range life

so, another one falls into the pit - i know it's not exactly BIG news or anything, and more than likely will come as a shock to no one, but the newspaper that i'd been writing for over the last several months has "CEASED PUBLICATION" and, yeah, predictably, the economy is cited as the reason. also, predictably, i was informed of this by a mass email, which i will not repost here, sent the day before my deadline, after i'd done all the work (for christ's sake i transcribed an hour and a half recording of an interview - do you know how long that takes), written and edited the story and yadda yadda. i replied to the mass email, and i got no response.

whatever. i'm not as angry as that all sounds (except about the timing, that does piss me off). i loved my job - that's the bottom line. i've written for plenty of publications that have disappeared over the last ten years and have never felt more than a modicum of frustration when those shut down. but this really sucks. i've noticed that it feels an awful lot like a breakup - which is strange since i've been married for over two years now and with my wife for over five and i haven't felt something like this in a long, long time. i had to hide the extra copies of the paper that were just laying around my house, on my desk, in the bathroom, etc. i couldn't stop thinking that it was all a joke or some mistake - that i would get an email from the editor saying "where's your next article, you missed your deadline". i watched "high fidelity" and nearly started a stupid argument with my wife for no reason that could have gone south very quickly and ended up with me sleeping in the car or at the store again, but luckily she knows me well enough to recognize when i'm really affected and distracted by something, and she diffused the whole thing. i was hurt, still am. she saw that, and i should thank her for it.

like i said, i just loved my job (and it wasn't the money, by the way. i made shit as a "professional writer", and everyone that knows me knows that i'd do it for free withouth complaint). i'm going to try and shop the last interview with jon ashline of the screamin' mee mee's on monday. since i have the time now i'll probably start working on this thing more, and pushing it around the webs trying to get a few more followers and whatever. and i plan on publishing "already left town" on lulu.com so if anyone would like to own a hard copy of it that will be available pretty soon and pretty cheap. i'll also try and do a few more things for trouser press, but i've made my self a promise: if i don't get a job, an actual job, writing about music for some publication in the next year (and i'm going to try this time) then i'm quitting for good.

my computer crashed, i lost everything... will return soon...

simmering in my own juices (flaky ears vibe)

i'm back from vacation and will give a complete rundown of my travels to bonnaroo and beyond for whoever may stumble upon here at some date in the future (tomorrow or so) but suffice to say it's fucking hot back here iN T,K and it appears the air conditioner at this place i'm sitting and (not) working is (not) working. and before i digress into working on another novel, i should perhaps "up" some music or something whatever to inspire me.
here is a mogwai bootleg, recorded in june of 2001 at the granada theater in lawrence, ks of all places, on the rock action tour. i didn't record it, and do not know who did, and i'm no mogwai historian or nothing so i don't have the track listing. i also have absolutely no idea how this ended up in my cd collection and before the other day when i uncovered it, can't say that i'd ever actually listend to it, and i did not attend this concert, so, whatever. crowd noise is a major part of this recording since, as anyone "fortunate" enough to see a concert in lawrence in the last ten years will tell you, the crowd generally spends more time talking amongst themselves than listening to the band. fucking dicks. it is rather long, so it is split into two parts...

enjoy1
and
enjoy2

for cree...

new mm single
enjoy

stereo south and vodka opeing a bottle of vodka at 3:00 AM

i used to deliver pizza for this pizza place when i first got back into town forever ago and after work i could usually be found either at home playing halo, at joey's house being social, with my little sister j playing pool, or at brewsky's down on CH sitting by myself drinking beer, fiddling with the jukebox or talking to jojo about music and shit. sometimes i'd play darts with benny, but benny sort of got on my nerves after he told me "yeah, at first everyone thought you were a cop!". sometimes i'd drink whisky sours, and i put on the burning rubber show there in november. one of these days i'll post the fliers from that show... i'm quite proud of them.
anyway, one afternoon i was returning from a delivery and i drove by the bar and noticed that the marquee, which was usually blank until the day of the show, and they usually only had shows on the weekends and they were only metal bands or shitty punk bands that would have sounded better as metal bands... okay, so i notice that the marquee says something but i can't read it so i drive back by, slow down, and notice that it says:
STEREO SOUTH
8PM
i had been at the bar the night before, and had heard nothing about this. i thought that maybe it was a movie since sometimes they showed bootleg copies of new release movies there but it struck me as odd that they would actually advertise showing illegal movies, so i pulled over, went in and asked.
"yes," said B, the owner, who actually didn't own the place (his mother did, not his parents, but his mother who was a fucking cunt-bitch that i couldn't stand). there was a band playing. no one knew where they were from or what they sounded like but they'd be on at eight.

so i finished my shift, and actually felt a bit perturbed about not being told that there was a band playing well in advcance so i could set up some sort of interview or something, and i considered not going but i did. when i got there at about 7:00 the place was fairly dead. jojo walked up to me and asked me if i had a mike stand because the band hadn't brought one. i didn't, but i made a call, and the person didn't answer (at the time, i remember, i had a cell phone). i said i was sorry and ordered a beer.

i noticed the "band" right away. 2 guys that were obviously "not from 'round these parts", sitting in the corner of the bar, nursing a beer a piece. i had the feeling that this wasn't going to go over too well if someone didn't do something so i walked over, and introduced myself thusly:
"hi, i'm jack from skratch magazine, can i ask you guys a few questions?"
yes, there was actually a time that i took skratch magazine seriously. silly me.

anyway, we talked for a bit and then they bought me a beer and then they went on. they did two shows electric bass and acoustic guitar only, no percussion, and though the songs were pretty run of the mill, the performance was damn good. in-between shows they came back to the table and we continued to get wasted, the singer and i, doing tequila shots and talking about music. during the second show the bassist, whose name was greg i think, complained that i had got his singer too drunk to play a good show, but benny embrassed everyone by saying "i should go get my dad, he loves this kind of stuff!" because they had an acoustic guitar.

when the bar closed i told them that they could stay at my place so they followed me to paul's house where i told them that they had to sleep on the floor which was mean of me because paul's dog had bladder problems and the place stunk like piss but they didn't seem to mind because... well, let me tell you, these two dude's could fucking drink. when we got to my house we went to my room and sat on the floor and slammed trough a twelve pack of pbr pretty quick. they picked through my records, and have the disctinction of being the only two people ever to understand the significance of my autographed richard marx record (that i found at a flea market for $1, and is sorely missed) right away. greg even offered to buy it from me. they also introduced me to the weakerthans, for which i am eternally grateful.

after all the beer and four shots of tequila a piece at the bar, the first twelve pack of pbr that didn't stand a chance at the house, i broke open the bottle of thor's hammer vodka i'd been saving at about 3:00 AM. i finally hid it from them and told them that i had to go to sleep at about 5:45. i was fucking wasted.

in the morning we went and had ham burito's for breakfast at TJ's and they asked then they disappeared and i hadn't heard from them since. a few months later i met the woman who would become my wife and was telling her about these guys and she told me about some guy who was hitting on her at a thrift store just down the street from my house. it was greg, he convinced her to buy a herb alpert record that we still have.

anyway, they're called stereo south and were before that they were in horace pinker and are in some band called four alarm something now. they're from chicago so todd has to like them or daly will have him neutered. and cree, i think you should like it to. if anyone eles is listening...

enjoy

giraffe sex and orange juice

a few weeks ago i took the kids to the "world famous" zoo here in town. it was some sort of civic pride day or something and the place was just packed full of kids and there were some special games and those big ass inflatable slides that we didn't have as kids except at the fair and stuff, like the bounce house things that you waited for all year and now kids can buy the fucking things at wal-mart and stuff...
anyway, so the kids and i go through the entire "world famous" zoo, we do it all the time actually becuase we are "friends" or the "world famous" zoo, and we see the bears, the lions, the tigers, the one hippo since the other died and actually got to see the kick ass black panther "emma" who is reclusive as all fuck and hates people. and we saw an elephant pissing too, which is always fun.
afterwards we were heading over to the park and as we left we had to walk past the giraffe's which are right there by the entrance to the "world famous" zoo (which by the way, may be "world famous" for the "worst" concession stand in the world, seriously they took forever to serve us, and i thought that this one forty year old guy was going to punch this sixteen year old girl in the face because she served me first) and well, there's no other way to put it... i saw two giraffe's doin' it...

i've seen dogs and cats and monkey's and even elephants do it, either in person, on tv or youtube, but it really never occurred to me that giraffe's actually have, you know, giraffe sex. apparently i thought that they were man made like the incredible hulk and penguins. the strange thing about it though, is how tender and romantic it was. i looked for some video's on the old internets, as i suppose we're calling it now-a-days, and i found this video taken at the los angeles zoo...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6SnySc4M0Uk

and

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_NWtutel1wA

now, the one i saw was nothing like this. the male giraffe i saw wasn't all "ha ha! gotcha bitch!" like the guy in the video - he rubbed her neck with his nose and everything - it was sweet and loving... you know? not like that asshole in the video (i mean, seriously, check out that dude's "game" i guess you call it, he just keeps standing beside her like he's doing nothing, pretending to just stare at the ground and everything... what a douche).

well, that got me thinking about gentlemen, that and i heard someone on the radio refer to lebron james as a gentleman the other day on the radio. then i came across this old orange juice cd that i bought ten years ago and haven't seen in ages. for those that don't know, orange juice is a scottish band formed in the late 70's in glasgow, i think, that relesed two full lengths and an ep, then broke up in '85. edwyn collins is the singer. he's the guy that did that "i never met a girl like you before" song on the empire records soundtrack and then "the magic prper of love" for austin powers. i convinced myself once that i was a huge orange juice fan and when i was in london once i bought everything i could find by them on vinyl, cd, etc, listened to it like crazy for a few weeks and then forgot about it. i'm sure that todd will hate it, but if cree ever subscribes to this blog (unlikely), i'm sure he'll love it.
here are twelve tracks by orange juice from a best of comp i picked up somewhere sometime for some amount of the queens sterling that i don't remember i think. also included are two tracks from a edwyn collins cd single i picked up for 25 cents in the states, the old kief's on iowa in lawrence to be exact. the "mr bojangles" is great...
enjoy

damion suomi and mormon magazines

i received this disc from a publicity company and wrote a review of it for a new magazine that i don't know anything about, but may be based in salt lake city. i don't know, they're all mysterio about their origins, which screams weirdo mormon child fucker to me. or not.
anyway... this guy is damon suomi and he sounds like adam duritz of the counting crows. like most people i really liked their first album, and that song "a long december" but i haven't paid the slightest bit of attention to them in the longest time and can guarantee i never will, since it seems their biggest accomplishment, besides the song "'round here", which is a great fucking song, is letting old women and soccer moms know that it's okay for teenagers to have dreadlocks (thanks for that...). i'll bet if they ever did a behind the music it would be the most boring ever.
anyway, damon suomi plays the acoustic guitar and sings. at times he has a langehorn slim sort of twang (which means a fake twang) but avoids slim's idiot savant routine. this is the best song off of the album, which is called "Self Titled", see, how it's not "self-titled" or "s/t", it's actually called "self titled" which is a stupid title anyway the song is called "san francisco"...
enjoy