shawn avery journal thing

late spring update pt. 1 - secret stages

2011-06-15T12:02:00.026-04:00

i played friday night with through the sparks at rogue tavern. we were initially scheduled to play on the outside stage, but we got rained in. on saturday night i played two sets at metro bar. the first set was with electroliner, which was very well attended, and the last set of the night was rubys. this was actually the last rubys show for quite a while, because grey is moving in e few weeks to south korea.

all three sets with all three bands were very strong. through the sparks got cut short, because so many bands had to be shoved into rogue tavern. the rubys set was by far the best one yet. we were joined on stage by matt green, one of the original guitarists and singers for rubys, who now lives in muscle shoals.

here's a few links and a reproduced review of the debut of the secret stages music fest that took place in the loft district in mid may:

the secret stages public flickr page / photo pool

from littleadvances.com:

There were a number of unknowns surrounding the first-ever Secret Stages music festival in Birmingham, AL. I knew it had a good lineup, but I didn’t know how it would function as a festival. Would it feel like a unified event, or just a bunch of loosely connected shows taking place during the same weekend? Would each individual venue stick to their schedule? Would anybody show up?

Luckily, the answers to those questions were good ones. Secret Stages definitely felt like an interconnected festival. There was a central, blocked off area in downtown Birmingham that served as the main hub, with vendors, an outdoor stage, and several of the participating venues all situated around the same city block. All of the other venues were nearby, too, so it never took more than few minutes to get from one place to another. Furthermore, they all had prominent Secret Stages placards displaying their schedule out front, and they miraculously stuck to that schedule for most of the weekend. There were a couple of logistical issues that I’ll talk about later, but for the most part the festival was run smoothly.

Plus, the music was just great. Almost all of the lineup was composed of emerging bands from the Southeast, and the organizers had clearly done their homework. In this case, “emerging” never meant “your friend’s brother’s bar band that plays locally 3 times a year.” There were a ton of genuinely talented bands that look like they have great things on the horizon.

So, how was the attendance? I would say it was about what I expected. When the biggest names in your lineup are The Love Language, G-Side, and Dawes, you’re not going to be drawing massive crowds. This festival is a celebration of under-the-radar bands, so they’re catering to a smaller crowd of music lovers willing to seek out the unfamiliar, and I would say they were successful in drawing in that crowd. The club shows all seemed like they were more well-attended than they would have been under non-festival circumstances. I think a lot of bands probably played to crowds 2 or 3 times the size of what they would have drawn had they booked an unrelated show on another weekend. That’s especially impressive when you consider the fact that there was a ton of scheduling overlap among the 11 stages.

Day by day breakdown of what I saw below.

Friday

I got there later than I had hoped for on Friday, so the first band I really caught was Glossary (Murfeesboro, TN). They pull from alt-country and Southern rock, and should appeal to anyone who has ever owned a Lucero or Drive-By Truckers album. They played on the Miller Lite/Alagasco Outdoor Stage, which was a converted parking lot right off the shut down stretch of 2^nd Ave N that served as homebase for the festival. It was typically the most crowded stage all weekend, and Glossary drew a healthy crowd for their 8:15 set.

After Glossary, we headed over to Rogue Tavern for Venice is Sinking (Athens, GA).

Honestly, I was a little worried before the show started. Rogue Tavern is a classier bar and restaurant than the name might suggest, and most of the room was filled with tables. Most of those tables were filled with people who seemed to be finishing up dinner or having a few drinks with friends. It didn’t look like the ideal setting for a band like Venice, who move at a deliberate pace and rely heavily on atmosphere. My fears never materialized, though – the band took charge of that room and got a great response. Most of the crowd might have been seated, but the enthusiastic applause after slow burn opener “Iron Range” suggested they had the room’s full attention. The rest of the set was equally wonderful, as always.

After Venice, we walked over to Easy Street, a pop-up venue a couple of blocks from the main festival drag. Easy Street was a cool little hole-in-the-wall, with the kind of gaudily patterned carpet you usually only find in bolwing alleys and arcades. As far as we could find out, it’s normally just an empty building, but during Secret Stages it was a pretty awesome place to see a show. The makeshift stage was actually pretty serious business, with a professional PA, lighting rig, and ridiculously high drum riser that all looked out of place in the otherwise dingy enivrons.

It had an endearing effect, and so did Baak Gwai (Tuscaloosa, AL), a post-punk band that gave off a nerdy Shellac vibe. They’re worth looking into. Next up was The Booze (Atlanta, GA), who were playing at 10:30 at Das House, a German biergarten that is every bit as tacky and over the top as every other German biergarten you’ve been to. It was kind of an awesome place to see a show, too. The room was crowded, and The Booze delivered. They absolutely nail the ’60s British Invasion sound, and they do it with the perfect combination of raucous energy and professional precision. I was glad to see them go over so well with an out of town crowd.

Our next stop was Thomas Function (Hunstville, AL) at Matthew’s Bar and Grill, a gloriously divey dive bar with an attached room for live music. I dug the venue, but Thomas Function wasn’t doing it for me or anyone else in my group. I enjoy their recorded stuff pretty well, so I would be willing to give them another shot, but on Friday they just struck me as anonymous bar band #42.

We decided to cross the street to check out a bit of Wooden Wand (Lexington, KY) at the Wine Loft, which strangely enough is a groundfloor wine bar with really high ceilings. Based on the experimental folk recordings I had heard, I expected Wooden Wand to be stripped down, atmospheric, and kind of weird, but what he and his band were cranking out was much closer to standard alt-country. I enjoyed it, but we were only able to catch a few songs.

We left the Wine Loft bound for the outdoor stage expecting to catch The Love Language at 11:30, but when we got there we learned that the stage had been shut down due to rain. The two remaining bands (Through the Sparks and The Love Language) had been squeezed into Rogue Tavern’s lineup, with The Love Language scheduled to play at 1:00. We headed over there and caught the end of The Fervor (Louisville, KY), who were fine but a little nondescript, but we bailed once Dangermuffin (Charelston, SC) started jamming. There’s definitely an audience for that stuff, but I’m not part of it.

We ended up at Metro Bar and Grill for Madeline (Athens, GA), who plays singer-songwriter folk fleshed out by a full band. Her arrangements and her voice are both pretty interesting, and it was a strong set. The bar was a low key place that looks like it’s more likely to host an open mic night than a touring band, but the sound was solid and it was easy enough to get a decent sightline.

After Madeline, we went back to Rogue for The Love Language‘s (Raleigh, NC) delayed performance. It was worth the wait, and probably my favorite set of the weekend. The centerpiece of the band is Stuart McLamb’s emotive voice, which was turned up as high in the live mix as it is on both albums. He can sell distress better than anyone, and the controlled chaos of his backing band only bolsters the sentiment. These songs are urgent and cathartic, and the energy the band brings to them lifts them out of navel-gazing miserabilia and turns them into something that’s almost celebratory. McLamb can turn exorcising demons into a dance party.

Unfortunately, we were all pretty drained after The Love Language and just didn’t have the energy to stick around for G-Side (Hunstville, AL), who were closing out the first night at the Rogue. It was 2:15 and there just wasn’t any gas left in the tank. I guess I’ll have to make them a priority at Pitchfork in July.

Saturday

Saturday afternoon’s schedule was the festival’s only serious logistical flaw. Music started at 2:00PM on the outdoor stage, but none of the other venues started up until 6:30 at the earliest, with most starting around 8:00. If you didn’t like who was playing the outdoor stage during the afternoon, you didn’t have any other live music options. It would have been nice to have at least one or two other afternoon choices, and most of the venues were already open, so why not?

We tried to get there in time for Dawes’ 2:00 performance, but we unfortunately showed up right as they were wrapping up. Since we didn’t have much of an interest in seeing the rest of the afternoon’s lineup, we wandered around and killed time. Luckily, there was an amazing junk shop called What’s on 2nd? just inside the main gate, and it had enough interesting stuff to keep us occupied for almost an hour. That still left us with a ton of time to kill, though, so we ended up seeing a bunch of URI‘s set (Tuscaloosa, AL) on the outdoor stage. Not my thing. We ended up spending the rest of the afternoon playing pool at Matthew’s.

It definitely picked up later, though. Mind Powers (Columbus, GA) played a set of decent noise-rock at Easy Street at 6:30. It was mostly just generic Mclusky worship, including an extremely faithful cover of “To Hell With Good Intentions.” It might not have been too memorable, but if you’re going to shamelessly crib from another band, Mclusky is pretty good choice.

Manray (Athens, GA) played Easy Street next. They were amazing. They delivered heavy, mercurial math rock with epic blasts of dissonance, and they never tested their audience’s patience. Easily one of my favorite sets of the weekend. I can’t wait to see them again.

The rest of the venues were getting started by that point. We headed over to Rogue to see Howlies (Atlanta, GA), who played their combination of vintage ’50s rock and Ramones-style punk to a pretty big crowd. They played a couple of new songs, at least one of which I haven’t heard them play before. Either of them would have fit nicely on last year’s very strong Stunned EP, and that’s definitely a good thing. Check out a video I took of their performance here.

After Howlies we headed over to M-Lounge, an upstairs event space attached to Matthew’s. We saw the first couple of songs of 13ghosts (Birmingham, AL) set, but they didn’t make much of an impression. Members of Oryx and Crake were simultaneously watching The Bear (Muscle Shoals, AL) downstairs at Matthew’s, and they had nothing but good things to say about them.

Noot d’ Noot (Atlanta, GA) played the outdoor stage at 9:15, and by the end of their set they had probably accumalated one of the largest crowds of the weekend. Their performance was a shot in the arm, the perfect antidote to combat the lull in energy that comes from wandering around a music festival for nearly 7 hours. Their psychedelic funk even managed to get the outdoor crowd dancing.

We wanted to catch Pujol (Nashville, TN) at Metro after Noot d’ Noot, but the venue was behind schedule and we unfortunately didn’t have time to see him before catching Oryx and Crake (Atlanta, GA) at the Wine Loft at 11:00. They ran into a string of technical problems, but they handled them so smoothly that much of the audience was probably unaware that anything was wrong. This was the first time I’ve seen them as a four piece, and it’s a cool change of pace. The contrast between the electronic and acoustic sides of the band is more pronounced in the stripped-down lineup, so it’s like hearing a new spin on familiar songs. The new songs are fantastic, too, especially “The Road,” which features Ryan Peoples on bowed saw. The instrument seemed to confound the hell out of the sound guy, but I think it adds something wonderfully eerie to what might be the best song they’ve written to date.

Wine Loft is the only venue I’m not 100% sold on, though. The low lighting and upscale lounge atmopshere might suit a band like Oryx better than a rowdy dive bar, but the layout of the room is just not that conducive to live music. The room’s columns and the placement of the tables and couches resulted in some strange sightlines. It almost felt like the stage area was disconnected from the rest of the room. Maybe something to think about for next year.

After Oryx, we went to the outdoor stage for Futurebirds (Athens, GA). We took in their psychedelic country as the lightest of drizzles came down. It was a relaxing breather between indoor sets. After about 30 minutes, we ducked into Rogue Tavern to hear a few songs from Crooked Fingers (Asheville, NC), who sounded great. We wanted to check out Jack Oblivian, though, so we didn’t catch much.

Jack Oblivian (Memphis, TN) was the perfect fit for Matthew’s. The stage is in a mostly unadorned room that feels like a giant unfinished basement. It looks like it’s more suited to storing tractors or some other form of heavy machinery. So basically it’s ideal for raucous, rootsy rock shows. Jack played over an hour of punk-country to a responsive crowd that seemed to know the material. Some people were dancing, and most people were drunk. We went across the street about midway through the set to check out Skewby (Memphis, TN) at the Wine Loft, but we only managed to catch a few minutes of the Memphis rapper’s set. Apparently he went on 10 minutes early and only played for about 18 total. Oh well – heading back across the street for the rest of Jack Oblivian was a nice consolation.

And that was it. We saw a lot of great music in our two days in Birmingham, and I will hopefully be back next year. Word of mouth should be strong among both the fans that attended and the bands that played. If they keep putting together equally stacked lineups, their reputation is just going to continue to build. Let’s hope they decide to come back for round two next year.

through the sparks @ secret stages

2011-05-03T11:26:00.006-04:00

last week we got an unexpected press blitz from both city papers, leading up to our set during the debut of secret stages on may 13th. i'm posting the feature article interview with jody nelson, along with a pic of the cover of the bham weekly. additionally, david pelfrey, long time music critic at the back/white city paper gave us an in depth review and a lot of accolades. this is the same guy who decimated the ashes in a feature on city stages 2003. looking back on it, he was 100% correct.

by David Pelfrey -
Worm Moon Waning was the best album by a local band in 2010. In fact, for the last three or four years no one in town has made more appealing, accomplished music than these guys. The next time the experts put together a "crucial" compilation of music made in Alabama (there's a lot of that going on these days), if "Your Old Haunts" isn't on the free CD, we'll know just how much credibility said experts can actually claim.

The aforementioned album and the monthly issue of mostly stellar singles last year (now combined on Year of Beasts) indicate that T the S mine the same rich vein MGMT and The Flaming Lips do, so it's only fair to note that our local heroes struck more nuggets on Worm Moon Waning than MGMT ever did with their sophomore effort.

There's plenty to admire in that compilation of singles as well. "The Laughter Lulls" might be some lost Lennon-Yoko AM gold that imagines Grant Lee Buffalo deconstructing "Whiter Shade of Pale." It's easy to hear Pulp or hits-era Todd Rundgren in "Company Cars," and it's impossible not to hear Marc Bolan in "Squares."

Unhurried, atmospheric, and often moody psychedelic pop that offers memorable tunes is hard to come by, but it's even harder to find very many folks in town who are excited that Through the Sparks offers so much of it. Perhaps that's because the band doesn't seem very excited either. Whether they recognize it or not, this group is leagues ahead of their peers in terms of creativity and "otherness," yet there they stood on stage at WorkPlay in T-shirts and jeans, coming across like regular guys.

The brilliant, engaging, and wonderfully peculiar sounds in their music cry out for an accompanying decadence, contrivance, and no small amount of glam pretense. (Someone came very close to conveying this in some excellent promotional videos on YouTube, which delivered an undeniable David Lynch vibe.) It's very frustrating. The absolute best band in Alabama fully understands that they are in the music business, but somehow overlooked the very obvious fact that they are also in the show business. - David Pelfrey

by Sam George -
Everyone knows that the music industry is changing forever. Faced with emerging technology that makes the traditional model of record production obsolete, the entire business is undergoing a public soul-searching as well as a mad scramble to be the first to stumble on a new model that makes sense (and money) in the internet age.

The problem is so ubiquitous that a question about facing it has become standard in almost every artist interview I’ve read recently. The answers to these questions are also fairly standard: It’s easier to make a record but harder to get it noticed, and taking music on tour is now the grail of the working musician who wishes to make a living with their art.

But in reality the future is just as uncertain as it always is. There is no one “right” way, no patented formula for success. Many artists may find their way on the road, but the truth is that this new climate doesn’t favor a single path to commercial and artistic happiness. It favors the innovators, those willing to look beyond the typical, to build their own methods and run with them.

Birmingham band Through the Sparks (TTS) are one such group of individuals. Despite national recognition and a solid local and regional fan base, they were unable to fully embrace the “get your money on the road” mentality because of ties to home that made it difficult to leave for long periods of time and return to out-of-town venues with the frequency necessary to retain fans.

TTS front-man Jody Nelson recalls the moment where they decided to switch gears. “Travis [Morgan], who owns [TTS label] Skybucket Records—we were talking to him about trying to get to touring,” Nelson says, “and he was really wanting us to do that. Our problem was, like everybody else, you go somewhere and nobody knows who you are because you haven’t been there in two years because you don’t have enough money to go back every couple months. It was just getting futile, so we came up with the idea—our bass player Greg Slamen had just had a baby—and it was just impossible to [tour enough] where it was worth it; you have to go all or none. So we decided that we’d try another approach.

We got the website up to where we could actually [reach] enough people that we did have on our mailing list, that we could keep reminding them, when we do come back, that we’re still around. Once we decided to do it like that, it was easy to say ‘Okay, there’s going to be a deadline every month and we’re going to send out a newsletter every month with something [new] to listen to.’” Armed with this new structure, TTS set about recording a single per month to include with their newsletter. It was an entirely new way of thinking about recording compared to their traditional album-oriented approach.

“Everything [changed],” Nelson remembers. “Everything, because first of all we weren’t working in album format. We’ve always done that. Plus in an album format you can go back all at once and maybe do all the overdubs or something. Now when we do play out of town somewhere there are people we can contact now, and they’re probably going to be there. Not all of them of course, it’s crazy to think that, but we can pretty much play and have somebody show up, instead of just going somewhere where it’s totally empty. That and we were able to build the mailing list a lot and also have constant mentions every month online somewhere, instead of just once a year when you release a record.”

After 12 months of creating one song a month, they realized they had an album’s worth and decided to put them together in a collection, entitled Almanac (MMX) Year of the Beast, which they could release.

“It wasn’t the idea from the beginning,” Nelson says. “It just kind of got to be that way because—well, we realized we’ve got an album here. No matter if it is disjointed, it still makes sense as a collection, especially if you know how it was done, and why it came out that way. We weren’t able to have the advantage of knowing what collection of songs were going to be on there, [so] the collection we’re putting out is backheavy. You can tell once it gets to the end that it starts to make sense like an album, because the earlier songs we were able to look at in retrospect. Normally what you would do is take that and start to get an order together and say ‘Oh well, this song goes here, and this one goes there, and because we’ve got this then we’re going to add this.’ And it starts to make sense as a record near the end.

But [on Almanac] the ones in the beginning are kind of hodge-podged together. I mean, not really song by song, but as far as the way they connect with each other. So it was kind of an anti-album in that aspect, but also since we only had a month we couldn’t just—I mean, usually I can’t listen to anything we’ve recorded, because it’s been drilled into you. It’s like refrigerator buzz or whatever, you can’t even hear it. But I still like this one, because we weren’t able to kill every song by overdubbing too much or rewriting.”

There were other challenges as well, especially for Nelson as the primary songwriter. “For me, musically,” Nelson says, “I think it was fun having all those little deadlines, but lyric-wise, to finish something in a month for me is really hard, if it’s going to be put out, because I usually go back and rewrite and stuff like that, but just constantly having to walk around and think about [the lyrics] really kind of made me feel like an asshole a lot. Still, that’s kind of what’s cool about it.

The fact that we knew we had a certain amount of time, there’s stuff that would have gotten thrown away if it weren’t for that restriction. Meaning, ‘Okay, we’ve gotta make this good.’ So it was a challenge, without all the time to get it wrong. We were just kind of like, ‘Well man, let’s just do what we know.’ So there is some stuff [on Almanac] that’s more safe. There’s some straight up rock songs on here instead of noise-scaped, ambient [stuff].”

Fear not, the resulting album does contain a fair amount of the kind of off-kilter weirdness that made TTS’ last album Worm Moon Waning so appealing; it’s just not as prominent. Though the month-to-month production schedule does make the beginning of the album feel like it’s changing channels a bit, that variety actually served to draw me deeper in, rather than push me away. In a way, this is the audio equivalent of a collection of short stories. Each track tells its own tale, weaves its own aesthetic, but it is the combination of all these different soundscapes that provides Almanac’s particular charm.

Now that TTS have settled on a new model that works for them, they aren’t content to rest easy. They’re already working on their next release, though they have loosened some of their selfimposed restrictions.

“[Almanac] comes out June 21,” Nelson says, “ but we’ve got songs that we were writing in the background this whole time, and we’ve already gotten in that rhythm of doing a song a month and it kind of stayed that way a little bit, so by the time September rolls around we’ll probably have another [album] finished, [this time] without the restrictions. It’s better for output, but this time when we’re done with something we can just throw it out like normal.

TTS are also playing Birmingham’s newest music festival, Secret Stages, which will take place May 13-14 and provides them an opportunity to get in some live performance in front of a large audience without the hassle of leaving town.

I ask Nelson if he is excited about the impending festival. “Absolutely, it’s gonna be great,” he says. “[The loft-district] part of town’s really fun. Any time Birmingham can do something— people like to get out. This kind of thing brings people that aren’t usually music fans down here. People that aren’t in it every night tend to get out and just have fun. The surrounding area comes into town. I’m excited about hearing The Love Language.

That’s great guitar music. John Paul Keith and the One Four Fives are good friends of mine. We used to play with John Paul, years back. I’m actually playing with Barton Carroll, I’ve seen him play guitar, and I love seeing him. And then all the people I’ve never heard of—Dawes is gonna be great, but all the people I’ve never heard of, that’s the fun part—if you walk around you see stuff that you wouldn’t normally know, that’s the reason to go.”

Almanac (MMX) Year of the Beast will be available June 21, but you can visit www.throughthesparksmusic.com to listen to the individual singles, download their previous albums and find out a more about the band. For more information on Secret Stages, visit www.secretstages.net.

monster twister wrecks alabama

2011-04-28T11:00:00.012-04:00

this was the big one. so far, it sounds like my friends and family are ok. a friend of mine lost her father in west birmingham. another friend told me about an entire subdivision that is gone, and probably the people as well. crazy.

after witnessing massive natural disasters recently in new zealand, haiti, japan and elsewhere, alabama now has quite a mess on its hands. last year it felt rather strange witnessing the events unfold in the gulf, while at the same time - nashville got hit with a giant, intense flood event. the associated press national news story is below:

PLEASANT GROVE, Ala. – Dozens of tornadoes spawned by a powerful storm system wiped out neighborhoods across a wide swath of the South, killing at least 201 people in the deadliest outbreak in nearly 40 years, and officials said Thursday they expected the death toll to rise.

Alabama's state emergency management agency said it had confirmed 131 deaths, while there were 32 in Mississippi, 16 in Tennessee, 13 in Georgia, eight in Virginia and one in Kentucky.

The National Weather Service's Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Okla., said it received 137 tornado reports around the regions into Wednesday night.

"We were in the bathroom holding on to each other and holding on to dear life," said Samantha Nail, who lives in a blue-collar subdivision in the Birmingham suburb of Pleasant Grove where the storm slammed heavy pickup trucks into ditches and obliterated tidy brick houses, leaving behind a mess of mattresses, electronics and children's toys scattered across a grassy plain where dozens used to live. "If it wasn't for our concrete walls, our home would be gone like the rest of them."

Dave Imy, a meteorologist with the prediction service, said the deaths were the most in a tornado outbreak since 1974, when 315 people died.

In Alabama, where as many as a million people were without power, Gov. Robert Bentley said 2,000 national guard troops had been activated and were helping to search devastated areas for people still missing. He said the National Weather Service and forecasters did a good job of alerting people, but there is only so much that can be done to deal with powerful tornadoes a mile wide.

One of the hardest-hit areas was Tuscaloosa, a city of more than 83,000 and home to the University of Alabama. A massive tornado, caught on video by a news camera on a tower, barreled through late Wednesday afternoon, leveling the city.

"When I looked back, I just saw trees and stuff coming by," said Mike Whitt, a resident at DCH Regional Medical Center who ran from the hospital's parking deck when the wind started swirling and he heard a roar.

On Thursday morning, he walked through the neighborhood next to the hospital, home to a mix of students and townspeople, looking at dozens of homes without roofs. Household items were scattered all over the ground — a drum, running shoes, insulation, towels, and a shampoo bottle. Streets were impassable, the pavement strewn with trees, pieces of houses and cars with their windows blown out.

Dr. David Hinson was working at the hospital when the tornado hit. He and his wife had to walk several blocks to get to their house, which was destroyed. Several houses down, he helped pull three students from the rubble. One was dead and two were badly injured. He and others used pieces of debris as makeshift stretchers to carry them to an ambulance.

"We just did the best we could to get them out and get them stabilized and get them to help," he said. "I don't know what happened to them."

The storm system spread destruction from Texas to New York, where dozens of roads were flooded or washed out. The governors of Alabama, Mississippi and Georgia each issued emergency declarations for parts of their states. President Barack Obama said he had spoken with Bentley and approved his request for emergency federal assistance.

"Our hearts go out to all those who have been affected by this devastation, and we commend the heroic efforts of those who have been working tirelessly to respond to this disaster," Obama said in a statement.

Around Tuscaloosa, traffic was snarled by downed trees and power lines, and some drivers abandoned their cars in medians. "What we faced today was massive damage on a scale we have not seen in Tuscaloosa in quite some time," Mayor Walter Maddox said Wednesday.

University officials said there didn't appear to be significant damage on campus, and dozens of students and locals were staying at a 125-bed shelter in the campus recreation center.

The Browns Ferry nuclear power plant about 30 miles west of Huntsville lost offsite power. The Tennessee Valley Authority-owned plant had to use seven diesel generators to power the plant's three units. The safety systems operated as needed and the emergency event was classified as the lowest of four levels, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission said.

In Huntsville, meteorologists found themselves in the path of severe storms and had to take shelter in a reinforced steel room, turning over monitoring duties to a sister office in Jackson, Miss. Meteorologists saw multiple wall clouds, which sometimes spawn tornadoes, and decided to take cover, but the building wasn't damaged.

"We have to take shelter just like the rest of the people," said meteorologist Chelly Amin, who wasn't at the office at the time but spoke with colleagues about the situation.

In Kemper County, Miss., in the east-central part of the state, sisters Florrie Green and Maxine McDonald, and their sister-in-law Johnnie Green, all died in a mobile home that was destroyed by a storm. "They were thrown into those pines over there," Mary Green, Johnnie Green's daughter-in-law, said, pointing to a wooded area. "They had to go look for their bodies."

In Choctaw County, Miss., a Louisiana police officer was killed Wednesday morning when a towering sweetgum tree fell onto his tent as he shielded his young daughter with his body. The girl wasn't hurt. The storms came on the heels of another system that killed 10 people in Arkansas and one in Mississippi earlier this week.

rubys / end scene

2011-04-12T11:35:00.008-04:00

my good friend grey watson, with whom i play in two bands, is moving to south korea at the beginning of june for a one year teaching contract. he's in his late 20's, so this is pretty much the perfect opportunity to go abroad. this will effectively dismantle our rock trio, rubys... and will put a definite damper on through the sparks. we were planning on starting an album soon, but everyone stayed in a holding pattern until we knew what grey was going to do. now hopefully we can at least record some live demos of the new material so it doesn't get lost. at some point we might release the ep we recorded as a 5 piece at jody nelson's house in early 2010.

at my age, i don't think in terms of years anymore. they go by too fast. 5 years ago, i was already recording with the spots. life moves pretty fast. anyway... so rubys will be going out in a blaze of glory. we have two shows lined up with the grenadines - one at the nick in birmingham and one somewhere in tuscaloosa. war eagle.

there's also a set during the debut of secret stages in the downtown loft district in mid-may. and there's also talk of doing a house party somewhere in southside. that would pretty much cover all the bases. we have a lot of rehearsal to do in order to get up to speed, but rehearsing as a trio is super easy. much easier than a 5 or 6 piece. here's the rubys feature page for the city stages festival. i might post some rehearsal or performance footage on here once we get through all of these shows.

SXSW 2011 Part 3 - More Photos and Video

2011-04-05T13:26:00.006-04:00

adding some more photos and links, and soon i'll be posting a half hour recap of random video clips i recorded. i'll flesh out this posting during the next day or two. these first photos were taken by jim fahy. here's another blurb from just before sxsw via bham weekly.

SXSW 2011 Part 2 - Bham Showcase

2011-03-28T11:09:00.014-04:00

here's some photos of the bham showcase, mainly taken by marcia de fiore as well as a video clip filmed by alison hulsey and sean courtney. i took their two clips and edited them together into the black/white version below. the audio is sketchy but the performance is spirited.

i think corey flegel might have taken a few of these as well. i also know there were some folks from al.com but i may have already listed them? this last photo was taken on the way back to the craziness downtown after alison and i had dinner with my friend kristin, who i hadn't seen in nearly 10 years. so great to see her at sxsw...

i'll post more photos on here later in the day. still working on combining all of the video clips into one long video, which i'll post soonish. the showcase featured two stages, one inside and one outside, blaring out into the street. very cool. here's a few links to some local press about the event: al.com / sxsw coverage. al.com blo g.

SXSW 2011 Part 1 - Phantogram

2011-03-23T12:04:00.020-04:00

so here's the obligatory multi-part sxsw post. this is going to probably be three segments. one on phantogram, one on photos, and one on video i filmed during the weekend. the last one will hopefully be compiled into one, semi-coherent clip.

here we go with the phantogram business. at first, alison and i weren't sure if phantogram was going to play this year, but i was fairly confident that they would. their album came out right after their showcases at sxsw 2010, and they were a huge buzz there last year. after we found out they were playing a few showcases this year, we rsvp'd for the filter mag party and hoped for the best.

upon arriving last friday morning after flying in from bham, we waited around to check into our room and called a cab to take us downtown. some hipster girls stole our cab van and i nearly killed the driver, but we were lucky enough to catch a ride with the grenadines. we all got downtown just in time for alison and i to jump out of the van and rush to the phantogram showcase.

like most showcases, it was only 30 mins, but we got a good view of them from the back of the courtyard, and later, from inside the air-conditioned lounge. i got a few short clips, but here i'll post some much better clips from the set that were filmed by other folks. if nobody posts any footage of "make a fist", i'll post mine. i'm also including a few standout clips from their 2010 sxsw showcases that are fantastic.

here's the clips from the creekside courtyard set, sxsw 2011. they started with "mouthful of diamonds." the first clip here is very close to where we were standing. after watching their set, we walked over a mile in less than 30 mins to the yard dog to see the 45mins set by haha tonka. on the way there, i passed yoko ono on the street. yep.

on the way back to the west side, we walked right by phantogram, who were sitting on the curb outside of a hip-hop showcase. we stopped for a minute and introduced ourselves. sarah shook our hand and they were both quite pleasant. bonus! phantogram and haha tonka were the only 2 "must see" bands on our list, and we got to see and meet them both within 2 hours of landing downtown.

a few excellent clips of "when i'm small" from sxsw 2010 and another of "mouthful of diamonds" from last year's filter//culture collide party:

it's been 20 years / spring shows

2011-03-14T11:10:00.014-04:00

strange. the winter/spring of 1991 was 20 years ago. the gulf war started just over 20 years ago. i was 16. its been 20 years since i played in my favorite high school band.

i also realized that i've been using the same snare drum for 20 years. it was given to me by the drummer for the band "the van goghs" who were about to go on tour with "the rembrandts" - true story. this is super geeky, but knowing i've had the snare for over 20 years, i figured it was probably a lot older than that, so i found the product info. this is interesting only to me, i know this. its the only part of my 2nd drum kit that i kept, and its been an incredibly versatile snare. if it can keep up in a genre bending band like through the sparks, then its pretty solid. according to some of the usergroups i've read, the snare retailed in the mid 80's for around $250 and is generally regarded as being a powerhouse both live and in the studio:

1984-85 Model product model is: M-514D
The M-514D (6 1/2 x 14) snare were featured on the Professional series and all DX and DLX-7500 series drums as standard equipment. It was equipped with Pearl SuperHoops 2.3 triple flanged and had the new S-015EX "Extended Gladstone Type strainer providing sensitive snare tension at both sides.

its also been 20 years since i left the first band i joined upon moving to auburndale. after leaving that band...from '91 to '93 i played with my friend shawn boos, my then girlfriend zella, and our stoner buddy seth. i have video footage and photos of the show we played in march 1991 that i'll post at some point.

we were the de facto rock band of our high school and we played several in-school functions. it was always a lot of fun being able to leave algebra class in order to spend 2 hours in the band room rehearsal original rock music for an event later in the day that would also equal time not in class. it was quite a scam. after high school, shawn boos and i played with an older friend, tony insua. we only played one show as a 3 piece. from 1991-1993 this band fronted by shawn and myself was called ten29.

ten29 was based on the date 10/29/1990 - when shawn broke up with this air-headed blonde he was dating. yep. edit: zella (who has a killer memory) has informed me that ten29 came not from a break-up date, but from our friend shawn's girlfriend's birthday.

after graduating high school, shawn boos, tony and i rehearsed on and off for about a year but never played a show. then shawn moved away... then i moved away. i didn't play another live show until may 2000. overall, between high school and playing live in phoenix, i went about 8 years without playing live, with the exception of one or two songs sitting in with bands at the rustic. i didn't play drums live between 1992 and 2006. over 14 years.

other things that happened 20 years ago this winter... the weekend the gulf war started, two of my best friends, myself and a high school buddy piled into seth's vintage puegat sedan and headed to ft. lauderdale. 2 days later we were physically evicted form the city. i also made this crazy thing in ceramics class, although that was in the fall of '91. pretty hilarious:

anyway... so march came in with a bang. crazy rain storms and wind, and more warm weather. winter effectively ended about 6 weeks early this year. after a series of snow storms, the last of which was in early-mid february, the weather just decided to turn spring-like. pollination/blooming has gotten started quite a bit earlier than usual. more rain last night.

speaking of last night. some guys across the street from my apartment got into an alcohol fueled argument, and one of them killed the other. i showed up a few mins after all the cops and fire trucks got there.

more sxsw stuff... here's the official poster (below) for the show and a blurb about the secret stages music festival being promoted by travis morgan at skybucket. in june we will be playing in waverly, alabama at a bham-centric show promoted by standard deluxe printing and the thisisamericanmusic blog. here's the newest articl e on the bham goes to sxsw efforts, courtesy of bham weekly. and here's the media page at skybucket records, featuring music from all of the bands from bham playing sxsw this year.

march muzak / sxsw

2011-02-28T13:46:00.010-05:00

through the sparks is heading to austin once again for sxsw. this will be the 5th year in a row that through the sparks has played sxsw, and the 2nd time i've played with them. we will be there very briefly... from friday morning until sometime sunday, but i'm hoping to fit in a worthy sxsw experience. starting with flatstock: details ///

among the other events i'd like to see... phantogram show on friday the 18th at the filter magazine day party, the fader magazine party... haha tonka... and i'm sure i'll see some unexpected gems. when i went to sxsw in 2007 i had a list of bands i wanted to see... but ended up not seeing very many of them. however i discovered st. vincent and the rosebuds along with a few other impressive bands. this year will probably be no different. i just really want to see phantogram. below is the show poster for the sxsw benefit show through the sparks is playing. there are 4 benefit shows all together.

intense non sequitur round 2011

2011-02-03T12:31:00.013-05:00

first up... found this fake vintage ad campaign this morning. love this kinda thing. retro is my deal. also this is technically my first blog post of the decade. i found these images on what has become my go-to site for design oriented images, designspiration.net - this site is closely affiliated with my favorite blog, iso50.com.

so i finished up the year at a very low-key year year's eve party in crestwood, in the midst of a crazy winter storm. the winter has gotten quite intense so far this year, with no less than 2 ice/snow storms, with one more on the way this week. more non sequiturs... my car still has a dent in the truck from 10/29/10 that i'll hopefully get fixed this week. still not moving forward fast enough with the synthesizer production muzak stuff.

last month however, i did finish the artwork for the new through the sparks singles compilation titled "almanac (mmx) year of beasts." the idea behind the design, is to present an anti-album cover for what is really, an anti-album. the album is actually a collection of singles that were released every month during 2010, for free on the band's web site. being that we are releasing this physically, i wanted to approach the covers as being very tactile... so i used some of jody's actual hand written lyrics for the opening track, devil suit.

the lyrics continue around the spine and onto the back cover, with the assumption that anyone seeing the front of the cover in a store (or online?) might want to pick it up to see what's on the back. i guess its sort of a quasi-psychological approach. anyway, here's the cover itself. i guess i'm leaking this, but it's supposed to be released sometime next month anyway...

i'm also including on here, a few after-the-fact singles covers i did last month, just for fun. these are all posted on the tts facebook page, for no other reason, but to complete the full 12 singles covers. i still have one to go! i posted the majority of the single covers on my end of the year blog in december. below are the latest. unlike a lot of the single designs last year, these newer covers were put together quite fast. the phrenology head image for 'enemies' was scanned from a book of psychic sciences that i've been having fun reading lately. gotta love reed's books.

what else... i've been following the egyptian uprising very closely. i'm somewhat optimistic about the outcome. the protests are still ongoing, but the regime is toast - its just a matter of time. the obama administration has been handling the nuances of the situation reasonable well in my opinion. my over all stance on this administration has softened in the past few months.

other music stuff... i played a show with the greenleaves on january 20th. not much of a crowd, but i actually played bass decently, so i can't complain. apparently, not one, but two members of that band are moving out of state, so i guess that project is over? i dunno. i also finally got in a rehearsal a few weeks ago with electroliner. we hadn't played together since october, and i really hope that we get a recording project going soon. maybe by the summer?

we got our plane tickets (one way!) last week for sxsw. through the sparks are playing the birmingham showcase, sponsor and coordinated by our record label, and a new label in town, called communicating vessels, spearheaded by some of the folks from remi zero.

rubys has done a decent amount of rehearsing lately, but as of yet, we haven't booked any new shows other than a sxsw benefit show, nor have we started recording yet.

i guess i'll save the rest for the next journal entry. one more thing... this is my twitter profile photo. heh.

the space shuttle challenger - 25 years later

2011-01-28T10:37:00.005-05:00

this was a weird event in my child hood. by the mid-80's i had witnessed numerous day and night launches in my back yard in central florida. it always impressed my how easy it was to see something in the air, that was actually launching off of the north east coast of florida.

obviously, the entire planet to some extent remembers this, but its strange from a floridian male's point of view. we all wanted to be astronauts... until this happened.

2010 year end thing

2010-12-30T12:09:00.017-05:00

so, i've become less active on this invisible blog/journal thing. that's cool, it happens. over the past year or so, i've finally warmed up to the ever changing interface of facebook. actually the newest update looks horrid, but whatever.

in an effort to streamline my overall online-ness, and in order to keep my adult add oriented musings to a minimum on facebook, i've decided to use a more appropriate means of frequent, random blurbs posts. i'm going to the dark side. twitter. i'm not totally excited about it, but just as i think people should act and dress their age, i think people should use the right means of communication for the job.

i find myself constantly deleting posts from facebook, in an effort to not overwhelm folks on my friends list. i'd also like to be able to post something and know that i can just leave it there for further reference, be it a video, a link, a phrase, an idea, etc.

so, i'll be starting a twitter account on 01.01.11. my friends on facebook will notice a drop off in activity and i think that's a good thing.

in other news. even though i'm technically in 4 bands, i spent most of the year working with through the sparks and rubys. both bands spent 2010 recording, rehearsing and playing a long string of solid shows. through the sparks spent the year recording, or finishing, a single every month which eventually included a single cover design, video promos, and now a complete record of 12 singles, for which i'm doing the album art.

rubys recorded an ep at the beginning of the year, but as the year progressed, rubys became somewhat of a power trio, and now plans are getting underway for the completion of a record by the first half of 2011.

i did a few interesting design pieces this year, most of which i'm posting below. there were a few projects i worked on, where i thought i could have done a better design, but i'm sure that happens to everybody. although my poster design has matured somewhat, its obviously time to branch out into more indesign/illustrator type projects. i need to put more emphasis on output and formatting. i've been doing the 11x17 thing for too many years. of all the designs i did in 2010, i'd have to say that the band of skulls/workplay poster is the most interesting.

i recently set up a hybrid music production / graphic design space and i finally got around to framing and hanging about 16 posters. they had been sitting for years in a flat box. the only truly bummer thing that happened was accidently deleting my most popular poster's hi-res file. i had to print out a low res version, scan it, and somewhat recreate the original version so i could print it. it looks like crap, but i plan on properly recreating the poster sometime soon.

i had a lot of fun designing several through the sparks singles covers, and i think it helped me get a bit better at basic cover design.

i might add more to this as i remember stuff from during the year...

these are the shows i played during 2010:

AL 01.22.10 - electroliner @ thrbottletree w/ jesse payne
AL 02.05.10 - through the sparks @ the independent
AL 03.04.10 - rubys @ rojo sxsw benefit
AL 03.11.10 - electroliner @ workplay
AL 03.12.10 - rubys @ the nick
AL 03.12.10 - through the sparks @ the nick
AL 04.17.10 - the spots @ parkside - farewell show
AL 05.14.10 - electroliner @ good people brewery benefit
AL 07.10.10 - the greenleaves @ urban standard
AL 07.31.10 - the greenleaves @ speakeasy w/ vasa
AL 08.03.10 - the greenleaves @ bottletree (w/ jon black)
AL 08.21.10 - the greenleaves @ workplay / baam fest
AL 08.21.10 - through the sparks @ rogue tavern - showcase / baam fest
AL 09.24.10 - through the sparks @ bottletree w/ taylor hollingsworth
AL 10.07.10 - rubys @ bottletree w/ avi buffalo
AL 10.22.10 - electroliner @ bottletree w/ duquette johnston & roomtone
AL 11.20.10 - the greenleaves @ speakeasy + the upwelling
AL 11.27.10 - through the sparks @ bottletree - wmw cd release w/ ssb
AL 11.27.10 - rubys @bottletree - wmw cd release w/ ssb
AL 12.04.10 - through the sparks @ the blind mule

other miscellaneous stuff: i finished my "once in a lifetime" photo series set in various supermarkets around town, sans people. the link to the set, and the accompanying lyrics can be found here.

i sold a lot of stuff this year. did a lot of downsizing, organizing, and reduction of music gear. i spent most of the year playing drums, but did manage to play some shows on bass with the greenleaves and bought a new electric bass, which is quite nice.

i started scanning old family photos, which i'll hopefully finish in a month or so. then i'm going to finish digitizing all of my vcr tapes, which i started doing in 2007, but abandoned halfway through. this time around, instead of burning directly to medium res dvds, i'll be importing directly to hard drive, which will also set me up for some odd material to edit for a video/audio project i've been wanting to do for a while.

what else... my mom bought yet another house, and started renovating a giant garage. alison won every race she ran this year. i finally won the battle against anxiety courtesy of modern science - next i'll try to win the war against dopamine deficiency / executive function paralysis.

we got quite a bit of snow this year. beginning in february, when it snowed for two days, and then again this past week when it snowed for a few days, including xmas day. pretty cool for the deep south. snow day photos

in july we went camping again, this time at oak mountain park. in august, a new music festival (baam!) debuted in birmingham and seemed to go quite well, considering its late promotion.

i received some praise for one of my poster designs, and happened to end up right beside my favorite graphic designer on this site below. that was more encouraging than anything i did musically this year.

although i'm glad i got the chance to do a lot of recording, and performing, the rehearsal process began to irritate me late in the year, and because of this, i continue to find more creative satisfaction in projects i do by myself, mainly design and image related projects. i'm ending the year in 4 bands. by the end of next year, i plan on reducing it down to 1 or 2. whomever wants me to play needs to make it worth my effort.

i'm not getting any younger. the spots played a farewell show in april, and shortly after, two members moved to brooklyn and atlanta. shortly after that, i joined clint wells' new project, the greenleaves.

some random stuff: as i've mentioned a few times on this blog, this year i got really into the ghostly international record label and via the iso50 blog, i discovered the band phantogram and the producer known as com truise. also, i got into ra ra riot. oddly, all of these artists are from either upstate new york or new jersey. pretty cool. here's my blog post about phantogram from this past april.

unfortunately, my saab decided to break down twice within a month, the first time being 5 minutes before i was supposed to drive to atlanta to see phantogram play. i was pretty bummed i missed them. here is my post about the end of the spots, and a mention of some new projects.

worm moon waning released

2010-11-23T18:36:00.028-05:00

today the new through the sparks album finally officially gets released. its been complete for about a year, and was released digitally back in march. the physical release is based on the artwork of merillee challis and chris lawson, with addition graphic design by vic denali. it has been released as a digipak in the states and multiple online outlets.

i didn't play on the album, but i've played pretty much all of these songs live and feel connected to them that way. although it took 3 and a half years between albums, through the sparks is already putting the final recording in place for a release of 2010 singles and are well into recording another full length that should be out by the end of 2011. not too shabby.

we are playing a cd release show for worm moon waning this saturday at bottletree with rubys and sunny so brite. this show will signify the end of an era and the beginning of another for through the sparks. the new line-up is pictured above. the album cover and release show poster are below, as well as some links for purchase and the video for hotrock constellations, the first track off the new album. this video was directed by tym cornell with post-production by greg slamen. we made a video for the same song over a year ago with director adam wingard, but for various reasons, we weren't 100% sold on the final edit.

also, here's the latest review for worm moon waning. since being released digitally in the spring, the record has gotten some favorable reviews and some airplay up north and out west, and as usual, our fanbase is much larger outside of bham. meh.

skybucket records
itunes

amazon [us]
amazon [uk]
amazon [germany]
amazon [japan]

ebay [us]
ebay [uk/canada]
best buy [us]
best buy [canada]
future shop [canada]
napster
artist direct
insound
cd universe
tower records
barnes & noble
books a million
shockhound

analog music dig

2010-10-26T16:28:00.010-04:00

ok, so i really don't have anything to write about anymore.

anyway... i just spent half a day trying to get my stupid saab started. turns out the battery just needed to be disconnected and reconnected. now its running. to celebrate, i put in my cassette copy of lusicous jackson's debut ep, in search of manny. their video for daughters of the chaos is below. what a quirky, incredibly indie ep that was. ever since purchasing my saab, i've been revisiting the glorious, low-efficiency world of cassette tapes.

for the majority of the past 10 months, when i've decided to dive into my high school bin of cassettes, its been rush albums, home made tapes, or the cars album, candi-o. i also spent some time listening to the first missing persons album, a few yes albums from the 80's, some prince, van halen's women & children first and some assorted classic rock.

a few days ago, i reached into the bin and grabbed a new handful of tapes. included in these: louder than love by soundgarden, some more classic rock, prince's purple rain and faith no more's breakthrough masterpiece, the real thing.

listening to the real thing again is blowing my mind. the lyrics, performance, attitude, production are all still fresh 21 years after this album was released. from out of nowhere, the real thing, zombie eaters... so many incredible tracks. i think i'm going to continue to focus on listening to a lot of these albums that i'd almost entirely forgotten. it's been quite entertaining. its also illuminating the fact that the album, especially in terms of pre-random access listening, is dead. it's good to be reminded to sit still and pay attention. also i feel old sometimes, because i was halfway through high school 20 years ago, i'd still take growing up then, instead of now.

history is dead. let's get on with it.

pics and video from bottletree

2010-10-11T11:13:00.007-04:00

i've been playing a few shows lately at bottletree. here's a video clip from a show in early august with the greenleaves, playing our set closer written by brad lyons. and here's some pics from a show with through the sparks on 9/24. that was a pretty crazy closer- "friends in low places" was performed as an encore along with taylor hollingsworth and a few guys from the chad fisher group.

i played another bottletree show with rubys last week, but i haven't seen any pics from that one yet. coming up in late october, i'll be playing bottletree yet again with my 4th (!) band... electroliner.

political self assessment

2010-09-22T11:20:00.006-04:00

q: shawn, are you a liberal or a conservative?

a: that's up to you to decide.

q: ok then, what exactly do you believe?

a: good question. i'll provide a few examples.

i'm for a free market
i support a woman's right to choose
i support gay marriage
i believe in federalism
i support gays in the military
i'm for the legalization of pot
i'm not religious
i believe in limited welfare / entitlement programs
i was against the war in iraq
i support the war in afghanistan
i believe in public funding for the arts
i support cleaner air / water standards
i want a balanced budget
i believe in small government
i'm somewhat libertarian
i believe the internet should be more regulated for children
i believe the environment should be protected, but so should jobs
i do not support cap & trade
i do not support tax based universal health care
i believe in american exceptionalism
i believe our borders should be more secure
i have no problem with a mosque at ground zero

the greenleaves @ workplay during baam fest

2010-08-31T15:22:00.006-04:00

here's a few nicely shot, nicely edited clips of the song "winter trees" that clint wrote recently and "a stroke of good fortune." props to the crew at beyond the horizon productions for making workplay look interesting, which isn't always easy to do.

through the sparks at baam! skybucket showcase

2010-08-26T13:32:00.008-04:00

big thanks to roger stephenson, for taking these great photos. you can view the rest of his baam! photos by clicking on his name. the skybucket showcase was packed from about 8 until midnight. through the sparks, 13 ghosts and vulture whale each benefited from having such a great crowd all night. this was easily the highlight of the music festival. i'd say over all, baam! was a success, although next year should be better because they'll have more time to promote it. travis morgan deserves a lot of credit for making this showcase such a success.

music schedule stuffs

2010-08-19T17:35:00.013-04:00

so, i came from not knowing what the hell "baam fest" was 2 months ago to now playing it twice on saturday. saturday afternoon i'll be playing with the greenleaves at workplay, a little before 5pm. i'll be playing bass. then later in the evening, i'll be loading up all of my drum gear and hauling it over to rogue tavern for the skybucket records artist showcase. through the sparks goes on at 10pm and vulture whale is closing the showcase at 11pm. here's the al.com info about the festival.

on labor day weekend, the 3rd raindrop festival will be held at george ward park, and will feature the usual fund raising efforts, endless free beer and the following bands:

Delicate Cutters
Duquette Johnston and the Rebel Kings
Ferocious Bubbles
Great Book of John
Kate Taylor and the Twerps
Nag Hammadi
Sunny So Brite
Twinside

i've signed on to help run the sound and assist in general. it should be fun. lhey are combining the music event this year with the other hlrt.org benefit, their disc golf tournament. hopefully the weather with cooperate. here's the facebook event page.

later in september i'll be helping out at the sidewalk film festival at the new sidelot stage, where local bands will be playing for anyone, and everyone's general entertainment. this is something sidewalk has needed to feature for a while now, considering how much local music is featured in local film productions. also, there will be somewhat of a national/international film-maker element in town, so the old "do it for the exposure" pitch will be implemented.

on september 24th, i'll be playing bottletree with through the sparks, and again at the end of october with electroliner. by then the weather should be nice and breezy. lastly, through the sparks have scheduled a cd release for the worm moon waning album that was released digitally earlier in the year. this is going to likely be the saturday after thanksgiving, which is usually a huge "going out" night in the city.

if this all plays out, this will be the most shows i've played since 2007. i think playing somewhere between 15-20 shows a year is perfect. not too hectic and not too far in between.

getting closer, to what i'm not sure.

2010-08-13T14:47:00.010-04:00

first of all, let me express how much i loathe the new edit / interfaces for flickr and blogger. and the google image search engine kinda sucks too. all of these new interfaces look cleaner, but in the process, give you less info on the screen, and some of these seem to rely too much on flash.

anyway... so i've built the basics of a synthy recording studio. its highly probable that i won't use any actual amps, and very few microphones for this set up. as i mentioned before, i'm trying to do something novel, so that my existential issues might get out of the way. i've created a bunch of custom 80's drum machines, got all of my synths hooked up, but i still haven't actually recorded a note. i'm dog sitting for a few weeks, beginning monday and i'm planning on taking my laptop, analog 4-track and a synth over there, so i can start this project in earnest.

in other creative almost there news... i've been rehearsing with the greenleaves and through the sparks this month for a new "music festival" in bham called baam fest. it is taking inspiration from sxsw in austin. and i reckon it intends to fill the void left by city stages and heritage fest. the greenleaves are playing in the afternoon at workplay on the 21st. the greenleaves are briefly shown during our urban standard / bham magazine show a show a while back, about a minute into this promo clip:

somehow we managed to get put on the thumbnail for that clip. anyway, later that night, skybucket records will be having a label showcase at rogue tavern, where i'll be playing with through the sparks. the greenleaves have now played urban standard (acoustic) speakeasy and bottletree. sonically and musically it is very dynamic, earthy, ambient and quite poppy in places. lyrically, it is quite emotional and certainly adds some emotional weight to the performancesn more so than any band i've ever been in. the lyrical adaptation of flannery oconner's stories has been done very effectively.

both bands will be playing mostly new songs, and the songwriting is quite strong. through the sparks will be featuring a sound palette that is expanded, while performing songs with relatively simple arrangements. a huge chunk of these songs have never been performed, or performed only once.

in even more getting closer news... the physical release of the new through the sparks record, worm moon waning, will be happening in late november. there is a multi-format full release being planned, with disc, vinyl, and a possible cassette release, if we can get the logistics and timing right.

other things coming up... an electroliner show in october. album release show with through the sparks, helping out with a music stage during the sidewalk film festival. and maybe even a long weekend trip out of town once the weather cools off. btw, 103 degrees in birmingham is wretched.

new flannery o'connor project

2010-07-13T19:44:00.004-04:00

this past saturday at urban standard, clint wells was featured in a show put on by birmingham magazine. it was a listening party, with a twist. everyone, ostensibly, was there to hear the new griffin house record (which is really good). griffin couldn't be there, so clint wells was asked to come in as somewhat of a representative of the album. clint took this opportunity to debut some of his and brad lyons' songs they've written for their new flannery o'connor inspired record.

it doesn't have a name yet, but the line-up has been chosen, we've done a few rehearsals, and booked a few shows. i'm guessing they are going to commence to recording the album sometime this summer. also, there's a documentary crew filming everything. its pretty impressive.

now here's where it gets weird. the songs are all named after o'connor short stories, and mirror somewhat, their themes. this project is led by two songwriters, with back-up players including female backup vocals and keyboards, with me on bass. this first show was quite demure, but the upcoming venue shows will probably be a bit louder, and hopefully a bit sonically ragged.

our first show, this past saturday july 10th, was exactly 2 years after the wiseblood vol. 1 cd release show. clint played on the ep and at the cd release show back in 2008.

so here you have it. two similar musical project concepts, with completely autonomous songwriters, both involving me as the bassist. this is one of those inexplicable scenarios that make bham kinda awesome sometimes.

a creative game plan

2010-07-07T17:52:00.012-04:00

a few months ago i wrote a journal-like post about my previous 20 years of recording and my creative angst that usually gets in the way of me producing anything autonomously anymore. for the past year or two, all i've done is played a few shows, and recorded some drum tracks for through the sparks. i have a show coming up on saturday as a bassist. this is the lowest level of activity for me in quite a while, although there's nothing wrong with that.

i only played 4 shows in 2004, and all of those were before mid-july. the same goes for 2005 - i didn't play any shows after july. however, in 2007 i played somewhere around 40 shows. lately i've been in an existential arm wrestling match with myself over what exactly to do with my musical creative urges that doesn't immediately fall into the black-hole of anonymity and utter pointlessness. see what i mean?

lately, thanks to the phantogram record, and an ever evolving appreciation for niche/vintage recording gear, i've discovered a style of music often referred to as synthwave. the most influential purveyor of this genre that i've heard thus far is com truise. he records (seemingly) with vintage 80's gear and hardware effects and arrives at a neo-80's electro sound that is incredible. within his songs you can hear inferences to glitch, hip-hop, aphex twin-like rhythmic studdering, and advanced sampling. he takes it a step further by introducing sonic artifacts like crackle, warble, tape-hiss and meticulously programmed synth pitch modulations.

recently i posted all of my best demos for some musician/songwriter friends of mine. while i got a positive response, thus far there hasn't been any movement toward collaboration. this is fine with me, as i tired of these demos years ago. the newest of these demos are probably 8 years old. the oldest are over 15 years old.

a huge chunk of these tracks display some 80's era gear - notably the roland jx8p, dr550 drum machine, recorded to 4-track cassette - while many other demos employ the now usual protools apparatus and software effects, etc.

this hand crafted synthwave production ethic, including the mastering to cassette tape, step-sequencing drum patterns, and rudimentary approach to synth editing is pretty darn appealing. one aspect of this that i like is having a pre-existing set of individual tracks stored on cassette tape from which to build and reinterpret these demos.

i also have a lot of cloudy, newer ideas that i'd like to add to these, if my existential angst ends up giving me the clearance to do so. to this end, i've begun constructing some virtual vintage drum kits... linndrum, drumulator, roland tr 808, 909, old beat boxes, vintage rhythm ace types, along with larger sample sets.

i have a lot of what i need for this type of production. synth-wise, i'm sitting on a nuclear reactor of power. i have a roland jv2080 with various expansion cards, a novation k-station modeling synth, my 25 year old roland jx8p, a mint xlr input analog 4-track, of course protools and misc plug-ins, basses, guitars, mics, amps, a gigantic apple garageband series of loops and instruments, and an actual drum kit.

at worst, i can come out the other side with a realized, quirky and relatively unique sounding electronic album that flies in the face of all abletonistic modernity - and i could easily get it reviewed on some blogs, a few small publications and eventually have it up on itunes for posterity. who knows, maybe the larger global synthwave scene could end up being a cool one to be associated with. now... what to call it?

here are some particularly impressive com truise tracks, along with links to his fantastic blog/podcast site:

slow peels
norkuy
klymaxx

comtruise.brokenradar.org
comtruise facebook

here's a few examples of my demos lying dormant that i'd like to evolve into something more definitive. these are all direct mp3 downloads:

depeschist
dbtec1

pizzer

don't quit your day job

2010-06-09T11:39:00.010-04:00

in this illuminating info graphic, which shows how many units of sale would be needed to replace a minimum wage job in the united states, its obvious that being on a major label is sorta like being mugged. if i could somehow sell 300 copies of an album every month (which really isn't that many at all), i could sleep in pretty much all the time. meh.

a productive week for music

2010-05-17T01:13:00.007-04:00

this past week was quite productive. both bands i'm in did some rehearsing, performing and recording. after nearly 4 months of inactivity (lame) electroliner did some rehearsing this past tuesday and thursday, with great results. after an hour of two of getting back into the mindset of a 5 piece, we got up to speed on our existing set list and learned some new songs that worked quite well.

thursday morning, bo, john and clair performed at the good people brewery for a fox6 morning show appearance. friday night we played two sets during a benefit/fund raiser at the brewery. it was a bit warm in there, but it was actually a very cool setting for us.

we were lucky to have our sound-man, kenny on hand to set up his excellent rig of mains, monitors, lights, boards, etc. this is the first band i've been in that's had the luxury of hiring our own sound gear, run by a music veteran with great ears and positive demeanor. it makes a difference. we played incredibly well, even by my self-deprecating standards.

saturday afternoon, i set up my kit at alamalibu, and did some impromptu background vocals for one of the throught the sparks tracks we wrote last summer, bodysnatchers. we recently spent an afternoon doing live, full band recordings of two songs, bodysnatchers and preacher pink. today we set up the band for a more permanent studio configuration.

we recorded the full band 'jam' section of a new song with the working title, squares. excellent melodic figures on this song... with great harmonic interaction between the organ and lead guitar. we did about 5 takes and pretty much got the entire song in the bag. of all the albums that have been recorded at jody's studio, the past three projects have been full live band recordings, and they all sound fantastic.

so we've begun recording the next through the sparks record in earnest. cool stuff. all of these photos were taken during rehearsals, the brewery gig, and recording from this past week. the first pic above, is a silly multi-shot panoram comprised of snippets of about 6 photos. i was bored. i love iphones.

poster design featured again

2010-05-11T19:31:00.006-04:00

travis morgan (skybucket records) emailed me this morning, with a link to a design blog that featured my through the sparks "terminal" poster. this blog, called the inspiration stream, is part of a larger site, and this is the direct link to the feature page.

the most astonishing aspect of this to me is the fact that the blog curator placed a design by scott hansen (iso50) beside mine. that guy is a design god, and i visit his blog almost every day. travis has made the poster available for sale on the skybucket label's merch page.

to the north and south of alabama: disasters

2010-05-06T12:03:00.010-04:00

right now, the world is very much aware of the impending disaster scenario in the gulf. its been quite a while since the explosion on april 20th, and conservative estimates have the spill as surpassing 3.5 million gallons of oil. thus far, all attempts to close the valve have failed. today, a very ambitious, and actually quite creative solution is being attempted. a 100 ton box of steel is going to be hoisted off a ship, and dropped a mile below the surface. let's hope it works.

luckily, there are a lot of resources available in the gulf, and thus far the weather has allowed for a lot of preparation for coastal defenses. booms, oil burns, dispersant chemicals, natural dispersion, etc. have all helped keep everything somewhat under control. kinda.

one obvious casualty of this disaster is not only the potential loss of hundreds of millions of dollars in fishing revenue, but also the renewed debate on the expansion of offshore drilling has been dealt a blow. but it doesn't have to be this way.

in my view, this actually says a lot about the need for regulation as well as the once in a generation occurrence of rig based spills. many people are now saying the phrase "drill baby drill" is shrill and shortsighted, but the opposite is true. being that the u.s. is by far the largest global oil consumer, it is safe to say that oil will be a fundamental aspect of american life for decades.

those putting forth the anti-offshore drilling sentiment are by default, arguing for foreign oil imports. this of course means higher retail oil prices, less american jobs, less independence, no influence on environmental factors, and an increased statistical possibility of spills. the overwhelming majority of spills are from oil tankers, not drilling rigs. our nation's worst spill disaster, the exxon valdez in 1989 dropped over 11 million gallon out of a tanker, not a rig.

it is beyond me how someone, even with the horrific economy killer of a spill currently underway in the gulf, can credibly argue for fewer offshore rigs and more transcontinental oil transport. the facts just aren't in their favor.

obama should stick to his guns on his unusually insightful view of national energy protocols, by calling for an expansion of offshore drilling contracts in currently banned areas. ironically, the ban resulted from the last major oil rig spill, over 40 years ago.

one of the world's biggest spills on record actually took place in the gulf in 1979, and took nearly a year to stop. it was immense, but this was a mexican controlled, pemex owned operation, so any regulations that may have been in place have little to do with the american offshore contracts. in terms of an offshore drilling debate, this may as well have happened off the shore of africa, as there was nothing the u.s. could do about it, other than donate resources.

there have been fairly frequent explosions and spills from rigs over the decades, but even these are fewer and have had less impact than the tanker spills.

anyone taking an environmental stance should look at the historical data before falling in line with an anti-offshore stance. one recent example is the fouling of a huge swath of ancient corral reef off the coast of australia, courtesy of a foreign chinese oil tanker.

unfortunately, this isn't the only devastating blow the south will face this summer. we now have crippling flood damage in nashville, with some areas under ten feet of water. major historic nashville buildings have been destroyed, over a billion dollars in property damage, numerous deaths, and the impending collapse of tourist based jobs and revenue, in addition to flooding in outlying areas. adding insult to this is the possibility that most of the property damage was not under flood insurance coverage.

the media, ever present during natural disasters elsewhere, have been silent thus far concerning nashville. whereas it took obama 9 days to finally make an appearance in the gulf, he has yet to give any face time to the disaster in conservative leaning nashville, tn. the federal response in the gulf has been lethargic, and i hope the same doesn't happen in nashville. both events deserve the full resources available. unlike entitlement welfare state programs or corporate bailouts... there is a real, actual need for financial assistance in these areas. let's see how that plays out politically. while we wait on the fed, here's a good place to start: www.cfmt.org/floodrelief.

melvins bottletree poster

2010-05-05T02:00:00.007-04:00

this is a poster i'm doing for an upcoming show by post-punk / sludge rock legends, melvins. i think kurt cobain used to carry their amps to gigs for them.

anyhoo... this will probably be my last poster for a while. this one started out interesting, with the arresting inverted "colorized" hydrogen bomb image, but the type wasn't working. after letting it sit untouched for a week or two, i finally finished it last night, along with some quickly done alternate cross-processed versions.

these aren't my best posters, but they aren't my worst. i drew from some eccentric inspirational elements that i'm too tired to get into. other than the chopped up image and text artifacts, the thing i like most is the text doesn't look computer generated. it looks more like photo text.

PHANTOGRAM

2010-04-08T12:20:00.013-04:00

there's no way to deny it. i'm a member of generation x. and my generation's musical peak took place during the 90's. the overwhelmingly influential aspects of electronic music from the 90's still affects me today. when i think of making music, in my mind its usually electronically based. the bands i listen to the most are electronic bands. and the albums i have listened to the most have been primarily electronic albums. nine inch nails, aphex twin, cardigans, tears for fears, sneaker pimps, roni size reprazent, goldie, all made important electronic albums during that time.

its been a long time since i heard something new to my ears, something worth investigating further. in my view, because of the emergence of insane music technology, and virtual instruments, easy sampling, infinite sounds in sound modules, an electronic artist needs to push the form to get my attention. the last time this happened in a big way was when i discovered tycho, maybe 4 or 5 years ago. recently, i've been a fan of lusine, who is on the same record label.

this week i've discovered phantogram, (ironically from the tycho-iso50 blog) an electronic / street beat / pop duo from pastoral upstate new york. when i learned they weren't from brooklyn, i actually liked them more.

i've heard their album and it is the closest thing sonically, texturally, to what i usually have floating around in my head. phantogram is also the latest example of my obvious life-long preference for female vocalists in an electronic setting. nina persson on gran turismo, kelli dayton on the first sneaker pimps album, and the chopped up female vocal samples on lusine's recent releases are all good examples of this.

there are tones/textures/samples on this album that really stand out as musical and unique. i'm gonna try to get them here to bottletree eventually, mainly by begging. phantogram is also associated with the same label as tycho and lusine, the amazing ghostly international. ghostly is easily my favorite record label. phantogram's primary label is barsuk, home of rilo kiley and deathcab.

here's an early feature, published shortly before they changed their name.

here's the excellent pitchfork review, where they are streaming the entire album. Here's an excerpt:

"They couldn't have picked a better title. Eyelid Movies, the debut LP from the self-proclaimed "street beat" duo Phantogram, is a lush and evocative thumper indebted to the sultry side of Moby's Play. Riding a steady trip-hop inspired groove, the hushed and mostly mellow Eyelid Movies seems a fine companion piece to a long stroll or something more sedentary and meditative; point being, it sounds great in the background."

here's some interview and performance clips. mouthful of diamonds and make a fist are two of their standout tracks. like a few reviews have mentioned, this is likely the evolution of trip-hop, and that is actually a fairly diverse genre. the interview feature is from abc's amplified and the two performance clips are from kexp and the current. the last clip is from side-b. for an electronic duo with no physical band, they bring the noise.

more lost theories

2010-04-02T11:04:00.006-04:00

the man in black / dark tower narrative

the atomic bomb (jughead) saved the world

cease to exist theory

pushing that button, really was saving the world

the package (the importance of desmond)

why don't you start at the beginning? (excellent theory of everything)

the answer to your question (another theory of everything)

through the sparks review for worm moon waning

2010-03-31T10:40:00.008-04:00

i didn't play on the record, so i'm free to praise it as much as i want to. i've been playing with through the sparks on and off since march 2007. some of the songs on this record started getting performed live almost 3 years ago. finally the record has been released (digitally) and people are starting to hear it. it is by far their best album. and it is short, just 9 songs - but its the perfect length. each song gets your attention.

there's a plan for a cd printing soon and possibly a vinyl pressing. here's an over-the-top rave review of worm moon waning, which was released last week. i've updated their myspace page with some fresh images, formatting & code. i'm also doing a beta page for the album site.

Through The Sparks -

Worm Moon Waning

28. Mar, 2010 - The Southbound Internet Radio Blog

What better way to celebrate a fabulous show at SxSW than to release a smashing album of gorgeous songs. Through The Sparks has done just that with Worm Moon Waning.

TTS has been given its fair share of comparisons to Wilco in the past; on WMW, one will undoubtedly hear some familiarities to Summerteeth and Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, and singer/lyricist/multi-instrumentalist Jody Nelson’s lower register does sound a bit like a cross between Jeff Tweedy and Alex Chilton (though his higher register is reminiscent of Bob Geldoff in his finest moments). But WMW is not a Wilco tribute or homage. It is unique and singular and plays to the strengths of the band and songs as a whole.

The songs range from orchestral ethereal pop (“Hot Rock Constellations”, the first half of the gem “Statue Scared”) to roots rock (“Turn Everything Off”, “Buddy Holly’s Gun”, and “Sad Sad Rock”) to simple power pop (“Like A Dove” and “Oyster Eyes”). Nelson’s vocals pull every feeling from his intelligent, beautiful lyrics (“We were branches cracking slowly”), and can take the listener from heartbreaking highs to easy-going lows, sometimes within the same song.

Nelson’s creative use of multiple keyboard, organ, and piano sounds keeps the album interesting and challenging. Rhythm section Greg Slamen (bass) and Thomas Mimikakis (drums) are at their best when the songs demand more rock, and they deliver. And the guitar work by Nelson and James Brangle is skillfully fitting.

But the real stars of this album are the songs themselves, most notably the near-perfect arrangements. Too many artists fail the songs they write because of hasty production or the God-awful use of excessive layering and gloss, killing the possible beauty within - not Through The Sparks.

TTS layers, all right. But the careful arrangements allow for chimes, horns, pianos, percussion, organs and jangling guitars to intermix with layers of vocals and harmonies, never engulfing the actual compositions. And while some songs on WMW get close to productions akin to The Wall or anything by Queen, they never go there completely, never obscure the craft of the songwriting. (I’m not saying Queen and The Wall are bad, but it’s too easy for a band to strive for that type of sound and wind up hiding the songs.)

What the listener has with Worm Moon Waning is a lyrically beautiful, gorgeously arranged album of excellent songs, written and recorded with thought. TTS fans have wondered why it has been three years since their last release. I don’t know the answer, but this album seems to say that those years were spent handling great songs with great care.

~David

wmw album site

myspace page

official web site

some images that excite me

2010-03-30T13:12:00.004-04:00

i can't explain it, but these images actually improve my mood, make me creatively optimistic, inspire me to be a better designer, and maybe even a better person. these are taken from my various flickr sets.

the lost four-track revival, a brief history

2010-03-23T13:55:00.040-04:00

new tascam 424 mkIII -
after a few weeks of looking around on ebay, i finally got a retro analog dream machine. it is arguably the best cassette-based four track ever made. it is a tascam 424 mk3 and it has 4 xlr inputs, great channel strip/eq features and a well designed interface.

the idea behind getting this machine, is to sift through about 20 or so cassettes containing about 5 years worth of demos from the 90's, and eventually emerge from the other side with a finished, coherent set of songs. i listened through several tapes last night, and a lot of them contain multiple versions of recordings, with different lead parts, or set at different tempos. some are nearly complete, some are just rough scattered musical piles of debris.

archived cassettes & gear list -
about 10 years ago, i went through the best material from these cassette and bounced it all down to mp3 files for archiving. i messed around with a few of these in 2001-2002 and used some drum loop ideas here and there, but i've never gone back and re-recorded ideas, and truly fleshed out the tracks.

i'm also really impressed with the fidelity of these cassettes, some of which go back to 1993. the word "warmth" is thrown around a lot in recording/audio communities, but i do notice that the drums/bass/synth parts all sit in the mix so well. maybe it's a psychological effect of the tape hiss, or some relearned aural reaction to having dolby nr engaged. i dunno. but whatever it is, i like it.

from 1994 through the end of the 90's, this is the equipment i used for almost all of these demos. the items in bold, i still have:

acquired between 1988-1995:
1988 pearl drum kit, westone electric bass, cheap electric strat, boss digital delay pedal, acoustic guitar, cheap radioshack mic, audio-technica condenser, roland jx-8p synth, cheap cassette deck, yamaha mt-120 4-track, boss dr. 550 drum machine, art fxr elite processor

acquired 1996-1999:
pg-800 jx-8p programmer, morley amp modeler / di box, sequencing & editing software, kawai k11 synth / controller, alesis sr 16 drum machine, crappy fender strat, moog opus 3, boss gt-5 multi effects, yamaha an1x synthesizer, carvin 500w head, genz benz 4x4 bass cab, samson 16channel mixer

roland jx-8p synthesizer
of all the gear i've used over the past 20 years, the most versatile, and influential is the roland jx-8p synth (pictured above). in the beginning, it allowed me to explore digital / analog synthesis concepts, emulate real instruments, and provided me with huge basses, synth string pads, leads, etc. i'll never part with it. for about 10 years, i used it with the pg-800 programmer, which opened up the programming options exponentially.

phoenix projects
i didn't really do much recording at the end of the 90's as my output diminished around 1998-1999. i did do some recording in 2000, but it wasn't my material - i did some live improv recordings in the summer of 2000 with a crazy trio (in which i played fast improv free jazz, which prepared me for the spots gigs years later).

i also did some demo tracking (mostly playing drum and bass parts) for a pop band i was in. both of these projects were in phoenix, and lasted for most of 2000. in 2001, i got into pro tools more seriously, and worked on several more "edit oriented" demos, until i relocated to birmingham.

early birmingham demos -
upon moving to birmingham, for about the first 6-8 months, i worked on a few electronic demos, that i actually completed, posted, and even managed to get some reviews from some web-based recording publications. these were all done in pro tools or digital performer. that's pretty much where my ideas dried up. next came the ashes, and other projects, and none of that is relevant...

angst / the digital revolution / return to analog -
ever since the soul crushing gauntlet that was the completion / final mixing & mastering of the wiseblood v1 project, i haven't really worked with audio that much at all. the last time i did any audio editing was for a spots recording last spring. before that it was the final remix of hwy for the wiseblood v1 ep. that was probably march 2008.

the further i get from these early demos, the harder it is for me to lock in emotionally to the idea of immersing myself in yet another, ultimately pointless self-indulgent audio project. but i've wanted to finish these demos/songs for years. and hopefully, going into it knowing that it really will be just for me and my own archival obsessiveness, will help me commit in some concrete way. anxiety has a way of killing my motivation, especially when mixed with my existential issues involving creativity in a digital-youtube-web 2.0 existence. its gotten worse over the years.

i think one factor that helped my add riddled brain stay interested in recording all of these (60+) demos, was the then emerging digital revolution of recording. in the 90's, straddling the bridge between the analog and digital recording eras was very creatively satisfying, but today's exhaustive list of available virtual plug-ins for processing, instruments, hardware emulations, time-stretching, elastic audio - kills the creative spark for me sometimes.

hopefully going back to the four-track medium will spark something creatively prolific in my brain. if so, this will be a very satisfying project. if not, i'll probably hang up music production forever, and focus on design, and musical performance. we'll see.

theories on the meaning of lost

2010-03-16T16:56:00.013-04:00

time loop theory (a theory on time travel).

the lost time-line illustration.

the complete scientific theory of lost.

how lost will end!

the parenthetical seasons theory.

who is jacob?

the valenzetti countdown theory.

the garden of eden theory.

massive covert operation theory.

lost - a theory of everything.

poster design on ffffound.com

2010-03-14T16:36:00.001-04:00

during one of my scans of ffffound.com images, i was happily surprised to see a poster from 2008 up on the directory. neato. a direct link to the post is here - sourced from the typography mania site.

Man or Astroman? Reunion show

2010-03-09T17:41:00.008-05:00

alison and i went to see the man or astroman? early show saturday evening at bottletree. they are legends in the southeast, particularly in auburn, birmingham and athens, ga. they peaked in the late 90's as a the alt rock era's answer to devo. sorta. below is a pic i took during the set:

brian teasley, the drummer for moa? is also the co-founder (along with his girlfriend) of the bottletree. great set, great projection visuals. the sound was a bit muddy, but i'm sure they tweeked it for the 2nd show later that evening. here's the al.com article about the band and the reunion... and here's some video of the show we went to:

irony, new projects and the end of the spots

2010-03-02T12:00:00.019-05:00

(this entry has been edited)

this week marks four years since all 4 members of the spots first played together. i played two shows in feb '06 with brian and shane, but clint had some gigs, so he didn't join us for a show until april. i was not the their first bass player. they initially had grey watson, a guitarist, playing bass. but for one reason or another, he didn't work out... and they asked me to join at clint's wedding in dec '05.

i'd never heard anything about, nor met grey until his band opened for the spots in april 2009 at speakeasy. i remember that night, both bands played great, and we both got mutually ____ in the ____ by _______________, who thought it was an ok thing to do, to pay the spots $120 to headline a show at speakeasy, where we had been the defacto residency band the year before. my first conversation with grey was me apologizing to his band for them only getting $100.

flash forward a few months... and grey watson joined through the sparks as the new guitarist... at the same time i officially joined through the sparks as their new _______________. this was a completely unrelated development from me meeting him via some connection with the spots. its interesting how birmingham works. good players will all intermingle eventually.

grey is a great guitarist, gifted songwriter, bandleader, etc. i played drums for his new project a month or two ago at jody's studio. its basically a live ep. thursday i'm playing a set with this new project at rojo for the sxsw benefit. that's a cursory summary of the past 12 months...

being that i haven't seen nor heard from the spots menfolk in months, i think its safe to say the spots have laid down our improv-groove-rock swords for good. we got paid incredibly well for a local band, had a lot of fun and i learned how to invent songs in front of a hundred people, and not lose my shit.

the music we made was some of the most satisfying music i've ever been a part of. too bad most of it was made up in the moment and never recorded. then again, that's also what was cool about the spots.

we recorded a live improv ep in '06 that we sold at some shows and we recorded a another live studio ep in early '08 that we never released. hopefully sometime this year i can put those songs together and post them online. we also made a really fancy hi-def live recording at speakeasy in '07 that i'd love to hear completed, but i'm not holding my breath.

2 years ago my main musical projects were the spots, ten29 dj set and wiseblood. now all three of those are obsolete. recently it has been grey's new project (rubys), electroliner and through the sparks. the only thing constant is change. i said this last year, and i'm saying it again this year... its probably time for me, at 35, to downsize my music projects, and use my time more efficiently.

below are links to some photo sets of the bands i've played with in town, along with some pics from the recent live ep sessions with grey watson at alamalibu. i'm also posting a few clips of the spots from our workplay show in '08 and our last recording session and a few links to radio interviews. brian is moving to new york in a month, shane is moving to atlanta and i'm pretty sure clint is moving to nashville soon... so here's to new bands & old bands & former members of bands & black ties & white noise.

the ashes
jesse payne
wiseblood vol. 1
the spots
duquette johnston
john p. strohm
through the sparks
ten29 dj set
electroliner
rubys (alamalibu sessions)

the spots on wbhm's tapestry / npr 2006
the spots on wbhm's tapestry / npr 2007

workplay poster design

2010-02-28T00:47:00.006-05:00

this is just a proof jpeg, but its pretty much done. i worked on this on and off today. its dark, but i like the blood-goat icon and the layered paper textures. much better than some of my recent posters.

abduzeedo typography mania

2010-02-24T12:59:00.017-05:00

two of my poster designs from 2008 were featured on a design site last week called abduzeedo.com. it looks like a pretty cool design/tutorial site. here's the direct link to the series. my poster & packaging designs are linked here.

bham goes to sxsw benefit

2010-02-22T15:57:00.008-05:00

here's a poster i just finished for the sxsw benefit shows, raising money for birmingham bands going to sxsw. this isn't my best work. i did the first sxsw / bham poster last year for the sxsw showcase, which was a little better. the poster below is for the first of 3 or 4 shows being held in bham over the next few weeks.

the idea is to put on some hastily promoted shows and donate the money to the bands, who will then spend it on beer and gas. the remaining funds will go to benefit the greater austin metro area, and will likely have little or no lasting benefit on anyone coming out of alabama. so really, its a benefit for the austin convention & visitors bureau. i'm partially kidding...

through the sparks stuff

2010-02-16T19:49:00.015-05:00

today, a poster i designed for through the sparks was featured at flickrdesign.com. here's a few screen shots along with the original poster image. also, i've posted a song i recorded with through the sparks, in which i impersonated ringo star. very solo-lennon sounding, with a great harp solo.

this might end up on an ep of some sort later in the year. we've been releasing a free song each month on the tts web site, leading up to the release of the 2nd full length, hopefully coming out by the beginning of spring. it is tentatively titled, 'worm moon waning.'

Through The Sparks / Laughter and Lulls

February Snow Day

2010-02-15T12:45:00.012-05:00

here's a few pics from this past friday. we got about 3 inches of snow. i took photos from late morning until just after dark. here's the flickr set. we took a bunch of pics of the pups in the back yard.

below the photos i've posted a short slow-motion clip film by chance shirley, of the highland park neighborhood, where i lived for a few years. you can briefly see rojo, where we had a post marathon brunch yesterday. it features a fantastic nine inch nails instrumental from the ghosts i-iv album.

the month of unforseen best-case-scenarios.

2010-02-05T12:17:00.010-05:00

obviously haiti is the ultimate worst case scenario, but i'm talking about u.s. related political and manufacturing developments:

i'll keep it simple, in a list form.

1. waivering unemployment & other economic factors keeps oil prices down

2. the insanely underestimated election of senator brown, results in the death of the democratic super majority, & the possible death of the health care bills.

3. with american auto companies finally catching some footing (ford is turning a profit, chevy is selling some innovative models, gm is streamlining assets) the best case scenario for them: toyota suffers a global consumer pr meltdown. buyers will no doubt react with the tylenol effect. hello domestic auto sales.

4. democrats see their party fracture under the stress of the mass. election loss. more seats will be lost in november. a balanced legislative house is months away. hopefully this will result in obama becoming more of a centrist. when clinton lost the majority in '94, it should up his administration so deeply, that he went on to implement welfare reform, securing his reputation as a solid centrist. with the massive amount of clinton era staff in his administration, one would think the sea change is inevitable. he also needs to downsize his lofty goals

5. gm successfully sells saab to spyker. saab was already selling cars in the tens of thousands in america. this will probably drop even more, but spyker makes some seirously expensive luxury cars. the result could be fewer, better saabs.

6. the taylor swift public backlash begins.

How to Kill a Superpower Without Really Trying

2010-02-03T11:45:00.010-05:00

Overview
Several government agencies provide budget and debt data and analysis. These include the Government Accountability Office (GAO), the Congressional Budget Office, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), and the U.S. Treasury Department.

These agencies have reported that the federal government is facing a series of critical long-term financing challenges. This is because expenditures related to entitlement programs such as Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid are growing considerably faster than the economy overall, as the population grows older. These agencies have indicated that under current law, sometime between 2030 and 2040, mandatory spending (primarily Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and interest on the national debt) will exceed tax revenue.

In other words, all discretionary spending (e.g., defense, homeland security, law enforcement, education, etc.) will require borrowing and related deficit spending. These agencies have used such language as "unsustainable" and "trainwreck" to describe such a future.

The US debt in the hands of foreign governments was 25% of the total in 2007, virtually double the 1988 figure of 13%. Despite the declining willingness of foreign investors to continue investing in US dollar denominated instruments as the US dollar fell in 2007, the U.S. Treasury statistics indicate that, at the end of 2006, non-US citizens and institutions held 44% of federal debt held by the public.

Debt vs. US Dollar
A variety of factors are placing increasing pressure on the value of the U.S. dollar, increasing the risk of devaluation or inflation and encouraging challenges to dollar's role as the world's reserve currency. If another currency or basket of currencies replaced the dollar as the reserve currency, the U.S. would face higher interest rates to attract capital, reducing economic growth for the long-term.

The Economist wrote in May 2009: "Having spent a fortune bailing out their banks, Western governments will have to pay a price in terms of higher taxes to meet the interest on that debt. In the case of countries (like Britain and America) that have trade as well as budget deficits, those higher taxes will be needed to meet the claims of foreign creditors. Given the political implications of such austerity, the temptation will be to default by stealth, by letting their currencies depreciate. Investors are increasingly alive to this danger..."

About 66% of that 44% was held by the central banks of other countries, in particular the central banks of Japan and China. In May 2009, the US owed China $772 billion. In total, lenders from Japan and China held 44% of the foreign-owned debt. This exposure to potential financial or political risk should foreign banks stop buying Treasury securities or start selling them heavily was addressed in a recent report issued by the Bank of International Settlements which stated, "'Foreign investors in U.S. dollar assets have seen big losses measured in dollars, and still bigger ones measured in their own currency. While unlikely, indeed highly improbable for public sector investors, a sudden rush for the exits cannot be ruled out completely.

On May 20, 2007, Kuwait discontinued pegging its currency exclusively to the dollar, preferring to use the dollar in a basket of currencies. Syria made a similar announcement on June 4, 2007. In September 2009 China, India and Russia said they were interested in buying IMF gold to diversify their dollar-denominated securities.

Deficit Expansion
Key drivers of these risks relate to the unwillingness of the U.S. to live within its means, both from a budget deficit and trade deficit standpoint. For example, the Government Accountability Office (GAO), the Federal Government's auditor, argues that the U.S. is on a fiscally "unsustainable" path and that politicians and the electorate have been unwilling to change this path.

The 2010 U.S. budget indicates annual debt increases of nearly $1 trillion annually through 2019, with an unprecedented $1.0 trillion debt increase in 2009. By 2019 the U.S. national debt will be $18.4 trillion, approximately 148% of 2009 GDP, up from its approximately 80% level in April 2009. Further, the subprime mortgage crisis has significantly increased the financial burden on the U.S. government, with over $10 trillion in commitments or guarantees and $2.6 trillion in investments or expenditures as of May 2009, only some of which are included in the budget document.

Interest on Debt
Public debt owned by foreigners has increased to approximately 50% of the total or approximately $3.4 trillion. As a result, nearly 50% of the interest payments are now leaving the country, which is different from past years when interest was paid to U.S. citizens holding the public debt. Interest expenses are projected to grow dramatically as the U.S. debt increases and interest rates rise from very low levels in 2009 to more typical historical levels. CBO estimates that nearly half of the debt increases over the 2009-2019 period will be due to interest.

Net interest costs paid on the public debt declined from $260 billion in 2008 to $199 billion in 2009 because of lower interest rates. Should these rates return to historical averages, the interest cost would increase dramatically. Historian Niall Ferguson described the risk that foreign investors would demand higher interest rates as the U.S. debt levels increase over time in a November 2009 interview.

In 2008, $242 billion was spent on interest payments servicing the debt, out of a total tax revenue of $2.5 trillion, or 9.6%. Including non-cash interest accrued primarily for Social Security, interest was $454 billion or 18% of tax revenue.

The 2010 Budget
The 2010 Budget proposed by President Barack Obama projects significant debt increases, both in terms of dollars and relative to GDP. The debt is projected to nearly double to $20 trillion by 2015, but is expected to increase to nearly 100% of GDP by 2020 and remain at that level thereafter. These estimates assume real GDP growth (after inflation) ranging from 2.6% to 4.6% annually from 2010 through 2019, which exceeds Blue Chip consensus estimates.

-sources: wikipedia, us.gov, the economist, cbo, gao, omb

Apple i-Pad

2010-01-27T14:12:00.017-05:00

its been in the rumor pages for years. here it is. looks interesting. i was kinda joking when i predicted it would be called an ipad. i figured macbook touch would be more likely. it took about .5 seconds for the feminine product jokes to kick in. here's a few tech specifics, as well as apple's official ipad info page.

initial reaction ranges from impressive to disappointing. several folks say its just a huge ipod touch. the wall street journal tech interview at the bottom took a good middle ground on the initial perception of the ipad. the usual uber eloquent product demo video was posted today at apple.com

Super Majority RIP

2010-01-20T11:01:00.012-05:00

what unfolded last night, resulted in the most political irony i've seen at one time. obviously things look bad when the uber liberal cove known as massachusetts votes for a republican to take over the recently vacated seat formerly occupied by the two prime-movers of the kennedy dynasty. everything the kennedys accomplished started in this seat in 1952. with the exception of two years, these two brothers had this seat for nearly 60 years. that is unprecedented.

this election is unprecedented... and deeply ironic. democrats are not only suffering the blast of defeat, but they are also experiencing shock at the end of this dynasty, and why the people voted this way... and why the turnout was so high, and why they didn't see it coming, etc. there seems to be no way to escape the reality that this is a symbolic, mathematical, strategic, and philosophical loss for the democrats.

even in their assessment of their losses, they are delusional. the people didn't change. the leadership changed. the focus changed, and the voters, in spite of the symbolic power of the seat, voted their response.

since the great turn around last year, our country has gone from being run by an erratic hybrid of conservative philosophy, imperialist foreign policy and a liberal budget allocation agenda, to what we have now: one of the most left of center, program oriented administrations ever.

you cannot implement massive scale spending increases during the largest recession in american history, and expect it to translate to the voters as a positive. what obama, and the rest of the democrats should have done: focus on jobs and spend only when you have to. it remains to be seen if obama's stimulus programs will have a lasting positive effect. this issue is ultimately mute, being that both bush and obama pulled out the checkbook in order to stop the economic meltdown(s).

obama should have stopped with the stimulus. instead of trying to overhaul health care, implement cap & trade tax mandates, etc., he should have focused on the winding down of one war and the expansion of another. this is the real picture:

jobs should have been the top issue. we are still lingering at 10% unemployment.

expanding spending on top of the bailout and stimulus programs is financial suicide.

his policies are weakening the dollar. this has horrible implications.

back door deals, buying of votes (and voters) is bad practice.

attempting to frame the opposition as extremists, only energizes them.

more losses will come in 2012.

if democrats can lose here, they can lose anywhere.

the democrats need to look closely at their core philosophy.

the super majority made democrats reckless and over confident, in the same way the bush administration acted during the first term.

the high turn out that led to the brown victory implies that independents as well as democrats, deliberately voted for a republican, in one of the bluest states. this was a rejection of the proposed health care bills. this was no accident.

Haiti

2010-01-19T13:02:00.005-05:00

emotionally, physically, economically, environmentally, architecturally, politically... it's over. if ever a people needed a massive exodus, it is the haitians. the nation has been a disaster since being discovered by the grand invader, christopher columbus in 1492.

Electroliner's Debutante Party

2010-01-08T10:51:00.013-05:00

By Mary Colurso -- The Birmingham News, January 08, 2010

If you want drama — band fights, power struggles, creative differences, hissy fits — don’t train your gaze on Electroliner.

This Americana group, formed less than a year ago in Birmingham, consists of five reasonable, confident, like-minded musicians who aren’t looking to quit their day jobs.

Singer-guitarist John P. Strohm is a lawyer. Singer-bassist Claire Cormany is a graphic designer and art director. Singer-guitarist Bo Butler has a construction and design firm. Drummer Shawn Avery is a paralegal. Multi-instrumentalist Pete Nice is a custom carpenter.

Talent is a given in this ensemble, along with experience and efficiency. The band members say they’ve learned to become good time managers; careers, families and other responsibilities require much of their attention.

Also, three players in Electroliner — Strohm, Cormany and Butler — have substantial songwriting catalogs at their disposal. Instead of starting from scratch on their set lists, some of the essentials are built in.

"There’s so much less pressure this way," Butler says. "Music can be music." "It’s all about how you define success," Strohm says. "We’re all real happy if we walk away (from a show) with a few bucks in our pockets."

Of course, anyone who’s paid attention to Birmingham’s music scene will recognize some of their names and recall their previous affiliations. Strohm has the highest profile — and a national one — as he formerly toured with the Blake Babies and Lemonheads. Other examples: Cormany was the lead singer and primary songwriter of Kiss Me at the Gate. She also played in a band called Jemimah. Butler fronted the Saturdays and Bo Butler and the Niceboys. Avery was a member of Through the Sparks and Wiseblood.

Nice’s credits go back to the 1970s; in recent years, he has appeared with the Niceboys, the Governors and the Hurlers, among others. (Literary footnote: He’s also the nephew of the late Kurt Vonnegut.)

The members of Electroliner bring various tastes and influences to the music, Cormany says. These range from Top 40 pop to raw punk to hardcore country. "I love that we can put something out there to be arranged and colored by the other members," she says.

"Each song can sound totally different," Avery says. "There’s a tension between pop vocals and pedal steel or a dirty guitar solo."

To date, Electroliner has played about five shows, including private parties, and will headline a Jan. 22 date at Bottletree. (Their friend Jesse Payne is the opening act.) "The goal and focus is to get a brand new set of tunes this calendar year," Strohm says. "We’ll debut a few songs at this first show, and will continue to do so."

At Bottletree, listeners can expect to hear the just-minted "Tightrope Walker," along with "Another Losing Season," a cut from Strohm’s 2007 solo disc, "Everyday Life." Kiss Me at the Gate fans may recognize "Come On," a contribution from Cormany.

Electroliner is likely to toss a few covers into the mix, such as Neil Young’s "Powderfinger" and "Bedside Manner" by the Dawes, an up-and-coming band from California. Final note: Although train songs are plentiful in music history, Electroliner doesn’t intend to specialize in those.

"I was delegated to come up with a name," Strohm says, "and I’m keen on trains and names of trains. I thought it would be good for a logo. Mostly I thought it was a very cool word."

Alabama Christmas Über-Alles

2009-12-29T11:16:00.010-05:00

this year for xmas, alison and i went to my mom's farmhouse in rogersville, in north alabama, and fairhope, which is alison's hometown. we drove 750 miles... finally breaking in my saab, which worked quite well, even with our two large dogs. before xmas, we also went to a few xmas parties. here's some photos from the past few weeks. the full set is here.

Graphic Design 2009

2009-12-17T13:43:00.009-05:00

here's some of the poster, promo & dvd/cd cover comps i designed in 2009. 'twas the year of distressed paper background layers. meh.

2009 In Review via blog postings

2009-12-16T13:25:00.010-05:00

here's 2009 in the rearview mirror of my blog postings. i'm summarizing various events and developments strictly based on this year's blog postings, with a few exceptions. here's the 2008 recap. i'll flesh out these links as i get time.

i started the new year by playing a short set of stones covers with john strohm and jody nelson / greg slamen of through the sparks, with special guest, wayne perkins, who played on the rolling stones' black & blue album. one rehearsal and it was flawless. here's the blog post.

hannah's pretty in pink birthday prom blog posting.
obama sworn in as president.
downsizing social networking pages.
too much spending by the government.
i'm perceived as being fiscally conservative, lose friends.
lily allen record gets overplayed in my car.
i begin transferring thousands of photos & graphics to flickr.
mercedes marathon 2009.
the february snow storm.
we rescue & adopt a golden retriever & name her annie.
michael jackson's 50 dates announcement.
uk trip & large photo set in march.
the final spots shows.
nin crappy atlanta show + end of touring + marriage.
korea gets aggressive.
i start investing.
25 year anniversary purple rain post.
officially in through the sparks.
st. vincent show @ workplay.
michael jackson dies @ age 50.
my jackson eulogy.
dismals canyon camping trip.
nasty heal care debate gets nastier. i lose friends.
moonlanding + manson + woodstock anniversary.
electroliner begins rehearsals.
city stages dies.
les paul dies.
i return to florida w/ alison.
20 years of concerts.
i turn 35 + 1 year of no smoking + top albums.
i fill in on bass w/ through the sparks @ next big nashville.
new through the sparks site + album.
tts video shoot.
electroliner shows.
larry langford goes down swinging.
nyc marathon trip 2009.
through the sparks play the nick + poster.
yes fixation + 90125 25 years later.
thanksgiving race + dinner in atlanta.
my gram parsons - central florida connection.
after months of searching, i buy a saab.
obama nobel peace prize speech + the obama doctrine.
bottletree xmas show +band-aid re-enactment. funny vibes.
do they know its xmas? 25 years later.

Do They Know It's Christmas? 25 Years later

2009-12-14T11:15:00.008-05:00

This past weekend at Bottletree, Brian Teasley organized a re-enactment of the Band-Aid group, who performed a live Karaoke version of the song at the conclusion of their Xmas show. At the last minute, I was invited up to sing as part of the chorus. It was a trainwreck in the best possible way. The only thing that sucked was some dude went to jump up on stage and slipped, and fell on the concrete floor. He was ok, but apparently it looked scary.

Obviously its been 25 years since the single was release, and this time, 25 years ago, the single was at it's sales peak. I remember when this song came out. U2 had just released Pride (In the Name of Love), I was going to superskates to listen to all of the awesome mid 80's rock/pop music that was coming out... I had just started 5th grade? Even at age 10, I was aware that this grouping of brit-poppers was both interesting and laughable.

Anyhoo... Thanks to Youtube, there's now a ton of outtakes and documetary footage from the recording sessions for Do They Know It's Christmas? Some of the highlights are bob Geldof guilting the western world into giving up their food, the conversation between Bob and Bono about Bono's famous line of apathy, Sting's hair and incredulous attitude, The bad 80's hair, the interesting vocal pairings, Phil Collins playing a really nice drum groove... I also found out that the intro "african" drum part at the beginning of the song is a Slowed down drum sample from The Hurting by Tears for Fears, who weren't quite ready to release their string of smash hits yet.

I few months later, Michael & Lionel organized the We Are the World single in early '85. Here's some clips from the making of Do They Know It's Christmas, one of the most self-righteous charity songs ever.

Through the Sparks @ Workplay 12.22

2009-12-11T11:22:00.004-05:00

not my best poster, but probably the most trippy.

President Obama's Nobel Peace Prize Acceptance Speech

2009-12-10T18:21:00.005-05:00

Your Majesties, Your Royal Highnesses, distinguished members of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, citizens of America, and citizens of the world:

I receive this honor with deep gratitude and great humility. It is an award that speaks to our highest aspirations — that for all the cruelty and hardship of our world, we are not mere prisoners of fate. Our actions matter, and can bend history in the direction of justice.

And yet I would be remiss if I did not acknowledge the considerable controversy that your generous decision has generated. (Laughter.) In part, this is because I am at the beginning, and not the end, of my labors on the world stage. Compared to some of the giants of history who’ve received this prize — Schweitzer and King; Marshall and Mandela — my accomplishments are slight. And then there are the men and women around the world who have been jailed and beaten in the pursuit of justice; those who toil in humanitarian organizations to relieve suffering; the unrecognized millions whose quiet acts of courage and compassion inspire even the most hardened cynics. I cannot argue with those who find these men and women — some known, some obscure to all but those they help — to be far more deserving of this honor than I.

But perhaps the most profound issue surrounding my receipt of this prize is the fact that I am the Commander-in-Chief of the military of a nation in the midst of two wars. One of these wars is winding down. The other is a conflict that America did not seek; one in which we are joined by 42 other countries — including Norway — in an effort to defend ourselves and all nations from further attacks.

Still, we are at war, and I’m responsible for the deployment of thousands of young Americans to battle in a distant land. Some will kill, and some will be killed. And so I come here with an acute sense of the costs of armed conflict — filled with difficult questions about the relationship between war and peace, and our effort to replace one with the other.

Now these questions are not new. War, in one form or another, appeared with the first man. At the dawn of history, its morality was not questioned; it was simply a fact, like drought or disease — the manner in which tribes and then civilizations sought power and settled their differences.

And over time, as codes of law sought to control violence within groups, so did philosophers and clerics and statesmen seek to regulate the destructive power of war. The concept of a "just war" emerged, suggesting that war is justified only when certain conditions were met: if it is waged as a last resort or in self-defense; if the force used is proportional; and if, whenever possible, civilians are spared from violence.

Of course, we know that for most of history, this concept of "just war" was rarely observed. The capacity of human beings to think up new ways to kill one another proved inexhaustible, as did our capacity to exempt from mercy those who look different or pray to a different God. Wars between armies gave way to wars between nations — total wars in which the distinction between combatant and civilian became blurred. In the span of 30 years, such carnage would twice engulf this continent. And while it’s hard to conceive of a cause more just than the defeat of the Third Reich and the Axis powers, World War II was a conflict in which the total number of civilians who died exceeded the number of soldiers who perished.

In the wake of such destruction, and with the advent of the nuclear age, it became clear to victor and vanquished alike that the world needed institutions to prevent another world war. And so, a quarter century after the United States Senate rejected the League of Nations — an idea for which Woodrow Wilson received this prize — America led the world in constructing an architecture to keep the peace: a Marshall Plan and a United Nations, mechanisms to govern the waging of war, treaties to protect human rights, prevent genocide, restrict the most dangerous weapons.

In many ways, these efforts succeeded. Yes, terrible wars have been fought, and atrocities committed. But there has been no Third World War. The Cold War ended with jubilant crowds dismantling a wall. Commerce has stitched much of the world together. Billions have been lifted from poverty. The ideals of liberty and self-determination, equality and the rule of law have haltingly advanced. We are the heirs of the fortitude and foresight of generations past, and it is a legacy for which my own country is rightfully proud.

And yet, a decade into a new century, this old architecture is buckling under the weight of new threats. The world may no longer shudder at the prospect of war between two nuclear superpowers, but proliferation may increase the risk of catastrophe. Terrorism has long been a tactic, but modern technology allows a few small men with outsized rage to murder innocents on a horrific scale.

Moreover, wars between nations have increasingly given way to wars within nations. The resurgence of ethnic or sectarian conflicts; the growth of secessionist movements, insurgencies, and failed states — all these things have increasingly trapped civilians in unending chaos. In today’s wars, many more civilians are killed than soldiers; the seeds of future conflict are sown, economies are wrecked, civil societies torn asunder, refugees amassed, children scarred.

I do not bring with me today a definitive solution to the problems of war. What I do know is that meeting these challenges will require the same vision, hard work, and persistence of those men and women who acted so boldly decades ago. And it will require us to think in new ways about the notions of just war and the imperatives of a just peace.

We must begin by acknowledging the hard truth: We will not eradicate violent conflict in our lifetimes. There will be times when nations — acting individually or in concert — will find the use of force not only necessary but morally justified.

I make this statement mindful of what Martin Luther King Jr. said in this same ceremony years ago: "Violence never brings permanent peace. It solves no social problem: it merely creates new and more complicated ones." As someone who stands here as a direct consequence of Dr. King’s life work, I am living testimony to the moral force of non-violence. I know there’s nothing weak — nothing passive — nothing naïve — in the creed and lives of Gandhi and King.

But as a head of state sworn to protect and defend my nation, I cannot be guided by their examples alone. I face the world as it is, and cannot stand idle in the face of threats to the American people. For make no mistake: Evil does exist in the world. A non-violent movement could not have halted Hitler’s armies. Negotiations cannot convince al Qaeda’s leaders to lay down their arms. To say that force may sometimes be necessary is not a call to cynicism — it is a recognition of history; the imperfections of man and the limits of reason.

I raise this point, I begin with this point because in many countries there is a deep ambivalence about military action today, no matter what the cause. And at times, this is joined by a reflexive suspicion of America, the world’s sole military superpower.

But the world must remember that it was not simply international institutions — not just treaties and declarations — that brought stability to a post-World War II world. Whatever mistakes we have made, the plain fact is this: The United States of America has helped underwrite global security for more than six decades with the blood of our citizens and the strength of our arms. The service and sacrifice of our men and women in uniform has promoted peace and prosperity from Germany to Korea, and enabled democracy to take hold in places like the Balkans. We have borne this burden not because we seek to impose our will. We have done so out of enlightened self-interest — because we seek a better future for our children and grandchildren, and we believe that their lives will be better if others’ children and grandchildren can live in freedom and prosperity.

So yes, the instruments of war do have a role to play in preserving the peace. And yet this truth must coexist with another — that no matter how justified, war promises human tragedy. The soldier’s courage and sacrifice is full of glory, expressing devotion to country, to cause, to comrades in arms. But war itself is never glorious, and we must never trumpet it as such.

So part of our challenge is reconciling these two seemingly inreconcilable truths — that war is sometimes necessary, and war at some level is an expression of human folly. Concretely, we must direct our effort to the task that President Kennedy called for long ago. "Let us focus," he said, "on a more practical, more attainable peace, based not on a sudden revolution in human nature but on a gradual evolution in human institutions." A gradual evolution of human institutions.

What might this evolution look like? What might these practical steps be?

To begin with, I believe that all nations — strong and weak alike — must adhere to standards that govern the use of force. I — like any head of state — reserve the right to act unilaterally if necessary to defend my nation. Nevertheless, I am convinced that adhering to standards, international standards, strengthens those who do, and isolates and weakens those who don’t.

The world rallied around America after the 9/11 attacks, and continues to support our efforts in Afghanistan, because of the horror of those senseless attacks and the recognized principle of self-defense. Likewise, the world recognized the need to confront Saddam Hussein when he invaded Kuwait — a consensus that sent a clear message to all about the cost of aggression.

Furthermore, America — in fact, no nation — can insist that others follow the rules of the road if we refuse to follow them ourselves. For when we don’t, our actions appear arbitrary and undercut the legitimacy of future interventions, no matter how justified.

And this becomes particularly important when the purpose of military action extends beyond self-defense or the defense of one nation against an aggressor. More and more, we all confront difficult questions about how to prevent the slaughter of civilians by their own government, or to stop a civil war whose violence and suffering can engulf an entire region.

I believe that force can be justified on humanitarian grounds, as it was in the Balkans, or in other places that have been scarred by war. Inaction tears at our conscience and can lead to more costly intervention later. That’s why all responsible nations must embrace the role that militaries with a clear mandate can play to keep the peace.

America’s commitment to global security will never waver. But in a world in which threats are more diffuse, and missions more complex, America cannot act alone. America alone cannot secure the peace. This is true in Afghanistan. This is true in failed states like Somalia, where terrorism and piracy is joined by famine and human suffering. And sadly, it will continue to be true in unstable regions for years to come.

The leaders and soldiers of NATO countries, and other friends and allies, demonstrate this truth through the capacity and courage they’ve shown in Afghanistan. But in many countries, there is a disconnect between the efforts of those who serve and the ambivalence of the broader public. I understand why war is not popular, but I also know this: The belief that peace is desirable is rarely enough to achieve it. Peace requires responsibility. Peace entails sacrifice. That’s why NATO continues to be indispensable. That’s why we must strengthen U.N. and regional peacekeeping, and not leave the task to a few countries. That’s why we honor those who return home from peacekeeping and training abroad to Oslo and Rome; to Ottawa and Sydney; to Dhaka and Kigali — we honor them not as makers of war, but of wagers — but as wagers of peace.

Let me make one final point about the use of force. Even as we make difficult decisions about going to war, we must also think clearly about how we fight it. The Nobel Committee recognized this truth in awarding its first prize for peace to Henry Dunant — the founder of the Red Cross, and a driving force behind the Geneva Conventions.

Where force is necessary, we have a moral and strategic interest in binding ourselves to certain rules of conduct. And even as we confront a vicious adversary that abides by no rules, I believe the United States of America must remain a standard bearer in the conduct of war. That is what makes us different from those whom we fight. That is a source of our strength. That is why I prohibited torture. That is why I ordered the prison at Guantanamo Bay closed. And that is why I have reaffirmed America’s commitment to abide by the Geneva Conventions. We lose ourselves when we compromise the very ideals that we fight to defend. (Applause.) And we honor — we honor those ideals by upholding them not when it’s easy, but when it is hard.

I have spoken at some length to the question that must weigh on our minds and our hearts as we choose to wage war. But let me now turn to our effort to avoid such tragic choices, and speak of three ways that we can build a just and lasting peace.

First, in dealing with those nations that break rules and laws, I believe that we must develop alternatives to violence that are tough enough to actually change behavior — for if we want a lasting peace, then the words of the international community must mean something. Those regimes that break the rules must be held accountable. Sanctions must exact a real price. Intransigence must be met with increased pressure — and such pressure exists only when the world stands together as one.

One urgent example is the effort to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons, and to seek a world without them. In the middle of the last century, nations agreed to be bound by a treaty whose bargain is clear: All will have access to peaceful nuclear power; those without nuclear weapons will forsake them; and those with nuclear weapons will work towards disarmament. I am committed to upholding this treaty. It is a centerpiece of my foreign policy. And I’m working with President Medvedev to reduce America and Russia’s nuclear stockpiles.

But it is also incumbent upon all of us to insist that nations like Iran and North Korea do not game the system. Those who claim to respect international law cannot avert their eyes when those laws are flouted. Those who care for their own security cannot ignore the danger of an arms race in the Middle East or East Asia. Those who seek peace cannot stand idly by as nations arm themselves for nuclear war.

The same principle applies to those who violate international laws by brutalizing their own people. When there is genocide in Darfur, systematic rape in Congo, repression in Burma — there must be consequences. Yes, there will be engagement; yes, there will be diplomacy — but there must be consequences when those things fail. And the closer we stand together, the less likely we will be faced with the choice between armed intervention and complicity in oppression.

This brings me to a second point — the nature of the peace that we seek. For peace is not merely the absence of visible conflict. Only a just peace based on the inherent rights and dignity of every individual can truly be lasting.

It was this insight that drove drafters of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights after the Second World War. In the wake of devastation, they recognized that if human rights are not protected, peace is a hollow promise.

And yet too often, these words are ignored. For some countries, the failure to uphold human rights is excused by the false suggestion that these are somehow Western principles, foreign to local cultures or stages of a nation’s development. And within America, there has long been a tension between those who describe themselves as realists or idealists — a tension that suggests a stark choice between the narrow pursuit of interests or an endless campaign to impose our values around the world.

I reject these choices. I believe that peace is unstable where citizens are denied the right to speak freely or worship as they please; choose their own leaders or assemble without fear. Pent-up grievances fester, and the suppression of tribal and religious identity can lead to violence. We also know that the opposite is true. Only when Europe became free did it finally find peace. America has never fought a war against a democracy, and our closest friends are governments that protect the rights of their citizens. No matter how callously defined, neither America’s interests — nor the world’s — are served by the denial of human aspirations.

So even as we respect the unique culture and traditions of different countries, America will always be a voice for those aspirations that are universal. We will bear witness to the quiet dignity of reformers like Aung Sang Suu Kyi; to the bravery of Zimbabweans who cast their ballots in the face of beatings; to the hundreds of thousands who have marched silently through the streets of Iran. It is telling that the leaders of these governments fear the aspirations of their own people more than the power of any other nation. And it is the responsibility of all free people and free nations to make clear that these movements — these movements of hope and history — they have us on their side.

Let me also say this: The promotion of human rights cannot be about exhortation alone. At times, it must be coupled with painstaking diplomacy. I know that engagement with repressive regimes lacks the satisfying purity of indignation. But I also know that sanctions without outreach — condemnation without discussion — can carry forward only a crippling status quo. No repressive regime can move down a new path unless it has the choice of an open door.

In light of the Cultural Revolution’s horrors, Nixon’s meeting with Mao appeared inexcusable — and yet it surely helped set China on a path where millions of its citizens have been lifted from poverty and connected to open societies. Pope John Paul’s engagement with Poland created space not just for the Catholic Church, but for labor leaders like Lech Walesa. Ronald Reagan’s efforts on arms control and embrace of perestroika not only improved relations with the Soviet Union, but empowered dissidents throughout Eastern Europe. There’s no simple formula here. But we must try as best we can to balance isolation and engagement, pressure and incentives, so that human rights and dignity are advanced over time.

Third, a just peace includes not only civil and political rights — it must encompass economic security and opportunity. For true peace is not just freedom from fear, but freedom from want.

It is undoubtedly true that development rarely takes root without security; it is also true that security does not exist where human beings do not have access to enough food, or clean water, or the medicine and shelter they need to survive. It does not exist where children can’t aspire to a decent education or a job that supports a family. The absence of hope can rot a society from within.

And that’s why helping farmers feed their own people — or nations educate their children and care for the sick — is not mere charity. It’s also why the world must come together to confront climate change. There is little scientific dispute that if we do nothing, we will face more drought, more famine, more mass displacement — all of which will fuel more conflict for decades. For this reason, it is not merely scientists and environmental activists who call for swift and forceful action — it’s military leaders in my own country and others who understand our common security hangs in the balance.

Agreements among nations. Strong institutions. Support for human rights. Investments in development. All these are vital ingredients in bringing about the evolution that President Kennedy spoke about. And yet, I do not believe that we will have the will, the determination, the staying power, to complete this work without something more — and that’s the continued expansion of our moral imagination; an insistence that there’s something irreducible that we all share.

As the world grows smaller, you might think it would be easier for human beings to recognize how similar we are; to understand that we’re all basically seeking the same things; that we all hope for the chance to live out our lives with some measure of happiness and fulfillment for ourselves and our families.

And yet somehow, given the dizzying pace of globalization, the cultural leveling of modernity, it perhaps comes as no surprise that people fear the loss of what they cherish in their particular identities — their race, their tribe, and perhaps most powerfully their religion. In some places, this fear has led to conflict. At times, it even feels like we’re moving backwards. We see it in the Middle East, as the conflict between Arabs and Jews seems to harden. We see it in nations that are torn asunder by tribal lines.

And most dangerously, we see it in the way that religion is used to justify the murder of innocents by those who have distorted and defiled the great religion of Islam, and who attacked my country from Afghanistan. These extremists are not the first to kill in the name of God; the cruelties of the Crusades are amply recorded. But they remind us that no Holy War can ever be a just war. For if you truly believe that you are carrying out divine will, then there is no need for restraint — no need to spare the pregnant mother, or the medic, or the Red Cross worker, or even a person of one’s own faith. Such a warped view of religion is not just incompatible with the concept of peace, but I believe it’s incompatible with the very purpose of faith — for the one rule that lies at the heart of every major religion is that we do unto others as we would have them do unto us.

Adhering to this law of love has always been the core struggle of human nature. For we are fallible. We make mistakes, and fall victim to the temptations of pride, and power, and sometimes evil. Even those of us with the best of intentions will at times fail to right the wrongs before us.

But we do not have to think that human nature is perfect for us to still believe that the human condition can be perfected. We do not have to live in an idealized world to still reach for those ideals that will make it a better place. The non-violence practiced by men like Gandhi and King may not have been practical or possible in every circumstance, but the love that they preached — their fundamental faith in human progress — that must always be the North Star that guides us on our journey.

For if we lose that faith — if we dismiss it as silly or naïve; if we divorce it from the decisions that we make on issues of war and peace — then we lose what’s best about humanity. We lose our sense of possibility. We lose our moral compass.

Like generations have before us, we must reject that future. As Dr. King said at this occasion so many years ago, "I refuse to accept despair as the final response to the ambiguities of history. I refuse to accept the idea that the ‘isness’ of man’s present condition makes him morally incapable of reaching up for the eternal ‘oughtness’ that forever confronts him."

Let us reach for the world that ought to be — that spark of the divine that still stirs within each of our souls. (Applause.)

Somewhere today, in the here and now, in the world as it is, a soldier sees he’s outgunned, but stands firm to keep the peace. Somewhere today, in this world, a young protestor awaits the brutality of her government, but has the courage to march on. Somewhere today, a mother facing punishing poverty still takes the time to teach her child, scrapes together what few coins she has to send that child to school — because she believes that a cruel world still has a place for that child’s dreams.

Let us live by their example. We can acknowledge that oppression will always be with us, and still strive for justice. We can admit the intractability of depravation, and still strive for dignity. Clear-eyed, we can understand that there will be war, and still strive for peace. We can do that — for that is the story of human progress; that’s the hope of all the world; and at this moment of challenge, that must be our work here on Earth.

Thank you very much. [ Video Clip of Speech ]

wiki blade runner entry interpretation

2009-12-07T19:14:00.008-05:00

Despite appearing to be an action film, Blade Runner has many dramatic, narrative levels, greatly indebted to film noir conventions, such as the femme fatale, protagonist-narration (removed in later versions), dark and shadowy cinematography, and the questionable moral outlook of the hero, extended to include his humanity.

It is a literate science fiction film, thematically enfolding the philosophy of religion and moral implications of human mastery of genetic engineering in the context of classical Greek drama and hubris, and draws on Biblical images, such as Noah's flood, and literary sources, such as Frankenstein. Linguistically, the theme of mortality is subtly reiterated in the chess game between Roy and Tyrell based on the famous Immortal game of 1851, though Scott has said that was coincidental.

Blade Runner delves into the implications of technology on the environment and society by reaching to the past, using literature, religious symbolism, classical dramatic themes, and film noir. This tension, among past, present, and future is seen in the retrofitted future of Blade Runner, which is high-tech and gleaming in places but elsewhere decayed and old. Interviewing Ridley Scott in 2002, reporter Lynn Barber in The Observer described the film as: "extremely dark, both literally and metaphorically, with an oddly masochistic feel". Director Scott said he "liked the idea of exploring pain" in the wake of his brother's skin cancer death. "When he was ill, I used to go and visit him in London, and that was really traumatic for me."

A perceptively high level of paranoia exists in the cinematic manifestation of corporate power, omnipresent police, probing lights, and in the power over the individual—especially represented by genetic programming of replicants. Control over the environment is large scale, hand in hand with the absence of any natural life, and with artificial animals substituting for the extinct originals. This oppressive backdrop clarifies why people are migrating to off-world colonies. The dystopian themes explored in "Blade Runner" are an early example of cyberpunk concepts expanding into film. The film also makes extensive use of eyes for a variety of themes and manipulated images to call into question reality and our ability to accurately perceive and remember it.

These thematic elements provide an atmosphere of uncertainty for Blade Runner's central theme of examining humanity. In order to discover replicants, an empathy test is used with a number of questions focused on the treatment of animals, thus making it the essential indicator of someone's "humanity". The replicants are juxtaposed with human characters who lack empathy, while the replicants appear to show compassion and concern for one another at the same time as the mass of humanity on the streets is cold and impersonal. The film goes so far as to put in doubt whether Deckard is a human, and forces the audience to reevaluate what it means to be human.

The question of whether Deckard is intended to be a human or a replicant has been an ongoing controversy since the film's release. Both Michael Deeley and Harrison Ford wanted Deckard to be human while Hampton Fancher preferred ambiguity. Ridley Scott has confirmed that in his vision Deckard is a replicant. Deckard's unicorn dream sequence inserted into the Director's Cut coinciding with Gaff's parting-gift of an origami unicorn is seen by many as showing Deckard is a replicant as Gaff could have access to Deckard's implanted memories.

The interpretation that Deckard is a replicant is challenged by others who believe unicorn imagery shows that the characters, whether human or replicant, share the same dreams and recognise their affinity, or that the absence of a decisive answer is crucial to the film's main theme. The inherent ambiguity and uncertainty of the film, as well as its textual richness, has permitted viewers to see it from their own perspective.

a gram parsons connection

2009-11-30T14:29:00.015-05:00

this morning, for no real reason, i woke up with an overwhelming urge to read up on the bio of gram parsons. electroliner plays a cover of "that's all it took" in our set... a duet for two of our singers doing gram's and emmylou's parts... so maybe that was bouncing around in my brain's pop-cultural lobe.

anyway... upon reading his wiki entry, i've discovered the following facts. gram was born in winter haven, florida (basically my home town) in november, 1946, about a month before my dad was born, 8 miles away. gram grew up in winter haven (and later winter park), attended winter haven high school (i used to rehearse there) and played in cover bands around winter haven as a teen.

his mother's family (the snively's) owned a lot of citris property in polk county, including the land that cypress gardens was built upon. the snively's and the adam's were two of the major grower families decades ago. i grew up in these orange groves.

gram got his start in music after seeing elvis presley in 1957 in georgia... and by the mid 60's recorded several albums worth of demo material, produced by local musician jim carleton, while playing in several local bands. as a kid in the early 90's, i bought a lot of my early music gear from carleton's music store in winter haven, including my first snare drum, drum machine, acoustic guitar, etc.

apparently jim made a distribution deal with sundaze records and released these mid 60's gram parsons demos as "another side of this life" - a compilation of covers and 5 parsons songs.

gram parsons, who took his stepfather's last name, benefited from his stepfather owning several nightclubs in winter haven and around polk county. among these night clubs was the rustic lounge, which my stepfather owned from 1990 to 1995. my mom and dad went on their first date together to the rustic in 1972.

i remember my stepfather telling me about the former owners and the owners before them. i remember there being mention of a citris grower family owning it at some point. anyway... whether or not that's true, i still found it fascinating that gram and i developed our interest in music in the same area, and both knew the carleton family.

90125 - 25 years in retrospect

2009-11-17T11:44:00.015-05:00

i don't go on rock binges much anymore. my last big one was probably fleetwood mac about 4 years ago... and probably my ongoing nin binge. lately i've been fixated on the 90125 era version of the british prog band, yes. they have one of the most confusing line-ups in rock. ironically, the most controversial line-up (some fans thought they were too mainstream) was also the most successful and the most stable.

this line-up was in tact from 1983 to around 1995. yes made 4 albums with this line-up - 90125, big generator, union, & talk. the union album was a combination of the 70's and 80's band members. notable hits from the 90125 era include: owner of a lonely heart, leave it, changes, it can happen, hold on, rhythm of love, love will find a way, shoot high/aim low, lift me up, & walls.

i've been perusing youtube for some particular songs and performances from this line-up, most notably, the yes union tour and some mid '80's 90125 era video. i personally got to see yes twice, once in 1991 and again in 1994. luckily, during the yes union tour of 1991, i got to see the 90125 line-up combined with some of their original members.

three former members were excluded, because they all only played on one album. the 1994 show was the final tour for the 90125 line-up which was led by guitar genius trevor rabin. he's now apparently one of the biggest action movie composers in hollywood. the last clip is the nutty video for trevor rabin's only solo hit, from 1989. i've alway liked the simple, iconic '80's design on the cover of the 90125 album, which has been in my album rotation for about 25 years. amazing. i just purchased a 1984 berlin concert poster featuring the 90125 design (see below).

Through the Sparks at The Nick Nov 28

2009-11-16T17:24:00.005-05:00

NYC Marathon / Halloween 2009

2009-11-10T15:26:00.003-05:00

we went to nyc for the third year in a row. this was the most laid back of the three trips. alison ran the marathon again and shaved 5 minutes off of her time from last year. she came in first for her age group in alabama, and she made the first page of the runner listing in the new york times. not too shabby. this year, unlike last year, we opted to attend the pre-race dinner and fireworks in central park. it rained a little, but it was pretty cool, considering the amount of people they had to accommodate.

we hung out with the same folks, and spent half of our time in manhattan, staying in midtown and half of our time in brooklyn. i worked out the day we got there (oct 30th) and i haven't worked out since! i got some catching up to do.

meanwhile, ida is blasting the south with a year's worth of rain at the moment. meh. tonight, electroliner rehearsal, and trying out some new drum gear. if only i could find a good drum wrap reseller, i'd be set. alas... photos, most of which were taken with the crappy iphone camera and manipulated with some of our new silly photo finishing apps. here's the link to the full set, with some selected photos below:

change has come, or has it?

2009-11-04T17:39:00.005-05:00

it has... and not necessarily for the better.

by John F. Harris @ Politico

In the year since he was elected president, Barack Obama has revealed himself as one of the boldest leaders to occupy the Oval Office in the modern era.

In that same year, Obama also has revealed himself to be an innately self-protective, constantly calibrating and, in some surprising ways, supremely conventional politician.

So who is Barack Obama? The drama of this presidency — in sharp relief with Wednesday’s one-year anniversary of his 2008 triumph — revolves around how Obama navigates his own contradictions.

Obama turns out not to be a Bill Clinton-style centrist or a Paul Wellstone-style liberal. His plans for health care and his trillion-plus dollars in new spending have earned the ire of Rush Limbaugh for being too grandiose and of Arianna Huffington for not being grandiose enough.

Obama is the president as grand improvisationalist: a leader of epic ambitions who — when faced with a difficult choice — almost always pursues his aims with a pedestrian strategy and style.

This may be a shrewd approach to governing. But it manages almost by definition to defy and disappoint the huge — and wildly divergent — expectations Obama encouraged supporters to harbor for his presidency.

As the election anniversary approached, Obama several times in public remarks acknowledged the sense of letdown and pleaded for patience.

“‘Well, why haven’t you solved world hunger yet?’” Obama said in New Orleans the other day, mimicking the cries of critics. “‘Why — it’s been nine months. Why?’ You know? I never said it was going to be easy. What did I say during the campaign? I said change is hard. And big change is harder. And after the last nine months, you know I wasn’t kidding.”

Obama may not have promised change would be easy. But he did convey what now looks like a too-glib impression that he could unite opposites and reconcile contradictions by the power of personality — hard to do when his own personality has competing strands.

Obama has the soul of an ideologue. He wants to be a transformational president — unconfined by the limitations of conventional politics and determined to put a lasting mark on his era.

In his first year, he has presided over more new domestic spending than Bill Clinton, the last Democratic president, did in eight years. The “big bang” agenda he laid out earlier this year on health care, energy and financial regulation unmistakably signaled his ambition to vastly expand the role of government in American life.

But Obama also has the soul of an operative. He and his West Wing team — dominated at the top by people whose expertise is in the world of campaigns and Washington maneuvers — have proved to be far more familiar political types than they admit to themselves or than was forecast by his insurgent campaign and the expansive, at times almost messianic, rhetoric that powered it.

“What surprises me most is the loss of Barack Obama as movement leader,” Malika Saada Saar, a human rights organizer, said on POLITICO’s Arena forum.

As Obama’s campaign reached its climax, in Saar’s memory, it conjured up echoes of Martin Luther King Jr. and Franklin D. Roosevelt. Now that he has entered office, she finds that spirit missing: “During this time of economic decline, two raging wars and an uncertain future for so many Americans, we need a movement-leader president who can call forward our courage and relentlessly move us toward making the difficult policy changes that we need.”

When it comes to policy, Obama is more willing than any Democratic president since Lyndon B. Johnson to propose expansive goals — but is insistent always on preserving flexibility in the name of realism or political self-protection.

On health care, it is clear that Obama’s team is more concerned with a victory — one his team expects by the end of the year — than with the programmatic details. On national security, he so far has offered far more continuity with George W. Bush on Iraq, Afghanistan and anti-terror policies than many of his most ardent supporters were expecting.

When it comes to politics, Obama and his team have proved more comfortable navigating within the Washington system that greeted them than with changing the culture of the capital. A West Wing that features skilled operatives like Rahm Emanuel, David Axelrod and Robert Gibbs is no less politically obsessed than when Karl Rove roamed the same halls.

“I suppose what has surprised me most is how quickly the promises of comity, outreach and post-partisanship were abandoned,” James G. Gimpel, a professor of political science at the University of Maryland, said on the Arena forum. “But maybe that’s because I was starting to believe the hype, and I should have maintained an appropriately skeptical stance all along. In this last year, we have again been reminded that governing is not campaigning.”

As it happens, the Obama team is never happier — as in its frequent public disputes with Fox News, Rush Limbaugh or the insurance industry — than when it can adopt campaign-style tactics to frame an adversary for public advantage.

The logic of this approach is clear but also plainly at odds with Obama’s stated desire to unify Americans and drain politics of its anger and addiction to unproductive conflict.

In the year since Election Day, there is scant evidence that Obama remains a movement politician.

The legions of activists and volunteers — the people whose e-mail lists and social-networking skills were supposed to be a potent weapon in Obama’s arsenal during legislative battles — have not made themselves felt in meaningful ways since last year.

And what looked like a transformative result -- an electoral map redrawn by Obama’s ability to mobilize both the Democratic base and post-partisan independents -- now seems more tentative. In 2008, Obama became the first Democrat to win Virginia in 44 years, based on massive turnout from African-Americans and big support from independents. In 2009, the Democratic gubernatorial candidate was routed in Virginia, largely because of lower African-American turnout and a flight of independents toward the Republican. If these trends are repeated nationally in 2010 and Democrats lose significant ground, Obama’s ambitions to be a transformational president most likely will be put on pause. Instead, he’ll be forced to practice a more defensive brand of politics, much like Bill Clinton was after his party was routed in 1994.

In terms of the culture of Washington, he has made it a bit harder for lobbyists to land government jobs (though there have been plenty of exceptions granted to lobbyists Obama happened to especially want). Yet few people in Washington still regard Obama — clearly at ease with establishment values and personalities — as a dangerous boat rocker. The capital remains a bull market for special-interest deal making. The pharmaceutical lobby, for instance, found Obama eager to do business in which drug makers’ interests were protected in exchange for backing health care reform.

This let’s-make-a-deal impulse isn’t pretty to watch sometimes, especially for Obama’s more idealistic followers, but that doesn’t mean it won’t pay off in the end. Obama stands a good chance of passing a health reform bill in coming months, a significant win for the president even if Congress passes only a watered-down version of the bill.

But as the year wears on, there’s a danger for Obama that all that improvisation could start to look feckless, not strategic but simply indecisive or lacking in principles. He has so far avoided falling into the same trap as Clinton, for whom “triangulation” became a defining character trait, an all-purpose explanation for every compromise or centrist impulse or second helping at the dinner table.

Obama’s backtracks are too fresh, and too discreet, to fully define him or become the narrative of his presidency, at least not yet. But he’s edging toward dangerous ground. Nowhere is that clearer than Afghanistan.

He has carried out his deliberations in public view — either an impressive display of confidence by a young president willing to question his commanders’ call for more troops or a slightly unnerving process of recalibration and second-guessing by a leader who set his Afghan strategy just seven months ago. Obama made finishing the war in Afghanistan central to his campaign claims of a muscular foreign policy, but that was before a war-weary public soured so completely on the conflict; and, now, even Obama is showing signs of doubt.

Other Obama lines in the sand are also getting blurred. A one-year deadline to close Guantanamo? It won’t happen. Pass health care before the August recess? Didn’t work out. Crack down on Israeli settlements to restart the Mideast peace process? Not anymore.

The tension between transformational ambitions and conventional instincts even carries over to Obama’s personal style. What happened to the new Camelot that was to dawn over the Potomac?

“I think that was writers planting their hopes on the first couple. I think that was fantasy,” said Carol Joynt, who writes on the Washington scene for the New York Social Diary. “They’re behaving like parents who travel a lot and live in a big house. ... I haven’t seen what some other people got all wound up about. I haven’t seen radical change in fashion. I haven’t seen radical change in the social scene.”

This sense of disappointment, of letdown — how can a campaign that shattered so many expectations have produced a presidency that already feels quite ordinary? — extends from the nearly cosmic to the nearly comical. What could be more conventional — more downright old-fashioned — than a president who likes to golf every Sunday, whose idea of sweeping change extends to lowering his own handicap?

“We thought we were getting a man of action. Instead, we got someone who’ll spend six hours chasing a white ball around a park,” Joe Mathews, a senior fellow at the New America Foundation, said, with tongue planted only partly in cheek. “If voters had known about the golf, they would have been less surprised by his lack of urgency on many issues.”

wild eyed crazy larry gets nailed to the wall

2009-10-28T18:03:00.004-04:00

City Council President Carole Smitherman is the Interim Mayor. She represented my mom in a small claims case in 2006 and kicked ass. She's inheriting a big bag of shit. Good luck. Below is photo of Larry waiting (apparently he didn't have to wait long) for the jury to decide his fate. The news blurb below is from the al.com blog and the birmingham news.

Larry Langford, Birmingham's mayor and a former Jefferson County commissioner, has been found guilty in his federal bribery trial.

Langford, who is 61 or 63, was found guilty of taking about $236,000 in cash and gifts from Montgomery investment banker Bill Blount and lobbyist Al LaPierre.

Both pleaded guilty in the case and testified they made cash payments to Langford while he was the president of the Jefferson County Commission to ensure business for Blount's investment bank, Blount Parrish & Co.

"We all have our trials, this too will pass," Langford said as he walked from the courtroom followed closely by his wife. "The citizens of Birmingham have been fantastic to me," he said outside the courthouse. Judge Scott Coogler decided Langford would forfeit $241,843.

He ordered a sentencing report within 90 to 120 days and said Langford would remain free until then on the existing $50,000 unsecured bond.

Birmingham City Council President Carole Smitherman will be the mayor of Alabama's largest city after her swearing in.

autumn is old news

2009-10-19T19:29:00.013-04:00

the past week or so: rehearsing with electroliner - learning a ton of 80's cover songs, a few honkey tonk tunes, etc. we are trying to get about 20 or so in our set, so we can be ready for whatever gig comes our way. apparently we got offered a spot at sxsw10, but we declined because we won't have any material ready by then.

on a side note... i finally have a drum kit for shows. i've been playing it for a while, but i recently got exactly the pieces i wanted, so i guess i'm ready to rawk. i sold my previous kit in the spring of 1999.

this past weekend, through the sparks shot a video for the first song on the new rekkerd. the song is called hot rock constellations. it is a surreal video to say the least. we made doppelganger masks of our own faces and shot on and off for about 5 or 6 hours. adam wingard (ibdb) from team bloodjet shot the video, and i expect nothing but brilliance form that guy. he's easily my favorite film maker in town. he released a full-length film called pop skull in 2007, and he's done a few videos for skybucket previously... the best one being for the dexateens. here's some of his prior work.

what else... it finally got chilly this weekend. the dogs are all frisky, and at home, we are following a ton of tv shows. at the moment, we are watching dexter, californication, flash forward, 30rock... and we just got caught up on community.

i'm trying to resume some organization projects, mostly to do with audio/video and photo uploading. i'm uploading some demos and dj podcasts of mine... and hopefully i'll get started on the biz web site soon. this is a link to all of my public photo sets @ flickr. and this is where i'm uploading random photos and whatnot.

i really wanna go to the movies.

through the sparks & electroliner shows

2009-10-13T01:15:00.011-04:00

the next big nashville trip was quite fun. the drive up was cloudy, but fast, the hotel was decent, the crowd was smaller than expected, but very supportive. the other skybucket artists performed well (vulture whale killed)... great conversations on the porch... all of the bands that played (except the last band) were excellent.

the next time i go, i must spend more time up stairs in the music shop. impressive. below are my remaining shows with tts & electroliner, and some pics from the trip - they suck, but blame my iphone, whatever. i'll post some video clips soonish.

why do i write on here as if someone actually reads this shit?

~~TN 10.10.09 - through the sparks @ the basement (nbn '09)~~
AL 10.24.09 - electroliner @ private event
AL 11.20.09 - electroliner @ rogue tavern
AL 11.28.09 - through the sparks @ the nick [with magic math]
AL 12.25.09 - through the sparks @ the nick [xmas show]

nin - the becoming / st. vincent set / photography

2009-10-07T17:43:00.014-04:00

NINE INCH NAILS:

one of my favorite nin songs. this was recorded this summer on the supposed last nin tour. great energy with just one camera. no edits.

NIN / Sasquatch Festival, 5.24.09 [HD]

ST. VINCENT @ WORKPLAY:

on monday night, alison and i went to workplay to see st. vincent open for andrew bird on the sterile soundstage. the experience would have been so much better at the theatre section of the venue, especially for these types of artists.

it was a good show nonetheless. st. vincent played a short, erratic and noisy set, which was the most "inaccessable" of any of the 3 previous shows i'd seen. this isn;t to say however, that it wasn't good. she's fantastic, and i get what she's bringing forth. andrew bird is talented, but fey as a pink cucumber. his band is great, and i was impressed by his live looping and genneral mastery of the stage and his material. the whistling got to be a bit much. about halfway through his set, i looked at alison and said... 'hey you wanna go home and watch dexter?" - so there it is. here's a clip:

St. Vincent - "Black Rainbow"

PERSONAL PHOTOGRAPHY:

also... i've been look at a lot of great photography lately, and i've been perusing photography apps for my iphone and editing apps in general. and it got me thinking about that 150 years of photography that happened before software. and it got me itchin' to do some truly interesting work. polaroid transfers were always a favorite of mine. now there are polaroid apps.

that sucks - almost as much as heavy body editing and hdr photography, which is looking really gimicky to me lately. maybe i'm just a crotchety old man. or maybe i need to start doing some more photography (with all of this free time i have). the image below is one of my favorite polaroid transfers from the mid '90's.

throughthesparksmusic.com

2009-10-06T11:43:00.004-04:00

the new site for through the sparks is up. right now it is simple and kinda choppy. after i get a chance to tweek the CSS, it should look a little better. at least there's a solid merch page and links to stuff like twitter and facebook and videos.

the 3rd show as the revamped through the sparks is this saturday in nashville at the basement during the next big nashville music conference.

there are two full band shows and two solo (jody nelson) shows coming up:

10.10.09 @ the basement // nashville
10.14.09 @ bottletree (birmingham tapes show) // birmingham - *solo
10.23.09 @ pete's candy store (cmj marathon) // new york - *solo
11.28.09 @ the nick (w/ the magic math) // birmingham

deep thoughts

2009-09-23T19:12:00.008-04:00

a huge chunk of my musical output has thus far been either embarrassing, depressing, or wasted. music is the ultimate time killer - and killing time has been a lifelong career. and now, its probably pointless as well. culture really just needs background tunes from now on.

i guess there have been some pretty cool shows here and there, which is kinda rad.

it took me until age 34 to be in a few bands that actually challenge me constantly, at least in terms of new songs. the spots are of course an exception, because the spots don't write songs, and are plenty challenging as improv music. its been about 10 years since my super prolific years of constantly recording demos ended. i'm hoping that somehow, this will turn around soon. we'll see.

through the sparks @ the next big nashville 2009

2009-09-22T00:25:00.003-04:00

through the sparks will be performing at the basement @ 8pm on october 11th during the next big nashville music conference.

Next Big Nashville Promo

35 for 35

2009-09-18T11:48:00.003-04:00

here's a list (in no particular order) of 35 major-label releases, all of which were considered very successful albums for these artists. these 35 albums each had a particular influence on my musical tastes and/or development, either lyrically, sonically, or in terms of overall production. many of these i don't listen to anymore, but most are still in rotation. these are my top 35 major label releases:

01. nin - the downward spiral (1994)
02. van halen - diver down (1982)
03. tears for fears - elemental (1993)
04. the police - synchronicity (1983)
05. cibo matto - stereotype a (1999)
06. u2 - achtung baby (1991)
07. crash test dummies - god shuffled his feet (1993)
08. jeff buckley - grace (1994)
09. queens of the stone age - rated r (2000)
10. sneaker pimps - becoming remixed (1998)
11. michael jackson - thriller (1982)
12. xtc - skylarking (1986)
13. fleetwood mac - rumours (1977)
14. david bowie - earthling (1997)
15. wilco - yankee hotel foxtrot (2002)
16. aphex twin - richard d. james (1997)
17. blonde - parallel lines (1978)
18. the police - ghost in the machine (1981)
19. cardigans - first band on the moon (1996)
20. u2 - zooropa (1993)
21. yes - 90125 (1983)
22. sting - ten summoners tales (1993)
23. van halen - 1984 (1984)
24. peter gabriel - us (1992)
25. roni size reprazent - new forms (1997)
26. faith no more - the real thing (1989)
27. radiohead - ok computer (1997)
28. the beatles - abbey road (1969)
29. foo fighters - there is nothing left to lose (1999)
30. prince - purple rain
31. pink floyd - the dark side of the moon (1973)
32. radiohead - the bends (1995)
33. the cars - the cars (1978)
34. the strokes - is this it (2001)
35. no doubt - tragic kingdom (1995)

PHOTOS from FLA trip

2009-09-16T13:07:00.003-04:00

a bit delayed, but who really cares? here's a few photos taken in auburndale, winter haven, and in the suburbs north of orlando. these were all taken with my iphone, so the image quality is dubious at best:

THIS BLOG IS 5 YEARS OLD.

2009-09-15T13:58:00.003-04:00

time flies when you are bored at the office.

... and in two days i'll be 35.

frightening. lately, i've been getting my first big shot of pondering my own mortality. its quite creepy. at least i still look young. this saturday marks 1 year since i quite smoking, which will probably add a few years back on to my life span. WIN.

THE BEATLES remastered and rock banded

2009-09-09T12:28:00.006-04:00

Like most people, I was initially confused by EMI’s decision to release remastered versions of all 13 albums by the Liverpool pop group Beatles, a 1960s band so obscure that their music is not even available on iTunes. The entire proposition seems like a boondoggle. I mean, who is interested in old music? And who would want to listen to anything so inconveniently delivered on massive four-inch metal discs with sharp, dangerous edges?

The answer: no one. When the box arrived in the mail, I briefly considered smashing the entire unopened collection with a ball-peen hammer and throwing it into the mouth of a lion. But then, against my better judgment, I arbitrarily decided to give this hippie shit an informal listen. And I gotta admit—I’m impressed. This band was mad prolific.

It is not easy to categorize the Beatles’ music; more than any other group, their sound can be described as “Beatlesque.” It’s akin to a combination of Badfinger, Oasis, Corner Shop, and everyother rock band that’s ever existed. The clandestine power derived from the autonomy of the group’s composition—each Beatle has his own distinct persona, even though their given names are almost impossible to remember. There was John Lennon (the mean one), Paul

Stereo versionMcCartney (the hummus eater), George Harrison (the best dancer), and drummer Ringo Starr (The Cat). Even the most casual consumers will be overwhelmed by the level of invention and the degree of change displayed over their scant eight-year recording career, a span complicated by McCartney’s tragic 1966 death and the 1968 addition of Lennon’s wife Yoko Ono, a woman so beloved by the band that they requested her physical presence in the studio during the making of Let It Be.

There are 217 songs on this anthology, many of which seem like snippets of conversation between teenagers who spend an inordinate amount of time at the post office. The Beatles’ “long play” debut, Please Please Me, came in 1963, opening with a few rudimentary remarks from Mr. McCartney: “Well, she was just 17 / If you know what I mean.” If this is supposed to indicate that the female in question was born in 1946, then yes, we know exactly what you mean, Paul. If it means something else, I remain in the dark.

These young, sensitive, genteel-yet-stalkerish Beatles sure did spend a lot of time thinking about girls. Virtually every song they wrote during this period focuses on the establishment and recognition of consensual romance, often through paper and quill (“P.S. I Love You”), sometimes by means of monosyllabic nonsense (“Love Me Do”), and occasionally through oral sex (“Please Please Me”). The intensely private Mr. Harrison asks a few coquettish questions two-thirds of the way through the opus (“Do You Want To Know A Secret”) before Mr. Lennon obliterates the back door with the greatest rock voice of all time, accidentally inventing Matthew Broderick’s career. There are a few bricks hither and yon (thanks for wasting 123 seconds of my precious life, Bobby Scott and Ric Marlow) but on balance, I have to give Please Please Me an A, despite the fact that it doesn’t really have a proper single.

Things get more interesting on With The Beatles, particularly for audiences who feel the hi-hat should be the dominant musical instrument on all musical recordings. Only one track lasts longer than three minutes, but structurally, it would appear that the Beatles were more musical than any songwriters who had ever come before them, even when performing material that had been conceived for The Music Man. It’s hard to understand why the rock press wasn’t covering the Beatles during this stretch of their career; one can only assume that the band members’ lack of charisma and uneasy rapport made them unappealing to the mainstream media. Still, the music itself has verve—With The Beatles earns another A.

A Hard Day’s Night provided the soundtrack for a 1964 British movie of the same name, a film mostly remembered for its subtle advocacy of euthanasia. The album initiates like the Pixies’ “Here Comes Your Man,” and never gets any worse. These Beatles were doomed to a career in the cut-out bin of record stores, but they were clearly learning lessons about life: Though they’d covered “Money (That’s What I Want)” just one year before, they had now reached the conclusion Mono version that money cannot purchase love.

It was a period of inner growth and introspection—they wanted to know why people cry and why people lie, and they embraced the impermanent pleasure of dance. They also experimented with the harmonica, but that turned out okay. I was originally going to give Hard Day’s Night an A-, but then I heard the middle eighth from “You Can’t Do That” (“Ev’rybody’s greeeeeen / ’Cause I’m the one who won your love”), so I’m changing my grade to A. I assume the accompanying movie is on hulu or something, but I don’t feel like searching for it.

The Beatles get darker and (I guess) cheaper on Beatles For Sale, now fixating on their insecurities (“I’m A Loser”) and how difficult it is to waltz a girl into bed when her ex is a corpse (“Baby’s In Black”). There are a bunch of unexpected covers on this album, so it’s kind of like Van Halen’s Diver Down. It only warrants a B, despite the tear-generating mondo-pleasure of “I’ll Follow The Sun.” More importantly, Beatles For Sale nicely sets the supper table for Help!, a mesmerizing combination of who the Beatles used to be and who they were about to become.

The signature track is “Yesterday” (the last song Mr. McCartney recorded before his death in an early-morning car accident), but the best cut is “You’re Going To Lose That Girl,” a song that oozes with moral ambiguity. Is “You’re Going To Lose That Girl” an example of Mr. McCartney’s fresh-faced enlightenment (in that he threatens to punish some dude for being an unresponsive boyfriend), or an illustration of Mr. Lennon’s quiet misogyny (in that he views women as empty, non-specific possessions that can be pillaged from male rivals)? Each possibility seems both plausible and impossible.

What makes Beatles lyrics so wonderful is not that they can be interpreted to mean whatever the listener wants; what makes them wonderful is the way they seamlessly adopt contradictory (yet equally valid) interpretations as the listener matures. It’s unfathomable how a couple of going-nowhere guys in their early 20s could be this emotively sophisticated, but that’s why the little-known Help! gets an A.

After Mr. McCartney was buried near Beaconsfield Road in Liverpool, Beatles bass-playing duties were secretly assigned to William Campbell, a McCartney sound-alike and an NBA-caliber smokehound. This lineup change resulted in the companion albums Rubber Soul and Revolver, both of which are okay.

Despite its commercial failure, Rubber Soul allegedly caused half-deaf Brian Wilson to make Pet Sounds. (I assume this is also why EMI released a mono version of the catalogue—it allows consumers to experience this album the same way Wilson did.) If you like harmonies or guitar overdubs or the sun or Norwegian lesbians or taking drugs during funerals, you will probably sleep with these records on the first date. Rubber Soul gets an A- because I don’t speak French. Revolver gets an A+, mostly because of “She Said She Said” and “For No One,” but partially because I hate filing my taxes.

1967 proved to be a turning point for the Beatles—the overwhelming lack of public interest made touring a fiscal impossibility, subsequently forcing them to focus exclusively on studio recordings. Spearheaded by the increasingly mustachioed Fake Paul, the four Beatles donned comedic Technicolor dreamcoats, consumed 700 sheets of mediocre acid on the roof of the studio, and proceeded to make Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, a groundbreaking album no one actually likes. A concept album about finding a halfway decent song for Ringo, Sgt. Pepper has a few satisfactory moments (“Lovely Rita” totally nails the experience of almost having sex with a city employee), but this is only B+ work.

It mostly seems like a slightly superior incarnation of The Rolling Stones’ Their Satanic Majesties Request, a record that (ironically) came out seven months after this one. Pop archivists might be intrigued by this strange parallel between the Beatles and the Stones catalogue—it often seems as if every interesting thing The Rolling Stones ever did was directly preceded by something the Beatles had already accomplished, and it almost feels like the Stones completely stopped evolving once the Beatles broke up in 1970. But this, of course, is simply a coincidence. I mean, what kind of bozo would compare the Beatles to The Rolling Stones?

After the humiliating public failure of Pepper, the Beatles returned to form with Magical Mystery Tour, an unsubtle compilation of the trippiest (“Blue Jay Way”) and kid-friendliest (“Your Mother Should Know”) material they ever made. “I Am The Walrus” seems like sarcasm, but “Penny Lane” makes me want to purchase a digital camera and apply to barber college. Will history ultimately validate Magical Mystery Tour as the band’s signature work? Only time will tell. A. Now hitting on all 16 cylinders, the Beatles bolted back to the woodshed for The Beatles, a blandly designed masterwork that could inspire any reasonable citizen of California to launch a race war.

To this day, we don’t know much about the four men who comprised the Beatles, but listening to this exceedingly non-black album makes one detail totally clear—these guys truly loved each other. How else could they make such wonderful music? In fact, they adored and trusted each other so much that they didn’t even feel the need to perform some of the songs together. It must have been a great era to be in this band. Amazingly, they even wrangled a cameo from noted blues musician Eric Clapton (still best known for his contributions to John Mayhall’s Bluesbreakers). The Beatles is almost beyond an A+; in retrospect, they probably should have made this a triple album. If nothing else, they could have simply included the five Pepper-y songs from Yellow Submarine (C-), which I think might have been a Halloween record.

Let It Be comes next (or last, depending on how you view the universe), and it’s a wholly confusing project—it’s often difficult to tell who is playing lead guitar, and many of the songs could either be about having sex or dropping out of society, which might be the same thing. Fake Paul’s beard looks tremendous, and his (increasingly less-lilting) songs are still beautiful, but his focus feels askew; he seems like a guy who wants to make a record with his wife (which is what Mr. Lennon was already doing, although for totally different reasons). “I’ve Got A Feeling” is my preferred track, but it’s also the first time I really don’t believe what these fellows are trying to tell me. I give Let It Be a B-, although The Replacements get an A and the cast of Sesame Street gets an B+.

Though the artwork for Abbey Road seems eerily familiar (that’s actually my car in the photo’s background), the music it symbolizes is vaguely alien—I don’t know why they wrote a song about a Clue character, but that’s par for the course for these lovemaking, chain-smoking longhairs. The opener sucks (seems as crappy as mid-period Aerosmith), but Mr. Harrison follows with a wedding song that effortlessly proves why people who try to quantify visceral emotion should just stop trying.

The entire band seems oddly unserious on this endeavor, but in the best possible way—for the first time in a long time, they sound as free as they look. That said, the audio quality is especially heavy and detailed; one suspects most of the arduous lifting on Abbey Road fell on the shoulders of unheralded Jeff Beck producer George Martin. Everything ends with “The End,” but then Fake Paul decided to add a superfluous 24-second mini-song that wipes away any historical closure Abbey Road might have otherwise achieved. The real Mr. McCartney would have never even considered such frivolity. I give Abbey Road an A, but begrudgingly.

I’ve noticed that this EMI box also includes the gratuitously titled singles collection Past Masters, but I’m not even going to play it. How could a song called “Rain” not be boring? I feel like I’ve already heard enough. These are nice little albums, but I can’t imagine anyone actually shelling out $260 to buy these discs. There’s just too much great free music on the Internet, you know? You might find the instructional, third-person perspective of “Sie Leibt Dich” charming and snappy (particularly if you’re trying to learn German the hard way), but first check out “myspace.org,” a popular website with a forward-thinking musical flavor. That, my rockers, is the future. That, and videogames.

Chuck Klosterman is the author of six books, including the 2008 novel Downtown Owl and the forthcoming collection Eating The Dinosaur.

in other 09.09.09 related bizness... because of the huge beatles remastered and rock band releases being released today, apple is holding their summer event today for a reason. any minute now they will be announcing that the beatles are finally on itunes. it looks like paul is about to make another 20 million.

today is also the birthday for my phoenix friend matt fisher, my detroit friend casey riggleman and the hardest working man in show business, clint wells.

ITS BEEN 20 YEARS - part 2 - i was born here

2009-09-01T11:06:00.011-04:00

alison and i are going to my home town(s) this weekend, so i decided to do some catching up online. here's some background: i was born in haines city, fl., (once considered the citris epicenter of the nation and the site of the first citris processing plant). except for a year when i was an infant, i live my entire life, up until about 19 in central florida in the towns of haines city (where i was born), davenport (1982-1989) and auburndale (1989-1994 /1995 / 1997).

according to the wiki entry, haines city was originally called clay cut. i grew up in what is called the lakeland-winter haven metro area. basically, its a bunch of small towns directly linked, and the residents often work, visit, go to church, shop, etc. - in neighboring towns.

davenport has seen a lot of development for rental and tourism use, north of the city, heading toward orlando. a lot of these have been used by british tourists who continue to perceive northern polk county as some sort of shangri-la.

apparently there have been a lot of improvements and expansions in haines city / davenport in the past decade. polk county in general has seen explosive growth, based on the proximity to the i-4 corridor and disney/orlando. the road that links auburndale to the interstate has been completely filled with development since i left the area. on lake eva, the lake that connects to city hall, the library and a few schools, is also where my dad used to lifeguard in the 60's. they are redeveloping the city park there, and i'm looking forward to seeing it.

although i only lived there for about 5 or 6 years, i consider auburndale to be my home town. this is where i spend 3 years of high school, 2 years of college, and a few months after college. here's a map centered at auburndale, with winter haven to the east, and haines city/davenport to the north east:

here's a basic run down of where i lived in florida growing up, and here is the street view link on google:

1974-1975: haines city, fl.
1975-1976: rogersville, al.
1976-1977: lakeland, fl.
1977-1982: haines city, fl.
1982-1989: davenport, fl.
1989-1994: auburndale, fl.
1994-1994: st. augustine, fl.
1995-1995: auburndale, fl.
1995-1997: jacksonville, fl.
1997-1997: auburndale, fl.
1997-1998: miami, fl.
1998-1998: altamonte springs, fl.

facebook - 20 years of concerts

2009-08-31T18:21:00.002-04:00

i've been doing a lot of technical oriented posts on my tumblr, and most of my day to day postings have gone up on my facebook, hence the lack of blogs. meh.

my mobile photo uploads are here. my page of links posted or forwarded to facebook are here.

in keeping with the 20 years hence thing, here's a selected listing of 80 concerts from the past 20 years. i haven't included festivals, or shows with a ton of bands, and this is about half of the bands i can remember, but its quite representative of who i've seen.

METALLICA - QUEENSRYCHE / LAKELAND CC ARENA
RUSH / ORLANDO ARENA
DANZIG / YBOR CITY
FATES WARNING / MASCUERADE YBOR CITY
DEATH ANGEL - FORBIDDEN / JANUS LANDING
BAD COMPANY - DAMN YANKEES / ORLANDO ARENA
DIO - JUDAS PRIEST / LAKELAND CC ARENA
LIVING COLOUR - KINGS X / ORLANDO SPORTS CLUB
JOE SATRIANI / TUPPERWARE CENTER
QUEENSRYCHE / ORLANDO ARENA

YES / ORLANDO ARENA
VAN HALEN / ALICE N' CHAINS / ORLANDO AR
JELLO BIAFRA/ MOON CLUB
METALLICA / ORLANDO ARENA
FAITH NO MORE - HELMET / USF SPECIAL EVENTS CENTER
U2 - THE PIXIES / MIAMI ARENA
TEARS FOR FEARS - JELLYBEAN / ST. PETE MAHAFFEY
STEWART COPELAND & THE RHYTHMATISTS - VINX / UF
STING - MELISSA ETHRIDGE / ORLANDO ARENA
STING - MELISSA ETHRIDGE / UF ARENA

SOUNDGARDEN / THE EDGE
PINK FLOYD / TAMPA STADIUM
YES / USF SUN DOME
VAN HALEN / ORLANDO ARENA
ALANIS MORRISSETTE / UNF ARENA
HERBIE HANCOCK / UNF
KATHLEEN BATTLE / JACKSONVILLE EVENTS CENTER
TEARS FOR TEARS / MIAMI CAMEO CLUB
STEEL PULSE / UNF GREEN
STING - NATALIE MERCHANT / TAMPA LEGENDS FIELD

KISS / ST. PETE THUNDERDOME
HENRY ROLLINS / UNF THEATRE
SMASHING PUMPKINS / JACKSONVILLE COLISEUM
PRINCE / SAN ANTONIO
FLEETWOOD MAC / ORLANDO ARENA
DAVID BOWIE / THE CHILI PEPPER
U2 / TAMPA STADIUM
BRIAN SETZER ORCHESTRA / HOB ORLANDO
VAN HALEN / HOB ORLANDO
THIN LIZARD DAWN / LENNY KRAVITZ / HOB ORLANDO

CHILI PEPPERS - FOO FIGHTERS / DESERT SKY PAVILLION
NIN - TOOL / AMERICA WEST ARENA
FUEL / CELEBRITY THATRE
QUEENS OF THE STONE AGE - FOO FIGHTERS / AZ. STATE FAIR
KISS - TED NUGENT / CRICKET PAVILLION
PETE YORN - JOHN SPENCER / NITA'S HIDEAWAY
THE STROKES - CUTGRASS5 /POINTS MUSIC HALL
BRMC - VUE / THE NICK
BECK / CHASTAIN PARK, ATL
STATESIDE - KINGS OF LEON / 12TH & PORTER

VERBENA / THE NICK
SUN VOLT / WORKPLAY
VERBENA / ZYDECO
JOHN BLACK / 3RD & LINDSLEY
PRINCE / BJCC
SEVEN DUST / VERIZON
WILCO / THE RITZ
WILCO / ALABAMA THEATRE
THE DAMNWELLS / THE NICK
MY MORNING JACKET / SLOSS

GALACTIC / WORKPLAY
THE DELTA SPIRIT / BOTTLETREE
THE STROKES / SLOSS
NIN / OAK MOUNTAIN
AQUALUNG - THE BRIDGES / WORKPLAY
BROKEN SOCIAL SCENE / WORKPLAY
THE ALBUM LEAF / BOTTLETREE
SHINY TOY GUNS / THE NICK
YO LA TENGO / WORKPLAY
MIDLAKE - THROUGH THE SPARKS / BOTTLETREE

JELLO BIAFRA / BOTTLETREE
TED LEO / BOTTLETREE
PETE YORN / WORKPLAY
THE DAMNWELLS / WORKPLAY
ST. VINCENT / BOTTLETREE ‘07
THE DONNAS / BOTTLETREE
THE DAMNWELLS / WORKPLAY
DEERHUNTER / BOTTLETREE
ELBOW / WEMBLEY ARENA UK
ST. VINCENT / BOTTLETREE ‘09

the ISO50 color management guide

2009-08-18T11:49:00.002-04:00

I. Workspace / Digital Darkroom
II. Calibration
III. Color Mode & Application Settings
IV. Printing
V. Conclusion
VI. Discussion

the original blog article post

ITS BEEN 20 YEARS - part.1

2009-08-17T18:46:00.008-04:00

today, 20 years ago, i attended orientation at auburndale high school. it was a week before starting 10th grade, and i had lived in auburndale for about 8 days. at orientation i met several guys who would become good friends through high school, and my future girlfriend for the next 11+ years (depending on who's counting).

i had moved from davenport, where i had lived from august '82 until the spring of '89. '89 was a pivotal year to say the least, and when i'm honest with myself, it was probably the most important, fortunate year of my life, even though i almost got shot two different times.

at the beginning of '89, i was starting my 2nd semester in high school at haines city (the city where i was born). i was struggling socially and acedemically. i had fallen in with a group of goth/progressive/punk/metalheads who were all quite unique and influential.

by the end of spring, we had sold our house and moved in with my mom's long term boyfriend, in some attempt to reconcile their on again, off again relationship, that stretched back to '81. our time there, and their relationship. all ended in a flash of craziness, that resulted in us driving around the neighboring cities looking for a house to by that was far away from the bad influences around in haines city. this was probably july '89...

when my first year of high school ended in june '89, i was smoking weed, failing english, and in need of a new direction. we rented a house for a month while my mom and searched for the perfect house, which we ended up finding in early august '89, in auburndale, florida.

over night, i came from being in a perilous situation, to being a very happy, popular kid. the day that all changed, was august 17th, 1989. i retained a few good friends from davenport, mainly russell finchum & todd roberts, who'm i lost contact with by the late 90's. i live in auburndale until i moved away briefly for 6 months, in the summer of '94, when i lived in st. augustine. i moved away again in august '95, to attend UNF in jacksonville. the last time i visited central florida was july 4th weekend, 2003.

alison and i are going back to visit the four connecting towns of my youth - haines city, davenport, auburbdale, winter haven - over this coming labor day weekend. my ex-girlfriend texted me today, reminding me where we met at the orientation, and i replied: time is a blazing bullet. i'll be 55 in no time.

Les Paul RIP

2009-08-13T13:24:00.004-04:00

By LUKE SHERIDAN, Associated Press Writer Luke Sheridan, Associated Press Writer –

WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. – Les Paul, the guitarist and inventor who changed the course of music with the electric guitar and multitrack recording and had a string of hits, many with wife Mary Ford, died on Thursday. He was 94.

According to Gibson Guitar, Paul died of complications from pneumonia at White Plains Hospital. His family and friends were by his side. He had been hospitalized in February 2006 when he learned he won two Grammys for an album he released after his 90th birthday, "Les Paul & Friends: American Made, World Played."

"I feel like a condemned building with a new flagpole on it," he joked.

As an inventor, Paul helped bring about the rise of rock 'n' roll and multitrack recording, which enables artists to record different instruments at different times, sing harmony with themselves, and then carefully balance the "tracks" in the finished recording.

With Ford, his wife from 1949 to 1962, he earned 36 gold records and 11 No. 1 pop hits, including "Vaya Con Dios," "How High the Moon," "Nola" and "Lover." Many of their songs used overdubbing techniques that Paul the inventor had helped develop.

"I could take my Mary and make her three, six, nine, 12, as many voices as I wished," he recalled. "This is quite an asset." The overdubbing technique was highly influential on later recording artists such as the Carpenters. The use of electric guitar gained popularity in the mid-to-late 1940s, and then exploded with the advent of rock the 1950s.

"Suddenly, it was recognized that power was a very important part of music," Paul once said. "To have the dynamics, to have the way of expressing yourself beyond the normal limits of an unamplified instrument, was incredible. Today a guy wouldn't think of singing a song on a stage without a microphone and a sound system."

A tinkerer and musician since childhood, he experimented with guitar amplification for years before coming up in 1941 with what he called "The Log," a four-by-four piece of wood strung with steel strings.

"I went into a nightclub and played it. Of course, everybody had me labeled as a nut." He later put the wooden wings onto the body to give it a tradition guitar shape. In 1952, Gibson Guitars began production on the Les Paul guitar. Pete Townsend of The Who, Steve Howe of Yes, jazz great Al DiMeola and Led Zeppelin's Jimmy Page all made the Gibson Les Paul their trademark six-string.

the bham list - and a few suggestions

2009-08-10T02:45:00.006-04:00

here's the list of birmingham bands as it appears on bham.fm. looks pretty accurate for the most part. a few of these bands like - monarchs, triceratops, wiseblood, lonesome spirit device, broke up or are on hiatus, but overall its representative of the indie rock scene.

it's amusing that the spots aren't on the list, considering they headlined a bham.fm show, but that is the usual with the spots - difficult to accurately categorize. i assume that electroliner will be listed before too long. a few other suggestions for the list: beitthemeans, and the dexateens (even though they are technically from tuscaloosa). yes these are all direct links.

the weekend as a pivoting mechanism with echoes of road steam

2009-08-03T12:21:00.010-04:00

this past weekend was fun, encouraging and frustrating and hot. friday was jody's 30th birthday surprise party. great group of friends, great food, and we got home before 1am. on saturday through the sparks 2.0 had the first real rehearsal, and it went quite well. we played some upbeat songs from the new record, as well as selected songs from their previous ep's and lazarus beach.

immediately after rehearsal, i discivered my truck battery had been killed (by the rain?), and i limped home, where it died again. sunday i had to juggle a bunch of stuff to make it to my first rehearsal with electroliner, which was hectic, but alison pretty much saved me at various points during the weekend.

electroliner is a new band comprised of john strohm & bo butler on guitar/vocals, claire cormany on bass/vocals, pete nice on pedal steel, and myself on drums. the idea is to feature the songs that john, bo and claire bring in, either new or older. in addition, we want to include a lot of fun covers songs that don't suck. both days were dripping hot with rain, humidity and hot temps. it doesn't make loading gear any easier.

hopefully the americana / pop / country vibe of electroliner will complement the 8 headed baby wolf sonic attack of this revamped (and potent) line-up of through the sparks. its nice that pretty much everyone in each band has played/toured together in various line-ups.

in somewhat of a repeat of july '07... i'll play two sets with each band in one night, coming up in september at bottletree, for a benefit show we are putting together for the staff, who got stiffed by the wackoids at city stages.

Stiffed by City Stages

2009-07-30T11:13:00.002-04:00

STIFFED BY CITY STAGES

Here are the top 20 unsecured creditors of the Birmingham Heritage & Cultural Foundation, as listed in the bankruptcy filing of the organizer of City Stages. It is quite sad that Birmingham will be regarded by some in the industry as the City that Duped the Doobies.

1. Doobro Entertainment Corp. (Doobie Brothers)
Glen Ellen, Calif.
$51,000

2. AGGREKO
Jacksonville, Fla.
$47,550

3. Event Operations Group
Helena
$41,000

4. Neville Productions Inc. (Neville Brothers)
New Orleans
$40,500

5. Alabama Stage Productions
Birmingham
$38,932

6. Spectrum Production Services
Minneapolis
$28,000

7. Premier Tent & Event
Oneonta
$26,827

8. Cayenne Creative Group
Birmingham
$23,215

9. Sandra Johnston
Birmingham
$22,800

10. Indigo Girls
Decatur, Ga.
$22,500

10. Corey Smith
Atlanta
$22,500

12. Vicki Schenck-Atha
Homewood
$20,393

13. All Events LLC
Birmingham
$18,947

14. Fence 4 Rent
Oneonta
$18,799

15. Guster Touring
Cambridge, Mass.
$18,000

16. JGL II Touring
Encino, Calif.
$17,500

17. Dr. Kenneth Noisewater Inc.
Sherman Oaks, Calif.
$15,750

18. ThyssenKrupp Safway Inc.
Pelham
$15,554

19. Bottletree Catering
Birmingham
$15,328

20. Hill Realty Co.
Birmingham
$15,230

satirical pop athieism from the commonwealth intelligensia

2009-07-28T17:30:00.007-04:00

xtc's dear god may possibly be the most well written, controversial and effective pop song ever released on the subject of - god being addressed directly by humans, who happen not to believe in god. god shuffled his feet, the title track from the 2nd album by canada's crash test dummies comes in at a close 2nd place. the satire continues into the video treatments for these songs.

in dear god, xtc's primary singer-songwriter addresses the camera as if he is speaking to god, while ordinary townfolk gather in a tree in a nod to either the garden, primate/evolution theory - or both. the video for god shuffled his feet is quite overt, being set in a small theatre where god turns out to be a wooden puppet controlled by a frail old man.

in an odd happenstance of mutual intellectual affinity, crash test dummies covered another satirical song by xtc called the ballad of peter pumpkinhead, ironically, for the dumb and dumber motion picture soundtrack. ...peter pumpkinhead employs a unique spin on the subject of would-be-deities, in that 'peter pumpkinhead' is killed for being "too good" by being nailed to "a chunk of wood" - as a sort of easy-going modern day messiah.

electroliner

2009-07-27T11:32:00.004-04:00

i joined a band late last year, that i have yet to play with. now, eight months later, we are having our first full rehearsal. the band is to be comprised of john strohm, pete nice, clair cormany, bo butler and myself. apparently we have a show next tuesday, and one in mid september. neato.

trent reznor sounds off on the music industry he helped to euthanize, and what should come next

2009-07-22T20:15:00.006-04:00

Posted by Trent_Reznor:

I posted a message on Twitter yesterday stating I thought The Beastie Boys and TopSpin Media "got it right" regarding how to sell music in this day and age. Here's a link to their store:

[illcommunication.beastieboys.com]

Shortly thereafter, I got some responses from people stating the usual "yeah, if you're an established artist - what if you're just trying to get heard?" argument. In an interview I did recently this topic came up and I'll reiterate what I said here.

If you are an unknown / lesser-known artist trying to get noticed / established:

* Establish your goals. What are you trying to do / accomplish? If you are looking for mainstream super-success (think Lady GaGa, Coldplay, U2, Justin Timberlake) - your best bet in my opinion is to look at major labels and prepare to share all revenue streams / creative control / music ownership. To reach that kind of critical mass these days your need old-school marketing muscle and that only comes from major labels. Good luck with that one.

If you're forging your own path, read on.

* Forget thinking you are going to make any real money from record sales. Make your record cheaply (but great) and GIVE IT AWAY. As an artist you want as many people as possible to hear your work. Word of mouth is the only true marketing that matters.

To clarify: Parter with a TopSpin or similar or build your own website, but what you NEED to do is this - give your music away as high-quality DRM-free MP3s. Collect people's email info in exchange (which means having the infrastructure to do so) and start building your database of potential customers. Then, offer a variety of premium packages for sale and make them limited editions / scarce goods. Base the price and amount available on what you think you can sell. Make the packages special - make them by hand, sign them, make them unique, make them something YOU would want to have as a fan. Make a premium download available that includes high-resolution versions (for sale at a reasonable price) and include the download as something immediately available with any physical purchase. Sell T-shirts. Sell buttons, posters... whatever.

Don't have a TopSpin as a partner? Use Amazon for your transactions and fulfillment. [www.amazon.com]

Use TuneCore to get your music everywhere. [www.tunecore.com]

Have a realistic idea of what you can expect to make from these and budget your recording appropriately.

The point is this: music IS free whether you want to believe that or not. Every piece of music you can think of is available free right now a click away. This is a fact - it sucks as the musician BUT THAT'S THE WAY IT IS (for now). So... have the public get what they want FROM YOU instead of a torrent site and garner good will in the process (plus build your database).

The Beastie Boys' site offers everything you could possibly want in the formats you would want it in - available right from them, right now. The prices they are charging are more than you should be charging - they are established and you are not. Think this through.

The database you are amassing should not be abused, but used to inform people that are interested in what you do when you have something going on - like a few shows, or a tour, or a new record, or a webcast, etc.

Have your MySpace page, but get a site outside MySpace - it's dying and reads as cheap / generic. Remove all Flash from your website. Remove all stupid intros and load-times. MAKE IT SIMPLE TO NAVIGATE AND EASY TO FIND AND HEAR MUSIC (but don't autoplay). Constantly update your site with content - pictures, blogs, whatever. Give people a reason to return to your site all the time.

Put up a bulletin board and start a community. Engage your fans (with caution!) Make cheap videos. Film yourself talking. Play shows. Make interesting things. Get a Twitter account. Be interesting. Be real. Submit your music to blogs that may be interested. NEVER CHASE TRENDS. Utilize the multitude of tools available to you for very little cost of any - Flickr / YouTube / Vimeo / SoundCloud / Twitter etc.

If you don't know anything about new media or how people communicate these days, none of this will work. The role of an independent musician these days requires a mastery of first hand use of these tools. If you don't get it - find someone who does to do this for you. If you are waiting around for the phone to ring or that A & R guy to show up at your gig - good luck, you're going to be waiting a while.

Hope this helps, and I'll scour responses for intelligent comments I can respond to.

TR

TopSpin Media info:
[topspinmedia.com]

UPDATE 1:
Thanks for the insightful comments already - when I get a moment (and a reliable internet connection) I'll respond to some of your very valid points. Please keep in mind - these were just some thoughts I quickly wrote down and posted and not meant to be a complete guide by any means. I've neglected to get into publishing and some other things. I'll update pretty soon.

UPDATE 2:
Here's a message from Ian Rogers of TopSpin
[forum.nin.com]

UPDATE 3:
Here's a few responses - more to come when I get time.

Bandcamp / [bandcamp.com]

This looks excellent to me. I have not used it but it appears to be great. This would cover your digital distribution of files and the collecting / amassing of your database. Looks like you'd still need someplace to handle fulfillment of merchandise / physical goods (like the Amazon link above).

Pay-what-you-want model :
This is where you offer tracks or albums for a user-determined price. I hate this concept, and here's why. Some have argued that giving music away free devalues music. I disagree. Asking people what they think music is worth devalues music.

Don't believe me? Write and record something you really believe is great and release it to the public as a "pay-what-you-think-it's-worth" model and then let's talk. Read a BB entry from a "fan" rationalizing why your whole album is worth 50 cents because he only likes 5 songs on it. Trust me on this one - you will be disappointed, disheartened and find yourself resenting a faction of your audience.

This is your art! This is your life! It has a value and you the artist are not putting that power in the hands of the audience - doing so creates a dangerous perception issue. If the FEE you are charging is zero, you are not empowering the fan to say this is only worth an insultingly low monetary value. Don't be misled by Radiohead's In Rainbows stunt. That works one time for one band once - and you are not Radiohead.

Why put something on iTunes for a price fans can get it from your site for free? Won't it piss people off?

Do it and don't worry about it. Lots of people apparently shop at iTunes exclusively and that's where they get their music. They are generally not the people that would be mad to discover they could have gotten the same record (at a better bit-rate) for free elsewhere. We put The Slip up at nin.com for free at all fidelities and STILL sold a fairly large amount of copies at iTunes for $9.99. At the time iTunes did not allow variable pricing (I don't know what the deal is now).

My Flash comments
I don't hate Flash, just go easy on it and avoid anything that takes time to load - ESPECIALLY your front page.

Managers / booking agents / small labels
Any or all of these may be good for you - or not. Here's a truth: nobody knows what to do right now, me included. The music business model is broken right now. That means every single job position in the music industry has to re-educate itself and learn / discover / adapt a new way. Change can be painful and hard and scary. If any of these entities we're discussing are interested in you, ask them about their strategies IN DETAIL. None of them know for sure what to do.

Some of them have an idea of how to negotiate these waters. Most of them don't. If you are young and use the internet, you know more about your audience than they do - for sure. This is a revolution and you can be a part of it. The old guard is dying, if you have good ideas - try them.

Bottom line - before getting involved with anyone else, ask yourself what it is they can clearly bring to your table and is it worth their cut. Do they know what they're talking about, and does their strategies match yours?

I have not gotten into the basics which I believe are self-evident: believe in what you do, do the best work you can, work hard, practice, practice more, find your voice, hone in on it, take chances, play live (if applicable), practice more, keep believing in yourself and prepare for the long haul.

it was 40 years ago today.

2009-07-20T12:27:00.004-04:00

the summer of '69 was a big one. the first moon landing, woodstock, the last beatles sessions, the manson family's tate/la bianca murders... bryan adams getting his first real six string at the five-and-dime...

fourty years later, it is the summer of michael jackson memorial collector issues, congressional overdrive, economic recession, and another trip to the international space station. an interesting note: michael jackson is at the top of the charts this month, and fourty years ago today, the jackson 5 re-recorded the song you've changed for ther debut album, Diana Ross Presents The Jackson 5, issued in December 1969. interesting song title.

today, the shuttle crew are doing a spacewalk, and are repairing a toilet that has gone on the fritz. below are some images from this week, and from the apollo 11 mission from 1969: