All of My Friends Were There

And not just my friends but their best friends too.

Hackmuth should be proud of the night of music and films at DCAC that he conjured up. The Foreign Press rocked their set, "Dutch Flowers" and all. We got to play all four of our songs. Gab finally got to play through a real bass amp and remarked how much easier it is to play when the volume is up. Amen to that! Speaking of volume- my ears are still ringing from The Plums, who got some serious space truckin' grooves going. And Portions Toll had this weird synchronicity with the seventies commercials that were showing behind them; when John sang a lyric about being upset there was a man shouting in rage onscreen.

It's so great to be part of a creative scene where we make the shows that we want happen. Thanks to everyone who came out and supported us.

New Weird Article

The Birmingham Black and White City Paper published my article today.

A Night Under the Stars

We had a great time under the night sky at the Montgomery College Planetarium this Saturday. Amber Dunleavy rocked the theremin, Gabriela debuted on bass, David played his "Persian glass drums" and I fiddled with guitar fx while Dr. Williams (who referred to us as "Starhorse Seacase") did his red and green laser show. Much thanks to all who came out, it was great fun sharing the stars with you.

We go right back onstage (minus Amber, who can't make the show) at DCAC this Saturday> here's the flyer

A New Leafy Green Song

This one is called Mushroom Man
Also up is a track from my Pink Floyd Plunderphonix project

Some Thoughts About New Mexico

I spent a week in New Mexico and came away with the following observations.
-Santa Fe has a lot of elderly, rich white people
-People go to casinos in the morning. THE MORNING
-If you find yourself in Albuquerque, leave immediately
-Cowboy hats aren't fashion accessories
-70 MPH is slow
-You can build a house out of tires and live off the grid
-Some snaps from our hike in Frijoles Canyon are here

Psychedelic Music for the Stars

Field Report on Roger "Syd" Barrett's Fingers

From a list:
I AM in contact with a member of his family AND a neighbor, that is all I will say about that. He has not lost any fingers or "parts of fingers" and walks and rides his bike regularly. Someone that is close to him once told me "That boy can walk"! He paints but he likes "wood working" now, making sculptures and such. The only reason I speak up is because I understand some may be concerned about this (his health) and I wanted to let you know that so far he is doing good and has all his fingers and what not.

Top of the Pops for 2005

The end of the year brings the inevitable lists. I'm joining the fray this year. Most of my music purchases the last 12 months was stuff from the sixties and seventies (no surprise there). But I got some new stuff, and here, in no order of preference, is my list of best albums for 2005:
Six Organs of Admittance School of the Flower
Four Tet Everything Ecstatic (Smile Around the Face gets the party started)
Broadcast Tender Buttons (in a just world, Michael A Grammer would be a top ten hit)
Boards of Canada The Campfire Headphase
Badgerlore Stories for Owls
Mountains Mountains
Josephine Foster Hazel Eyes, I Will Lead You (what a voice! The Golden Wooden Tone is my favorite track)
Meat Beat Manifesto At the Center (Bohemian Groove especially)
Landing Brocade (Loft could be a track from a lost Cluster album.)
The Clientele Strange Geometry (on Spirit, Alasdair MacLean sounds like he means it)
Animal Collective Feels (Bees is stoned autoharp greatness)

Happy New Year to all of you. Remember, War is Over if You Want It!

101 Reykjavík

101 Reykjavík is a movie about an Icelandic slacker whose gets his mom's girlfriend pregnant, thus becoming father to his brother. Kind of a Middlesex twist. But that's just one of a few of the plots. The main thing I came away with was the impression that they really party hard in Iceland.

So it's come to this

Spanish Tony

Tony Sanchez, aka Spanish Tony, was Keith Richard's drug connection from 1967 to 1976. He wrote a tell-all book about the experience called Up And Down With The Rolling Stones. The tales are riveting: the night he opened a club in London and served punch spiked with mescaline to John and Yoko; the time with Brian Jones, high on acid in his apartment after returning from a club, getting tangled up in reel-to-reel tapes of his music that had unwound as he tried to play them on the stereo; and the steady descent of Keith and Anita Pallenburg into a zombie junkie netherworld.

Chapter 24

"The time is with the month of winter solstice
When the change is due to come.
Thunder in the other course of heaven.
Things cannot be destroyed once and for all.
Change returns success
Going and coming without error.
Action brings good fortune.
Sunset, sunrise."

Last Night at 611

We had a blast playing 611 Florida last night. I have to apologize to David who specifically asked me not to go all over the place in my jams. David, I got caught up in the moment! Sorry!
Members of the Foreign Press were on hand and after our set there was a screening of a hilarious piece of guerilla performance art called "Blowback" by Team Filo (Friendly Intervention Liberation Organization) "We practice friendly interventions, or positive disruptions, of people's lives. A happy by-product of TEAM FILO's patented performance therapy is our recent video product, "BLOWBACK (Season 1)."

267 Lattajjaa

I am thrilled to be included on a new compilation by 267 Lattajjaa. Thanks Hannu!

It Was 25 Years Ago Today

"At 10.50pm, Lennon and Ono's limousine pulled up at the entrance to the Dakota. As Lennon walked towards the door, Chapman called out "Mr Lennon".

Lennon turned and witnesses described how Chapman crouched down and fired five times at his back and shoulder. One bullet missed, but the other four hit their target.

Lennon staggered towards the building and collapsed, gasping, "I'm shot, I'm shot." As horrified onlookers arrived, one of them asked Chapman what he had done. "I've just shot John Lennon, " he replied. He calmly took off his coat, got out a copy of JD Salinger's Catcher in the Rye, and started reading. "

Nick Morrison, Northern Echo

Seahorse Staircase

So let's say you have to think up a name for a group. All the good ones are already taken. But you need a name. So you come up with "Seahorse Staircase". It's a mouthful, but so is "The Grasshopper's Green Herbarian Band". "Omega 3" rolls off the tongue easily, but something is fishy about that name. And "Seahorse Staircase" has a nice symmetry, while also being kind of trippy.

Anyway, David (that's what his parents decided to call him) and I are playing next Friday night (12/9) at 611 Florida with Mike Tamburo and Chris Gier. People start gathering around 9:30. There will be a film too. We play early.

Local Laser Light Show

In my early teenage years my friend Rob Pittman and I went to the Hayden planetarium to see Laserium . We didn't do drugs but we loved it anyway. The Montgomery College planetarium is more like some crazy uncle's backyard project but it does feature the night sky in a round room and on Saturday Dr. Williams squiggled red and green lasers to the pulses and blips of RDK's synthesizers and the voices of restless children.

Blastitude

A friend recently loaned me two albums by Angus MacLise. I knew MacLise was the first drummer for the Velvet Underground but I didn't know he'd done his own music. "Brain Damage in Oklahoma City" and "The Invasion of the Thunderbolt Pagoda" are both fantstic tripped-out experimental sound collages. MacLise was all over the underground sixties art scene. He put on a multi-media show in NYC in 1965 called "Launching of the Dream Weapon". He played with Tony Conrad, LaMonte Young, and John Cale in the Theatre of Eternal Music. He was married by Timothy Leary. He traveled the world and died in 1979 in Kathmandu.
More biographical details here
and a chronology here

Tyrannosaurus Rex

"In the middle of their conversation the phone rang. It was Marc Bolan. He informed them that he and Steve were in the lobby and requested an audition on the spot. Denny agreed and soon Marc and Steve were sitting on the floor of Denny's office, cross-legged on a rug that they had brought themselves, playing the entire set from the previous night. Denny Cordell was skeptical and not nearly as enthusiastic as Tony, but he agreed to sign Tyrannosaurus Rex on as Essex's "Token Underground Group".

Amon Duul II

A video clip from 1971 of Amon Duul II performing "Eye Shaking King" (from their great psychedelic masterpiece "Yeti") on a television show.

via WFMU's blog