My Favorite Record Stores

two record stores I frequent:

True Vine is my new favorite record store and I've only been there once. The place is chaotic, almost an anti-store, which would make it more like someone's living room, which I think describes it pretty well, come to think of it. I got into a discussion with the owner/manager/clerk/head conversationalist about Wacky Packages, which was cool, especially when it devolved into a story
about riding around naked listening to Psychic TV ( I won't say whose story that was).... PURCHASES: Incredible String Band "Changing Horses" (LP), Six Organs of Admittance "Shelter from the Ash" (CD)

Another chaotic store that I love is Joe's Record Paradise. It has a completely different vibe from True Vine- more frumpy Rockville than arty Baltimore. Joe's is a maximalist place. There are the record bins, then below the bins are shelves, and in front of the shelves are cardboard boxes, all stuffed with records. I tend to spend either 10 minutes or 5 hours. It can get overwhelming. Although I recognize some of the staff after repeated visits, there's no acknowledgment that I've ever been there before.... PURCHASES: 13th Floor Elevators "Demos Everywhere" (LP), Curtis Mayfield "Back to the World" (LP)

I guess what I like about these stores is that they are completely unpredictable. You can't go in with a particular title in mind, or a shopping list. You have to just be open to whatever you encounter while flipping through the stacks. It's a cultural field trip through hairstyles and fashions, cover photo moods ("we're having fun", "we're cool", "I'm serious") and graphics.

Tune In Across the Universe

Today at 7 p.m. EST, NASA will transmit the Beatle's song "Across the Universe" towards Polaris (the north star), which is 431 light years away from earth.

The song will travel across the universe at a speed of 186,000 miles per second

according to the news release.

(Paul McCartney says: "Send my love to the aliens")

John Lennon wrote the lyrics after listening to his wife Cynthia "go on and on about something". The song was recorded forty years ago today- February 4th 1968 - at Abbey Road studios in London. It was intended for release while the Beatles were in India.

It's not my favorite Beatles song, but I like the idea of transmitting it out across the universe. It's an optimistic act; kind of egocentric, but that's what we humans are all about. We're adding a track to the Cosmic Jukebox, the Fab Four are representing Earth in an intergalactic Battle of the Bands.

Words are flowing out like endless rain into a paper cup,
They slither wildly as they slip away across the universe
Pools of sorrow, waves of joy are drifting through my open mind,
Possessing and caressing me.

Jai guru deva om

Nothing's gonna change my world,
Nothing's gonna change my world.

Images of broken light which dance before me like a million eyes,
That call me on and on across the universe,
Thoughts meander like a restless wind inside a letter box they
Tumble blindly as they make their way
Across the universe

Jai guru deva om

Nothing's gonna change my world,
Nothing's gonna change my world.

Sounds of laughter shades of life are ringing
Through my open views inciting and inviting me
Limitless undying love which shines around me like a
Million suns, it calls me on and on

Across the universe

This post is dedicated to my cousin Matt.

Mandrake Roots Rock

Reading the new history of the 13th Floor Elevators I came across this passage documenting Roky's initial slide into madness:

Tommy (Hall) used Asthmador as part of Roky's draft avoidance regimen. This was an asthma relief preparation that contained the active ingredient Atropine, a psychoactive compound present in both mandrake root and belladonna.




A few sentences later:

Atropine is the same substance present in Mandrax (from the mandrake root) which was heavily abused by Pink Floyd's madcap leader Syd Barrett and has often been attributed to the final crack in his sanity.



Wikipedia provides this interesting mandrake root factoid:

It was a common belief in some countries that a mandrake would grow where the semen of a hanged man dripped on to the earth.

Lacking that option, I did some web searching and found that you can buy mandrake seeds and make your own witches brew.

BONE!

Doctor Nerve
and
BONE (Didkovsky / Hopper / Roulat)

Saturday Night, February, 16th 8:00pm

Orion Studios plays host to Doctor Nerve and BONE, two of avant-
rock's most extraordinary rock ensembles. Help us celebrate a show
that will offer a night of truly incredible progressive music from
two groups whose members helped pioneer this genre!

----------

Up first, BONE, a rock trio made up of Hugh Hopper (Soft Machine),
Nick Didkovsky (Doctor Nerve, Fred Frith Guitar Quartet) and John
Roulat (Forever Einstein). With their landmark CD “Uses Wrist
Grab” (Cuneiform Records) BONE re-established and expanded the
boundaries of the guitar based rock trio. Bone has only performed
live once, so this is a very special occasion you must not miss. One
reviewer from last year's premiere performance at The Stone (NYC)
summed up the performance with a simple “OMG!”

This night is even more special since Hugh Hopper is coming directly
from London to play his first performance in the Maryland / Baltimore
area.

Hugh Hopper is a British bass player, studio/electronic musician,
songwriter, composer, and improviser, Hugh is one of the most active,
influential and respected figures on today’s international jazz-rock
scene. In a career lasting over 40 years, beginning in the early
1960s and continuing today, Hopper has played and recorded with
countless jazz, rock, and jazz/rock musicians around the globe,
including every musician of the British Canterbury scene, and amassed
a huge body of recorded work. Hopper was a central figure in the
genesis of Canterbury School music,Britain’s most distinctive
contribution to progressive jazz/rock, and he composed some its most
memorable tunes; historian Aymeric Leroy, a Canterbury specialist,
regards Hopper to be THE personification of the Canterbury school.
Hopper also introduced some of the most avant-garde techniques into
jazz/rock, attaching fuzz boxes to his bass and experimenting with
tapes, soundscapes and electronic manipulations of sound. Indeed,
Hopper is one of the world’s most distinctive and influential bass
players in any genre: his signature fuzz bass sound, developed in the
late sixties as a member of Soft Machine, had profound impact on
psychedelic music, European jazz/rock and even ‘zeuhl’ (Magma) music
of the day, and continues to resonate among young jazz/rock players
today.
----------

Next up is Doctor Nerve with guest Ben Herrington (Meridian Arts
Ensemble). Doctor Nerve has been shredding the boundaries between
rock music, heavy metal, systematic improvisation, and avant-
contemporary music for over 20 years. Armed with new tunes (!) and an
expanded horn section featuring Ben Herrington of the Meridian Arts
Ensemble on trombone, Nerve performs for the first time in Baltimore
in what is sure to be a mind bending and screamingly intense musical
experience.

This is a rare opportunity to see a night of music that will, if
not change your life, most certainly leave a dent in it. Miss even a
second of this and suffer the scorn of your peers forever. Survive it
all and tell your grandchildren you were there.

----------------
Doctor Nerve
----------------

"A startling collision of post-metal guitar, avant-garde
improvisation, and tight, large-ensemble arrangements." Guitar Player
"Some of the most cogently raucous ideas on the current scene,
postminimal, neomaximal, and full of energy" Kyle Gann, Village Voice
"A blissful test of musical severity" Carl Howard, Artitude
"Will scare the hell out of you!" Drummer Dude

Leo Ciesa - drums, oaken splinters
Nick Didkovsky - loud guitar, conduction
Yves Duboin - soprano sax and marginally painful squeals
Rob Henke - trumpet and high frequencies
Ben Herrington - trombone, punk bell
Jesse Krakow - electric bass, metrical gyrations
Michael Lytle - marginally sensitive bass clarinet, scientific
fictions
Kathleen Supove - piano, vinyl, mona lisa

---------
BONE
---------

“This fabulous all-star progressive power trio features Nick
Didkovsky (from Doctor Nerve) on lead guitar, Hugh Hopper (Canterbury
fuzz-bass legend for Soft Machine & Isotope, etc.) and John Roulat
(Forever Einstein) on drums & percussion. ...wicked slide
guitar...great, bent, hard rockin' nastiness... screaming, demon
guitars ... thick, throbbing
bass ... great tribal drums and percussion. Charming in a twisted
sort of way" - Bruce Gallanter, Downtown Music Gallery

"The madness herein is very catching. Assault with a friendly
weapon..."
- Ken Egbert, WHAT'S RATTLIN'

“The music ranges from take-no-prisoners-and-give-no

-apologies
intensity to deep floating psychedelia. Intense, precise, surreal:
Bone is a power trio that defies expectations!” AMG

visit:
www.doctornerve.org
www.doctornerve.org/bone
www.burningshed.com/hopper/
www.forevereinstein.com

COVER: $15
All Ages Show - BYOB - Chairs and Coolers welcome

Doctor Nerve and Bone CD's are available at www.waysidemusic.com
and the
iTunes Music Store

Doctor Nerve and Bone merchandise (jerseys, t-shirts, thongs)
available at http://www.cafepress.com/doctornerve


Driving Directions:
-------------------
I95 to exit 50A, Caton Ave South. Take Caton Ave south to the third
traffic signal and turn left onto Washington Blvd. Take Washington
Blvd. about 1/4 mile until you see a big "U-Haul" sign, on your
right. Turn just before the sign onto Inverness Ave. Take Inverness
to its end and turn left onto Whittington Ave. Take Whittington to
its end and turn right, into our lot. Enter through door "B" in the
building on your right as you enter the lot.

Tag Your Country's Photos

Woman working on an airplane motor at North American Aviation, Inc., plant in Calif. (LOC)
Originally uploaded by The Library of Congress

The Library of Congress recently loaded hundreds of photos onto Flickr as an experiment. The idea is to expose the photos to more people and allow people to assign tags to each photo. I think this is a really cool idea because it 1) opens up the incredible collection of LOC photos that have been sorta collecting dust on their clunky site and 2) leverages the power of the internet in allowing viewers to assign tags ("metadata" in the lexicon of librarians).

thoughts on Jeremy Blake

I've been thinking a lot about Jeremy Blake ever since I saw the Wild Choir show at the Corcoran in December. If you haven't been, you should go. Blake was really onto something with his combination of still media and video (he edited every frame of his 9-12 minute videos in Photoshop). And I'm partial to his themes: sixties Swinging London decadence, punk impresario Malcolm McLaren, the poetry of David Berman (who will be reading at the Corcoran in February)....and there's the heavy back-story too, with his slide into paranoia and death. But I think people should be remembered for the beautiful stuff they create, not for their messy lives. So check out Jeremy Blake- some of his videos are on the web (as well as Theresa Duncan's The History of Glamour) but you really need to experience his stuff on a big wall in a dark room.

show this Saturday

show this Saturday
Originally uploaded by BarrettJ

come feel the heat

Theresa Duncan posts again

set to publish automatically on New Year's eve, a post from the late Theresa Duncan

Hello Goodbye

2007's Leafy Green top 10:
1- getting married on a hot August day
2- a loud-ass jam session in Austin
3- the cherry tomatoes from the garden
4- a loud-ass jam session in Chevy Chase
5- Sunburned Hand of the Man at Wave Farm
6- getting cut loose from the shackles of the IMF
7- bringing tamales up to Connecticut for xmas
8- every one of Jenny Otto's classes (and Douglas Brooks)
9- learning about Allen Ginsberg
10- swimming in the ocean off Copal with the moon and stars above

Solstice

Ice forming on sea near Lauttasaari.
Originally uploaded by HyperBob

we've arrived at the shortest day. it's been a fun round trip. now we're heading out of the darkness back towards summer.

Street Hassle

Dupont Circle & 19th Street, Thursday 12:15 pm:

Lady Panhandler: Spare some change? I like you!
Me: Sorry, no change.
Lady Panhandler: I don't like you. Fuck you!

Two blocks further south...

Male Panhandler: Merry Christmas, spare some change?
Me: Sorry, no change.
Male Panhandler: Asshole!

Majick Community Radio Airplay

Sean at WRYR (97.5 FM in Annapolis -100 watts of power!) played track 4 off disc 3 of the CD-R set...an inspired choice! it's one of the most abstract tracks we've recorded...I love to think of our stuff floating in the airwaves over the "Eastern & Western Shores of the Mid-Chesapeake Bay Region".

Sean's show is every Friday night from 9 til 1.

Thanks Sean!

Cassette Culture

Just signed up for my second year of Tape Club, the Plastic Crimewave effort that puts a mix tape of psychedelic sixties unknowns in your mailbox every two months. I've written about this before but I wanted to plug it again because I'm a huge fan of Steve Krakow's stuff. His Galactic Zoo Dossier zine is totally awesome (here's an interview with the man).

I listen to my cassettes on a $25 boombox. This is the optimal playback mechanism for tapes. The Tape Club tapes sound great on a boombox. Most 60's music was recorded in mono, meant to be heard through the single speaker of a handheld transistor radio or a crappy AM car radio.

The Tape Club tapes got me to go back through my old tapes. I've heard a few where some drunken finger pressed "record" instead of "play", creating a few seconds of what is today called a "field recording". And even if you punch out those two little tabs, tapes degrade. So the tape you hear today won't sound the same years from now. Degeneration baby! It's cool.

Takoma Crime Map

View Larger Map
Stereogab created this very cool Google Map showing the latest wave of muggings in our neighborhood. It's cool that DC shares their data but if one concerned citizen can build an effective map using Google, why are we paying for stuff like this?

UPDATE 12.12: Found the MPDC Crime Incidents KML file and their Google map but they don't show many of the incidents mapped above. Is MPDC not adding every incident to their database?

Yeah!

Look out Takoma!

Punk Rock Memory Lane

Watching the Joe Strummer documentary the other night got me to thinking about the Clash and the mid-70's punk scene in England and how it is possible for Art to be both Political and Fun.

American Hardcore documents the American scene a few years later, during the "second wave" of punk, when bands like Black Flag and Bad Brains roamed the country, spawning scenes wherever they played.

Potluck Redux

my set
AUTOSALVAGE "PARAHIGHWAY"
DONOVAN "BARABAJANGLE"
WILLIAM PENN FYVE "SWAMI"
KAK "ELECTRIC SAILOR"
MOBY GRAPE "MURDER IN MY HEART FOR THE JUDGE"
ZZ TOP "OLD MAN"
BEATLES "NORWEGIAN WOOD"
CRAMPS "I CAN'T FIND MY MIND"
MONGO SANTAMARIA "FEELIN ALRIGHT"
THE JIMMY CASTOR BUNCH "YOU BETTER BE GOOD"
ROLLING STONES "2000 MAN"
BYRDS "BAD NIGHT AT THE WHISKEY"
BEVIS FROND "TERMINATION STATION GREY"
KINKS "I NEED YOU"
PINK FLOYD "VEGETABLE MAN"
CHOCOLATE WATCHBAND "EXPO 2000"
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA "THE GARDEN OF EARTHLY DELIGHTS"
TAMRONS "WILD MAN"

hackmuth's set
stereogab's set

The Rebirth of Potluck
Originally uploaded by stereogab

Majick Mango Chutney

debuted our majick rainbow station at last night's Electric Possible. thank you to all who attended. enjoyed John Berndt and Tyler Wilcox intense Baltimore free-jazz sax scrawls, Aleasthete's tiny toy music, Field Shaman's ambient guitar and cello zone, Safe's bank of blinking lights and humming mics. thinking back I realized I was the only performer who stood up to play (this was not a conscious decision)...last night was also the debut of our "limited edition" (read: the stencil crapped out after 30 prints) 3 CD-R set, still smelly from paint and ink fumes (good for huffing before listening to the disc)....this will eventually make its way onto cyberpace somewhere.... Jason of Aleasthete compared our sound to the sensation when you first try mango chutney; you can't decide whether you like it or hate it.

Come Feel the Majick

We're debuting Majick Rainbow Station this Sunday at Electric Possible

$5--all money goes to the artists!
8:00 pm, Sunday, Nov 4, 2007
Phillips Hall, 801 22nd St, NW
Rm B 120 (in the basement)
(22nd and H Streets/GW Metro)

Happy Halloween!

(Photo by dronepop)

R.I.P. Stylus magazine.

Scene's from this year's Dupont Circle drag race.

My goodbye post to the library profession.

Clusterfuck Nation (via The Dust Congress)
"One of the stupidest assumptions made by the educated salient of adults these days is that we are guaranteed a smooth transition between the cancerous hypertrophy of our current economic environment and the harsher conditions that we are barreling toward. The university profs and the tech sector worker bees are still absolutely confident that some hypothetical 'they' will 'come up with'” magical rescue remedies for running the Happy Motoring system without gasoline. My main message to lecture audiences these days is '…quit putting all your mental energy into propping up car dependency and turn your attention to other tasks such as walkable communities and reviving passenger rail….' Inevitably, someone will then get up and propose that the transition to all-electric cars is nearly upon us, and we should stop worrying. As I said, these are the educated denizens of the colleges. Imagine what the nascar morons believe – that the ghost of Davey Crockett will leave a jug of liquefied 'dark matter' under everyone’s Christmas tree this year or next, guaranteed to keep the engines ringing until Elvis ushers in the Rapture."

It's Finally Getting Cold

Two
Originally uploaded by BarrettJ

A good NY Times article about Andy Warhol's films
MV+EE are on tour. Go see them if you can.

The Experience Hendrix Show Sucked

I'm an optimist. And I'm also a completist. So when the Experience Hendrix show was advertised awhile back, I bought tickets. The lineup looked promising: Billy Cox and Mitch Mitchell, these guys backed up Jimi in his heyday- Rainbow Bridge, Isle of Man- they were there, man! And Buddy Guy playing guitar. This was the man whose guitar playing Jimi copied! Like I say, I'm an optimist. Then Robby Krieger, guitarist for the Doors. What was he doing there? Well, good chance to see someone who stood in Jim Morrison's vomit. He was there, man! And Mick Taylor, who backed up Mick and Keef back in the day: Exile on Main Street, Sticky Fingers- he was there, man!

.....I spent last weekend cleaning out my stuff from my parent's attic. Old school papers, drawings, toys- all this stuff that I'd left behind, thinking, at the time, that it was valuable. And at the time, that A+ on my first grade math homework was important. But that was a long time ago. As I hauled boxes of stuff out to the trash I realized that you can't hold onto past, because the past keeps growing until it makes all those thoughts and artifacts meaningless....

...and that's what's happened to those guys. To be fair, they were fighting an uphill battle. They were playing D.A.R. Constitution Hall, a space whose musical mojo has been bad since they banned Marian Anderson . And the sound was a mess. The drums were drowned in the mix. Vocal mics didn't work. The stage monitors weren't mixed right. Between songs musicians were yelling at the sound man to turn up the drums, fix the mix in the monitors. It was clear they couldn't hear each other...

But these guys are pros, right? Hey, Mick Taylor kept it going at Altamont fer chrissakes. First of the legends to appear was Robby Krieger, still totin' the Gibson SG. Problem was, he still can't play in tune. There were other guitar players, guys who played like the guys you hear at Guitar Center. Then there was poor old Mitch Mitchell. He can't really do those rolls anymore. He really needed those drum mics turned up to help him along. Robert Randolph never made it to the stage. They announced him but then a stagehand came up and said something to Billy Cox (whose look said "uh-oh!") while he and Mick Taylor and Mitch Mitchell limped along through a 12-bar blues something (yeah but Hendrix played that song, right?).

...by this time the crowd was barely clapping. Hecklers shouted at the sound man. I got up and made my way out of the place. Out in the lobby, guys in baseball caps were standing around drinking beer and looking at each other under the bright chandeliers. I headed for the door. A block away, a homeless man sat on a steam grate. I gave him my ticket. Maybe that guy went in and had a blast.

music to my ears

playin' lately:

Yellow Swans (on tour with Mouthus!)

Ashtray Navigations

Vibracathedral Orchestra

Rasta!

Today as I was entering my office building one of the security guards smiled at me and said "You look like a rasta! You're a rasta, right?" This is at an institution with one of the tightest sphincters in DC...and I was in a suit and tie...I''m baffled...is this good or bad?

Horror

In chronological order, a list of horror movies I've seen in the past few years:

The Exorcist
Shivers
The Brood
Damien
The Fly (Cronenberg)
City of the Living Dead (Folci)
Possession
The Sentinel
Wicker Man
Let Sleeping Corpses Lie
Rosemary's Baby
Cabin Fever
Deadly Spawn
Martin
Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2
Edge of Sanity
The Beyond (Folci)
Blue Sunshine
House by the Cemetery
Natural Born Killers
Death Dream
Blood of the Virgins
The Thing (remake)
Shallow Grave
Curse of the Demon
Henry; Portrait of a Serial Killer

When 197 People Were Arrested for Protesting the War

music by M-R-S

Several Saucerfuls of Syd

Here is my report on the Piper at the Gates of Dawn box set.

First, a little background....back in the day, boys and girls, it took some searching to find this record. I found an Italian pressing (stereo) in a record store in Greenwich Village and for the next 20 years (count 'em!) that's the version I played until every nook and cranny of the record was imprinted on my brain....so when I put the mono mix in the stereo yesterday, it was one of those times when you're in a familiar place that's changed slightly...something is different, but is it you? is it the drugs? or both? the nicest part of the mono mix is how close everything sounds. everything is up front, immediate.

The reprints of Syd's notebook pages (why did he use a typewriter?) give a glimpse of someone playing mad riffs of images and words, already slipping off the reels, never to return. Poor Syd! while WE are still around let's blast our stereos in full psychedelic glory!

Sympathy for the Devil

"Sympathy for the Devil: Art and Rock and Roll Since 1967 examines the dynamic relationship between rock music and contemporary visual art, a relationship that crosses continents, generations, and cultures. Since the late 1950s this unlikely hybrid of rhythm-and-blues and country music has had an undeniable impact on society while drastically changing with the times. Artists from the 1960s to the present have maintained a strong connection to rock, beginning with Andy Warhol’s involvement with The Velvet Underground (who released their Warhol-produced landmark album The Velvet Underground and Nico in 1967 -- the same year the MCA opened its doors). More recently, artists such as Slater Bradley, Raymond Pettibon, and Mike Kelley have created album covers and music videos for rock bands, while many noted rock musicians such as John Lennon, Bryan Ferry, and Peter Townsend have emerged from art schools. " at Chicago's Museum of Contemporary Art

Death Valley 69

Straight outta Starbucks!

Hip gnosis

"Sun: I've always wondered why hipgnosis was spelled hipgnosis [and is pronounced hypnosis].

Thorgerson: ...It was actually scrolled on our door by some passing narcotic person in the middle of the night. It was scratched on the door of our apartment, and it appealed to us. It's a nice word, but it was spelled on the door like that." interview with Hipgnosis designer Storm Thorgerson, creator of many famous Pink Floyd album covers.

From this weekend's Nutstock 5:

Make Music, Not War

I donated this autoharp to Operation Happy Note, a program run by a music store in Minnesota that sends musical instruments to soldiers stationed in Iraq and Afghanistan. I figure this instrument is easy to play and I hope it will bring some soldier happiness and perhaps a few moments of peace.

Kill Yer Idols

Hats off to Paul Addis, whose prank at Burning Man resulted in him being arrested for arson. Does anyone see the irony in this?

Back in the bad old nineties my downtown LA scenester friends would make the pilgrimage to Burning Man, returning with stories of psychedelic binges and artistic freakouts. I always passed on attending because I prefer my desert empty.

"....she sounds less like Public Enemy than the Spice Girls" Brent Burton reviews the latest M.I.A. record.

Dog Daze Update

Welcome back sun!

New book about The Source, the commune run by Father Yod.

Trailer for a new movie about the Brotherhood of Eternal Love (via Magpie)

The Foreign Press plays Mt. Pleasant tomorrow...Spectrum on Sunday!

Just Married

newlyweds
Originally uploaded by stereogab

August 9th we tied the knot at the courthouse in Rockville. A happy day indeed.

wave farm broadcasting system

wave farm broadcasting system
Originally uploaded by BarrettJ

Drove the 730 mile round trip to Campfire Sounds at free103point9's Wave Farm this past weekend. It's an idyllic setting with friendly people and a hippy vibe. Nothin' wrong with that...caught some video footage of Sunburned Hand of the Man, who cranked out a heavy psychedelic jam in the summer afternoon.

Happy Birthday Jerry

Gone but not forgotten...

Astronomical Dominoes

Thoughts While Driving the New Jersey Turnpike

When are cars getting colors again? Every one is silver. And most of them are SUVs. There are lots and lots of silver SUVs out there. Why is everyone driving a silver SUV? It is because everyone else is driving a silver SUV?......At the rest stop there is a rock band in line at the Starbucks. Each one of them is a different rock band dude stereotype. There is the surfer rock dude, the new wave rock dude, and the heavy metal rock dude. Gab asks who they are and I say "Bon Jovi". The woman behind me gets very excited. I don't have the heart to tell her that I was joking......Do people from Scagsville get teased about the name of their town? Girls especially, I would assume. Or has no one thought of that before me? ......Flipping through the radio stations near Fort Lee we come across a hyperactive organ solo. A few notes in I wager it's Deep Purple. After another 30 minutes of drum solos and a 5 minute ending "crescendo" I revise my guess to ELP. Wrong! It's Deep Purple, live. Never second guess on the Jersey Turnpike.

Help Todzilla

from my friend Pat:

If I had a nickel for everytime somebody told me what a good friend toddzilla is, well, I'd have already paid his huge medical bill and I'd probably be rich!!! However, that isn't the case. In fact, toddzilla was involved in a hit and run accident and was left with two broken hips and internal bleeding. His surgery is set for tomorrow morning and is quoted at $6,000, hopefully nothing goes wrong.

The reason for this email is to raise money for toddzilla and his surgery alone. Illus ideas, inc., has created a completely new t-shirt that we will be selling for $40 dollars. It is being offered to men and boys in all sizes and in these colors: black, navy blue and forest green. For women and girls we are offering t-shirts in all sizes and in two styles: low cut neck and a regular cut neck, colors: black, navy blue and forest green. Pull-over sweat-shirts are being sold for $60 and are being offered in all sizes and in these colors: black, navy blue and forest green.

Please understand that todd is my best friend and if my art doesn't sell then he can't get his hips fixed and that just isn't right especially because he did nothing wrong, and whoever it was didn't even stop to check on him...

The Doctor who will be operating on toddzilla has told me that toddzilla will be ready to come home wednesday or thursday, and at that time i have to pay the bill. Please, if not for the cool shirt you will be purchasing, donate $40 dollars to todd's hip surgery fund raiser and you'll recieve a free t-shirt with choice of color and size (paypal: illusclothing at yahoo dot com)

Tortoise

Caught a great Tortoise show at the Black Cat this past Saturday night. I heard echoes of 70's-era Miles and Faust in their jams. Two drummers are always a good thing.

After the show I tried to go backstage to say hello but Black Cat security wouldn't let me and wouldn't send word back to Dan either. I wasn't the only one; not even Ian Svenonius could get back there. I know bitching about the BC staff's bummer attitude is old news but I have to point it out because it does nothing for the scene. If dealing with drunken twentysomethings is making you miserable then maybe it's time to go back to school and get that degree.

Yes!

Negative
Originally uploaded by dronepop

Happy Birthday!

pinkflower
Originally uploaded by stereogab

Kwik-E-Mart, Bladensburg, MD 7.1.07

Kwik-E-Mart, Bladensburg, MD 7.1.07
Originally uploaded by warrenjabali

Unbelievable...

If You Be My Dixie Chicken I'll Be Your Tennessee Lamb

28 years after Lowell George left his mortal coil in the nearby Key Bridge Marriot, I journeyed out to the pastoral splendor of Wolf Trap to hear Little Feat. I happen to like 10 minute guitar solos so their shows are my cup of tea.

Stereogab is demanding that The Aliens come to DC. So am I. So should you.

PJ has set up a blog for his Shanghai - Helsinki - Moscow trip next month.

Blind Bim now has a porch with a house attached.

Irish Poets Selling Cars

Made the mistake of watching a few minutes of network television this evening. Made an even worse mistake not muting the commercials. So I got to hear The Pogues "Sunny Side of the Street" playing over an ad for a Cadillac SUV. Now I know that song's far from their best, and I know selling songs for ads is old news, but it still sucks. It sucks because Cadillac sucks and SUVs suck and the whole finely-tuned consumer culture corporate juggernaut sucks.

The last line in the song goes: As my mother wept it was then I swore / To take my life as I would a whore.

Guess old Shane is just living up to his word.

Harold Johnson, September 30, 1918 - June 15, 2007

My uncle Harold Johnson died this past Friday morning. He was one of a vanishing breed. He was a farmer, like his father before him and like his son is now. He never traveled by jet and never had a desk job. He lived his whole life in the house where he was born. He was easygoing, witty, and had a love for the land and his place on it.

West Central Tribune obituary
WILLMAR — Harold Alexander Johnson, 88, of Willmar, died Friday at Rice Memorial Hospital.
The service will be at 11 a.m. Tuesday at Svea Lutheran Church. Burial will be in the church cemetery.

He was born Sept. 30, 1918, on the family farm near Svea to Axel T. Johnson and Emily E. (Bouska). He grew up in rural Svea and attended the Sunnyside School. On Nov. 19, 1949, he married Millicent Forsberg in St. Paul. For many years he farmed on the family farm. He was a former member of the Sunnyside School Board, the Svea Coop Store Board and the church council.

He is survived by his wife; six children, Rebecca Johnson of Lake Lillian, Deborah Johnson of Willmar, David Johnson of Willmar, Jennifer Johnson of Willmar, Barbara (and Wayne) Stomberg of Renville and Douglas (and Teresa) Johnson of Willmar; three grandchildren; a sister, Barbara (and Wendell) Jones of Ridgefield, Conn.

He was preceded in death by a brother and three sisters.

New Song

A new Leafy Green song for summer.

Also have to commend film maker Esther Robinson for her poignant documentary about her uncle Danny Williams, a film maker in Warhol's Factory scene who got lost along the way. Interviews with Gerard Malanga, Brigid Polk (aka "The Duchess") and Billy Name, among others.

Donovan is blogging! And check out this Modern Lovers bootleg courtesy of Parabells.

Opel

Originally uploaded by tsogy

clever flickr people

iGasm

http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/ipod/apple-gets-its-knickers-in-a-twist-over-the-igasm-263184.php

Kick Out the Jams

Just started reading Guitar Army by John Sinclair and I'm already lovin' the agitprop hippy revolutionary vibe. It's along the lines of Abbie Hoffman's Steal This Book or Jerry Rubin's Do It

Sinclair and the MC5 all lived and worked together in a collective called Trans-Love Energies. Guitar Army reads like a police log; one bust after another. Being a long haired freak in Detroit was not an easy choice (and probably still not).

Six years into the creepy American police state mentality, the overseas killing machine, and the deepening cultural rut, it's fun to read about people taking risks, openly defying authority, and trying to figure out an alternative to the status quo.

What I'm Diggin Lately

The new Clientele album is already my summer soundtrack, and it's not even summer yet (look, they have a blog)

The Holy Mountain, a tripped-out movie by Alejandro Jodorowsky

Twitter

60 Minute IPA

Riding bikes with Stereogab

Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates

Kink Stones New York Doll

Media Mavens

Wow, what a day! Stereogab's commentary gets published and this video promo for the Open House project is screened at a press conference in Congress. That jangley song on the soundtrack? Pure Leafy Green goodness! Yowza!

Family Photo

jonesclan
Originally uploaded by stereogab.

April 2007, New York City

Free Fall at 614 Miles per Hour

This cool video for the Boards of Canada song"Dayvan Cowboy" uses footage from a skydive by Joseph Kittinger who "made the final jump from the Excelsior III at 102,800 feet (31,330 m). He was in freefall for 4 minutes and 36 seconds reaching a maximum speed of 614 mph (988 km/h) before opening his parachute at 18,000 feet (5,500 m)."

Later in the video there is footage of Laird Hamilton, big wave surfer extrodinaire (profiled in the movie "Riding Giants")

The Soft Machine

Lord Fuzzy has a great 1971 Soft Machine concert recording that's been making my Metro ride better lately. And there's footage from the UFO Club in 1967. And then there's Gong

More Ways to Spend Your Time and Money

Other Music unveiled their digital store (with the same clunky design of their original web site). I prefer Anthology Recordings, with their uber-obscure sixties/seventies titles and well-written descriptions. Don't know much about Klicktrack but they're the only ones who have this Charlie and Edsor release that I want after reading this post on Great God Pan. Still, nothing beats flipping through the bins of musty vinyl at Joe's Record Paradise.

Youtube continues to provideth, here with two clips from the same film on the hippy scene in London circa 1967. Opening clip shows The Who, another clip shows a Pink Floyd freak out along with goofy crowd shots.

love

gabislove
Originally uploaded by BarrettJ.

Love is in the air this spring.

New York Squeeze

Up in New York City for a few days, some wet, some dry. Saw Roky Erickson play the Bowery Ballroom Sunday night. I've been a 13th Floor Elevators fan for a long time now and it was great to see one of the last psychedelic renegades going strong and loud. Roky keeps the Devil at bay with rock and roll. It can save your soul, you know.

Speaking of rock and roll salvation, we said hello to Jimmy when we stopped at Trash and Vaudeville. There's not much left of the New York I roamed 25 years ago. Coming up on Avenue A I started getting nervous, because that used to be the final frontier. Silly me.

Oh yeah, there was a wedding too.

Here's a new song called New York Squeeze.

Since We Last Talked

They say in Web 2.0 that full disclosure is now the norm, although the phrase nobody sane strips down naked in front of their peers has me a bit worried....


Went to the Dean and Britta show last week. My fandom for Dean Wareham has remained constant since his Galaxy 500 days. This latest show was weak but I think it's admirable that he's trying a new direction (The Post's review was too nice).


I continue to slurp groovy tracks from the Neglected Stairways blog. The latest post contains a couple of songs (well, one and half, actually) from a Nick Drake Peel Session.



39 years ago this city was burning. Does a Giant supermarket or a Target (ironic name) heal the wounds? Still, things are changing despite the rednecks with rifles.

Dream

at Copal
Originally uploaded by BarrettJ.

Our home for a week

Happy Birthday!

yokohatgab
Originally uploaded by BarrettJ.

Happy Birthday to my best friend companion partner-in-crime soulmate! I hope you have a wonderful day and that the coming year brings fun, positivity, enlightenment, and fulfillment. I am sure that it will.