So, I just put out a new download-only EP called THE MEOW BITS, which features some solo songs I've been working on for Elastic No-No Band's next album, Fustercluck!!! -- due hopefully sometime next year. They won't all make the cut, but that doesn't really matter since I'm releasing them all now as this EP anyway.
Here are the songs, with some backstory, in EP order:
1. Emotional Tourism. This is a really old song I wrote about sitting through open mics, listening to confessional songwriters. I know I wrote this before some of the stuff on The Very Best of Elastic No-No Band So Far, so I'd put it at originating somewhere in 2005. I basically shelved it because it seemed like such an out-of-character song. Now, nothing seems out of character. And also my fear of offending those confessional songwriters I saw at open mics is gone. The recording process for this took a long time, because every passing month or so, I would get dissatisfied with the then-current version and add another element until finally you have the slightly overstuffed arrangement that's there now.
2. I'd Love Just Once To See You.Fustercluck!!! is going to have a lot of collaborations on it, and some covers. This song is both. I was listening to a lot of Beach Boys songs this last winter, and I sent Toby Goodshank two Beach Boys songs for us to possibly cover, this one and "Take a Load Off Your Feet" -- both kind of obscure post-Pet Sounds tracks that would be novelty tunes, if they weren't so sincere. Toby couldn't get into "Take a Load Off Your Feet" but he fell in love with "I'd Love Just Once To See You." I had Toby over to practice the song, and he said, "Why not just record it now?" So I pulled out the laptop and we recorded it in Garageband. If you listen closely you can hear street noise (and a siren) from out of my window, and at one point, while waiting to overdub backing vocals, I mention to Toby as I'm listening to the track, "It's the 'meow' bit." And so, the EP has a name.
3. I Want To Hold Your Hand. There is no good reason for me to cover this song. It's not a particular personal favorite, and I don't think the world needs another cover of it. But I had just been chatting with my roommate Joe Crow Ryan that I had figured out the chords to it while absently strumming my guitar, and somehow the notion of doing it in the style of latter-day Johnny Cash came up. I tried it like that and really liked that sound. Within the week, I was recording just such a version with Major Matt Mason USA at Olive Juice Music... and now within the month, it's available for download from iTunes. This track had the fastest turnaround from conception to release of anything I've ever done so far.
4. Suffering From 7. Similarly, this tune was written and recorded only a few days before "I Want To Hold Your Hand," meaning that it's going out into the world still a little raw and untested. I started writing this song sometime last year, but I didn't finish the fragment until the end of August. I initially recorded it as a solo demo in Garageband on my laptop, but I didn't like that. So I recorded it again in Garageband, and tried filtering and degrading the audio to make it sound more lo-fi, and then bizarrely I started layering more sounds on top of it, to make it sound more hi-fi. The end result is therefore sort of the bastard spawn of home recording and the Wall of Sound. But I like it.
5. Hangover Dial. This song is about a year old. Not really much to say about it, except that it is based on actual events which I did... or witnessed... or heard about... or... I added the intro at the last minute because I was looking for public-domain telephone sound effects and came across this outstanding PD film: We Learn About The Telephone. It doesn't completely tie in thematically with the song, but there's telephones! What else do you need!?
--Justin
Currently
listening
:
Master of Reality
By
Black Sabbath
Release date: 1990-10-25
Lost CD... er, 7-inch review no. 3 (of 3): M. Lamar
This is the last of 3 reviews I wrote for Urban Folk (follow that link for pdf versions of UF back issues) that will not be printed until 2009. For that reason, I'm "leaking" them here.
The past 2 reviews -- for new CDs by Frank Hoier and Debe Dalton -- were posted yesterday and the day before.
M. Lamar 7" EP - "Dirty Dirty Nigga"/"White Pussy"/"The Conquest"
M. Lamar is not for all tastes, not that that's a bad thing. Recently, I was at an M. Lamar show, and I heard someone comment with annoyance that Lamar's music was like a "vicious buzzing" in the poor listener's ear. Singing in a register better suited to a female soprano like Leontyne Price, and taking inspiration from the theatrically imaginative but polarizing Diamanda Galas, M. Lamar plays minimalist piano and spews provocative lyrics about sex, race, life, and death. In other words, don't file this under "easy listening."
On his new white vinyl 7-inch ("though 9 ½ would be more appropriate," Lamar quips in his publicity), M. Lamar presents three songs.
Side one plays at 33 1/3 rpm and features two of Lamar's more infamous provocations. "Dirty Dirty Nigga" is a rebel's strike against the conformity of the past. Lamar talks about his grandmother working as a cleaning lady and his mother telling him to stay clean. Lamar instead decides to be a "dirty dirty dirty nigga," an intention he declares as he clanks down hard on the piano, violent but also appealingly funky. (As Lamar later sings, "I don't even clean my ass/'Cause I want the funk to last.") "White Pussy" sounds like the come-on of the piano player in a brothel located somewhere between 1920s New Orleans and Hell: "They eat the pussy... They drink the pussy... White pussy for sale." Both of the side one tracks repeat the provocations of their titles again and again as M. Lamar wails and pounds the piano keys.
The track on side two, which plays at 45 rpm (a fact which I missed at first, and led to a moment of puzzlement as a much deeper voice than expected came out of my stereo speakers), offers -- probably intentionally -- a different side of M. Lamar's writing. "The Conquest" seems to conflate the war-stricken state of the world with M. Lamar's philosophy in the bedroom. Far less cynical and in-your-face than the songs on side one, "The Conquest" maintains the atmosphere of Lamar's other tracks but isn't satisfied to repeat a mantra-like verse. Instead, Lamar goes in for the sensual seduction -- "My weapon's yours to feel," he generously offers. But make no mistake, M. Lamar is an aggressor; as he declares in the song's first line, "Defeat is not an option."
All in all, this 7-inch is a solid introduction to the music and personality of M. Lamar. It certainly will be a helpful tool to decide where you stand on the love-him/hate-him divide. But I'd even recommend those folks put off by the upfront taboo-shattering of side one to still give the sultry cut on the flip side a chance.
Lost CD review no. 2 (of 3): Debe Dalton LIVE AT SIDEWALK
If you want to know why you are now reading a CD review on this blog, check out yesterday's entry, and come back tomorrow for a review of M. Lamar's new 7-inch.
Debe Dalton Live At Sidewalk
If you go to see a show or attend the weekly Antihootenanny open mic at the Sidewalk Cafe, you're likely to see Debe Dalton.Many casual Sidewalk patrons know her as one of three things: 1) The lady with the multi-colored hair; 2) The lady who plays the banjo; or 3) The lady with multi-colored hair who plays that song on the banjo about waiting to play at an open mic.There's more to Debe Dalton than just that, but, if not for the new CD Live At Sidewalk, your casual listener might never have known it.
Debe Dalton is notorious for being reticent about, or just uninterested in, recording her music.Before this release, there had only been a single recording of that "open mic" song of hers on the Anticomp Folkilation two-disc set from 2007 (the title of that tune is actually "Ed's Song," by the way).Luckily, four of Debe's friends decided to take matters into their own hands.Debe agreed to have her shows recorded at Sidewalk Cafe's soundboard, and then Rachel Devlin, Brian Speaker, Frank Hoier, and Dan Costello clandestinely compiled and tweaked a CD's worth of highlights from two years' worth of shows.At a Sidewalk show celebrating her 56th birthday, Debe was presented with her first CD.
The new compilation, Live At Sidewalk, is a revelation.Not only does the album miraculously hold together as 70+ filler-free minutes of enjoyable music, but it highlights Debe as both a soulful interpreter of folk classics and an underappreciated songwriter.
Structured like a super-sized set, the disc opens and closes with a few beloved numbers, while lesser-known but startlingly beautiful gems occupy the middle.Well-known as a fan of Stephen Foster, Debe is featured here doing versions of "Oh! Susanna" and "The Crawdad Song,"* the latter with help from Frank Hoier, who contributes guitar, harmonica, and some singing to four tracks on the album.When she tackles these tunes, Debe does it with a passion that really knocks the dust off these old numbers, without adding any unnecessary bells and whistles in the process.
As reverent as she is with other people's material, she sometimes shows irreverence for her own.The version of "Ed's Song" included here begins with the aside, "This one, I can play in my sleep."The rest of her performance is full of similar little asides and mini-digressions – she even loses her place in the lyrics at one point – that might not benefit the song but shows her charming rapport with the audience.In a similar way, she quickly throws in explanatory asides into her performance of a song she wrote in the '70s called, "Sorry Joan," about how she punched out a potential sexual assaulter.She sings the title line, and then quickly adds, "It's Joan Baez, by the way."It's a Pete Seeger-type of move, to guarantee everyone in the audience fully appreciates the song, and it's a move that works.
The bulk of her original material occupies an introspective, sometimes dark, often bittersweetly comic territory, like when she sorts out past relationships in the songs "Blue Backpack" and "Pain Medication" ("You ask me if I'm mad at you/Well, 'mad' is something I don't do/I hate you now").While there aren't any love songs in this collection, there are a handful of songs about missed connections like "Another Glass" ("The first time we sat next to each other/I thought, I could stay here forever/I didn't know you from Adam/I didn't know you from Eve/But my heart kept sighing,/'Oh please please don't leave'") and "Anything" ("I said, 'Give me a call'/But you don't/I said, 'Anytime at all'/But you don't").
The album ends with a one-two punch of emotional uplift, with a rousing cover of "Pack Up Your Sorrows," a tune which frequently highlights Debe's shows, and a final quiet, thoughtful original song called "And You Ask Me," where Debe is accompanied by Magali Charron on violin."And You Ask Me" is simple advice for a lost soul: "At the end of the day/You still cry, 'What am I doing here?'… And you ask me, how do I keep on doing it?/Well, I sidestep the end of the day."
The recordings sound surprisingly good, considering the offhanded way they were recorded (I've had several shows recorded at Sidewalk, and only a few compare to the sound quality of this entire album), allowing this collection to not just be a document or a compilation, but a real start-to-finish album that is easily one of the best of the year.**
*At last night's show at Sidewalk, Debe mentioned that the liner notes crediting Stephen Foster with "The Crawdad Song" is factually incorrect, but I'm too lazy to restructure that paragraph now.
** I know I said Frank's album was one of the best of the year in my last review too. I'm not lying in either case. After all, why do you think I was compelled to make sure these reviews got out.
As you might know, I used to write for Jon Berger's Urban Folk black-and-white fanzine/tabloid/paper thingy (originally started by Dave Cuomo).
And as you also might know, Urban Folk is pretty much defunct. It's going to start reappearing as part of Boog City, another independent publication, but it's no longer its own thing. Also, Jon Berger just informed me that the first Boog/UF co-produced issue won't come out 'til 2009.
Well, gahdammit, I have some CD reviews already written for that issue and it seems stupid to let them sit shelved for four months or more. Here is the first of the three I already have (who knows, maybe there'll be more). It's for Frank Hoier's new album; the other two are for the new Debe Dalton disc and the new M. Lamar 7-inch, and I'll post those here in the next couple of days.
Frank Hoier & The Weber Brothers Lovers & Dollars
Brooklyn (via Southern California) singer-songwriter Frank Hoier has just finished a full-band rock album that sounds much less like the dreary pop or emo of today and more like something you'd find in a used record shop, shelved appropriately between copies of The Band's Music From Big Pink and John Lennon's Plastic Ono Band album. Frank's album is called Lovers & Dollars. I was present for most of the recording of the album, and I have just finished a documentary film about the recording process. Therefore when you read my next sentence, you might expect that I'm lying or biased. Believe what you want, but I have to say that Lovers & Dollars has a shot at being the best album of the year.
Frank's live performances are usually done solo, with just Frank and an acoustic guitar. In 2006, Frank recorded 9 songs like that, and put it out as an album called Love Is War. Since then, Frank has referred to the album as a "demo CD" and has refused to reprint it after selling out all of his copies, even though the lean production and straightforward performances resonate like the work on Bob Dylan's early albums, without sounding too much like a guy who's just trying to copy Dylan.
Frank takes a handful of tunes from the Love Is War disc and re-records them with a full band for the new album, and the new arrangements are hardly redundant. For example, the album opener, "I've Made Up My Mind" has mutated from a mournful complaint about a dishonest lover to a foot-stomping rocker, complete with a searing electric guitar solo and a freeform fade-out jam that is nearly as long as the song that preceded it. Similarly, the sepia-toned fugitive story "Heartless Words" (here slightly re-titled "A Fool's Heartless Words") gains a greater immediacy with its new train-rhythm drums and a healthy slathering of moody electric slide guitar.
Half the album, however, is purely new material, such as the tender infatuation ballad "We Both Live in Brooklyn, Babe," where Frank asks his prospective lover the worthwhile question, "Do I have to know your faults if I'm to say that I love you?" Later, Frank spins a dark character study called "Ninety-Nine Thoughts" whose tormented alcoholic hero ponders suicide and might have committed murder, but maybe it's all just in his head. The man's agony is accentuated by an organ part and an e-bowed electric guitar part that feel like something out of an old horror movie.
Frank is backed on most of the album by a band full of singer-songwriters, all friends and friends of friends. On lead guitar (doing those searing solos) and bass are the co-billed Weber Brothers, Sam and Ryan, a pair notable not only for their own raucous work but for being the current backup band for rock legend Ronnie Hawkins, the guy who recruited the outfit that would become The Band. For Lovers & Dollars, the Webers recruited multi-instrumentalist Timothy Bracken to play drums, while Frank brought in Andrew Hoepfner of Creaky Boards to do piano and organ. There are also a couple of guest appearances by Feral Foster on harmonica and Eli Smith on banjo.
The band is most in its element on songs like "I Don't Care If The Sun Don't Shine," an Elvis cover that's done as a full-on rockabilly workout with a few Beatles-style bridges tossed in for good measure. But these rockers certainly don't bungle the more tender numbers like "One Hundred Miles From Any Road," which lilts gently and features lyrics that would qualify it as baby-making music for white people.
Rounding out the disc are two numbers that Frank performs solo: an intimate version of the folk favorite "Moonshiner" and a toe-tapping slide blues number that is the title track.
"Lovers and dollars," Frank sings, "they may come and go." With the album Lovers & Dollars, it looks like Frank Hoier's time has finally come, and it doesn't look like he's going away any time soon.
Visit Frank's myspace for info on getting a copy of the album, and visit my myspace filmmaking page to see a few clips and find out how you can get a copy of my making-of documentary.
Currently
listening
:
El Corazón
By
Steve Earle
Release date: 1997-10-07
I don't have much that's big and important to say, but I figure it's worth checking in and saying hi.
Last night was the premiere of my documentary Making Lovers & Dollars featuring Frank Hoier backed by The Weber Brothers. (I talked about it more extensively already, in my previous entry.)
The reception was fantastic, and hopefully now more of my musical friends will want me to make movies and music videos with them. I'm ready.
Otherwise, recording on new material continues in fits and starts -- partially because of scheduling issues, but mostly because I'm broke. In about a week, we're going to try recording some of Herb's piano parts with Dan Costello at the Brooklyn Tea Party, which will be the first time any of our full-band recordings will combine elements performed in different locations. In the realm of recorded music, it's not that novel to do something like this, but hey, it's new to me.
Also, on an unrelated note, I've been listening to Steve Earle's The Revolution Starts Now, which I really enjoy. My favorite song is probably the reggae-tinged dance-y love song "Condi Condi", which is frankly much more straightfroward than you would expect a come-on to Condoleeza Rice to be. It's also catchy as fuck.
Let me put it this way. I've had a lot of technical headaches and heartaches, but the movie is done, and it runs just shy of an hour. When I get my external hard drive back from repairs, I'll hopefully be able to finish grabbing unused clips for bonus footage for a DVD which I will ensure is worth your time and money.
If you'd like a flavor of the flick, here are two clips:
Making "I've Made Up My Mind"
"Lovers & Dollars" live in the NYC subway
The plan is to premiere the flick at this Summer's Antifolk Fest at the Sidewalk Cafe, mid-August, and hopefully I'll have DVDs for interested parties at the screening. If not, we'll have to do more screenings, just so I can sell some damn discs!!
Speaking of damn discs, work continues on the next Elastic No-No Band album Fustercluck!!!. I've recorded a handful of solo songs, and we're starting to fill out some of the full-band tunes with overdubs. But I want to record a lot of material -- probably a double-album's worth -- so don't expect the record before 2009.
BUT! I do hope to have a sort of sampler/stopgap EP ready before the end of the year, tentatively titled "The Shame About Manboobs" and other songs about how you look and how we feel.
Also, I am trying to finish the first draft of a movie screenplay I've been writing sporadically for about 2 years. I've given myself the arbitrary deadline of finishing it before the end of the summer. Fingers crossed that I succeed.
And I just set up a new Myspace profile for my filmmaking -- http://www.myspace.com/weemaykmovies -- which has some of my film clips on it. I'll keep adding more, so please befriend the profile and I'll keep you in the loop.
Total days from first show to last, inclusive: 37 Total days on the road driving (i.e., from the trip to Columbus, OH, to the trip from Johnson City, TN, back to Toledo, where my folks are): 34 Total shows in total cities: 25 in 24 (I had 2 in St. Louis on April 4) Total states stopped in: 15 Total states driven through without stopping, unless for a pit stop: 5 Number of these 20 states I had never been to before: 12 Number of nights I slept at the home of friends/family: 11 Number of nights I slept at the home of friends of friends/friends of family: 5 Number of nights I slept at the home of someone I met that night: 7 Number of nights the venue owner let me sleep in the venue: 1 Number of nights I slept in a hostel: 2 Number of nights I slept in a motel: 4 Number of nights I slept in the car: 3 Number of times I was offered weed: 4 Number of times I accepted: [redacted] Number of times I heard other performers do a cover of "Creep" by Radiohead: 5, including this version I recorded and put on youtube Number of movies watched: 7 1/2 (Leatherheads, Bone, The Game, Strangers on a Train, Big Man Japan, The Tenant, God Told Me To, and half of a documentary on Lew Wasserman in a motel) Number of books read: 2 1/4 (The Yellow Dog by Georges Simenon, Cockfighter by Charles Willeford, and a quarter of The Shark-Infested Custard by Charles Willeford, which I have since finished) Number of new CDs bought: 3 (From Small Things: The Best of Dave Edmunds, The Best of Arlo Guthrie, and Guitar Town by Steve Earle) Number of used CDs bought: 4 (Metal Machine Music by Lou Reed, Don't Play Us Cheap by Melvin Van Peebles, Gently Down Your Stream by The Four Mints, Sixes and Sevens by Adam Green) Number of books on CDs bought: 4 (The Pleasure of My Company by Steve Martin, Holidays on Ice and Naked by David Sedaris, Zodiac by Robert Graysmith) Number of CDs obtained through trades with or gifts from another band: 8 (a CD from The Soft Takeover,Pee on Spiders by The French Babies, Unclever by Keith John Adams, Say It In Slang by M Coast [I got it from Andy From Denver, who used to be in that band], Am I Forgiven? by Robert Collins [given me by a friend of his in St. Louis], Mostly Ghostly by State Bird, Four song demonstration by Manhattan Murder Mystery, and a CD from a band in Memphis whose name I don't remember) Number of used records bought: 12 (Innervisions and Fullfillingness' First Finale by Stevie Wonder, Satan Is Real and another album whose title I don't remember that I slipped into the sleeve along with it both by The Louvin Brothers, Swing Low, Sweet Chariot by The Staples Singers, I've Been Dipped in the Water by Brother Joe May, Look Out For Number 1 and Right on Time by The Brothers Johnson, Woody Woodbury's Saloonatics, Jack La Lanne's Glamour Stretcher Time, The Midnight Special by Harry Belafonte, plus a greatest hits collection by The Ventures I slid into the sleeve) Miles driven: approximately 8500 Amount of CDs and T-shirts sold: ? Amount of money spent: ? Amount of money lost overall: ???
Anyhow, after the tour, as many of you who have seen me know, I decided to shave my head and give the hair to Locks of Love. Here are photos of the shavin':
As promised, here is a video of a spazzy Chihuahua dog from Decatur, MS:
Well, the show in Memphis was easily the worst of the tour. When I was in New Orleans, I got a notion to double-check with the folks at the Co-Op house where I was supposed to play to make sure they were expecting me, because a house and a club venue probably prioritize "booking nights" in different ways, or something.
So I sent out some messages and left some voicemails, and as I had suspected, I had been forgotten about. The guy who booked me was out of town. The Co-Op house would still let me crash, since they had a hostel room set up. One of the guys with whom I left a voicemail said that he no longer lived in the house, but was playing a show that night with his band, and could let me hop on the bill.
When I did the show, I was on first, playing to an empty, darkened corner of a bar, while the guy who included me on the bill and his band talked amongst themselves at a distance, on the other side of a divider. At first, they semi-politely clapped when they noticed I stopped a song, but eventually they didn't even notice when a song was done. I started to intentionally mutate lyrics, and like Cooper from the video in my last entry, I left out entire lines except for single words. As I suspected, no one was paying enough attention to notice. I did "Kinski" and a badly butchered version of "Manboobs" -- I was so thrown by performing in a kind of vacuum that I honestly forgot how the song went, despite playing it nearly every night for the past month. These two songs got me a few comments from the band playing next and from the keyboard player of the band who got me on that night, but it didn't feel like I had reached them; I had just made enough of a spectacle to temporarily puncture their indifference.
Then, I just wanted to sleep. I had started to feel exhausted since Houston, TX, but the great show in Baton Rouge, and seeing Cooper in New Orleans, kept me lively. Now, I drowsed through the set by the band who had included me on the bill, and finally asked for directions to the Co-Op house.
When I got there, I got a similar "sucks-for-you-but-it's-not-really-my-problem" vibe from the folks in the house. I was directed to a bunk bed and not really engaged as a person in a meaningful way... ah, well.
When I woke up, I pondered just getting the hell out of Memphis and never coming back. Music tourism didn't seem that rewarding at the moment, although I had already experienced a couple of giggles, driving past Graceland. A couple of blocks before you get there, there is a billboard for the Graceland Days Inn that lists its amenities as including 24-hour Elvis movies and a guitar-shaped pool. Also, just as I passed it, I noticed a couple walking on the sidewalk, who I initially mistook for intense fans, because all I could see was that the man had a pompadour and the woman was blonde. But then, as I drove closer, I realized they must be working somehow, because the man and woman were Elvis and Marilyn Monroe.
Well, I decided to indulge the soul music lover in me, and I went to the former Stax Records studio, now a museum. They didn't allow any snaps inside, so I took these two pictures of the outisde.
I actually spent about 3 hours inside. It was great. Tons of memorabilia and recorded music being played and video clips. Inside the room that was the actual recording studio space, they had a temporary exhibit set up of Otis Redding photos and personal effects, provided by his widow. I love the Big O, so I was really pleased I caught this exhibit before it left. I felt a weird feeling though, as I looked at a glass case, which included motel receipts and car rental slips and stuff like that from the last few days before he died in a plane crash. I've been collecting receipts too during this trip, but I sure don't hope they ever become interesting enough to house in an exhibit: "On the last morning before ________, he went to Huddle House and had pancakes, then he bought some gas..."
There was also the death certificate, which described that the Big O probably had his skull fractured and then he drowned, which was a little more info than I needed at the moment.
Finally, I split Memphis and figured I would stop somewhere for the night along the road to Johnson City, where the final show of the tour was. I did stop in Nashville for a bit, but I just parked and wandered some touristy spots for an hour, and then continued down the road. I suddenly had a memory that I had been in Nashville in high school, as part of a choir trip -- something I had completely forgotten.
I remembered that our bus used to drive by this place, as it took us to other places:
We all wanted to see it, because of the Rednex song "Cotton Eyed Joe", and now I can report, about 12 years later... it's just full of knick-knacks and touristy crap.
I walked past the Country Music Hall of Fame
but it had already closed for the day, which was okay, because they probably were gonna charge me more for admission than I was willing to spend. Sidenote: As I took that picture, I was standing next to a large black box on the street, which was playing "Where've You Been" by Kathy Mattea, a song I could identify solely due to my dad's fondness for it when I was 10 years old or so. (My dad doesn't usually like country music, but he does like sentimental crap, so that's why he listened to it.)
I also walked past this inviting sign:
I learned that, in Nashville, anyone can have a museum...
...but you might have to offer free admission.
I stopped in a record store that was a real record store, full of older records... but here's what's odd: Most of them weren't opened. Or cheap. They were mostly $9 and up, and all sealed in their original shrinkwrap. I saw at least 3 albums I had gotten for 2 bucks or less in the New York, selling for $9. There were also tapes for $4. I figure the store must have had the same stock since 1989, and has been slowly selling it off, and because of the original-shrinkwrap thing, the owner has been refusing to reduce the prices on the albums.
Then I went here:
Unfortunately, they don't really sell records there any more. Just retail-price CDs. Despite that, I did pick up a copy of Steve Earle's first album, Guitar Town, because it was 10 bucks, and I've been unable to find it in New York, either at the library, or even in CD shops.
I spent the night in a motel in Lebanon, TN, and headed out for my final show at the Acoustic Coffeehouse in Johnson City, TN. I got there in the mid-afternoon and immediately went to the Salvation Army next door to the venue. I picked up a cap that fit my head, for my upcoming baldness, and I picked up a couple of LPs.
The Johnson City show was interesting. The guy who played before me was named Gove Scrivenor, and he has been in country music since the late '60s. And he was good too. At one point he played the autoharp in a virtuosic sort of way that made that made the authoharp make sounds like I didn't know you get an autoharp to sound.
My set was mediocre. I got some appreciative nods, but because of the atmosphere of the place, I didn't sustain anyone's attention for too long. Nonetheless, it was a free meal, free beer, a few tips, and I got a few nice comments.
I headed out that night, and made it about a half-hour out of town on the interstate before pulling into a rest area. I decided to sleep in the car, but it was a fitful three or four hours before I finally got any solid sleep, and then only for about another three hours. I drove back to Toledo in about seven hours and was severely out of it. I was too tired to do much and too anxious to sleep. Eventually, I wound up hanging out with my Toledo crew and then turning in at 1am.
And, apart from the upcoming plane trip back to New York on Friday, I guess the tour is done. I'm going to do one more tour-related blog entry, with statistics of the trip, but I'll do that later. Today, I have to clean out my mom's car of a month-plus of my life.
Tour Journal, Day 32-35: Now I know what it means to miss New Orleans
First off, here is the promised picture of dogs from Austin, TX:
I think they're dead.
Well, the show in Baton Rouge was great. One of the best of the tour easily. A lot of great performers and an excited, eager crowd. It was nice to have a coffee house show that was really great, to counteract some of the less-than-ideal coffee house gigs of before.
After the show, I hopped in my car and drove the hour-forty-five to New Orleans to see my friend Cooper, who lives there now. He hadn't yet got off work, so I just sat in my car and napped a little. When he got there, I was overjoyed to see him. We talked and drank some beer, and his roommate Anthony played me some rap tracks he was working on in Garageband.
The next day, Cooper took me around some of New Orleans -- mostly the French Quarter, because it was the most full of historical touristy interest. For instance, this was there:
And we saw this statue of Jesus, famously saying "What else do you want from me? Oy!":
I wasn't sure how well that picture came out, so Cooper reproduced the pose just in case:
Actually, Cooper is all about New Orleans history. And as we walked around, he ran me down a couple hundred years' worth of history related to the areas we were in. Of course, I've forgotten most of it now. We stopped a couple times at bars in the French Quarter to grab a beer to drink as we walked. As long as it's not in a glass container, you can drink alcohol on the streets of New Orleans. Cooper joked that it's like New Orleans asked the rest of the country if they could please not allow that, so that way people would have a reason to come.
We heard plenty of music on the streets, some of it good, a lot of it... eeeeeeehhhh, alright. We saw one woman busking in two different places about twenty minutes apart, which led Cooper to wonder if she knew how to be in two places at once like Marie Laveau.
Most of New Orleans ain't that touristy though, and it's still somewhere between rundown and devastated. I didn't really take any snaps of that, because you can see that on news websites or something. But I did like this bit of graffiti:
At one point, I told Cooper that over the course of the tour, I thought I had heard four different people cover "Creep" by Radiohead. Then, he told me to get ready for version number five. I decided to record it with my Dad's camera, and then Cooper started... well... let's say, "doing improv."
For some reason, the sound seems to be running at a different speed than the video, so it gradually goes out of sync, which... I'm sure you'll agree... makes the video extra interesting.
The show at Neutral Ground Coffee House in New Orleans was okay. I was the first of the night, so I procrastinated a bit, 'til some folks showed up. They seemed to like it alright. This middle school kid started talking to me excitedly after I was done, comparing me to Weird Al and stuff. He was actively offputting, in a spazzy, sarcastic, middle-school way, as though odd kids of that age feel that they need to cultivate their oddness, because at least that seems to express who they are. Maybe he'll calm down by college.
He didn't have money for a CD, but he said he would "get me next time." I told him that was unlikely. He said, no, he would buy a CD at next month's show. Mmmm... I tried to explain that I didn't have another New Orleans show booked at all, because I live in New York. He looked at me kind of like I was being sarcastic or trying to dupe him, but he wouldn't be out-sarcasmed. Finally, I just handed him some CDs, and told him to enjoy. He said he would.
Afterward, Cooper and I went to a bar and got a Swiss Cheeseburger and a pizza with andouille and shrimp, and split them both evenly between us. The pizza vaguely reminded me of Two Boots in New York... but of course, somehow Two Boots' New Orleans-style New York pizza remained superior in my mind. Maybe that bar we were in just doesn't make the best example of New Orleans pizza.
Then, since we didn't want to spend more money, we went back to Cooper's place and watched Roman Polanski's The Tenant, which I had never seen, and which was F-ing brilliant. Cooper and I were laughing hysterically as the movie got crazier and crazier -- not laughing at the movie, but getting swept up in the insanity of it, I think.
Then yesterday, I headed out to Meridian, MS, to play at the Meridian Underground music shop, which had been recommended to me by the folks in Cheese on Bread, and which also ranked as one of the best shows of the tour.
The Underground seemed like a real fun hangout, with people outside smoking and BSing most of the time I was there:
Also, a chunk of the folks there could start a long-haired beardo gang with me:
The guy second from the right is Logan of Dark Sundays. He told me that he had heard the My 3 Addictions album already and loved it. And he sang along to some of the choruses of "Kinski" and "Laura Cantrell."
The whole crowd seemed very appreciative and it was nice to find a small, weird pocket of music-loving goodness in a place I would probably have had no reason to visit otherwise.
My dad's friend Ray lives in nearby Decatur, MS, and he came out to see the show with his girlfriend, and afterward I followed him to a truck stop for dinner and then he let me crash in a spare bedroom. It's a nice place in the middle of nowhere, with a spazzy chihuahua dog named Elvis.
(I have video of the dog being spazzy too, but Youtube is acting up right now, so I'm unable to upload it. You can look forward to it in the next entry, I guess.)
Tonight, I head out to Memphis. I probably won't get to see any sights today, but tomorrow is a day off, so I might hesitate, because I'd kind of rather see some of the music history stuff in Memphis more than the music stuff in Nashville -- which is where my trip originally had me stopping tomorrow. Hey, it's my vacation. I'll do with it what I darn well please.
Tour Journal, Day 29-32: Texas and the road to Baton Rouge
Sorry, no pictures again. I did take a picture of some dogs, maybe I'll belatedly load them in my computer and include them next time.
So I finished up the "Marty Robbins" leg of my tour with a whimper. I use this term, since I discovered that he has songs called both "El Paso" and "San Angelo," the first 2 of my 4 Texas stops.
The San Angelo show sucked, but was also okay. For a show, it was pretty terrible. Sparse audience in the coffeehouse, and folks mostly just stuck to their laptops or talking to each other. Kind of like Tucson, except... I sold four CDs. So for an hour of busking, it was actually pretty successful. I have no idea what drove those people who had been talking amongst themselves to ask me for CDs, but they did, thankfully.
I moseyed on out of town, because all the local motels were booked up with weekly guests, and eventually I pulled into a motel in a town called Eden, TX, I think. Nothing on TV, of course, so I watched another Larry Cohen movie on my laptop, God Told Me To, about a rash of killings that conclude with various killers repeatedly claiming that God made them do it. An interesting premise, but sort of ineptly executed, I think, and in the end it has more to do with aliens than with God. Interesting note, though: it features Andy Kaufman's first screen appearance as a cop who is driven to kill by the mind-controlling alien pretending he's God.
The next morning, I drove to Austin, where I met up with Danielle, a friend from New York who I met originally through ENB's drummer Doug. She's in Austin now, doing some modern dance and working at a wine restaurant. She said she's skimmed this blog in the past, and was very eager to get her hands on a Klaus Kinski T-shirt. She drew me a map and pointed me in the direction of some things that would be good to see in Austin. I went to a video store and some record shops, but I didn't buy anything.
I finally got a look at the new Elvis Costello album, which is currently only available on LP, although the CD comes out in a week or so. I abstained from an eager purchase just because of my records-warping-in-the-hot-car fears. The cover of the album looks awful in my opinion:
Reportedly the album was recorded very quickly, maybe too quickly to get a decent artist for the cover.
The show at Austin's Thunderbird Coffee was another mixed bag. An Austin local named Dwayne Williamson played first, outside on the patio. And it was pretty good. When he was done, most of the folks out there left... Then, it started to rain. I played a couple of numbers, but the metallic roof of the patio was making more noise than me, so I moved inside the place and started using my busker's talents to bounce my voice off the walls. A better reception than San Angelo, and it certainly helped that Dwayne and Danielle were paying attention. It's good to feel you at least have some sort of specific audience.
During "I Am Klaus Kinski," I wandered into the bathrooom during the "I am not a maniac!" portion, which was an ad-lib that was well-received even by the folks not originally paying attention.
Afterward, I followed Danielle back to her place and crashed on the couch. I am pretty sure this is the first place I've stayed in during this tour that had dogs -- two pretty Huskies named Simon and Luna. It was kind of a relief for a cat-allergic dog lover like myself to have a feline reprieve.
The next day, Danielle went off to rehearsal, and I went to one of the Alamo Draft Houses to see a Japanese movie called Big Man Japan, which is mostly a slow, deadpan mockumentary about an average guy/sometime superhero, spiced up with ridiculously over-the-top fight scenes and a completely nonsensical, non sequitur ending. Here's what he looks like as a hero:
Then, I went to a nearby Goodwill and picked up some Brothers Johnson LPs (they did the version of the song "Strawberry Letter 23" that was featured in the movie Jackie Brown), which I bought despite my warping fears, because I am inconsistent like that.
I met Danielle for some lunch, then went to see an art exhibit with her downtown, then headed on down the road to Houston, where my Saturday night show at a place called Notsuoh was. Notsuoh reminded me a bit of Brooklyn's Goodbye Blue Monday, except there was no junk for sale. Apparently seven acts were booked for the night, although that got trimmed to 5. Unfortunately, they thought I might work best in the "headlining spot." By the time I played at 1am, the room had dissipated and attention had drifted.
It was a little disheartening, but I still got some slaps on the back, and I sold a CD to the bartender. The owner of the place let me crash in the venue, since he also lived there and operated an after hours party upstairs after 2am. I tried to stay up to go visit upstairs once the after hours party started, but once I sat down after my set, I was basically out. A woman tried to use Sharpie on my face, but I woke up. I noticed that even this venue had a cat roaming around... Then went back to sleep.
The owner Jim unintentionally woke me up after the after hours drunks had left and we had an extended talk about why one makes art and how much it sucks, and how your only audience should be yourself. Then he wandered off to bed, and I slept 'til 10am or so.
Then I drove to Baton Rouge, which is an interesting drive. It's greener here, and there's more water. I passed by some trees that were several feet underwater, with a guy fishing in a boat next to them.
I got off at the wrong exit and saw some low-income neighborhoods before I got back on the interstate and wound up here at the middle-classier-seeming area of the Brew Ha Ha coffee house, where tonight's show will be. Even though my luck with coffee houses lately have been pretty shitty, tonight there is a weekly songwriter showcase here, so hopefully folks will be more receptive. And then, I'm gonna drive on to meet my friend Cooper in New Orleans and hang out there tomorrow with him.
