shawn avery

ten years ago today, ashby and i released our girls+cars ep. this was for our band the ashes, which consumed all of our spare time from the spring of 2002 through sometime in 2006 or 2007 or 2008. it morphed into wiseblood, which also released an ep in july in 2008, although the recordings were pretty much finished in 2006. girls+cars was the first result of my delayed adulthood / 2nd adolescence, which was brought on by the massive black void that happened after my move from phoenix to birmingham. essentially an 11 year relationship imploded, i was abandoned in the desert, and moved i with all of my shit to the deep south the week after 9/11. i pretty much emotionally checked out for a few years. by some estimates, i was neurologically altered. i decided to waste those few years playing in an indie band with no future. ashby did too, until he started law school in 2004. while he was in law school, we developed a more mature project based around the wiseblood aest...

maybe i'll fill in the blanks. or start working on my archive site in earnest. anyway. i'm over facebook and everything else. i just want to write and archive and ramble. this is something i've suspected for 15 years. the show i watched with my girlfriend in 1997 in ft. lauderdale was the longest show david bowie ever performed. 36 songs, 3 and a half hours. massively energetic. and it wasn't in an arena. it was in a 400-500 person dance club. i've confirmed this by reading some interviews:  http://indieethos.wordpress.com/tag/bowie-earthling/ and the setlist is below. as i approach 40, i tend to forget that i've been a part of some monumental performances. October 8th, 1997 Set :         Dead Man Walking (Acoustic) Quicksand Waiting for the Man (The Velvet Underground cover) Always Crashing in the Same Car The Supermen My Death The Jean Genie I'm Afraid of Americans (V1 Remix) Strangers When We Meet Fame The Hearts Filthy Lesson Sev...

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....

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 aforementio...

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, 1...

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...