Tag: music

Driving back to my office on 101 North from Santa Clara I hit the button for KCSM and caught most of “Jam Blues” by Charlie Parker and an all-star crew. I’m going to have to get me that record. It was a perfect California moment, sailing up the freeway with Bird blowing in my ear.…

Ed Ward reminisces about Bob Marley and the Wailers and the rock music journalism scene of the mid 1970s, a reverie triggered by an old photo sent to him by an old friend. Great stuff.

So xourmas and I debuted our duo last night (May 23) in New York at an open mic at the Bowery Poetry hosted by the O’Debra Twins (aka, Your Psycho ex-Girlfriends). There is a lottery to perform and each act gets seven minutes. We went on around 12:45 and did our arrangements of two standards.…

Went to Stubb’s barbecue last night with Syrup and her beau to hear the Gourds and Old 97’s. Tried to eat there but there was 45-minute wait so we went to Jaime’s across the street and I had – wait for it – tex-mex again! Shrimp enchiladas were excellent, as was the top shelf margarita.…

For a few months I’ve been wondering why my upper arms have been aching. Did I lift something? Is it referred pain? Today, it dawned on me. I’ve been practicing guitar and ukulele for about an hour or so a day for almost a year. No wonder! Now I don’t even mind. It’s just like…

Spread the word. Let’s help them get their equipment back. (via MZ, who adds: “This stinks.”) >Date: Wed, 20 Oct 2004 11:07:59 -0700 (PDT) >From: “J. Segel” >Reply-To: jsegel@magneticmotorworks.com >Subject: [BA-NEWMUS:14634] stolen gear >To: “Bay Area New Music Discussion” > >hey i don’t know if anybody knows anybody up here in montreal, but: > >all…

It seems that I’m not the only one out there who sees the ukulele as the perfect punk rock instrument. This article, Punk Uke: The four-string Underdog rudely rocks by Christopher Arnott from last year describes an eerily similar path to my own: [Y]ou can wake this restless monster up gently with a quaint strum,…

words and music by Robyn Hitchcock (email downstyle of capitalization mine all mine mine mine): linda ryan in the sky i seen her laughing but i never seen her cry she took her fireman it was her half-empty flight he brought his hose and everything just turned out right i’m just watching… german leather a…

I’m not a huge Phish head but I really like some of their material and I love their whole approach to making live improvised rock ‘n’ roll together. They also share some contemporaneous New Jersey-in-the-mid-’80s experiences with me in their origin stories (the Rhombus, the miniature guitars, the strange period in 1985 where the Dead…

Still behind on taking notes, but here are my photos from Saturday.

I’ll post my notes later, but for now here’s a photo album.

If I hadn’t been so ragged out B and I could have stayed for more than the first four Mekons songs at the Starry Pluff in Berkeley last night, but what I heard sounded fantastic. I said to B, “What they’ve retained of the punk aesthetic is the ‘no wanking’ rule.” Everything was spare and…

My guitar was too hard to learn on. I took it the Thin Man music store in Alameda and the dude there to restring it with lightweight strings and lower the action for me. I also bought this beautiful tenor ukulele for $75 because I figure that will also be much much easier to learn…

The personal expression platform wants to do sound and it wants to do pictures and it’s going to want to do motion capture eventually but right now it just wants to be able to sing, recontextualize, and join the great chorus of call and response. So, to sound. Cecil writes music, sings, plays guitar, and…

now playing: “Rock ‘n’ Roll Lifestyle” by Cake [Motorcade Of Generosity]: Your liver pays dearly now for youthful magic moments, But rock on completely with some brand new components. How do you afford your rock’n’roll lifestyle? How do you afford your rock’n’roll lifestyle? How do you afford your rock’n’roll lifestyle? Excess ain’t rebellion. You’re drinking…

Coming soon…! The Dead Vault on your freaking iPod.

Nearly every week I shop for groceries at the Berkeley Bowl. Inevitably, near the end of my round, in the produce section, I find my mind humming the words “… yesterday don’t matter when it’s gone / Dying all the time / Lose your dreams and you will lose your mind / In life unkind….”…

Thanks to shacker I just noticed that Mike Watt is playing bass with a Stooges reunion in SF this December: iggy pop + the stooges watt gets the incredible honor of adding bass to the lendary team of iggy and the asheton brothers in some re-ignited stooge fury! friday, december 12part of the not so…

Scot Hacker asks the musical question, What was your first record? My older sister had the Partridges record he depicts (as well as a few others – all of them?), but the first record I bought myself was Kiss Destroyer, an LP that by pure coincidence was given to me for my birthday last week,…