LESSONS PART II

Well, it's happening. in 90 minutes I take my first guitar lesson from the guitarist one of my favorite bands (Charles from the Wrens). I feel like I'm going to rock school.

Wish me poise!

BATTLE

(from the desk of my band Strikes Again!)

'Strikes Again! has been chosen to compete by Fearless Music in their Battle of the Bands! We're represented by our set staple 'Hell Disaster', and there's no song we'd rather go into battle with. At this early stage it's strictly a virtual battle, so we only get to fight with your votes.

Here's all you need to do to vote for Strikes Again!

1. Go to http://www.fearlessmusic.tv/battleofthebands.php
2. In the center box, select the bubble next to Strikes Again! and click 'Vote'. (1 vote per computer)
3. Tell your friends and enemies to do the same.

The ultimate winner of the Battle gets to perform on Fearless Music, a TV show featuring bands who fly under the radar of mainstream media. The show airs weekly across the U.S. Bands who have been featured on the program include The Wrens, Idlewild, French Kicks, Longwave, British Sea Power, and many others.

We appreciate your support. Thanks for voting!

John, John, Mike & Jeff'

STRIPPERS

Ever since men became generally unhappy with their lives (sometime in the early 1970s, I think), there have been strip clubs. And they're depressing, depressing places.

Well, now they're dangerous to boot. Apparently strippers kill unsuspecting johns and leave the skulls lying around like empty Coors cans in their childhood trailer park. No word on whether she ate their flesh first, but it's a safe assumption.

Please note in the linked article that the cops were responding to a guy who was threatening to "kill himself with a hammer", which is the most preposterous thing I've ever heard. Because if anyone did, there would be a band called 'Hammercide'. or maybe 'Hammercyde'.

Word to the wise: if a stripper offers to take you home, wear some sort of protective headgear or facemask so she can't chew your face off. Take it from Stinkrock.

Vader Sessions

A collection of Clips from Star Wars featuring Darth Vader in which Vader's dialogue is removed and dialogue spoken by James Earl Jones in his other movies is inserted. Godsauce.

INSECTDIGITAL

Life's many confluence's flow and ebb around us as the seasons envelop one another. My music listening is seasonal. For instance, I really only listen to Tom Waits in the winter (from the Music to Drink Bourbon to series).

And then there's summer. When I was younger, DJs and music video channels would try to convince me that there were quintessential summer songs. But summer is uncomfortable and unrelenting in New York City. People are hot, people are pressed in, and we stop being people. We smell like the oceans our ancestors swam through to get here. We either burn up in the city's open spaces or hide in the shade of the gothic pillars that are phasing us out. We become savages. I've seen people turn in the twinkling of an eye. The city heats up like a volcano, and we all look to escape. Music? At your own risk - turning on your stereo and your leaky air conditioner/ might cause a brown out.

And then some days it gets really hot, like it did this week. And here come the flies, to hide from the heat? Or are they crazy from it, like David Lee Roth with 1,000 eyes? Or are they attracted to the glow and the heat people give off, like winged paparazzi?

Well, this guy pictured below wanted neither. He seemed to be saying something portentous about the digital age of music (it's covered with flies). That, or he was looking for the feel good hit of the summer.

PEZ

"Life's many confluence's flow and ebb around us as the seasons envelop one another. In this very manor a year has past since I wrote you last. Approximately 365 days ago you received my sculptures and proposal for the "Fallen Rapper Pez" series, featuring the portraits of Tupac Shakur, Eazy-E, and Biggie Smalls (Notorious B.I.G.). Each replica is meticulously crafted, lending to its in-artificiality in form and countenance (or manifestation). I am sure I needn't remind you of the historical significance of these influential African-American artists. "

The art of Packard Jennings, including his correspondence with Pez regarding the Fallen Rapper Pez Prototypes.

LESSONS

Charles from the Wrens is giving guitar lessons. This does to me what Dallas did to Debbie (or Mclusky, for that matter).

He's a wildly inventive guitarist. I may have to take one just for fun.

M

SYD

I should be sleeping, and I should be dreaming. but there are only a handful of musicians who made me what I am, and Syd Barrett is one of them.

Syd's life has been documented elsewhere, but here's the skinny: he formed pink floyd, he got addicted to drugs, he left the band. for the last 30 years, he's aimed to live a simple life living at his mom's and getting hounded by fans. He was dogged by ulcers and diabetes. He stopped making music before I was born.

It's terribly unsatisfying to lose a musician who has no idea what he built for others. Especially when he suffered physically and mentally. So even though Roger Barrett put 'Syd' to rest a long time ago, I'm just catching up. So I stayed up late listening to and recording a version of arguably his prettiest song: 'Dark Globes' from his first solo record.


mp3

HOPE

My experience with blogging so far has been hit-or-miss, sister-kiss. The best blogs stay constant, and interesting, I go hot and cold. Jackson and Chrispy (before he went Rip van Winkle) do an excellent job.

But for some reason, neither of them were compelled to talk about the fact that Smoke & Mirrors and Via Skyway are losing their recording spaces on July 31st. I've recorded here with three bands. Why aren't we talking about this? Is this a taboo? It's possible that everyone's playing an elaborate 'we're moving' trick on me so I won't see them again. My parents did this to me when I was 11.

I now have three weeks to take the news badly, go into shock, emerge, get outraged, talk myself down, and then offer up loving tributes to these places. So let's get started.
-------------------------------
(thud)
Where am I?....ow....my head......

This is outrageous!

If they have to move...i mean, it sucks, but...oh god! muhhhfff....that smell...was that me?
-------------------------------

uh, let's get to the loving tribute.

I've spent hundreds of hours at these communes, ever since Rob Machold suggested we record the Microdot record there in 2003. Since then, I've been through the 11 hope street door like a whore in a condom store, bringing two other bands into the fold, playing in George's band, or giving Ted his keys back at 2:30 after he'd given them to me 5 hours earlier to buy beer and chips, cabbing home, and finding them in my pocket.

I can't make sense of it all right now, but here are five memorable 11 hope moments. (If I number them 1-5, you'll think they're of equal importance. But if I number them 5 to 1 you'll think they increase in importance. Humans are sheep.)

5. Jeff records the guitar part on 'Ripped Open'. Misanthrope had dropped in, and he, Chrispy, me and John van Atta simultaneously experienced what electric guitar can do for the human experience. It was transcendental--if there's a heaven, we're all in it*.

4. Recording the vocal for 'Vera' on the Smoke & Mirrors tribute to Pink Floyd's 'The Wall'. After 6 years of piano lessons that I really need to get around to thanking my parents for, I parlayed them into playing "Nobody Home" into "Vera" over and over.** Side 3 has always been my favorite.

("VERA! VERA! What has become of you? Does anybody else here feel the way I do?" are the most visceral lyrics of all time. I mean, for the British.)

3. I get in a fight with George about (a) my guitar part (b) my arrangement idea (c) my bass line (d) my vocal performance (e) his arrangement idea (f) his guitar part (g) the fact that he's playing guitar in my band (h) the fact that I'm playing bass in his band (i) tuning (j) the lighting (k) which keyboard sound to use for the ambient part that no one will hear. I *love* fighting with George. Even better, I called him an asshole over a firetruck of beer at Spuyten Duyvil, and now he's eerily respectful. It must've been the crocodile tears. I share two things in common with Whitney Houston: I get so emotional, and I forget the other one.

2. The vocal session for 'No U-Turn'. After a late night of tracking, George and Chris urged me to record a scratch vocal for this song, which is about my marriage ending and deciding to pour all that energy into music. I didn't really know these guys at this point, but George plied me with whiskey, put me in the live room, and talked me through the take like I was a jumper. I don't even know if this is the one on the record, but this is the lyric I'm most proud of.

1. There is no #1. half because my friends were kicked out, and half because it's going to get better at their new digs in greenpoint.

Hail, hail, Smoke & Mirrors. Hail hail, Via Skyway.






*there is no heaven.

ZIDANE

So I've heard two reports on what the Italian said to Zidane to bring on yesterday's vicious headbutt. The first is 'dirty terrorist'. the second is he called his sister a prostitute. Twice. I think it's going to end up being the former, but I so hope it's the latter. When you throw in the nipple twist Materazzi gave Zidane, it has to be the prostitute story, right?

Freedom fries just became headbutt fries.

Finally, penalty kicks should never decide the World Cup Final. I propose Multiball, in which an additional ball is added to the field every 10 minutes.

TEKSERVE

Last month I walked into Tekserve to see if a new battery would fix my iPod. I walked out two hours later with a brand new MacBook.

I've long been hoping to upgrade from my zip-disk eating 8-track to a mac laptop/mbox pro tools setup, and I'd found a good deal for an mbox on craigslist a couple weeks earlier. I was also a week away from trip down to my parents' place; they have a baby grand piano in a room with beautiful acoustics, and they were off in Europe. I envisioned myself sitting at the piano, drinking red wine, stuffing my own tip jar, and recording everything.

Back to Tekserve. A few days before I got there, Tekserve employees told me Digidesign had released a new version of Pro Tools to work on the Mac Book Pro (which I know Misanthrope's been waiting for--has he got it?). After weighing the Mac Book against the pro, i realized that the 'Pro' really refers to video capability; the Pro comes with a better video card and more RAM, but for audio there doesn't appear to be much advantage.

I also figured that even though Digidesign isn't supporting ProTools on the MacBook yet, it'll happen. So I made the plunge. It seems to be a pretty popular machine, too -- pretty girls stop to talk to me more often when they see I have a macbook.

At one point the sales tech next to me thought I called the macbook 'cute'. He lit into me. Apple salesmen ain't no glamour boys - they're fierce! This guy looked like Manson meets Paul Giamatti meets every hairy geek you've ever met in your life: let's call him 'Dungeon Master'. He stood 5 foot 3 and at one point reached for a broad sword that didn't exist. Eventually, he agreed that Digidesign would come through on the Macbook, though.

After saving $200 by opting for the white Macbook over the black (am I a racist?) I had a rudimentary setup. And it turns out that the new version of PT does work. There are performance issues that shouldn't be there, but most of the problem is learning a new, infinitely more sophisticated system.

Anyway, I'm curious to see how others make out with the new line. And any advice on how to get better sounds is greatly appreciated.

One last note: I used to think that digital recording was supposed to empower musicians like me to be able to forgo the studios and get the sounds I wanted in the comfort of my own home. This is what I've been shooting for - I've spent thousands of dollars in my lifetime in recording studios.

But there's a mindset to recording music that differs from making music. I write when I'm impulsive, but recording requires me to be patient, and I'm not so good at patience. I've done some impulsive recording in the past (I recorded an EP in two weeks), and it was fun as hell, but it doesn't sound terribly good. Also, I don't think I'll ever get there technically. I understand some of the concepts, but I will never understand what dithering is.

But I still have the MacBook. I can cart it to our rehearsal space and record studios, and with its ultra-fast boot-up time I can get songwriting ideas down quickly. And because it gets so unbelievably, Raiders-of-the-Lost-Ark-melting face hot, I can use it to make pancakes and grilled cheese sandwiches.

DEBATE

On the way back from a successful show in Boston this past weekend, Strikes Again! got involved in a debate over a sticky issue that's been in discussion for nearly two decades.

Ride the Lightning vs. Master of Puppets.

Metallica's the best American metal band ever, and their peak came somewhere between recording the last note of Ride the Lightning and the first note of Master of Puppets. But these albums go parallel. There's no match for Creeping Death or Master of Puppets' title track, but everything else is debatable. In our car, Ride the Lightning won, and it came down to 'Escape'. (Although we're still waiting to hear from our singer, who was sleeping off a 3-piece-Jolt-gum hangover. that may sound disney, but i had one piece and turned into a martian).