Skip to main content

saturday night's alright for fighting

what a weekend. friday night ashby and i completely deconstructed the lyrics for a song tentatively titled "beautiful." it's probably the most technical and hard to pin-down track on the album. i may end up re-recording half the damn thing. we had a quite a bit of fun sitting there in his study.

got home late friday and watched a hunter s. thompson dvd i had ordered the night he popped a cap in his own ass. it is a documentary called - breakfast with hunter. i suggest anyone with an interest in writing, thinking, shooting, talking and dreaming to order it. the footage is so candid, that by the end of the film, i felt like i had stayed the weekend at owl farm.

saturday i moved some of my stuff to storage then hopped in the truck with jesse to play a free radio benefit in jacksonville, alabama - where the women are strong and the sheep are scared.

after getting there in plenty of time for soundcheck and then tolerating an inept kid running sound, i was approached by some redneck evil bastard with a cousin for a mother and told to tell my band to hurry up and get started because there were six bands that night. excuse me?

i don't think this guy understood that we were an out of town band, playing a free show for a nothing radio station. and that we had been waiting on the sound-boy to get his shit together. at one point i told him to put a "gating" effect on the kick drum. his response? "what's a gate?" i almost left.

so we played this horrid set, immersed in bad monitoring and aborted transitions. as a bonus, we had to end the set early in order to give the other five bands a chance to "shine." we get to go back again this friday and do it all over again. albeit this time we headline, get paid, and call the shots. if that imbred fucker says anything to me again, he's going home via ambulance and a glyco-drip.

upon re-entering civilization about 11pm, i changed clothes, and headed out to the garage pub where ashby and his brother, et al were hanging out. it was good to see all of them looking so - good. i talked with the singer for beitthemeans and we both agreed that sometimes a shitty sounding demo that is heartfelt is sometimes the way to go. he's a great writer and has a guitar style that moves me to drive fast.

then it was over to the nick. all of my favorite people had converged and were in stellar moods. i got into an argument over the "best monitoring in a studio" with randy hunter, (i won the argument) downed half a dozen vodkas, got a nice surprise visit from my new favorite person, and the bands were killer. the new band, "the rewinds" have a new singer who blew me away. bad name, good band.

i talked with the guys in through the sparks and got the lo-down on their ep. they'll be putting out two ep's this year. eventually, i jumped into a cab with amber and judah somewhere on the cusp of 5am. many thanks to those two. there's a right way and a wrong way to do things. i'm a jedi.

today is the 40th anniversary of the selma march. i'm SURE dubya is going to do his best to honor today as best he can. he's such a great man.

Popular posts from this blog

republicans + killer artist + jesse payne album

this is one of the best clips i've seen regarding the election, via salon.com, could this be the real enemy ? also check this out... 1. this lady does some great art. it reminds me of some of matthew barney's work. 2. she uses dead animals. and - yep... she kills them herself. that's creepy and brilliant at the same time. here's the nathalia edenmont exhibit . and here's the rationale for the art-killings via the host gallery, wetterling. i don't really have an opinion. i just thought i should share that little art nugget. ...moving on... i got the final packaged verison of the jesse payne solo album. it was very well done. the front and back photo is of canterbury church here in birmingham. the liner book is solid white, with plain black text. very simple and clean. i like it. i'll post a pic in a few days. pay attention to rock radio in the next several weeks and you'll probably hear some promos for the album that is slated to drop in election day. ...

rubys / end scene

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...

through the sparks darfur concert clips

mark nelson, jody neslon's brother... has posted some youtube clips of the set we played during the darfur benefit show. i'm the black speck in the left corner. you can see me rocking the tamborine on a few of these. everytime i played keys or guitar i seem to vanish. even the huge black grand piano seems to be absent. great show. great sound. huge crowd. lots of fun. and i think we saved africa... ha. through the sparks proper - greg, jody, the mimikakis brothers and james... all played with a great sense of groove during this set. i had time to listen... great stuff. several new songs were played during the set. like a dove , buddy holly's gun , vampires , turn everything off . the set not only featured chad fisher, gary wheat and myself... but also featured a 7 minute multi-percussionist ensemble, which you can see the beginnings of, on the clip buddy holly's gun . the horn hook on like a dove is pure magic. the horns also sound fantastic on the final if and...