Guaranteed to NOT Show Up

The Reign of the So Cal Japanese Noise

After a few mentions of the greatness of the Japanese at making what seems to be marketed as music (Ruins, Boris, Acid Mothers Temple, Green Milk from the Planet Orange, Melt-Banana, Keiji Haino, let alone the earlier school of bands like Boredoms and that girl-pop band Sonic Youth liked), I thought to myself, “WHAT THIS BLOG NEEDS IS A TRIBUTE TO THE BEST JAP BAND EVER.” And I\\\’m not considering “Loudness.”\\n\\nSo I\\\’m not going out tonight. Well, I am. I\\\’m actually going to the store to get pie crusts to make a few pies and putting the final touches on the cork flooring (seriously; four coats of polyurethane is going to be fine). But this means that I am missing Wood Roses (again), with The Ants (with Jason Beers). Jason called me in a conniption tonight about some CD he found of some Eastern European British Invasion band, but he told me the name and it had far too many words. He is playing saw or something with The Ants tonight, which proves to be worth the drive. The way he describes The Ants, I think I\\\’d like them a lot, but then when he re-describes them, it sounds like I might hate them. This is at The Brick, and I doubt I am welcome there.\\n\\nThe reason I missed Wood Roses the other night is because JUST as I arrived, I got a text from the BabyMama that she had fallen and broken her kneecap. It may not be broken after all, but it did make me miss doing that to which I looked forward (to). The second text begged for immediate help and a hospital visit, and when I showed up to rescue her, I got to watch her guzzle wine and swear off doctors with bags of frozen cauliflower as a substitute. That was hell. We went the next day for X-rays, and if it turns out that it ain\\\’t broken, it will be shortly after the news arrives.\\n\\nBack to the Japanese. At The Jackpot, I\\\’m missing The Hot IQs, about whom I\\\’ve heard good things from my Denver connections. They get compared to bands I like plenty fine (Archers of Loaf), and they have a dark-haired woman playing drums who looks like she may be Asian and pretty (so she may be Japanese, therefor fitting into this post quite nicely), but I can\\\’t tell from the two pictures I\\\’ve seen. And if you have a pretty Asian woman in the band, I think you try to make an issue of it, so she is either not Asian, not a woman, or not pretty. She plays drums plenty fine (or Pro Tools does), so what can I say? I do know that when I listen to them, I hear NO Archers of Loaf, but I do hear pop music mixed with a band I saw on Letterman recently that was so horrible I wanted to scratch out my frontal lobe. The vocals sound JUST like that band (maybe The Killers? I get them all mixed up), and hearing them is kind of like hearing the voice that raped you, so I\\\’m not heading out.\\n\\n NIP DRIVERS LOGO \\n\\nBack to people I am certain fit the Japanese theme here. In January of 1997, I got an e-mail from a strange address with the subject FUCK YOU. Upon opening it, it read as follows:\\n\\n

hi …my name is mike webber and im the singer of that old crappy band nip drivers and i took acid tonight and i love you in a biblical sense …thanks for mentioning my band …im with the artist that drew all the record covers and were both in screwed by every record company in the land hell …and im proud to have been fucked in the ass by them all … cover artist …mike g.email = dead70785…mike webber in mindora nomans land …race cars next…hi …fast …love …pike …kiss.. pier… judy…love…

\\n\\nUhhhh, Okay, Mike.\\n\\nI don\\\’t know the guy, but I do know who he is. His band was on a list of bands I loved that I put on the net in 1996 or something for my band\\\’s website. He is the guy who sings what may be the best cover song in the history of music; a cover of Fox on the Run by Sweet from the soundtrack to Desperate Teenage Lovedolls. The singer is Darby Crash if Darby would have REALLY done drugs and REALLY been sassy, and the song is the purest form of rock and roll I\\\’ve yet to hear outside of The Stooges. Seriously. If you can\\\’t fall in love with this song and this singer from this version, you should just fucking stop.\\n\\n Nip Drivers — Fox on the Run (The Sweet)\\n\\nSeriously. Download that and listen to it and tell me it doesn\\\’t make the Rolling Stones seem like NSYNC.\\n\\nI know about the Nip Drivers because I dated a gal named Cindy for a long-assed-time, starting in 1985. My High School buddy Jason Willis would constantly whine, “Waiting … I\\\’m just waiting for CYEYEYYEYEEINDEEEEEEEEEEEE” until forcing me to take on the first Nip Drivers E.P., “Destroy Whitey,” as my new favorite record. And MAN was it amazing.\\n\\n\\n Nip Drivers — Cindy\\nNip Drivers — Nip Driver\\n\\nOkay, so the Nip Drivers were neither Nips nor was Cindy their best song. But if you are wondering who the fuck they are, then you also don\\\’t know about Nig Heist, Cheater, Alter Boys, SWA, etc. Your bad. Red Cross (cum Redd Kross) was pretty much the only other band who survived that scene with a sense of pop and subversiveness and sass, but I truly believe that Nip Drivers did so with the most verve and swagger, without the breakout success. Even so, you can credit them alongside Redd Kross with the tricks of the We Got Power folks — ironic yet reverent covers, 70\\\’s infatuation, etc.\\n\\nNip Drivers — Have You Never Been Mellow (Olivia Newton John)\\nNip Drivers — Rio (Duran Duran)\\nNip Drivers — Under My Thumb (Rolling Stones)\\nNip Drivers — You Need Us (The Honeybees - from a Gilligan\\\’s Island Episode)\\n\\nEarly on, Kurt Schellenbach was the punk on the guitar, but later the band seemed to become Webber and whomever was in the room that day. I really loved the Schellenbach fellah, but it was truly Webber\\\’s weird voice inflection and kooky songwriting that kept me a fan. He still puts shit out as Nip Drivers, which is amazing considering that requires that he has survived.\\n\\nSchellenbach continued with Webber on “Oh Blessed Freak Show” in late 1985 (take that, Huskers!). And EP and an LP in the same year? 30 songs? Goodness. Then they disappeared. For, oh, a decade. But Freak Show had some monsters. And some sillies. But the monsters were blistering:\\n\\n\\n Nip Drivers — New Meiji Takeover\\nNip Drivers — Bad Trip\\nNip Drivers — Talk About Cars\\n\\nTalk About Cars is probably my fav, but the line, “It is Saturday night and I\\\’m gonna fry, goin\\\’ down to my dealer\\\’s gonna drop it in my eye,” kind of wraps up that e-mail pretty nicely.\\n\\nSo, to my glee (horror?), Nip Drivers showed back up in 1993 with a 7″ called “Pretty Face” or “Pasttime,” depending on from whom you bought it. The glory of this 7″ was that they play a Paul Roessler song. Paul Roessler is Kira\\\’s brother. Kira dated Dez Cadena from Black Flag, and later played bass for Black Flag. She played for Black Flag on the tours I saw, and the rumors at the time suggested she was the chick voice on “Slip it In,” which was pretty exciting for a 16-year-old. She married and divorced Mike Watt, all the while co-writing for both Minutemen and Firehose. But Paul Roessler was far cooler. Paul Roessler was in some SST bands, and early punk-rock bands from So Cal, most notably The Screamers (you don\\\’t know them either, but they are “important”), 45 Grave, DC3, Nina Hagen, and he played on Dead Kennedy\\\’s “Fresh Fruit” and Redd Kross\\\’s “Neurotica.” But if you are me (which you aren\\\’t), you will know him forever for his touching Nip Drivers contribution: Never Was.\\n\\n\\n \\nNip Drivers — Pasttime\\nNip Drivers — Never Was\\n\\nShortly after, Nip Drivers reappeared for their final (so far) release, the “Dirt My Hole” 7″. They really desperately miss the out-of-tune and out-of-control guitar of Kurt Schellenbach, but they manage some glory with the poppy “D.J. Sissy” and the slightly Black Flag-ish “Dirt My Hole.” Nothing that totally rocks my ass, though.\\n\\n\\n Nip Drivers — D.J. Sissy\\nNip Drivers — Dirt My Hole\\n\\nSo to wrap up, I love Japanese bands, even when they are white boys from Southern California. And if The Hot IQs would have advertised made it clear whether or not that gal playing drums was Asian, I probably would have gone.\\n\\nOr not.\\n\\n

HOLY FUCKING SHIT:

\\n\\nI shit you not; after writing this blog, I did a search for “Nip Drivers” and “Blog” and found a MySpace page that claims that Mike Webber died sometime during the past two days. No confirmation yet, but that is uncanny. All of the “RIP Mike” posts start on the 13th (yesterday). And on FRIDAY I started working on this to fulfill my “Japanese Related Music Post” I wrote about on Friday.\\n\\nI\\\’m breaking my rule, and linking to MySpace.\\n\\nMan, people. Quit dying. My best to the friends and family.\\n\\nEDIT 15 NOV 2006: Word has come in from someone close that Webber had heart surgery earlier in the week and died on Saturday. Live healthy, folks. Fucking seriously.\\n\\n———-\\n\\nShows I may or may not go see. Chances can be influence upwards by whether I am “on the list”:\\n\\n

Topeka Ascension Ork\\\’ester, This is My Condition as special guest, 17 Nov; Grace Episcopal Cathedral (89% chance)

\\n

Gay Beast / This is My Condition / Witch & Hare 29 Nov; Jackpot Saloon (94% chance)

\\n

Split Lip Rayfield, 01 Dec; Liberty Hall (74% chance)

\\n

Leslie and the Lys, 11 Dec; The Record Bar (45% chance — that response made me sour)

\\n

\\n\\n\\n

Creamed Corn from the Temple of Anus

I’ve gotta admit that I had to look up the title of the Butthole Surfers EP “Creamed Corn from the Socket of Davis,” given that I remembered it as “Creamed Corn from the Temple of Anus.” And the reason that came up is because tonight I am stuck between two shows I would have gone out to see ten years ago: Green Milk from the Planet Orange at The Record Bar and Wood Roses at The Replay. Alas, Wood Roses is in Lawrence, so that will win the toss up, yet I don’t expect to stay for much more than the time it takes me to drop of an old 1/4″ 4-track for somebody. I’m currently putting polyurethane on my new cork-flooring.

Green Milk from the Planet Orange makes me think “Creamed Corn from the Temple of Anus” every time I hear it. So I did a Google search for “Temple of Anus” and found only three hits, all of them making reference to the poster above. Go figure. I would think that given that there is a website for every godforsaken bodily function being performed on Japanese chicks or for fat guys in shit-filled diapers being changed by girls in pigtails and halter tops that there would have been something funnier in the “Temple of Anus” world. But nope. This means two things: There is still one more porn movie title left, and there is one more sex genre to be explored. I’ll let you get right on that. Not my thing. I’m busy.

Speaking of shitting on Japanese chicks, why are the Japanese beating the shit out of us at rock these days? Between the Japs and the New Zealanders, we hardly stand a chance. Melt-Banana, Acid Mothers Temple, Boris, Black Boned Angel, Birchville Cat Motel, and Green Corn from the Socket Orange or whatever. Plus that Keiji Haino douchebag who manages to crank out something every few weeks. There was a period when Thurston Moore was taking a dump on about 200 records a year, and I kind of think of Haino as that kind of guy. I think that is a flattering thing to say about both of them. I think.

From what I can tell, The Creamed Milk from Planet Davis guys sit down while they play. That isn’t how I like my Japanese noise / prog / whatever. Sitting down? When they rock out, do they do chair-bound hair flips? Instead of jumps and stomps and shit, do they just fall out of their chairs? WTF is that about? I’ve really never seen footage of them standing up. God, I hope they’re not crippled. Then I’d feel horrible.

Their guitar sounds blow me away, though. They don’t exactly hit a groove very often, but when they do, it can be pretty awe invoking. They definitely have the CAN ripoff thing going (that is good), but they also have this tendency to switch gears more than I’d like, like a bunch of MIT grad alley-cats with time on their hands trying to be avant somethingorother. If I want to watch a bunch of Japanese guys sitting down and whacking-off … never mind, that joke makes itself, and it wasn’t good to start with. They also have those random Faust-like piano / drum things. So they have the elements of great bands, but they just don’t get me too excited. I don’t know if get to go and watch guys sit down and jack off with a theremin and a piano and spoken-word and a drummer who hits cymbals and rain-sticks for an hour, or if I’d get to see a fist-pumping, hair-flipping Acid Mothers Temple rock show. Don’t get me wrong, good Green Milk is better than almost anything that passes as SUNN(((() or whatever, but I just don’t know if I want to drive for an hour only to want to kill a few Japanese guys for striking the wrong mood. And the song I am uploading right now sounds like Bow Wow Wow run through a cheap Peavey amp with the “saturation” button pushed. What the hell? If you want to know why I didn’t go, download this song and tell me that you don’t experience moments where you want to punch them in the ball-socket for trying so hard.

So I get to see Mike McCoy with yet another band that sounds like Mike McCoy in a band. It can’t be a bad thing. I’ll try to stay for 10 minutes or so. Cher UK, Black Rabbits, American People, now Wood Roses. The list of bands that Mike McCoy has made sound like Mike McCoy is an ever-expanding list. And I get to see Grant Whats-his-fuck who used to be in the old Twin Tone band Beyond Zebra or Run Westy, Run or something, who is in a new folk duo. Poor fuck.

I need to find out about shows BEFORE the night they happen. Send me info. Jesus.

Green Milk from Planet Orange - OMGS in the fabulous MP3 format

By the way, National Fire Theory got ripped off for about $20,000 worth of equipment last night in NYC. Pass the word.

Up next? Another Japanese music related post and the Lawrence one-man-Ramone.

(not) Funny Bands on MySpace — Leslie and the Lys

Just so you know, I’ll never link your pathetic little MySpace band from this blog. I’ll talk about you (probably for the worse), but I’m not gonna link to your lazy, artless ass. But I gotta admit, it is easier to watch you fail at art on MySpace or YouTube than to actually leave the house and have to go through all of the bullshit that goes with that hassle. And the MySpace world is curious just because it is to totally fucking ponderous fact that bands that can’t draw 18 people to a public lynching somehow get 31,02,938,123943,342 friends and 8976,423,432.324 song plays. Is anyone leaving the house anymore?

When you look at the typical MySpace phenomena bands, are they always going to be abrasive and loud attention whores from the Midwest (e.g., Dane Cook / Bacon Shoe / Black Nasty)? Oh, wait, Bacon Shoe isn’t a phenomenon or anything — they just fit the other criteria. Is Black Nasty a phenomenon? Is Dane Cook from the Midwest? Oh, fuck it. What I’m sayin’ is that I get some “witty” new MySpace link to follow e-mailed to me from some inconsiderate asshole every, oh, thirty minutes. And when I get there, I am one of 24325,534,8712,34 people who are suddenly listening to something “witty.” And there sit their 234,34,356,1,7 semi-Asian-looking lingerie-model “friends” staring at me. Just fucking stop it.

Hey, is it still funny to be a fat chick? Is it funnier to be a fat chick if you make fun of yourself rather than be the target of klutz jokes on bad sitcoms? Do they really fall down a lot? Because that shit is FUNNY. Especially if they are fat guys dressed like fat girls falling down. You know that guy who says, “You know you’re a redneck if you (fart, eat, etc.)”? That is what I’m talking about, only without the guy part or the redneck part or the joke telling part. That guy is the equivalent of Chris Farley. No “joke”, no variation, no talent. Just the same exact form over and over and over like sitting on a jury looking at autopsy photos for three or four days straight. But Chris Farley could put on a dress and fall down and people would laugh like it was the first time. And then he would do it again. And then mess up his hair. And people would LAUGH AND LAUGH every time. Funny shit, I tell you. I wish he would have lived long enough to eat that sack of shit with the redneck “jokes.” That guy has sold 20 times more records than Richard Pryor, and that is reason enough to justify hating your entire culture and then killing yourself (like Hemmingway; maybe he predicted this).

What I’m getting at (that at which I am getting): I’m confused about the fact that I am considering going to the Leslie and the Lys show at The recordBar on December 11th in Kansas City. If you’re one of the “I do all my socializing on the internet because I find it less threatening” majority, then I’m sure one of your 11th level druid friends from your video game community has sent you a link to this Chris Farley wanna-be. I think she can kind of sing, but I can’t figure out if her schtick is ironic-fat-chick schluck, or picked-on-revenge-fat-chick schluck, or if it is just generic nerd-schluck or what. Is she the girl who sat behind Black Nasty in detention or is she the girl who sat behind Black Nasty in Advanced Calculus for Grade School Gifted Kids? Which one is it? Which decidedly untalented and unfunny sewage wave are they trying to ride: Napoleon Dynamite or Neil Hamburger or those jokers from Columbine High School? When they go home, are they doing lines with people who aspire to be Paris Hilton and Missy Elliott, or are they doing lines with people who are plotting to assassinate The President of the graduating class of 1991 at Davenport High School?

So this Leslie Hall chick is fat and has big hair and no fashion sense. Fucking hilarious. Obviously people haven’t had past lives as stools in Las Vegas or they would know that fat, big-haired, overdressed women are as pervasive as mosquitoes. There isn’t anything particularly funny about her schtick, so either I’m missing something, or somehow people have made being your average Iowa Wal-Mart patron worth 1000 page-hits-a-day. I don’t get it. I want to find out that I am missing something brilliant. No wry smiles, no novel takes, nothin’. Is she setting us up to laugh with her, or is she exploiting herself so we can laugh at her? WHAT AM I MISSING? Is this all a joke on me? Am I laughing at a great actor portraying a pathetic mess (like that hilarious Michael J. Fox guy), or is laughing at her being a pathetic mess a horrible thing to do (like laughing at that Michael J. Fox guy)? I see that she is trying to be ironic, but those ain’t pillows….

The upside is that this is at my favorite club in Kansas City. Not my favorite current club in Kansas City, but my favorite club in the history of Kansas City. So if I go and I find that there isn’t a subtext that I am missing, I’ll still be able to eat a vegan pizza created for me one night by recordBar cook Wes Gartner (out of his desperation to “feed the vegan” - who doesn’t hate a vegan?). That is worth the trip if he’s there (the same pizza kind of sucks when he isn’t there to crack the whip).

People are promising me that this will be really funny. I suppose it might be. But are times really so desperate that talent, irony, and “funny” are all equated? Is she going to have “talent,” or is she going to be fat and fall down? And won’t I really enjoy it more if latter is the case? Will she take requests (please be fat and fall down a lot!)?

In other news, we are all missing the Steve Reich celebration in New York. Now that is just sad. Steve Reich @ 70 is going on and I’m talking about a Wal-Mart greeter with a webcam.

Hello Goodbye / Reggie and the Full Effect / Cute I s What We Aim For / Dave Mellilo; 15 Nov; Granada (0% chance)
Topeka Ascension Ork’ester, This is My Condition as special guest, 17 Nov; Grace Episcopal Cathedral (71% chance)
Gay Beast / This is My Condition / Witch & Hare 29 Nov; Jackpot Saloon (94% chance)
Split Lip Rayfield, 01 Dec; Liberty Hall (62% chance)
Leslie and the Lys, 11 Dec; The Record Bar (71% chance)

On a serious and sad note:
Larissa Strickland, guitarist for the absolutely mind-bending Laughing Hyenas, died at some point over the past month. I’m sure you dig bands influenced by her / them. One of the most intense live experiences I’ve ever had. I saw them almost throw down with some redneck soundguy at a joint called The Outhouse many years ago; I’ll probably get to that story at some point. They sure seemed like one scary fucking band. Many years later, my band toured a few months with Mule, which formed out of a split from Laughing Hyenas, and I got to hear some great stories. People should remember that all this “music” shit used to be really tough business.

Strickland (Larissa) was a teeny person with a huge, controlled guitar sound that was very unique and self-taught. When I saw them, I thought that they were all on parole for murder or something, but it turned out that she was this goofy, giggling mess. Very sweet and endearing when she was in control. The picture below says it all.

Don’t do drugs, kids.

Oh good lord. Begging for Press to What Lengths?

Received today:

Reply | Reply to all | Forward | Print | Add sender to Contacts list | Delete this message | Report phishing | Show original | Message text garbled?
From: John Bersuch [baconshoe@gmail.com]
Mailed-By: gmail.com
To: Scott [scott@guaranteedtonotshowup.com]
Date: Nov 6, 2006 4:19 PM
Subject: hello scott

would you please consider not going to the bacon shoe show? i didn’t see us on your future possibilities. we have a show on this coming friday and i could probably get you on the list. oh my god is also playing and they are very good.

john

Alright; I don’t know how to handle this request. For the most part, I actually WANT to go to most of the shows I will talk about. I guess I fucked up by putting that horrid show on the 15th of November down there about which I have no intent of even asking around (Reggie and the Full Effect is a “local” act, and that joke was funny for about as long as Steven Wright, but there is nothing appealing about any of those bands). My fault.

So as long as we are talking about jokes that may or may not be funny depending on whether or not “zany repetitive antics” make you excited (file under Dane Cook), John Bersuch wants me to not go to a Bacon Shoe concert, or to go, or something. He wants me to write about him. He wants attention. So now I am in the position of caving in and giving John attention because he asked. Grrrrrr. Meh.

I know that ex-In the Pines everyman John Ferguson (guitar, banjo | In the Pines / mc sidekick | Bacon Shoe) is in Thailand, so his Flavor Flav-esque role of “Tione” is being filled in by Nathan Ellis’s Greg Franklin (guitar | Nathan Ellis’s Jackie Carol). And I’m a huge fan of Franklin’s — I wrote his Wikipedia entry which was recently deleted. And D.J. Clem, one of the most talented multi-instrumentalists in Kansas City, fries bacon in the band (yes, you read that correctly). That is a BUNCH of talent. Like forcing the top athletes in the world to run around in the team mascot suits instead. Who could miss out on that? Me. I’ll be watching Dane Cook DVDs to remind me why I didn’t go.

I know Dane Cook-bashing is trendy, but he has that whole MySpace connection (correction: Dane Cook has 1588316 connections), and that will drive me to comment on anything negatively. So speaking of the zany hilarity of Dane Cook and white-boy-rap that tries to be ironic but ends up like a fraternity-rush-skit with none of the irony of Lamar’s rap in Revenge of the Nerds, I found this blog comment when searching for “Dane Cook” just now:

el’ gichi :

I hate Dane Cook. After seeing him on SNL tonight, now I hate SNL too.

Masterfully, it was followed immediately by a quote from a guy who almost types like Dane Cook delivers “comedy”:

Penisduerson :

Hey sukdikkers, just popped in to say that Dane Cook is the voice of our generation you know what i’m saying? YOU FUCKING RETARDS ON THIS RETARDED FUCKIN BLOG ARE DUMB AS SHIT FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU KISS MY SHIT YOU DUMB FUCKS. WESTON DEBOER YOU LOOK LIKE A MAN MEAT SMOKING PIECE OF SHIT ASSHOLE I HOPE YOU FUCKIN DIE AND GET FUCKING STOMPED OUT BY AN ENORMOUS PAIR OF PIG TITS

Now that isn’t funny. He missed the nuances of Dane Cook. Penisduerson and Bacon Shoe, take note as I fix that to be DANE COOK FUNNY!:

Hey sukdikkers, just popped in to say that Dane Cook is the voice of our generation you know what i’m saying? YOU FUCKING RETARDS ON THIS RETARDED FUCKIN BLOG ARE DUMB AS SHIT FUCK YOU FUCK.

YOU FUCK!

YOU FUCK!

YOU FUCK YOU KISS MY SHIT!

YOU KISS MYYYYYYYY SHIT!

YOU KISS IT. YEAH, YOU!

KISS SHIT KISS SHIT KISS SHIT KISS SHIT KISS SHIT KISS SHIT KISS SHIT KISS SHIT KISS SHIT KISS SHIT KISS SHIT KISS SHIT!!!!

KISS

SHIT

YOU KISS MY SHIT.

MY SHIT!

YOU KISS IT YOU DUMB FUCKS! YEAH!

WESTON DEBOER YOU LOOK LIKE A MAN MEAT SMOKING PIECE OF SHIT ASSHOLE I HOPE YOU FUCKIN DIE AND GET FUCKING STOMPED OUT BY AN ENORMOUS PAIR OF PIG TITS.

YEAH, I SAID IT. PIG TITS.

PIG TITSSSSS PIG TITS TITS PIG TITS PIG TITS TITS TITS!!!! TITS! PIG TITS.

PIG TITS. YEAH, YOU. OVER THERE. YEAH, AND YOU! AND YOU! PIIIIIIIIIIIIIGGGGG TIIIIIIIIIIIITTTTS.

pig tits

PIIIIG TITS!

If you thought that was funnier than the dude’s original post, make sure not to miss Bacon Shoe. If it made you want to punch my kidneys until I die, you should stay home with me. Here is a mathematical formula that will determine whether I go:

Black Nasty (-) anything the least bit black (+) Bloodhound Gang (+) MySpace friends (-) instruments (+) Dane Cook = 0% (Guaranteed to NOT show up).

Sorry John. You wanted the press. But don’t worry. These guys will be there:

Hello Goodbye / Reggie and the Full Effect / Cute I s What We Aim For / Dave Mellilo; 15 Nov; Granada (0% chance)
Topeka Ascension Ork’ester, This is My Condition as special guest, 17 Nov; Grace Episcopal Cathedral (71% chance)
Gay Beast / This is My Condition / Witch & Hare 29 Nov; Jackpot Saloon (94% chance)
Split Lip Rayfield, 01 Dec; Liberty Hall (62% chance)

In the Pines — missed again? CHECK!

Took the ChaChi and my sweetheart to the In the Pines show around 21:00.

Got a call from Myers (drummer | In the Pines, The String and Return, Life and Times, etc.) while I was on my knees in the new bedroom putting down cork tile — still. It must have been close to ten (20:00). I have one word for you: Tessellation. Oh. Holy. Shit. Don’t let your sweet-faced little honey talk you into a repeating pattern in which no tile is in line with another tile. Especially if you are using a non-grouted tile, where they need to be tightly laid against one-another. My worst fucking nightmare is named Herringbone, and Herringbone needs a dick punching.

Anyway, with my melon all headache-high from the adhesive, we took the little man to The Jackpot. He was wide awake, and the real goal was to show him off and to snag a CD from In the Pines. I was impressed by how many folks held the little fellow, although Myers was afraid of him. Brad Hodgson (voc/guit | In the Pines) snatched him up. Billy Belzer (drummer | Uncle Tupelo, Todd Newman, New Amsterdams, etc.) begged for him, and held him until his baby-cop spouse stepped in and made me take him back because Billy was “over the baby holding limit.”

Baby-craziest folks of the night: Billy Belzer, Brad Hodgson, Jill Myers, Clayton VanMeter. Most insightful parenting comments of the night: Craig Comstock (bass | Blue Leaves / drums, bass, guitar | This is My Condition).

We got to the show just after The Blue Leaves quit playing. It seems really odd to me that Craig Comstock is playing with guys I expect to be playing angular pop (I have no idea what they play; that is a guess). The guy has the most entertaining and jaw-dropping gig this area has seen in many, many years, and then he pops up playing bass in a combo. Weird. As long as it doesn’t reduce the number of This is My Condition gigs, I guess I don’t care. But in short, my review of the Blue Leaves show tonight goes as such:

The Blue Leaves’s Bass Player is sole proprietor of the best band in Lawrence. If he would have been playing by himself, I would have been there on time. Well, not really, but I would have tried a lot harder. Who knows. And maybe they are great. Craig definitely makes bands great.

We walked in as another band started playing. Carrying an infant (with little earplugs), you’d expect to have to wrap his head with soundproofing and duct tape, but the band was delightfully quiet. So we didn’t have to leave right away (whew/damn). From the back, it looked like the band was a woman playing a white bass, and some other guys. The name was forgettable, like The New Republic or Tragic Forest or something. It doesn’t help that they sounded like I would imagine In the Pines would sound if half of the band went out drinking and left the other half at a practice space to try to come up with more material. Everybody kept telling me that they are “really nice.” That is the band equivalent of “pretty in the face,” only it gets you farther. I’m actually really glad that they are “really nice” because they are more likely to be serving me at a restaurant than playing at Wembley Stadium. And I mean that in a “really nice” way.

At first, I thought the bass-playing chick was Ann (spelling?) from Tawni Freeland’s circa 2000 project called T & A. She was some kind of clean-cut, Nordic blond girl who held her bass like it was sticky. But man she was an amazing bass player. And a sweet kid. Prolly under 20. She worked at Mass Street Music in Lawrence and didn’t lie to me, which is notable. And she was marrying a dude that looked like they were from the same parents. That was creepy. I swear the guy was her brother. If I had pictures of both, I’d show ‘ya. But then again, if I had pictures of both, that would be really fucking creepy of me.

But the bass player for In the Tragic Republic was neither Ann nor Craig, so I can’t really tell you much more than that. She had a white bass. I don’t know where they work.

As In the Pines got ready to go on, we got a copy of the CD and readied to leave. It was getting late, and we were beat from all of the work. We went home and laid flooring for six more hours.

Upon listening to the CD during the flooring debacle (a lot), it became apparent to me that J. Hall made the CD much more appealing to you folks. The people who hear it for the first time will be much more attentive and much more excited. It is dark, it is lazy, and it is literate (think Dirty Three meets P.W. Long (sans blues), Erskine Caldwell, Flannery O’Conner, James Dickey, and Borat). There is some redemption, some backwoods wisdom, and some cliched heartbreak (i.e., “You can’t take my soul; it’s mine”). It is punchy, the voice performances are tight, soaring, and confident, and the CD has a brightness that will keep new listeners aware — uhhhh … needle scratch, anyone? Do we want O’Connor and Dickey characters moping with a tight, soaring confidence? Do we want our backwoods wisdom to be punchy? Do we even want the harmonies in close tune?

Don’t get me wrong; it sounds great. And there are some really touching performances and dy-no-mite songs. If I had to sell this record, I’d be overjoyed that it sounds more like a product of Sear Sound in New York than field recordings from You Have Seen Their Faces. And it does sound great.

But I’ve heard those early mixes, and they aren’t so confident. Turning down the “darkness” knob is a curious move for a record marketed as dark. But the reality is that records need to be marketed, and the beauty of disjointed, wavering harmonies and open spaces where confidence disappear are lost on people who look to MySpace for their “friends” and audiences. You’ve only got until the next “click” to catch their attention, blah, blah, cliche, blah. Bah. I liked the chick-voices when they were coming from the woods rather than the iso-booth.

The artwork is stunning (hat tip to MK12). And someone (you know who you are) is wrong about the white disc with spot-gloss; it is perfect. And it is a metaphor for the new mixes. Dan Askew uses spot gloss like it is free, and even though it ain’t, it is worth every penny.

Speaking of Dan Askew, he wasn’t at the record release shows for In the Pines because he is in New York City for the CMJ music festival pimping his other bands. So at least I didn’t blow him off on Friday.

My review of the In the Pines show? When Darren sang, he probably sounded very sweet. I was home.

Shows I may or may not go see. Chances can be influence upwards by whether I am “on the list”:

Ghosty; 06 Nov; The Bottleneck (12% chance)
Hello Goodbye / Reggie and the Full Effect / Cute I s What We Aim For / Dave Mellilo; 15 Nov; Granada (0% chance)
Topeka Ascension Ork’ester, This is My Condition as special guest, 17 Nov; Grace Episcopal Cathedral (71% chance)
Gay Beast / This is My Condition / Witch & Hare 29 Nov; Jackpot Saloon (94% chance)
Split Lip Rayfield, 01 Dec; Liberty Hall (62% chance)

CorkFlooring

In the Pines record release party? Nope.

I’ve been talking about doing this blog for a long time. I love music and I love live music, but I hate going out.

For instance, I was going to the In The Pines record release party tonight at The Record Bar. But I didn’t. Tonight, I hated going out too much to go see them, and I knew this by about noon. I mean, they are friends of mine (I’d field a baseball team with Myers and Welch, and I’d definitely play bridge with Darren’s wife, Kathi), and this is a big night for them. The record is also coming out on one of the few ethical labels in the country (one with impeccable tastes, too), and a label with whom I have a professional relationship (Second Nature Recordings). Worst of all, I haven’t seen Dan, the SN owner, in what feels like years. And I generally accidentally scare anyone he brings with him to shows. So why am I not there?

Because I am putting down flooring. Cork flooring. It is pretty cool. We got it for near nothing through Lumber Liquidators. $.99 per square foot.

And, what’s worse, I didn’t go because I’m just not that psyched about the record yet. I’ve had a mix that isn’t coming out on the actual CD forever, and now I can’t get into it because I know it isn’t the final version. Well, something like that.

You know, another reason to fuck them off is that I think they have no real web page. I couldn’t find one. I mean, they have a MySpace band page and that is it? Fuck them for that. For that reason alone, I’m not linking their name to anything. I’m surprised that they’ve gotten farther than an open-mic-night at some cover-band-bar. Jesus Christ. Will they be touring on bikes, too? What is it with bands? Seriously. MySpace?

I am, however, making a media player for their album for the Interweb, and I am sure that I will be psyched about the CD at that point (once I get working on it). I’m making it as a collaboration with Kentucky Chrome Industries, (that was just an excuse to link them). But I really know that when I do make it, I’ll hear the first song 32428,324923,3 times because it will start every time I compile / beta the player, and then I will hate them again.

And if I’m making a media player for them (for free), why the fuck don’t I have a copy of the record? Christ. Are they managed by someone in jail or something? They can’t even get the guys in the band named correctly in The Kansas City Star. (You have to register, which is completely comical … like you are going to register for an article about some random band with a MySpace page. Way to stand out, In The Pines. I’m proud to call you “MySpace Friends”). So that you don’t have to register, my point is that The Kansas City Star calls John Ferguson “Jimmy Johnson” or some shit. They don’t even get his fucking name right.

Anyway, I’ve seen them twice. One time was ruined by a drunk girl who tagged along with us and loudly made fun of Kathi for liking her own husband too much. To her face. The band sounded horrible, too. The sound wasn’t good at The Jackpot for that particular show, blah, blah, blah. I was a mean motherfucker in my time, but I couldn’t get up the nerve to throw her out of the bar so I could watch Kathi swoon as her husband had his most touching moments (when he sings). But the other time I saw them it was a near religious experience, and exactly what I needed at exactly that moment. So I think they have greatness in them. I hope it comes out tomorrow night when I actually consider going again.

In reality, I’m kind of jealous that I’m not in In the Pines. It would be fun to harmonize like that, and they play slowly enough that it would be a challenge to play along without killing myself or falling asleep. But they are so damned engaging in their moments of brilliance. And I would make them so much better and darker. And I would see them more often, because I would have to. So I guess you should join them and then you’d definitely go see them or buy their record or steal it or download it or something. It is probably worth it.

Until then, I’m going to piss them off by uploading an early mix of “Prison Ghost.” I think there is a pox on people with these mixes, but I like the way the chicks sound so out-of-tune or drunk or whatever when they sing. And I love it when recordings sound like they weren’t made for release (demos and such). And this has a little of both. Not that I like the way it sounds. I just like THAT sound. I can’t wait to get one so that I can spend hours on them for free. And so their MySpace friends can listen to the media player.

So TOMORROW, Saturday, 04, NOV 2006, I will be at The Jackpot to see the Lawrence version of the record release party. And that is a 98% chance. Well, 97%. I’ll definitely head down early to get smooches and free shit. Because if I actually SEE the show, it means that the premise of the blog is bullshit.

They are playing with a newish band called The Blue Leaves (I’d link them, but I don’t really give a shit if they have a web page because it will just be a MySpace page. If they have a real page, they can e-mail me and I’ll link it). I think Bill Colburn is in that band. Or Stover (D.J. Clem). Or someone else genius. Either way, I’m looking forward to meeting some dude named Randy. I hope they have some free shit for me.

EDIT: OKAY. In The Pines has a webpage. I was wrong. And they don’t have bikes. I learned my fact-checking from The Kansas City Star, obviously. And The Blue Leaves have Craig Comstock, which is why I have a little warm feeling about them. But THEY only have a MySpace page.
Current chance that I am going tonight? About 92%.

Edit: 12:35, 04 NOV 2006
EDIT: Well, shit. Current chance that I am going tonight? About 18%. Little has been done on the flooring, and my woman just left with the baby to go to dinner with a friend and look for “stemware” (I had to ask WTF that meant; I didn’t know. I guess I missed “the importance of the proper stemware” class). So getting down there for smooches is probably kinda likely, but actually going is losing steam.
Edit: 18:38, 04 NOV 2006

In The Pines - “Prison Ghost” rejected version
In The Pines - “Dress On Fire” version you are supposed to hear
In The Pines - “Never Say Too Much” version you are supposed to hear

Inward

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In the Pines record release party? Nope.

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