shawn avery

by terry hickman As luck would have it, my first exposure to Nine Inch Nails was the MTV video of "Closer." Because I heard and saw them together from the very beginning, the song and the video have always been inseparable in my memory and thinking. That first viewing made my hair stand on end. It was also my first exposure to anything resembling "Industrial" music, and I felt I'd finally Come Home. I had no idea anybody was making music using machines, industrial noises, traffic sounds, all of that. I'd always thought I was a little weird for hearing music in trains' wheels clacking, in printing presses rotating, in chains rattling and wind humming through power lines. Here there was a whole musical field created around those things I'd secretly responded to all my life! But more than that, "Closer" was the first video I'd seen that looked as if its makers (director Mark Romanek and Trent Reznor) really had a sense of what a music vide...

my friend rebecca held a "metal" themed party at bottletree a week or so back... check out this photo. brilliant. also... praise be to allah... no doubt is making another record . i'm aware that they are a mega huge band and that its not cool too like them anymore, unless you are a fashion-victim 18 year old girl... although you HAD to like them in the fall of '94, or risk being beheaded by the state sanctioned music style nazis. i like them .

on 07.07.07 i'll be playing two shows in one night... at the 40 watt in athens, georgia... i'll be playing with through the sparks and john strohm. label mates 13ghosts will be there as well. birmingham takes over athens .

i didn't go to city stages this year. i had a show to play with john strohm in atlanta . a huge portion of my friends all went to bonnaroo in tenn . and they got to see the police and wilco , etc. bastards. i could have gotten artist passes to city stages, but i was too lazy to ask. the spots were basically invited to play city stages... we passed. i haven't played the festival since 2003, and i haven't been excited about the line-up since 2005. last year i had a friend in town from LA, and plenty of artist passes., and we had a great time . an artist pass makes the festival more fun, and more tolerable... you can walk around back stage, get to the good beer, stand in the shade, etc. but this year, i had no desire to go. here's the line-up . pathetic. wade of the wade on birmingham blog posted a fantastic, well organized treatise on the death, or impending death of this misguided festival. i've worked with people affiliated with city stages over the past...

mutherfucker. wow. june 29th.

i'm playing the 40 watt twice in one night. this is very cool. 06.16.07 - w/ john p. strohm @ star bar (atlanta) 06.21.07 - w/ the spots @ innovation depot 06.23.07 - w/ through the sparks @ the nick 07.06.07 - w/ through the sparks @ jj's bohemia (chattanooga) 07.07.07 - w/ john p. strohm @ 40 watt (athens) 07.07.07 - w/ through the sparks @ 40 watt (athens)

so... the spots ep has been sent out for duplication. i like the efficient, modern packaging idea (thanks travis). i busted my ass doing the mastering and album design and hopefully it will be on our doorstep in time for our next show on june 21st. this past saturday i sat in with the spots at speakeasy for what was obviously our best crowd response yet. a few people commented that we might not be able to hold onto our "background" music status for long. here's an updated list of the various audio and visual contributions i've made to releases here in bham: [2003] the ashes - girls+cars - (bass, bg vocals, mixing, arranging) [2004] stateside - phonograph - (cover & band photography) [2004] jesse payne - humming the tunes of luxury - (bass) [2006] red mountain church - help my unbelief - (bass) [2007] through the sparks - lazarus beach - (additional mixing) [2007] the spots - ep - (bass, design, photography, cd mastering) on the wisebloo...

i never thought i'd see the day when i would have to send an email to matt johnson, jeff buckley's former drummer... and tell him that his myspace page has been hacked. strange .

through the sparks is #14 on the music bestseller list at barnesnoble.com. squeezed in between bon jovi and wilco. whoah.

this morning alison sent me a text message saying that my favorite TV show of last season, jericho , is going to be brought back from the dead. it was cancelled last month after suffering in the ratings this spring. the reason it suffered was from CBS cutting the first season in half. after the hiatus, the viewership dropped from about 10 million to 8 million. the actual viewership for jericho is unique. viewers can not only watch the broadcast of the show... now they can tivo , dvr , and can watch full episodes online. because of the militant / covert nature of the show's premise, the " back story " was supplied online at cbs .com, which led to an d even more broad viewership online. in the first weeks of the season there was actually an alternate storyline online. this alternate route for programming hurt the broadcast ratings and in effect, the show's bottom line. cbs didn't know how to track it. but it also demonstrated a new delivery system f...

15 years ago today, i graduated high school. i actually watched the graduation ceremony while transfering the original VCR tape to DVD a few days ago. i was incredibly skinny, had very long hair, and i seemed somewhat immature. its been almost 5 years since my HS reunion, and about 10 years since i took my last class at UNF. i think today is also 10 years since jeff buckley was found at the base of beale street in memphis. i'm less than 7 and a half years from 40 . good times. here's my senior class photo, taken in the summer of 1991, a month or two before starting 12th grade. ouch. the other photo is from my post-graduation trip to europe. this photo was taken at the original hard rock cafe in london. i look like a girl. a really hot girl...