Constant Velocity

2010-08-11T21:18:00.001-05:00

Once upon a time, kids, if you wanted to find out more about a band, you had to go to a book store. I know, I know, it sounds crazy. But it’s true. There was, you see, no internet. If you thirsted for more information about how this wonderful music came into being you could stare at the album cover or go find a book. There were a lot more music magazines back then too. But if the band you liked was no longer popular, or never was popular, you’re outta luck, pal.Had I been born some 20 years later all of the information I could possibly desire would have been at my feet along with possible connection to communities of like-minded enthusiasts. As it was, being a fan of British psychedelic music at that time, in that place, was a lonely activity. Into this breach gingerly steps one Nicholas Schaffner and his book The British Invasion: From the First Wave to the New Wave. You could say that this book had as strong an influence on my development as any band or album. Not only did I cede to this book the authority we naturally privilege text (cf. Foucault, et al), but since it was a comparatively rare subject and seemed to be written by someone with similar tastes—-and I was aesthetically isolated and I was a mopey teenager who nobody understood anyway, it had a novitiate to superior effect. And if what Greil Marcus says is true, that rock n roll is the passing of secret information from one generation to the next, then here you have it. The book mixed information with criticism and, where Schaffner was moved, outright proselytization. He felt very passionately about the genius of Syd Barrett. As a young fella I was easily seduced by the tragic/romantic tale of Barrett’s lionization and descent into schizophrenia. Madness was already a much celebrated topic in the later works of Pink Floyd and it was indeed a sad story. “A Nice Pair” was Capitol Record’s re-packaging of Pink Floyd’s first two albums, Piper at the Gates of Dawn and Saucerfull of Secrets. Here is where the tale gets complicated. Of course, what I was expecting when I bought the cassette, was the embryonic, undistilled matter from which the latter breathtaking, cinematic sound-scapes were woven. That’s there, but what’s also there is some highly idiosyncratic songwriting. Nicholas Schaffner expected me to see that this was the genius part. I labored mightily at it and eventually saw what I was expected to see. But why did he want me to understand it this way? In his book, White Bicycles Joe Boyd, producer of Pink Floyd’s single, “Arnold Lane” says that of the many bands that were popular during the “London Underground” efflorescence of psychedelic bands, everyone expected The Incredible String Band to be the Next Big Thing. Pink Floyd was to remain date stamped by the times and slip away into obscurity. The inverse is what actually happened. The Incredible String Band sound preposterous to us now but were more traditionally songwriterly than the more gimmicky Pink Floyd. You can’t blame the commentators and critics at the time for being short-sighted. Everyone expected traditional songwriting to prevail because the thing that Pink Floyd was to invent and perfect (those vast, patient, cinematic sounding albums) had not yet been imagined. Nicholas Schaffner, who also wrote some excellent books about the Beatles and was himself a songwriter, was inclined towards traditional songwriting himself. I think, like many critics in his generation, that he was distrustful of the novelty that Pink Floyd presented. They were considered bloated and pretentious by many, don’t forget (more on “pretentiousness” later.) Which brings us back around to the present day and sitting down to listen to these albums again. And it gets more complicated still creating a three segmented snake of thoughts swallowing it’s own tail: First, individually these songs sound weak. While there is a great deal of promise here, I am hearing the sound of young songwriters getting tripped up over compositional problems that a little more experience would smooth over and solve. Far from hearing a Genius with a capital Gee, I now hear the seventh or eighth best writer of this particular type of music…which isn’t nothing, mind you. I’d love to be the seventh or eighth best anything in any category. But second, these albums sound beautiful. Taken as a whole, the quality of execution , the choice of instrumentation and the sheer variety of songs is just awesome. The variety is what I like best. True to their avant-garde rep, this was definitely a band that wasn’t afraid to try anything at all. You don’t hear that much anymore. On the unity-variety scale, most bands of recent vintage tend to err on the side of monotony. Which forces me to revisit thought one and think that my ears are contaminated by professionalism. That I have been conditioned to expect a kind of slick songwriting and this album is defying my conventions and demanding to be taken as it is offered. What sounds at first weak is actually character. Character that gets stomped flat by a music industry that seeks (sought?) to control all unknowns and eliminate that which cannot be monetized. And so ‘round and ‘round I go as I listen.

6 Brandenburgische Konzerte

2010-08-09T13:27:00.004-05:00

In my old age I have learned to guard against a counterproductive tendency; swamping myself with worthy reading.

Johnathan Franzen in his essay "Why Bother" identifies three types of book readers (he thinks he's naming two, but they are all distinct): The first type is a reader who reads because it is the "done thing." More prevalent on the East Coast, according to Franzen at least, these people read for the same reason they might horseback ride or attend Andover. Class plays a role.

Next, a Midwestern type, reads to know that they are doing something profitable with their free time. Your good old protestant/puritan work-ethic and pleasure-guilt is likely at work here. The Creator frowns upon not taking up every possible free moment with toil. Enjoy oneself instead? No. Shame.

The third is the "social isolate" or put more simply, "nerd who likes to read."

I believe I am an unhealthy balance of all three. These three voices compel me to embark on oceans of worthy reading. Ancient classics, historical books, political thought, philosophy, postmodern fiction. Because I can read them, I should read them. Some of these books while indeed being worthy are also, let's not kid ourselves, a drag to read. So, as I flag with one book, I pick up another then that one starts to bog down etc etc until I sit sullenly watching television with a pile of Ovid, Kierkegaard and Pynchon glaring at me from the book case. On my vast sea, I am becalmed. I would know I had done it again when you might ask what I was reading and I would recite a litany of 1/5th read books that would ring very pompous.

Athough maybe I do this because embracing worthy music has paid consistent dividends.

When I was a young teenager I inherited a box of classical cassette tapes from my father. My father had played classical lps in the house as I was growing up and always listened to the classical station. As a little boy I found most of this music dull, except for a few pyrotechnical pieces with very clear themes. Beethoven's 5th, 6th etc. But I was exposed to it and that probably made the difference.

Laboring under the same troika of impulses, I forced myself to listen to the tapes that contained unknown works. After systematically wading though them few times, the music began to unfold and make sense. I think I was aware of what counterpoint was but one day one of these recordings knocked me off my feet. It was Bach's Brandenburg Concertos as recorded by the Los Angeles Philharmonic and conducted by the violinist Pichas Zukerman. What made these recordings different was in their mixing. They were mixed very dry (no reverb or echo) and hard panned (instruments with different lines very distinctly in one stereo channel or the other). The result, rather than highlighting the way they blended, allowed the listener to hear how the lines were distinct and yet, miraculously, complimented each other.

Every recording I had heard of the concertos prior to that sounded as though they were recorded in a airplane hanger. This gave them an bustling to absurdly busy homophonic (chordal) sound. Probably not what J.S. intended at all.

I am pretty sure it was this recording. I remember it was a pair of blue cassettes, long since lost. Deutsche Grammophone, I think. But I am relying on a 20+ years memory. It took a bit of research to hunt down a new copy. A brand new cd of concertos 1-3 runs around $120. Yikes! Somebody certainly thinks these are worth hearing. Used copies are more reasonably priced. When they arrive, I'll let you know if they still sound the same.

3 Feet High And Rising

2010-08-07T16:27:00.008-05:00

There was once a time when WXRT (a Chicago radio station) occasionally played exciting new music.

By the time I said farewell to the suburbs forever, XRT would only play the least objectionable of rock music available via the major labels or their fake smaller imprints. U2, The BoDeans, The Smithereens (The Smithereens constantly it seemed). Plus almost interesting, almost dangerous music whose relevance had recently expired. Like REM, The Cure, The Smiths. Lots of classic rock too.

But of all the stations in Chicago, it was the most eclectic. Apart from WNUR, Northwestern's excellent college station whose signal was too weak for me to pick up most of the time. So WXRT was the one I listened to. I have no idea what their format is now.

I clearly remember driving my bright yellow Pinto up route 59 when "Eye Know" came on the radio. Mind-blowing. The very idea that some kids from Long Island could breathe life into the very, very tired and monumentally un-sexy Steely Dan. It wasn't just cheeky and (sorry to resort to this word) postmodern, it was totally groovy and danceable.

Lots has been written elsewhere about the album's rococo nature, the unprecedented number of samples, its psychedelic feel. For me, what made this album so wonderful was its wedding of thoroughly modern dance and hip-hop beats with beautifully textured R&B, jazz and classic rock. It has a loose, easy feeling that I certainly had never heard in rap before. I think I had Public Enemy's "It takes a Nation of Millions..." on cassette and liked it, but it was a challenging listen at times. Very appropriate to the subject matter, it sounded like a fight between various power tools. Most rap I had been exposed to had a robotic, coked-out, disco vibe.

One minor quibble; it's a little long and could have done with a crueller editor's pen.

It's worth noting that Urban Dance Squad's "Mental Floss for the Globe" came out the same year and Dream Warriors "And Now the Legacy Begins"* shortly after that. Both inferior visions of the same idea. I guess it was in the air.

*And there, as it turns out, ends.

Repo Man

2010-08-06T14:22:00.004-05:00

I can certainly hear why this soundtrack appealed to me, even though quality of the recordings nearly breaks my ears now.

This was, I think, my first exposure to West Coast punk rock. To my ears it sounded much more like "punk rock" as it might be depicted on television or in films. Plodding, repetitive and defiantly lo-fi. Contextually, this worked on many levels when you consider the state of American white person-rock at the time. On the metal end of the spectrum, virtuosity without restraint was being fetishized and there was an oogie kind of "Dawn in America" patriotic songsterizing happening on the JC Mellancamp/Bob Seger side. This was designed to be as different as possible (New Romanticism, preparing to wheeze its last, Michael Jackson, indeed anything that may be construed "disco" is outside the scope of my considerations here).

Instead of the palpable rage that you get from the economically devastated U.K. punk rock, here we have a emphasis on irony and witty takes on the low-stakes melodrama of middle class life. This was a revelation to me at the time. And really, if you think about it, a continuation of the Baby Boomer tradition of seeking to create music that will, ideally, frighten or mystify the previous generation.

Does punk rock or really any music do this anymore? Wear so many hats and have so many layers?

Some of the actors in the film were later members of Joe Strummer's band for his fantastic but completely ignored album "Earthquake Weather."

2008-12-27T20:22:00.000-06:00

Ken Kesey

2008-10-27T23:54:00.003-05:00

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest re-enactment crew.

Shiva always gets to play Chief Bromden.

Poor Cisco.

2008-10-11T19:00:00.001-05:00

Please to notice conspicuous New Yorker brandishing.

My Russian Cousin

2008-10-06T12:38:00.003-05:00

More shots of my Russian doppelganger. Eerie.

Further Adventures of Cisco

2008-10-04T22:46:00.004-05:00

Hey! Who turned out the lights?

I'm serious. A little help here?

Vengeance is mine!

I will admit that I am not above gently tormenting my own dogs. This was completely Cisco's doing though. He came flailing out of the bedroom with it over his head.

The Future

2008-09-18T21:36:00.003-05:00

Went to the Coffee Hound to pound down a quick macchiato and leaf the latest New Yorker. I was confronted by the above.

There I am. A dissident Russian DJ. About 20 years on.

Wait. No. Maybe more like 10 years.

2008-08-08T23:56:00.001-05:00

Anxiety is the dizziness of freedom.

-Soren Kierkegaard

Mmmm. Word to that, big K.

Mind Altering

2008-07-19T23:03:00.003-05:00

Two epiphanic episodes this week for me.

Driving the truck up Veteran's Parkway I look down and see the left turn signal has been flashing for the last half mile. In my defense, the blinker is totally silent. You can only see that is on.

"Way to go grandpa." I say to myself.

And then I think about this. "Grandpa," hmm.

Soon I will be 40. It's not totally implausible that I could have been a father at 20. It didn't happen, obviously. But it could have.

And if I had son or daughter at 20 why couldn't they have done the same?

You look at yourself in the prime of life one moment. The next, viola! Grandpa!

Freaky.

Also, this:

When I took over the business, I got out my two best vacuums, lined them up and addressed them Patton style (i.e. I put on breeches and gestured with a riding crop)

"You two vacuums are my best two vacuums. You have served me well and you continue to run quietly and efficiently. " Here I paced back and forth swishing the crop through the air for emphasis.

I round on them, pointing,"Some day you will break down. It is inevitable." I let that soak in for a while and then continued:

"But what you must not do, must never do, is break down at the same time as your comrade. That would be bad. That would defeat our mission"

Of course that is exactly what they did. I think the bearings went out on one and I know the plastic fan snapped on the other.

I ordered a new motor. I never think of my self as being handy with stuff or adept at all with the more malleable aspects of the physical world, but a new motor was about $150 cheaper prospect so I thought I'd give it a whirl.

I disconnected and removed the old motor and installed the new one
quite successfully. With minimal parts left over (2 weird little springs that somehow, inscrutably, attach to the inside of the housing.).

It made me feel so buoyantly happy to penetrate the mysteries of my own vacuum. I woke up that morning as someone to whom the innards of the Sanitaire were a void. And now...

Two instants where the universe revolved and deposited me in totally unexpected place.

The Gold Standard

2008-07-15T02:57:00.001-05:00

Album

2008-07-01T11:21:00.002-05:00

I might have already sent you one.

But if you like, I will send you our new album.

Send me your address.

Wrong

2008-06-14T19:08:00.002-05:00

The name is wrong but that's no big deal. They don't really look at the name.

11. Yes.

Harbottle. Close. Easy mistake.

Whitehorse, Yukon, Canada.

No.

Barometers

2008-06-09T00:03:00.004-05:00

Just got back from our night walk.

A time for inspecting the neighborhood running around from yard to yard. Tonight at midnight it is still stiflingly hot and humid.

In the middle of our walk Shiva and Cisco stop dead in the street.

First they come over to me and look me in the face. Very strange since they almost completely ignore me on our walks. They are too busy smelling stuff.

Then they face into the wind about 10 seconds before a blast of cold air hits us.

Clever little things.

Muttonhead songs

2008-05-17T12:41:00.002-05:00

I am going to post some info about our upcoming album on our website for reviewers and fans alike to peruse if they wish. But I want you to read it first:

First off "Muttonhead" is the nickname given to our esteemed producer Jerry Erickson. Have you ever seen the movie "Any Which Way But Loose"? At the end there is a scene where all are gathered in a bar and a country and western band is playing a song. The bass player has pouffy hair and big muttonchops. That's Jerry. Muttonhead.

1. "From the McLean Co Lockup"

This a song that used to be called 'The Stir'. It is the result of reflections made subsequent to my little brush with the law all those years ago. I think it is the last of the 'Gallery' songs. The Gallery was a legendary music club and watering hole (is 'liquoring hole' a phrase?)here in downstate Illinois to which many of us were attached in one way or another. It has been the subject of many of my songs.

It took me about 30 takes to get it right as we wanted to record both the vocals and the guitar at the same time. There are some tiny little flaws in the recording that we just said "Fuck it" to. It was the right performance.

The guitar is run through 2 amps. A Matchless Spitfire and Jerry's sweet c. 1960 Fender Pro. All blended together. Mmm.

2. "After 4"

This always sounds like mid-90s pop to me. I expect the DJ to come on and say that he's gonna follow that up with some Semisonic and Fastball. It's super-tight because we have played it 1 billion times. You don't like this song? Don't worry; its barely 2 minutes long.

3. "Kelly"

A country song. Our friend Martin Hartzold deserves half credit for this song. He was the one that came up with the very country notion of a man made wretched by unrequited love but, living as he does in a trailer, unable to hang himself because his ceilings are too low.

4. "Disorder"

An ode to obsessives and compulsives I have known.

5. "Truculent"

Our hit. This song is about trucks, people in my neighborhood, belligerent foreign policy and Toby Keith. Oh, and the environment. It's all in there.

Northwest guitar heavy A P Starkey takes a turn with the space rock. During the recording I innocently asked if the guitar was in tune. This provoked barks of laughter from Aaron and Jerry. "What he is playing has nothing to do with being in tune," said Jerry. "Ah, right." says I, chastened.

After we had been playing it for a while I noticed that the song's structure and vibe is the similar to "Question" by the Moody Blues. One of my childhood favorites.

6. "Time"

An affectionate and teasingly disrespectful cover. "What is Pink Floyd not?" I asked myself as we set out to play the 1973 chestnut. "Sexy and Latin" was the reply. People often don't recognize this song when we play it live. Mission accomplished.

7. "Lucky Double 9s"

Named for Chiang Kai shek's favorite brand of cigarettes. A foray into the postmodern approach of hijacking historical figures and re-purposing them in fantastical narratives. Here Chiang Kai-shek drives though my town, Bloomington Il...and makes many observations that bear a suspicious similarity to my own.

This song also appeared on our 4 song EP.

At a recent show some drunken fellows stumbled up the stage to tell me that I "Have a great voice for screaming." The implication being that, in their opinion, the singing (or indeed, conversational speech?) was not up to snuff. I should just scream and be happy with that. I don't really agree with them but did not bother to point out that only screaming forecloses a great many vocal and musical subtleties.

But this screamy song makes their point somewhat convincingly.

8. "In Memoriam" Written about a friend's stepfather, of whom I was fond.

Delusional II

2008-05-07T12:21:00.002-05:00

“It’s full speed on to the White House,” Mrs. Clinton confidently proclaimed.

Correct me if I am wrong, but isn't that what I used to say as I stumbled home from the bar?

Too Slow

2008-04-28T01:37:00.002-05:00

It ain't easy coming up with album names.

Not only is 'Houses of the Holy Moly' already taken, but so is 'Pastor of Muppets.'

Damn.

Elite

2008-04-21T11:00:00.003-05:00

Times is tough for the elites.

Gotta keep your head down .

Frank Thomas lays it down here:http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120873309012529689.html?mod=opinion_main_commentaries

Ahh. That's better.

2008-04-04T01:39:00.000-05:00

If you go here: http://basenjirescue.org/CalendarContest/ViewEntries.asp

you can find 25 pages of basenji porn.

Try not to over-do it.

Embarrassment

2008-03-23T01:26:00.004-05:00

Mostly I work in complete solitude.

Strange hours of the night or beautiful Saturdays when everyone else is trying to wrest some leisure out of their weekend.

I listen to my ipod. Sometimes I try to work out harmony parts to my own songs. Other people's songs too. Not just vocal lines either; interesting instrumental ideas that I hear in my head. Sometimes I will slip one ear off of my headphones and concentrate and listen and sing out some little bit.

I am more likely to belt out something that I am pretty sure won't work. A peculiar interval or jagged melody line. Something weird. Gotta hear it out loud. "No. That wouldn't work" But sometimes it does.

But it is only when I am singing the most stratospherically high and warbly parts. Totally wordless and tremulously nonsensical. That is when I will turn a corner and find a slightly alarmed doctor in my building.

This has happened like three times in the past month.

Also, I submitted this picture to the basenji rescue people for inclusion in their calender.

Unstaged (you can't make a basenji stage anything).So sweet, it could put you into a sugar coma.

2008-03-15T23:22:00.006-05:00

I like mash-ups. Lots.

Well, I like good mash-ups. There are bad/boring ones certainly. The good ones are definitely an example of two things coming together and forming a star (Eliot?)

The best source I have found is the Best of Bootie series.

http://www.bootieusa.com/bestofbootie2005/

http://www.bootieusa.com/bestofbootie2006/

http://www.bootieusa.com/bestofbootie2007/

It's free too. Right on!

All three years are good. To get you started I particularly recommend the Billy Joel/Jay-Z mash-up.

You don't think Billy Joel would have made a good rapper? You're going to find out how wrong you are. Seriously. It's a shock.

The Blankenblogger

2008-03-08T23:04:00.007-06:00

I think we're all pretty happy that we can reach out and touch K Paddy B online. If you are curious to know what he is up to in DE check him out here:http://theblankenblogger.blogspot.com/

Above is what became of his former place of residence on Wood in Blm. They totally knocked that whole block down. Just piles of muddy rubble.

I've seen plans for the proposed statue. Kevin in his cut-off shorts and glow in the dark basket ball with his arm around Tommy, fuschia shorts and flip-flops. Aw.

Pond Ogre

2008-02-20T12:54:00.003-06:00

There is this crazy dude who lives by the pond where we take our daily walk. He only appears at intervals long enough for me to forget he exists. In this way he maximizes his capacity to surprise the shit out of me.

Late last summer he came out of the little house where he lives and screamed,

" HEY MAN! 'R2D2' "

He actually made air quotes. He is a really big dude and when he yells at me he shatters the arcadian calm of my quiet little neighborhood.

The spring before that he came jogging up beside me and asked to pat my dog. This was pre- Cisco; just me and Shiva. He didn't seem crazy at all until he gingerly reached out and gave Shiva a quick touch on the back and ran away.

Yesterday he emerged into the cold to holler

"ASS DISPLAYED IS ASS LOST!"

This cracked up Melanie who was walking Shiva with me and Cisco.

I don't like this guy much, but I am not worried because Cisco is learning the ancient martial art of Mop-Fu:

Mr. Esgar

2008-02-14T01:46:00.002-06:00

http://esgar-acelerado.blogspot.com/

Found this strange Portugese dude on myspace. I kind of dig his stuff.

E L Doctorow

2008-02-13T17:19:00.002-06:00

Major Sense turned me on to this author. I am reading Billy Bathgate and getting in touch with my Jewish Gangster roots. He had a great short story in the New Yorker recently and this quote about our heroic prez:

The president we get is the country we get. With each president the nation is conformed spiritually. He is the artificer of our malleable national soul. He proposes not only the laws but the kinds of lawlessness that govern our lives and invoke our responses. The people he appoints are cast in his image. The trouble they get into and get us into, is his characteristic trouble.

Finally, the media amplify his character into our moral weather report. He becomes the face of our sky, the conditions that prevail. How can we sustain ourselves as the United States of America given the stupid and ineffective warmaking, the constitutionally insensitive lawgiving, and the monarchal economics of this president? He cannot mourn but is a figure of such moral vacancy as to make us mourn for ourselves.

Nicely put.

Laurie Taylor

2008-02-08T11:56:00.000-06:00

An excellent podcast on the topic of craftsmanship. This is my favorite radio program and I listen to it with relish each week. Lots of excellent facts figures and ideas here.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/factual/thinkingallowed/

Misc Music

2008-01-31T01:54:00.000-06:00

Do you remember last fall when I was going on that I was going to start my own record label? Remember that you thought that it was a fine idea but a bit ambitious? "That's a lot more work than he thinks. When will he have time for that? I don't see that coming off at all."

Well, your lack of faith in me is disheartening but accurately placed. But I am happy to report that you are right for the wrong reasons.

That is because just as I was formulating my plan Blake contacted us and wanted to put our album on his superb Austin Texas label, Miscellaneous Music. Now we bask in the reflected glory of folks like Jad Fair, Daniel Johnston, Blake's own band Aliens and many more (go check it out!)

Much easier that way, no?

?

2008-01-30T01:10:00.000-06:00

Returning to some of my prog-rock roots has led me to download the Moody Blues chestnut 'Question.'

Why do we never get an answer
When we're knocking at the door?
With a thousand million questions
About hate and death and war

I think the answer is pretty obvious.

Maybe he should try bringing cookies next time.

MJ of mixtapes

2008-01-26T21:53:00.000-06:00

Oh yeah and by the way do you remember Michael Jordan's like, second game back after not hitting AAA curve balls for the Charlotte Knights? I think it was against the Knicks and he dropped like 55 on them? You remember that?

That's what the ol' Colonel did when he sent me a jazz mix CD last week. A stunning return to form after years in the cassette tape wilderness ("Dude, get a tape player" to paraphrase).

He has finally updated his setup so that he can record his vinyl onto CD.

He is just waiting for you pester him to make you one too.

I call the above photographic essay. 'The many moods of SDH'

Working

2008-01-06T21:36:00.000-06:00

Cleaning and teaching like mad. Here are some preliminary sketches of the cover art for our next album.

Also, we are now involved with a sort of record label called Misc. Music. They are bassed out of Austin Tx. You can check them out at miscmusiconline.com.

Actual Constant Velocity

2007-12-17T22:54:00.001-06:00

Do you remember that album that I made with all of your voices on it? And Colm? Go get it. I'll wait.

Got it? Good. Throw it out. I have a better version of that album in my hand.

I finally had the album professionally mastered. For those of you who aren't in the techie loop, that means it sounds louder and clearer now.

Strange, when I first listened to the new version I thought, "This sounds cheap...no...it sounds old."

True there are many mixing problems which are totally my fault. I overrode Muttonhead's good common sense and ears pursuing some thing in completely the wrong way. I couldn't remix it without losing all of your voices, which is a great deal of the album's charm.

The cobwebs blew away and I slowly began to remember that we were going for a late 60s early 70s era sound. Think Village Green era Kinks. That is what it sounds like. It is weird to succeed at something you attempted so long ago that you forgot what you were trying to do.

It also kind of sounds like Spanish for 100 too. Very surprising at first, but I thought about it and have an explanation:

1. Two guitars playing riff driven melodic rock and roll.

2. Similar gear.

3. Aaron and Chris are sort of similar guitar players.

I think that both Aaron and Chris would both admit that I am a technically superior guitarist in many ways (this they would say while kissing my hand and calling me 'holiness'). But despite my close association with both of them they have something that I have never been able to pick up. A sort of Springfield classic/punk rock grooviness in their playing that is just fucking awesome.

Aaron has actually been on 3 out of 4 Constant Velocity albums. The first one (voice over only), the very lo fi ep (a riff I stole from him and turned into my ode to hapless drunks, 'Dewy Biker') and now he finally pulls out all of the stops playing some mind bending space rock guitar on our 'hit' Truculent.

That is going to be on our next album, 'Muttonhead' (named after our genius producer). I hope to be finishing up mixing this week.

Cisco

2007-12-16T19:45:00.000-06:00

Yesterday's walk was in the blizzard. Cisco is from Tennessee so probably never seen so much snow. He looked a bit worried and guilty about the snow. Maybe he had done it? He does a lot of bad stuff. It's hard to keep track.

After Shiva showed him that snow was fun by bouncing and prancing around, he relaxed a little. I even caught him trying to catch the snow flakes in his mouth.

His early life was unsettled and chaotic. You never quite you are being handed with a rescue. He is a difficult young man, but I think he is starting to uncoil a little and not be so worried all the time.

For those of you who have not met him, Cisco is an uncommonly muscled basenji. When we first got him, I could not keep him off the counter. One of my students facetiously suggested that I fatten him up to past the point he could defy gravity.

He was very bony when we first got him, and as he put on weight, instead of getting fat he appeared to add more muscle mass.

I wouldn't mind having that gene switched on in my sequence. "No desert for me. I am accidentally punching through walls."

Beauty

2007-12-12T02:24:00.000-06:00

Still no time to delve deep into the issues of the day. Cleaning like mad.

I know I've had some requests for Shiva pictures, but how about getting to know her handsome new beau?

Diaspora

2007-12-11T01:41:00.000-06:00

For those of you who have forsook the Midwest, a stroll down memory lane.

Tonight's ice storm has been preempted by impenetrable fog.

I was going to start my discussions of reparations, but I had to fix my vacuum with an off-brand Swiss army knife tonight. It wore me out. Maybe tomorrow.

You think I'm kidding about reparations?

Oh ho! We shall see who is kidding about reparations.

Ice

2007-12-09T21:57:00.000-06:00

Blm is covered in ice. Everything may proceed as usual but at 1/10th speed.

One also makes a rediscovery of the muscles one uses to keep oneself upright in a calamitously slippery environment.

Horseback riding, cross country skiing, waxing floors and walking two mad basenjis through an icy park all use the same muscle groups.

2007-12-08T18:56:00.000-06:00

"Shiva, do you have a special Xmas wish this year?"

Punctuation

2007-12-08T18:33:00.000-06:00

Whenever I hear the Jay-Z's song 'Big Pimpin' the chorus sounds like this:

"Big pimpin ; spendin cheese..."

I hear a semicolon in there.

2007-12-07T23:01:00.000-06:00