Thursday, April 24, 2008

A Gun That Didn't Make Any Noise

Been reading this book. It's pretty good. I like that it doesn't end in 1969. Lots of really weird stuff went down in the early '70's. The book has got me pulling out some old music and getting some new things, such as;

There's A Riot Going On- Sly and the Family Stone
Pretty obvious but it's a really great album. Stand as well.

On The Corner - Miles Davis
I got the 6 cd box set. Some pretty weird stuff, I like it.

Low Spark Of High Heeled Boys - Traffic
What those of us who didn't think much of that revolution stuff listened to while we smoked lots of hash.

Shaft In Africa - Original Soundtrack
Just an awesome album.

Let It Be - The Replacements
The revolution would have probably gone done heavier if they'd  had  this to listen to. One of the best albums ever made.

The only band that I've come across recently that seem to have some of the anger that was all over back in the day is Grand Buffet, from Pittsburgh. Rap and poetry over beats with some Cheech and Chong thrown in. Good stuff.

Tuesday, April 22, 2008

Scary Monsters and





Spooky lights for earth day. We need aliens to bring us new energy technology. Murph, make the call dude!


Monday, April 21, 2008

Sometimes I Feel So Uninspired





















Sometimes. Ready to go on tour again. Pretty soon. Worked at Mercury last night. Four bands 2 inspiring, Grand Buffet and B Dolan. Cool spoken word/hip hop. Very funny and topical.
 2 uninspiring hip hop acts. Ratio could be worse. 
Anybody know who the guitar player is?

Saturday, April 19, 2008

A Graveyard Smash



Me and Austin at the Misfits Warsaw show show, last night. It was good, cool props and the band rocked out. Misfits are now Jerry Only on bass, Dez Cadena and Robo from Black Flag on, respectively, guitar and drums. They are all great guys. Dez is one of the cooler guitar players around and Robo  rocks like he always has. Jerry is a terrific performer and has a genuine love for the music and the fans.

Got stuck doing monitors for this show. It's tough getting Jerrys mix loud enough. Everything got pushed to within a hair of feedback at soundcheck and naturally, once the show started, more was needed.  I couldn't hear what was happening on Jerrys side, these guys are loud, and we didn't have enough stuff for a cue wedge. His tech would signal me to up the volume. I would, knowing it was going to feedback, which it did, so I would try to guess which frequency was bugging out. I'd say I got it right about half the time. I had three separate mixes set up just for Jerry so I had to try and determine which one was the problem as well.  Just turning everything down a bit wasn't really an option though I tried that as well occasionally, just out of frustration. Jerry was cool about the whole thing and it really could have been a lot worse . Anyway, we got through the show and I became even more convinced that ANYBODY who absolutely needs to hear a lot of their vocal or whatever should at least try IN EAR MONITORS. It may not be the perfect solution but it will allow you to hear yourself and not blow out your voice after the fifth song. Come on , if you can use an I Pod for your intro music instead of a record or cassette, you can try something new on stage! Try it, you'll like it!




Tuesday, April 15, 2008

Money For Gods Sake



Art for art's sake. if you think this picture is art, send me a check and I'll e-mail you the file. This has nothing to do with anything really.

Been busy lately, at Mercury and Warsaw. I was at Connolys on 46th street last Saturday. It's quite a nice club. They have a quality stage and PA and it's clean and pleasant. It's in Times Square and I think it would be a great place to have a cd release party.

Did a gig with Secret Machines at The Tribeca Grand last week as well. It was the after party for an art opening. Only two of the guys played, Josh on drums and Brendan on serious psychedelic bass. They did a set that was new and it rocked. Lots of fun and we got a lovely complimentary dinner.

Monday, April 7, 2008

Wake Me Up before You Go Go

Times Square, the new one. I'm working at some club there on Saturday. Six bands, whatever, good money. I'm a bit bored, waiting to go back out on tour. Got a weeks worth of gigs with The Secret Machines at the end of the month. Tour managing and doing sound. Good, I need TM experience. They just finished recording a new album and it's great.

Thursday, April 3, 2008

Three Guys Walk into a Bar...

Well, I'm quite excited. I just found a book about Rod Stewart, which I've been trying to find for a while, on Amazon. It's called Rod Stewart and was written by Lester Bangs and Paul Nelson. It's a very weird book. It was supposed to be a fan bio (it looks like one). These two guys instead   just trashed the Rod of the late '70's and early '80's (it was published in 1981, written in, I think, 3 days, mostly by Bangs). Understandable given they were both huge fans of his music with Jeff Beck and the Faces. Me too. I'm also a big fan of Lester Bangs and this is something most people don't realize he wrote. Check it out, classic Bangs.
                                                       
                                       ONE HOUR LATER

Yeah, just found the Blondie book written by Lester on Amazon. I gotta turn this computer off.
 

Tuesday, April 1, 2008

Electric Sheep

This is a picture of the area outside our hotel in Tokyo. Pretty Blade Runner. Wish the Dino tour had been longer. I'm sitting at home kinda bored. I'ts so easy to just sit and read or watch tv. Gotta get motivated! Doing some shows with Secret Machines at the end of the month. That will be cool.