazing show with our friends High Places from LA, sullied only by the fact that we played through the PA they were traveling with and somehow fried the tweeters within the first few songs of our set. It all worked out in the end, and they even played some super early songs for an encore.

Jeremy's sweater is pretty sick!

Oh, Sunday before last I did a solo show with Annie Palmer, Anna Vogelzang and Nick Painter at the tattoo parlor. Mellow and joyous vibe on Daylight Savings day, following a super productive fake spring day in the fall. I'm finishing a solo record, soon I will post some pictures and rough songs. Shelley says I should call it "Kuma" because it sounds like "Zuma" by Neil Young.

Defects Mirror

2011-11-01T16:43:00.000-07:00

Halloween was a slow, stilted blast as this year it did NOT fall on a weekend, and the stretched-out lead up to the lazy Monday trick-or-treating ended up feeling like a languid haunting. I guess that's appropriate. There was a killer Damned Dogs gig with Anonymous Touch, Daytime Television, Milky Villagers and Scared To Death on Devil's Night in Ann Arbor, as well as an Absolute Beginners on Tuesday where I jammed solo, as did Annie Palmer. Other stuff happened, but it's all a blur now. Things were beautiful, then faded, then regrouped. There was free PBR in the basement hallway of the comic book shop, most people seemed in good spirits. I went as a zebra.

I worked on this zine all summer called DEFECTS MIRROR and it's finally done and available to the public, or the segment of the public that still believes in printed matter/things held/etc. A full write up and ordering information are over here. Only 100 made, it is strange, weird, loving and lost.

Modern Jester

2011-10-24T21:45:00.000-07:00

Aaron Dilloway's contributions to the noise scene are foundational, recording and releasing strange sounds since his high school days in the early 90's. His work as a founding member of Wolf Eyes was game-changing, and his label/store Hanson Records is one of the longer-running and brighter-burning noise imprints out there. Like a lot of artists coming out of the gurgling Michigan noise crew, Dilloway's discography is immense and sometimes brain-boggling, but even on the more off-the-dome releases, there's usually a sense of consideration that takes it out of the practice tape zone and solidifies it into the very specific aesthetic that he's been growing for coming up on twenty years now. I've known Aaron for much of that time, and last week I caught his solo gig in Toldeo. It was awesome to see him again, and he gave me a pre-release copy of a record he'd been working on for a while.

Listening to "Modern Jester" on the drive home was pretty mindblowing. Pretty early into the record, I started hearing it as the culmination of everything that came before it. The squirming noise of Wolf Eyes days, some of the hyperactive goofiness of Aaron's earlier rock-informed skronky basement bands, and some of the more recent drone-out stone-out stuff he's been getting into. Instead of coming off like a grab bag, we get a hyper-focused monolithic double LP that distills these past phases of inspiration into a harrowing, but strangely beautiful journey.

The spazzy and repetitive-to-the-point-of-nausea 2nd track "Eight Cut Scars (For Robert Turman)" routes a snakepit of harsh stereo loops into each other ceaselessly for eleven minutes and drops out immediately into the dark, subdued 8-track cartridge loop hiss of "Labyrinths & Jokes". The tape manipulation that's defined previous work is at a shimmering high here, especially on two side-long centerpieces "Look Over Your Shoulder" and "Body Chaos". Recent collaborations with spectral landscapers Emeralds, as well as modular synthesizer sounds done under the moniker Spine Scavenger have found Dilloway coming into a more patient space with pieces like this, but the way these tracks build and bloom so deliberately is really sublime. The slow creep from uncomfortable-sounding tape flutter into crashing waves of harsh noise happens so organically you feel almost physically knocked over, not so much sucker punched but more like that super-paranoid creeper weed just finally kicked in and you're fucked. Your blood turned into thorny vines five minutes ago and you didn't even notice.

The liner notes state boldly "EVERY SECOND OF THIS RECORDING CONTAINS SUBLIMINAL MESSAGES" and I believe it. The horror-movie-happening-in-your-head sounds that pulse through much of the record are almost punishing enough to distract from the fact that it's also some of his most musical and composed solo work ever. The screaming tape-warbles and fucked-up field recordings and vocal cut-ups are scary monster masks for strong undercurrents of playfulness and an unyielding sense of hope. This expression; endlessly horrifying, intense, worried sick, goofy and ultimately excited for what comes next makes sense coming from an artist who's gone from basement jamming as a kid to now raising kids of his own, striving to do things his own way every step of the way. Thinking about a future outside of your own life and love that's bigger than imaginable has got to be one of the most horrifying/exciting things anyone can experience, and there's definitely a theme of that feeling running throughout the entire record. Clocking in at over an hour and sounding inspired and urgently alive for the duration, Modern Jester is easily some of the strongest work Aaron's ever come up with. A full-circle life-story kind of tapestry, open ended enough to be some kind of gnarled masterpiece.

HANSON RECORDS. MPO BOX 73. OBERLIN, OH 44074 USA

To Be Me Or Not To Be Me

2011-10-10T12:16:00.000-07:00

Seattle friends MEGA BOG (see also: Iji) played a gig in Ann Arbor last night with City Center, AM Shells and their tour mates Kusikia. It was great! This morning on their way out of town they stopped by the house to record a cover of Dear Nora's 90-second jamboree "To Be Me" for an upcoming comp/tribute, the details of which I know zip. They were in and out of here in like 20 minutes!! If I find out anything about where this song ends up, I will let y'all know. Meanwhile, they are on tour for the next two months, all over this mug of America. Check out the dates right herrrre and go see what you can see.

Media Blitz

2011-10-03T21:52:00.000-07:00

This has always been my favorite Germs song. When I was 17, I honestly believed the lyrics in the breakdown were "Take your parents to the mall, show them a good time."
We all know now that the picture is more important than the article, and most likely always has been.

Brighter Pink

2011-09-27T00:00:00.000-07:00

Swimsuit did two gigs with Grass Widow last week, one of which was opening for the Raincoats at MOCAD in Detroit. The day was intense and long, and both GW and Raincoats were amazing. I didn't manage to get too many photos, mostly because my head was swimming the entire day, but the above photo of Grass Widow's drummer turned out really nice in a total Loveless style.

My friend Vice Cooler (semi-pictured right) was drumming for the Raincoats. Vice has always gone out of his way to lead me to rare and amazing food in his necks of various woods, so I was stoked to share Goodwell's and Avalon with him in Detroit.

People can try to ruin things for you, but you cannot destroy positive energy.

Flea Moments

2011-09-26T21:02:00.000-07:00

YPSI FLEA happened a week ago. The 2nd installation of Life-Like and friends swap-meet/punk show/anything can happen style jam. Here are some photos of the affair.

SHELLEY SALANT

STRANGE BREW

ROYL SPACE

GARDENS

Michigan Cassette Reviews

2011-09-23T22:22:00.000-07:00

Here is the first of what should be a somewhat regular column reviewing independently released tapes from Michigan artists and labels. The fruitful and prolific nature of some of these freaks around the mitten is really unlike anywhere else, and while some may claim a throwback trending is bringing the cassette release back, I feel that the immediacy and self-sufficiency inherent in the small-scale tape world is as radical as you can get, and one of the last really special phenomena in music not yet completely co-opted and made lifeless by the culture it originally sprang from. This column may not be limited to Michigan releases in the future, but for now there is more than enough to go over in the neighborhood.

GARDENS "GLIDER CATS"
With their self-titled LP finally available to the world after many many moons in limbo, Detroit's Gardens are out and about more often, touring more and generally ruling as they always have. Their sound got deeply refined on the LP, presenting us with mostly tight-and-shiny one-drop garage trances. No one coming to the band anew would think of the record as a "clean" sound, but anyone who heard the early demo or CDR-at-a-show recordings can detect the upgrade. No doubt this might have been a conflicting feeling for the band, and "Glider Cats" brings back some of the crusty, boomboxed feel from those earlier demos. For all I know, it could be those very demos, as the notes just say "raw demo collage 2008-2010". Jammier and far less succinct than any of the vinyl releases, a little bit hard to follow in parts and glowingly, amazingly broken rock and roll in others. No label info included, but available at shows, which are plentiful in the Detroit area.

"IZZY IN HIGHLAND"
Izzy Johnson, part of Ann Arbor newcomers Chit Chat, is more the subject of this tape than the principle composer. While the focus is clearly Izzy's mostly-wordless guitar mantras, this 18-minute wandering comes off so much more like a field-recording or a weird fragment of conversation being recorded without the knowledge of all the participants. Recorded primarily in Ypsilanti's Highland Cemetery during some hazed-out, red-eyed summer day, the backdrop of birds, rain and lighter sparks meld into the lazy compositions producing something almost meditative. The intimacy of these recordings is what's really most palpable, and the vibe reigns supreme above any sound you may hear. This is release #2 from the illustrious KUMA TAPES, and ordering info/more info is right here. Limited to 30 copies.

RADIATOR HOSPITAL "NOTHIN' IN MY EYES"
This is the strange double-life of Radiator Hospital, 4-piece pop punk/fastcore Grand Rapids vegan soda enthusiasts by night and lovelorn one-boy acoustic bedroom bleeder by daylight. Or moreover the live band that appeared recently on a sweet 4 song 7" is absent on most of their cassette releases, save the crooned warble and kiss-me-like-we're-going-to-die vibes of singer Sam Cook-Parrot. "Nothin' In My Eyes" is an albums worth of bedroom/bathroom fuzz-fidelity acoustically rendered romance/burning heart/summer feeling-obsessed 90 second songs. Covers of J Church and the Adverts in a way gentler style give some indication of the consistent pace. Again, no label info, but seemingly released on a label called Lafayette.

SKATE LAWS/BITCHCOPTER "PURPLE REIGN IN BLOOD"
Ann Arbor grindcore duo the Jobys named their band after their friend Joby, who declined wanting to play with them. Genius, right??!! Why they would change that insanely brilliant name is beyond me, but here is their first output under the new moniker, a split tape with conceptual/comedic/Void side of the Faith-Void split punk one-man maven Skate Laws. Fast, growly and sometimes sludgy breakdowns from Bitchcopter, in a style that always reminded me of a more crust, less slowed down Man Is The Bastard. Surprisingly straight-forward stuff from Skate Laws, though interspersed with freakish found sounds and the occasional anonymous spoken bit of a ruined life crying for help. Limited to 100 copies. Contact: Bitchcopter P.O. Box 7343 Ann Arbor, MI 48107. Ballpitpedophile666@gmail.com.

Didn't It Rain////////////////

2011-09-12T16:03:00.000-07:00

Just got sent over this video of the Mighty Clouds 2011 Springtime tour. Me & Betty doing an encore jam of an old Saturday song on a strange and beautiful Monday night in Hamburg, Germany.

Warm Feelings

2011-09-01T21:25:00.000-07:00

My friend Patrick Elkins has been making music in Michigan for a good, long time, and has always brought a pure and holistic feeling into fragmented, fucked up pop songs. His random and quite seriously psychedelic lyrics have always tempered well with concise, strangely conceptual tunes. Imagine if seeing a "KEEP (WHEREVER) WEIRD" bumper sticker made you feel happy and loved instead of slightly annoyed. Pat's music is like that. When I was doing a 4-Track studio in my basement in 2005/2006, I was lucky enough to work on a few things with Pat that I still prize as some of the best stuff to come out of the joint.

The newest vehicle for Patrick's immense songwriting is a full-fledged band, known to us as the Rainbow Vomit Family Band. The group has been doing their thing around Michigan for a little over a year now, I believe, and the first long-playing documentation of the project is the instant classic "Warm Feelings", released this last Tuesday on Ypsi imprint Pleasuredome. Instant classic in the sense that the ten tracks herein feel like they've been around since the start of music, or maybe since the summer of 1993, but never in a nostalgia-steeped way. More in the way where a song (or in this case, a set of songs) instills a sense of total purpose without sounding like it's trying for anything. These songs are somehow outside of any movement or branding, even the ones they sound really similar to. The lysergic amble of "On The Beat With Shannon McDowell" owes something to the legacy of early 90's twee tape-trading, but it's easy to forget that as the song bumbles along. Incredibly, even what could come off as crowd-pleasing stoner pandering; the blue-eyed dub groove "Everything Smells Like Marijuana (To Me)" has a sense of purity and straightforwardness to it, the antithesis of what it looks like on paper. There's no walls or defensiveness on "Warm Feelings", even in the spaces where distance and coldness always lurk, there's nothing but good vibes. It's really exciting to hear this as a true band, as well, more than just Pat Elkins & Friends. Chelsea Jordan mirrors Pat's theatrical baritone vocals on most of the songs with her own softly spirited croon. Ian Fulcher fills out the jams with processed trumpet and bells and long-time collaborators Jason Voss and Chris "Legs" Pierce provide a sturdy, classic rhythm section. The band sounds completely on the same page, and apparently the entire record was tracked in one magical day by production team of Thom and Andy Elliott. That "sometimes-things-just-come-together" vibe flows throughout and is the perfect ambiance for what could be the strongest songs Pat has come up with in an age. It somehow follows that almost every song has excessive swearing or at least an F-bomb or two, yet still feels remarkably wholesome and non-aggressive to the core.

This vinyl-only jammer is limited to 100 copies, all hand-painted/numbered/everything. If you live outside of Michigan, I don't know where to point you just yet in terms of how to get a copy for yourself, but I bet Pleasuredome will have some web presence soon. I'll update when and if they do.

To the left is Emil. He loves The Doors but hates "The Soft Parade". What the fucking fuck?

This American Lyfe

2011-08-31T16:48:00.000-07:00

City Center has a song of the day moment on National Public Radio! WHAT THE HELL???

PNW Days

2011-08-30T15:29:00.000-07:00

Just back to Michigan for a minute from a highly productive end-of-summer stance in the Pacific Northwest. I was there for a few months and Amber came out for the last couple weeks. Apart from Damned Dogs doing a few really incredible tide-turning sets, we got to spend some time at Dub Narcotic Studio in Olympia working on some songs with Chain & The Gang. Not sure where these sounds will end up or what they're for, but we put down about three tracks and also finished up a Swimsuit session that we started there on tour. Our ode to a 12-year-old girl in the 80's who made the best no-wave/outsider disco record of all time, "Chandra" is a big-beat danger jam in the style of Bush Tetras, Lizzie Mercier Descloux and Chandra herself. I think it may be a 7" on K at some point, and it's one of our funnest live jams.

In Olympia by night there was a gig at Dumpster Values with Broken Water & Grass Widow. I'd never seen Broken Water before, though my friend Konako plays drums/sings, and jesus, they were amazing. I'd heard them described before as "all the good '90's bands at once", and that might not be too far off. Heavy MBV/Sonic Youth guitar bend dream vibes, and this show was oddly emo in spirit.. heaviness and family members in attendance. I was trying not to cry for a lot of it and it felt great. Grass Widow was cool, too and closed their set with a Wire cover.

Damned Dogs also did a gig in Portland with Joey Casio and others, and did some recording for a tape that I'll post something about next. There was also some pretty amazing nature to be seen, and we slept in the woods near a river and on the beach where the Twilight movies were filmed. But more about that next time. For now, I am back in the mitten trying to catch up with the airport blues.

Advrb

2011-08-24T13:48:00.000-07:00

"Aloud" is the new record by Advrb, my friend Andrew Barton's songs, fleshed out and made strange, glowing and expansive by a host of different players and collaborators. I met Andrew in 2003 when he and some of his friends came to a Saturday gig in Eugene, Oregon. Thing is, they were all underage and the place we played was 21+ and not having it, so we arranged it so we would play right by the door instead of on the stage so the kids outside could see and hear the show as well without actually entering the bar. Sticking it very softly and politely to the man. Over the years 'Drew and I kept in touch and he would share some of his releases with me sporadically. He's done a bunch, and they've come fast and furiously, but "Aloud" he's spent a long long long time working on in various locations and states of life. It's one of those many-year-diary/spiritual journey kind of jams, and it turned out really shimmering, dense and beautiful. I mastered the record, and got to know it inside out, and I hope anyone reading this will check it out. The whole thing is streaming over here on the group's bandcamp, and you can buy a cassette version there until it sees a wider release.

The Crossettes

2011-08-23T13:53:00.000-07:00

The Crossettes are a new all-girl Portland band that rule all schools. My friend Jenny & I played together when we both lived in Brooklyn in a band called World Atlas, but her main jam was a duo called Ribbons. Relocation sadly ended Ribbons, but when she teamed up with this crew, good things came together really quickly. Fate found us both in the Northwest at the same time, and a week or so ago I was lucky enough to work with the band recording a sweet demo at Alex Yusimov's Northeast Portland 92% analog studio The Pool (see photo to the right, me looking like a haggard drifter pretending to be Brian Wilson, as usual). The band did three songs and man, they sound great. Here's one that I did a slightly more dub-inflected mix of, but search out the real deal and most importantly the band's shows, which is where the shine shines brightest!

DOWNLOAD: The Crossettes "Coming Alive" (Reverbed-Out Mix)

ALSO: "Crossettes" is a pyrotechnical term for when specific fireworks cross trails of sparks. There are still good band names out there!!!

Not good band names: "Skeleton Diamonds", "Luther Can-Dross", "Consenting Dinosaurs", "Beavis & Bartholomew", "The Gimlets", "Lucky Lucifer Twins", "Branch".

We Live By Night

2011-08-11T23:46:00.000-07:00

Me & Erika at a Make*Up show, circa 1996. I don't remember ever rocking the collar/sweater/circa 1996 look so well as this photo exemplifies. Must have been a cool time. Photo by Ian Svenonius.

Puppathon Number One

2011-08-11T18:26:00.000-07:00

This is my new blog. The old one is fading, the new one is crusading. Next post will most likely be a list of movies I have been watching while in Portland all summer. Thanks for paying attention to me!